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On the Demetrius, Kara continues doing her irritating Kara shit, until the point a Cylon Raider -- hurting from Cavil's whole annihilation deal -- arrives bearing a random Cylon willing to deal, and help them find Earth. And that Cylon's name? Leoben, duh: The only possible thing that could make shit on the Demetrius even weirder and harder to administrate. Everybody, especially Athena, assumes that Kara is going crazy for the 85th time, thanks once again to good old Number Two, but he swears it's going to work out. Sam the Cylon is so happy to have a moment alone with Leoben to beat the frak out of him for settling Kara into her imaginary life on a pretend planet with imaginary wedding gifts, but it's made all ambiguous for him because he's a toaster now. Chief the Cylon continues to flip out, getting suicidal again and even flirting with the idea of seeking advice from Batshit Baltar but eventually going nuts on Baltar instead. Baltar's very sad "But why don't you like me?" speech explains once again why nobody trusts Baltar, but I can think of nothing funnier than if all the Final Fivers lose their minds so completely in the middle of Laura's ongoing transformation that Gaius Baltar starts looking like the safer choice. And finally, Starbuck's mutiny comes to a head when Gunny Matthias is accidentally killed. Kara removes Helo as XO, promoting Gaeta only to find that he -- surprise! -- doesn't trust her either.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!THIS IS NOT ALL THAT WE ARE
(Two Women are offered Mutiny.)
When religion is sufficiently large in the life of a people, you start getting into mythical micromanagement, these guardian spirits all over the place: household gods, gods of places, gods of stuff, gods for people and schools of thought. The personal spirit, somewhere between god and man, like a demigod or an angel, goes by many names: genius is one, daemon is another. Daemon is a funny word, obviously, and genius switched up on us too. But this week we're looking at daemons all over the place. You have to go way back to see where the story split, before Plato, pre-rational. Hesiod called the daemons of the dead "great and good," and talked about how various awesome historical people were turned into daemons, angels basically, by Zeus, to serve as invisible guardians. The word comes down to "full of knowledge," or "divine power," or "fate."
When the daemon is on you, you have two choices. On the Demetrius there's a girl who fought her daemon with everything she had, for a quarter-century: threw the finger at fate at every opportunity, because humans are imperfect but it only stings when it's your parents. And of all the things she burned off, in death, the most important was this bitterness, this resentment, this confusion of the pain and the glory of revelation. I want to get into this early, because I've always thought the most interesting part of the Hero's Quest is the end part, when the Hero comes back to town with magic powers, talking to birds or whatever, in contact with divinity, and everybody looks at him crazy. And the reason everybody looks at him crazy is because, by all standard measure and by all the things that make us a society and not a monstrosity: he is. He can't tie his shoes, he can't walk straight, can't balance his checkbook; he can't summon the right words to speak, because he's learned a better language. He is insane.
It's the most interesting part to me because it's where civics and sociology intersect with the person's actual, subjective, personal experience of God. It's the part where Antigone tells the lawmen to fuck off, because she loved her brother and the Gods more than whatever crack Creon's smoking. It's the part where Cassandra refuses to sit down and shut up, knowing full well she's flying blind and all alone. But she's an ace. When your daemon tells you things that can't possibly be true, your option is to follow it -- search, unbending, for Earth; wait for the day when Crazy Six Baby Math finally comes true -- or lay down before the world outside, and take the road more usually traveled, and give up your angel to fear.
And you can't ever be sure. There are some fucked-up retarded bumper stickers in the world that will tell you idiosyncrasy and acting like a freak are personal imperatives. Those are not the daemon speaking, but low self-esteem selling itself a pass, and the way that I know that is: you can't buy God on a bumper sticker. But from the outside, the merely insane or annoying are identical to the annoying insanity of genius. The fact that you can't ever be sure is a safety measure against letting it drive you actually crazy. So that's a "one" in the middle of the "many," and it means lawlessness sometimes. Set it against Lee's (and my personal) obsession with the law and democracy as the greatest expression of our humanity: they're both right, both equally and wonderfully and terribly right, and he's called Apollo for a reason. But the daemon remains.
"Captain," Helo says softly, watching her painting. It's been two months. Fifty-eight days since Adama set her free again, on a breeze and a fresh wind, to bring him back the Promised Land. Two months since he sent her, with a hand-picked crew of Helo's best mates, the best men and women of Galactica, to send her out like the postmodern Noah he is, and see if she's a raven or a dove. Noah was a man with a daemon, too; in the Koran they said, "He is only a man possessed! Wait, and have patience with him for a time." That's Helo, now, staring at her, calling her name again as she paints and thinks and listens for the daemon.
She smiles, and jerks around, having finally heard him. "I'm glad you're here!" she says, shivering. Possessed. "I might have found something..." He tries to have patience: it's two days until their rendezvous, until she's proven a raven or a dove. She scratches at her skin, shuffling papers, refusing to talk about it. She shows him scrawls and madness: "Later. No, no, no, come on. Here. What do you think?" He stands still, as Helo always does, full of patience. "Well, it's hard to say. Spectroscopics are promising. But according to this, we already did two long-range recons of that grid. Both no joy."
"Third time's the charm, maybe." She grins like a death's-head. Her eyes are fire.
"Alright? I'll ... have Sharon prep to go, as soon as Anders gets back from his scout." She stares at him, inanimate, eyes bifocal, seeing worlds and worlds beyond him. "Um, hey... What about you? You been getting any sleep?" She shakes, answering with her body before she summons the words. "I dunno. Not... Not much. It was so clear when I first got back, if I could... If I could just focus, I know that I can find that ... sound again..." She goes back to her painting. His eyes are full of pain and fear. It's hard to be patient, when you love a girl possessed. "I gotta go see the CAP off." Nothing. Nothing. Nothing comes from nothing. "We'll talk when I get back." He turns to go, happy to have her vibrating madness off his dradis, and she snaps back into focus, struggling with her shoes.
"Hold up. I think I'll go with you on this one." He wants to keep her hidden. He's strong enough to bear this, but the crew is drawn taut, close to snapping. They cannot see her madness, her face like this, her hands trembling, head snapping side to side, like a raven. "You haven't flown a CAP since we left the Fleet..." She focuses down, a grin behind her eyes, and repeats herself carefully: "I think I'll go with you on this one." Karl nods sadly, and leaves; Kara continues to fuss with her shoes like a total nutcase. Ask her to balance her checkbook right now, I dare you. Ask her. Revelation, revelation: they don't make shit easier. They make everything worse.
Speaking of totally batshit insane, I'd like you to meet Phoebe, a newish member of Baltar's Cult, and right up their alley: her eyes are like fire. Her words are full of rage, but she grins like a death's-head. She offers up a photograph. "I need you to tell me that all this somehow makes sense. This was my husband James, my two children Danya and Reese. They were on Picon when the Cylons attacked." Because at its heart, that's what they've all been about: DEMAND PEACE, DEMAND LOVE even: making sense of senseless tragedy, when there's none such to be had. "What do you feel when you look at this photograph?" Gaius asks tenderly. "I feel rage." It echoes through her body, the hollows in her eyes, like a plucked guitar string: rage. "Against the Cylons...?" No, not just them. She shivers righteously. "Not just the machines. Anyone involved. The engineers who designed them." Gaius Baltar, he thinks, and then forgets he thought it. "The corporations, the politicians who provoked this war and then did nothing to protect us. And most of all the Gods." There we go. He embraces her, and tells her that she's right.
Gaius sits on a throne, in robes, and grabs the mic. Behind him, Tracey and Jeanne transmit his words to the Fleet. "Unfortunately, the Gods cannot be blamed for not coming to your aid. It's not because they weren't listening, it's because they don't exist. The Gods we've been praying to for thousands of years do not exist. They can't help you because they are not real. We have been pandering to our own ignorance for far too long."
Galen Tyrol jumps rope in his lonely room. His hair is shorn in grief. "Now on my own journey I've been wronged, persecuted. I prayed to the Gods on my knees, begging them for mercy. Tortured, I received nothing in..." His mother was an oracle, his father was a Priest; Galen turns it off. On these nights, he and Nicky listen to Gaius, the old familiar tones, the Cally whisper music, the voice more important than the message, the music more important than the lyrics. The second it's gone, Nicky starts to cry again, and when Galen flips it back on, he calms immediately. But listen to the words, Galen, find the lyrics in the music: "...I could've lived in that abyss of bitterness, but that will destroy you like nothing else. But I chose to forgive.
"And most importantly, I began with myself."
Athena speaks to her husband, in a hushed hiss, a whisper-yell: "'Third time's the charm'? And you just went along with it?" She is only a girl possessed! Wait, and have patience with her for a time. "It's called following orders, Lieutenant." His sigh is eloquent. "It's called dragging our feet. Starbuck's pushing our go-back deadline to the last second. She's afraid of what Adama's gonna say when he realizes her vision was just a pipe dream..." Like a daughter to a father, like a friend to a long-lost loved one, the Galactica pulls her back. Kara gives them all a wacky look, suited up and ready to fly, and heads for the Vipers.
"You've gotta be kidding me," Athena spits. I wish there were more Sharon and Karl alone in this episode because they're so funny, and so believable, but leaving out Athena's take on all this bullshit is a real misstep. Mathias: "She's taking a Viper out now?" Seelix is astounded as well, but Gonzo (Pike) has had it up to here: "Maybe she could do a little fingerpainting in the cockpit?" (Heh. I respect Kara's bullshit because I believe that she will lead the Fleet to Earth and this is exactly how, but I also respect everybody's right to call bullshit on Kara, because my God is she crazy and irritating right now. I guess they don't have a copy of Crapped-On Messiahship For Dummies & Former Assholes in the Galactica bookshop.) Helo tells them, for not the first time, to cram it. "Two more days and we're back with the Fleet, okay? Until then, everyone just shut up and do your jobs." The crew is restive; Athena and good old Hotdog join Kara on the CAP.
Starbuck sits in her Viper, begging the angel to come. She can hear it, feel it on her skin, the call, all around her. There's something waiting in the darkness. "Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on..."
"Starbuck, Hotdog. Didn't catch that. What are your orders?" Ha! I didn't know Hotdog had it in him. Helo tells him to shut up and be nice: "You know the drill. Keep your eyes open and stick close to Starbuck's wing." That's all we do now: keep our eyes open, try to keep her wing.
"... I know you're out here somewhere. Come on..." To invoke and to evoke: the two ways of dealing with spirits, with daemons and angels and everything in-between. She's evoking him, calling him from the darkness, begging for the angel. She doesn't understand that she's her own Chip, and always was. Who has the grace to accept that amount of glory, or that amount of pain? I think that as long as its Earth calling her, none of these obstacles are her fault, that she can't admit the possibility that maybe it's her, calling Earth across the galaxies. She's still not crazy enough to fully admit that she painted the sky. She's still too much human to realize she's originating the ping.
Hotdog's dradis starts beeping: inbound bogey, bearing 149er. Helo spools up, gaetas for condition one. This is not a drill. And because it's not a drill, you know damn well what she sees : "Demetrius, Hotdog. I've got visual. Cylon Heavy Raider..."
"Son of a bitch, I knew it," she grits, almost joyous. This is the proof she's the dove, and nobody can see it. Nobody knows that this is the step, the olive branch, the proof. I always thought of the singularity as an abomination, too different and strange to be anything but scary. If the whole point is that everything changes at once, it can look like the end. Kara sees to the other side. And as Hotdog's noting the terrific damage all over the thing, and begs for her input, all she do is speak to it, ping across the black to that angel, coming closer, in a form she barely recognizes anymore. "Come on. Talk to me, shoot me, do something..." It cartwheels, sickening, end-over-end, flotsam of a civil war, and she can't even hear him as Hotdog remembers the mission, and asks for her orders again, meaning it desperately this time.
"Kara. I'm alone. It's not an attack. I knew I'd find you. Knew you'd be out here searching..."
She says his name, almost silently, afraid to break the spell.
"I'm here for you. To offer a truce between Cylon and human. And a chance for you to complete your journey."
But what her eyes are looking at, we'll never know for sure.
THE ANIMAL PART THAT CONTROLS IT
(Machines offer succor and temptation to Machines.)
39,676 souls in the Fleet. Something was born, between last week and just now.
Gaeta comes rushing into CIC, shouting out his brief: "Heavy Raider's docked at the aft airlock. The animal part that controls it looks dead. We only found the one Leoben aboard... Starbuck's still taking one hell of a chance." Helo points out that Leoben is, as we know, a very clever Cylon: "If he wanted to kill us, we'd all be dead by now." Which only means that he wants something else, mutters Athena, implying that it's something horrible. Which: probably it is. But we could at least try a little home court noblesse oblige, considering you used to play for them.
The Marines and Sharon cock their guns as the Leoben's brought in, but he's not looking at them. "Kara," he says as she enters. His skin, his flesh and bones, awake as she enters. "Thank you for this. We were praying for a miracle." She nods curtly. "It wasn't a miracle. It's like I knew you were out there." Mathias reports that the Heavy Raider's not emitting anything; it's not nuclear or anything, and Helo tells her to keep checking it for tracking bugs. Leoben smiles at Kara, and she shakes it off: "Don't look at me like that." But he knows.
"I'm sorry. The difference between the way you were on New Caprica and now..." She swears she's the same person, tired of having this conversation, and he just nods with that peaceful, creepy Leoben calm. "I have eyes. I can see. God has taken your hand and purged you of the questions, the doubt. Your journey can finally begin. But there isn't much time. The others, the ones I left behind, they need your help. But not as much as you need theirs." He leans close. "Your crew," he whispers. "They don't trust you." You don't have to be a very clever Cylon to notice that, it's inscribed in every line their bodies make. Kara tries to ask him why he's there, why he came when she prayed for the daemon, but Helo's already moving him out.
"A blue planet! Surrounded by clouds..." She screams at them to stop; everybody stops. Everybody stares at this, the Captain; at what might be their deaths, happening right before their eyes in slow motion. "...The Hybrid. When she first described it to me, how beautiful it was, I cried. You need to go to her, Kara. The Hybrid, she'll tell you things. Amazing things!" I'm not giving up my dream of margaritas with an Oracle and the Hybrid, but Kara talking to one is almost good enough. Helo puts his body, his gigantic scary body, between them: "We're done here. Get him out of here." They wrestle him around, back toward the hatch, and Kara shouts. "Wait! Take him to my quarters." Which is, to be fair, enough for mutiny right there, because: what? "Just do it!" And how much you wanna bet it's Helo that makes them follow? And where the eff is Sam? Still on scout? He needs to get his ass in here and play Pyramid with a motherfucker.
Tory finds Galen in the launch tube, staring around, taking in the angles and the depths of his wife's tomb. "It may never make any sense." That doesn't stop us asking, like Phoebe, like Starbuck, begging the senseless facts to assemble themselves. "Hangar deck crew tells me you've been obsessing over this place. Going over the logs. Replaying the accident again and again." Galen repeats the word -- "accident" -- and turns his eyes to Tory. "I spoke to Cottle. Cally was on moxopan and cosapine, antidepressants. How does she go from antidepressants to suicide?" Galen Tyrol, you need to learn about antidepressants if you're ever going to figure this one. Tory points out that Cally was emotionally disturbed, but is so total classy that she doesn't mention this has been true since the First Exodus, if not before.
"She would've left me. She never would've left Nicky behind." Which is a good point: if it were just the affair, no amount of crazy would have made her bring Nicky. We only eat our young when we're afraid. "So what do you think, then? Someone killed her? Galen, you have to let it go." Not happening. "What if she knew?" How on Earth would she know? Tory knows, and can't tell him: can't pick this knot apart for him, and set his mind at ease. First because it wouldn't, and second because he would kill her ass. But that doesn't mean it isn't sad, or that it doesn't bum her out. Tory's got a lot on her plate right now anyway; it's a full-time job convincing yourself you don't have a heart. Especially when it keeps beating, and yearning, and hurting just the same as it always has.
"Maybe she sensed it. I mean, she was your wife. You've been ... different, since the Nebula. Maybe she was afraid of you." Workable. Don't push it ... "Maybe it was God's will. We don't know why these things happen, but God does. And He has plan for us." Oh, Tory. Always with the evangelism now, when you know he doesn't want to hear it. Which is, I guess, a pretty concise definition for evangelism: telling people shit they don't want to hear, hoping that it helps them the way it's helping you. Even if it's not.
"For whatever reason, her death, our awakening... You gotta trust that it's all for the best." Galen asks why the eff she's even there bugging him, which is hilarious, and then some of the best acting of the entire series, not counting EJO and MM and KS, totally happens. "Because we are in this together. And I am here for you, Galen. I know exactly where you are right now, I have been there." This first part is awesome because she says it exactly like Laura Roslin, and I feel like we know this actress well enough to know that this is a choice. I've always loved the natural nature of Sharma's line readings, but this scene is like a documentary, they're so well said, and so clearly and precisely intentioned. She's gotta thank the Lord every day for the opportunity to play this great character, and she's doing such a good job on top of it. I think that I have fallen in love with an actress.
"Until Gaius helped me realize that... What," she says off his glance, which is my actual favorite part: "Blah blah Gaius, God has a plan, blah blah ... Fucking what. I'm just telling you how it is. Jesus, Galen. Just let me talk crazy for a sec."
But this part isn't crazy, and it's not even evangelism, it's the good part of the sermon, and the reason I think Tory's going to get it eventually: "Whatever has gone before. Whatever I have done: it doesn't matter. We can still change." It's that last line that changes it, I think, into something at least a little hopeful. The first article of faith in Baltarism: We can still change. This is not all that we are. "You spend way too much time with Baltar," Galen snits, and bounces. Everywhere he goes, they keep forgiving him: first the deck crew and the pilots, and Gaius on the radio, and now even the fucking evil Cylons are telling him it's possible to be okay again.
Anders finally comes back from his scout, landing his Viper and asking for the update: "Guess I missed all the excitement, huh? So, what's the deal? This Leoben, has he said anything?" Like did you know Samuel T. Anders is a total Cylon? No? Nothing like that? Gaeta doesn't know -- and he's bitchy about it, awesomely, as usual -- because nobody knows, because Kara told guards to wait outside and take off his cuffs. "Said she didn't want to be disturbed." (I was going to make a joke here about Leoben being Model Number Two and how Kara's dropping a deuce on everybody, but that would be kind of tacky and I don't think Gaeta would approve. Maybe I'll tell you later.) Anders kind of Sams around about how maybe he'll go check up, and Gaeta powertwinks it like whoa: "Yeah why don't you do that." Gaeta is being just so awesome this week. I wish he had a little earpiece and a clipboard.
A girl stands alone in her room, painting the sky. A woman stands in her room, in the arms of her lover. A prophet stands in the light of her angel and daemon, writing stories only they can read. He is there as emissary of the Hybrid, he speaks the language Kara's learning, the one I always try to catch pieces of. He's a monster but he's not there as a monster, he's there because he's heard the same song, and more of it. He's Leoben, I never said he wasn't. I think the reason Two stays safe when Three gets boxed is that he's smart enough to translate it back into language the Cylons understand, like the men at Delphi; his line is unified enough that his personal obsessions never threaten the collective. Which is bad, because I think the balance between sex and God gets fucking creepy if you're him, but maybe we don't know the whole story yet. I've been wrong before and I do try to look for the good.
Kara stands in her room, painting the sky; Leoben guides her wrist, one hand on her hip. It's only a split-second, but it's bloodcurdling: who's driving this bus? Nobody knows. Not even these two assholes. Sam, of course, drops the Deuce immediately, and Kara shakes it off, telling him to stop. "What is wrong with you, Kara?" Nothing. Everything. The singularity. Helo orders the Marines into the room, appearing out of nowhere like an angel, and Leoben mumbles quietly to Sam: "I can see why she's so fond of you." Kara tells them to leave him alone, but as they're carting him off, Leoben shouts his last instructional reminder: "You know. You know what we have to do. Just remember there isn't much time..."
And Helo has finally had enough. This is actual treachery, by the book sabotage, Leoben is talking about: consorting with the enemy, secret plans. "Get him the frak out of here! Cuff him and lock him in storage!" He pushes Kara against the bulkhead, searching for her eyes: "What is going on with you? Kara!" He shakes her, trying to make her eyes focus. She swears he can help. "The Cylons, they understand about Earth." And I would have to say that this is the point where she fucks it up. Because we know what she means, and she's right, but she's not saying anything right. She's talking prophet language, bird language, but this is not a poetic world: this is the real world. She's not remembering fast enough.
"And you believe him. After everything he's done to you? Kara, he kept you locked up for months on New Caprica. The frakkin' mind games?" And Kara's response makes total sense, unless you need it to make sense, and then it falls apart: "I swear to Gods, this is not a dream. It's real." Karl nearly shakes with fear: Captain Thrace, she dead.
Sam drops by to visit handcuffed Leoben, bleeding on the floor of his makeshift cell. And by "visit," I mean "beat the shit out of." Leoben welcomes him politely: "I'm glad you're here! You and Kara, did you get things worked out? Because you should. You weren't meant to be enemies." They will not harm their own. He explains politely, with a fist and a kick, that Sam and Kara aren't enemies: Sam and Leoben are. He asks again, beating him brutally, what he wants from her this time. "The same thing I've always wanted: for her to understand her destiny." Which is not and will never be good enough, for anybody. Anybody except Kara, whose call it is. The price of democracy is that people have their voices, even if they're nuts.
"It's good enough for her." He tries weakly to stand. "What is the most basic article of faith? That this is not all that we are." This is how he gets you: this is how Leoben comes for your soul. How much is theatre, how much is just programming, how much is manipulation? I never questioned it when he talked about how special Kara was, because it makes me happy somebody's telling her. And Sam's more special than he or Leoben even know, so by all rights he shouldn't be this creepy. But there's something about his methodology, his wording, that is chilling. "C-Bucs rule," he laughs, spitting out blood as Sam stares. "What did you just say?"
"Forward guard, right? I saw a couple games. You were good. But after all the celebrity and acclaim, what were you? Just another face selling magazines, another piece of scoreboard trivia, and you always knew you were destined for more. You were just waiting for your singular moment of clarity."
And you know, Gaius would say this is true: something in the universe loves the singular entity that is Sam, and I believe this, and I love Sam too. And I think it's shooting fish in a barrel to say anybody's waiting for their singular moment of clarity, because that's everybody. But still. Sam cocks his gun and points it at the thing's head: "Well, maybe I just found it." That's never where it is. Leoben warns him that if he dies, Kara's dream dies with him. "I don't think so. I think you download into another Leoben body and you spew more lies."
Leoben is sad, and scared: "No one's coming back. We were lured out of Resurrection range. Ship was attacked. We survived. The Baseship was damaged. We were set adrift." Sam wonders if this is new news, or something strange: "What are you talking about? Who attacked you?"
Leoben is embarrassed: "War has broken out between the Cylons. Battle lines have been drawn between those who embrace their nature, and those who fear it." Sam mentions, on his way out the door, that self-annihilation among the Cylons is a really good thing for humanity, but Leoben pulls him back: "That's one way, that's one way. There's another. An alliance. Allow our paths to converge. You save us from our savage brothers, and our old one, the Hybrid, will show Kara the righteous path. And together, they'll lead us to the Promised Land. Together, we will find Earth."
Sam opens the door, and Sam walks through it. He slams the hatch behind him. Leoben raises his bloody face, and casts his eyes up, towards heaven. What his eyes are looking at, we'll never know for sure.
THEY'RE NOT COMING TO BE FED
(Zeus and Athena are mentioned, but Unseen; Faith pushes back.)
Sam explains on the bridge about how Leoben's Baseship was attacked, that they were ambushed by their own kind, and Gaeta savors the irony of the Cylons asking to be rescued by the Fleet. But that's not exactly it, it's not "the Cylons," the "them," that he's talking about. And I realize since they're the Cylons it's hard to imagine, but Sam's talking about the civil war: "Well, he's proposing an alliance between us and his damaged Baseship." Seelix wonders how that's supposed to work, and flips her totally sexy hair. "Yeah, are supposed to leave them piggyback on our nav and FTL systems and help them jump out of harm's way?" Sam shakes his head at Gaeta: "They'll join forces with the Fleet." Gaeta scoffs, but even Helo's having trouble with that one. "If it's true..."
Felix and Seelix, scared, jump right up his ass about it: "Are you actually thinking about doing this?" Felix calls him XO, begs him to listen: "Bringing Leoben on board, that was questionable at best. But jumping back to his Baseship? It's suicide." Karl tells them nothing's been decided. She is only a woman possessed! Wait, and have patience with her for a time. Tick-tock, buddy.
Sharon, who has no time for any of this, who loves her family and her family of warriors with all the love an Eight can hold, whose uniform is a piece of her heart she can look at any time she likes, who fears the chaos and loves the comfort of control, who misses her daughter and has never quite approved of the wide berth her husband gives his friend, who is the one to tether Karl down when his heart and his belief threaten to carry him away, this is the Sharon that speaks. She speaks with the voice of Athena, shocking even Karl. "And will you trust Starbuck to make the right decision? Because she's out of control. We are running on fumes, Anders. In two days we are gonna be overdue for our rendezvous with the Fleet. We gotta do something before she takes us all down with her."
Helo asks if this is mutiny she's suggesting, reminds her again of her remit as a soldier. I don't think either of them mean to be condescending with each other, but it's interesting. She initiated him into this world, down on New Caprica: taught him that the Cylons can love, and fear, and would die for the ones that they love. Her trust, here, would be the pivot on which they all would tilt, but instead: she explains to him how to be a soldier, and he reminds her what being a soldier means: "You want to tear this ship apart, then keep riling up the crew making your crazy Starbuck cracks. Otherwise, I suggest you both shut the frak up." Sharon tells him again that it's a trap: "Cylons are gonna capture the freighter, they're gonna have nav data straight back to the Fleet." Which is sensible, after all, and even Kara couldn't ... oh. Hey, Kara.
"Then we better keep that from happening. Order the CAP back, and lock down the ship. As soon we can work through the jump coordinates from Leoben's Raider, we go." They stare at her, but she's just allowed them their safety measures, with a word. They are resistant and resentful. "...It's a chance to find Earth! I intend to take it." She sounds more like Starbuck than she has in two months.
Tory and Gaius laugh, post-coital. No tears here. "Not that I particularly care, but since I haven't been arrested recently, or beaten up, can I... Can I surmise that the President has not been apprised of my pirate broadcasts?" She laughs in his face. Nobody knows what she is. How can they? She doesn't even know what she is. "Actually, I told her all about them. I even suggested she speak to the Admiral. ... Guess you'll have to do something about that." This is the way we resist control; this is the way we convince ourselves of our own agency. "...Or not. Even Roslin and Adama must realize the movement's taken on a life of its own. It's gonna take them more than bashing in a few heads to stop this." Sensing he's ramping up toward another big speech on his own behalf, gearing up for another big gesture, she sighs and gets herself dressed, pops the balloon. "Truth is, you're not worth another confrontation in the Quorum. You may be drawing more bodies to your crusade, but they're from the fringes. No one of consequence." Except her, of course; it hangs in the air like her perfume. "Get some clothes on. They're waiting for you."
Poor shaven Galen Tyrol works a panel in the corridor on Deck 8, busted down to grunt. Tracey and the others make their way to the service, carrying food, hoping it's enough. "It doesn't matter," says Paulla.
"They're not coming to be fed. They're coming to hear Dr. Baltar's word, and learn from it, just like we did." Same thing. And Galen is hungry. He follows.
"The past is written. Impossible to change. Why are so many of us living in the past? Living with the shame of what we have done... When we could live in awe of what we might do. What we might do."
Galen approaches, covered in the past, Chief and Boomer and Cylon all over him. Impossible to change. Why is he living in the past, in the shame of what he is and what he's done? Why not reach out and glory in the flame, in the heat of what he is, in awe of all the things he might do? What's he going to do, just spin through the Fleet in self-destruction, watching his humanity burn itself away in rage and bitterness?
"What will we do? Spiral endlessly through the heavens until humanity itself comes to a close?" Gaius spots him, across the crowd, and begins to speak a private sermon.
"Or do we look inward... and find that strength within?"
Tigh pulls Galen away, whispering doubt into his ear like poison: "...Can you believe these people are buying into Baltar's crap?"
"We have the opportunity..."
"I don't have anything to say to you," Galen says. "Well, then you can listen. Come with me," grits the Colonel.
"Unity... Life..."
"I've been cutting you some slack because of Cally, but that's over. You gotta pull yourself together. Now." Galen nods: is following the Colonel's orders, now that the world has ended: is that part of the Chief too? Is it programming? "Suck it up. Just like you, huh? I hear you've been spending some time in the lockup with the Six..." Tigh looks around, ashamed, buttons it up.
"...Who are willing to accept them..."
"Remember when this all started? You said nothing would change you from the man you want to be. Well, how about it, Colonel? You still the same old Saul Tigh?" Saul assures him that anything he's done, he can live with. Which is too close to Tory, for Galen. Grief and guilt start spinning up again. "Well, that's the difference between you and me. I can't."
"From this level, we are all the same..."
"Tory's got in her head that we can be the salvation of the human race," Galen says, musingly, as Gaius explains how, if they can just hear it, spurred on by his daemon.
"Am I making sense to you?" asks Gaius. He is, but it's a breakaway song, and nobody can hear it.
They're so close. "All I know is, if there is a God, He's laughing His ass off." He's not wrong. Still, the faithful gather closer.
The language of the birds, the thing holy men speak when they come back from the Underworld, is the language of revelation. It's written in the shapes birds form in the sky, in the way leaves fall in patterns around their trees; it's in the ambient noise from the televisions in the houses that you pass, Hendrix sitar through the static, the words neon spells out backwards on the highway, late at night. The way one song plays after another on the shuffle, enjambed on secrets you forgot, raising memories, recombining. It's the moment Hybrid gibberish condenses into meaning. It's the language that connects you to the world, that reminds you this is all projection, and who painted the sky. It's about the bright second in the day when they stop being words in a language you know, and start meaning things in the language you're learning. Slowly, learning, until you hear it right. And as Galen leaves the Colonel behind, and the faithful shuffle about, Gaius continues to speak:
"Grace. Unity..."
TALKING ABOUT AN IMAGINARY GOD
(A Soldier falls; Doubts are given Voice.)
Sergeant Erin Mathias's EVA is almost done, as she moves away from the aft section and around the bend. "It's a big sucker!", she chuckles. Athena tells the Sarge to wrap it up, come back to the nest ASAP. "I was getting bored with the view anyhow... Hold up, got a leak. Some kind of gas venting through a crack in the hull, something's happening..." The steam from the Heavy Raider's core turns to gas, turns to flame. Mathias begins to scream. The whole thing vents, exploding off the Demetrius's side where it's docked, in a fireball, and her scream goes silent. In her room, Kara hears the sound but not the scream. "Mathias, report. Mathias, report!" And the static on the wireless resolves itself down to the truth, and Pike begins to shake.
Galen, still hungry, returns to Deck 8. This is the third time. It's always the third time. He makes his way through the muttering crowd as Gaius takes the stage, blushing at their chatter and applause.
"Please. Please don't clap." They fall silent. He grins, sharing a joke with them all, letting them in on it: "What are you all doing here?" They slowly begin to laugh along with him, as his grin breaks into a smile. He was born for this.
"The reason that we are all here is because the old ways have failed us. It doesn't matter if you're a believer or a nonbeliever. It certainly makes no difference to me. You are all welcome."
Galen, afraid of welcome, ashamed of being seen, turns to go. Gaius calls his name. Gaius is a bullshitter, but he's also a narcissist. Whatever happens here, it needs to happen in front of people. There must always be an audience, or else it isn't real. If Galen took his hand when nobody was watching, what would it be? Nothing. A tree of forgiveness in a forest nobody knows about. It wouldn't be real.
"Mr. Tyrol. Mr. Tyrol!" Galen stops, but doesn't turn. "I know that we have had our differences, but I am begging you right now to set those aside. Come down here and take my hand. If not for yourself, then for your wife. For Cally. She would've wanted this."
Galen knows a bullshitter, Galen knows how you give a speech, how you rally the crowd. Galen knows this is for them, another miracle in a series of miracles: the man who fought Gaius Baltar's administration on New Caprica, the man who threw his body on the gears of the engine built with his blood. And Galen decides it's about time for a mutiny. Gaius wants to give them a show?
"Cally wasn't like me. She forgave you for New Caprica, even read your bogus Manifesto. But not me. You may have your sheep fooled, they may be buying into your message of forgiveness, but let me tell you. There are some sins that even your imaginary God can never forgive."
He ends with his face just inches from Gaius's; they take each other in.
"I have not been talking about an imaginary God," Gaius says. "I am asking you to take my hand. Take my hand, Mr. Tyrol. For Cally." There's a long pause, but it's the thing that cuts too close, because it's disgusting, and because it's right: "It's what she would've wanted."
Galen explodes into ultraviolence, choking him. And once again, Gaius in the grip of violence screams the most unexpected thing: "Get off of him! Leave him! Leave him!" Galen screams, standing in the midst of the faithful, that he didn't even know Cally.
And that's true. He didn't really know her. But Gaius killed a man once, and when he did it, he did it for Cally. For no reason but to save her life, and stop the shouting. And if Galen could remember that...
He leaves, among cult whispers and Gaius on the edge of a weeping breakdown. And Galen goes home, to his empty place, and he rips even that apart. Sheets and pillows, paperwork, all the pieces of his life. What would she have wanted? If she'd known, all the truth, if she'd known how much he was hurting, what would she have wanted? He pulls a gun from a bedside cabinet, and holds it against his head, screaming. Screaming, I mean to say, until he's bloody. He runs the gun across his scalp, where his beautiful hair used to be. On the grated floor, there's a photograph, of Cally and Nicky, smiling. I need you to tell me that all this somehow makes sense. This was my wife Callandra, this is my son Nicholas. They were in my home, innocent, sleeping, I turned into something else. The war, Boomer's murder, the Circle, the Trial: making sense of senseless tragedy, when there's none such to be had. Galen holds a gun in his hand. His hand goes limp.
THAT PART OF YOU IS GONE
(There are angels, and demons, and mortal men; and none of us can see the difference plain.)
Kara visits her old friend Leoben, still chained up on the floor; he's heard the explosion, he asks if she's all right. She responds politely, as a guest should, by beating fuck out of him. "What'd you do? Blow the tylium stores?" He grins, fresh and bloody: "That's the Kara I used to know." She shakes her head, hitting him again: "The Raider's in pieces, you mother-frakker! Sergeant Mathias is dead, not that you give a damn..." He swears it wasn't him, and she continues to shout. "I wasn't even on the deck! I was too busy believing you instead of watching out for my crew." He admits the reactor could have been damaged in the battle, but she's right back in the Circle, demanding things he can't offer her. I need you to tell me that all this somehow makes sense. Gunny Mathias was under my command, innocent, running recon, while I was turning into something else.
"Hit me, hit me again," he says. We learn from the pain. We find clarity beyond making sense of senseless tragedy, when there's none such to be had. She demands the truth: that he used her, to get close to Demetrius, but he's not playing human games. He doesn't make sense of nonsense, he glories in it. "How many times did you kill me on New Caprica? Don't stop now. Go on, do it. I won't come back this time, I promise. Resurrection Ship's well out of range. Go on, do it. Do it!" She can't, of course; she shoves him and retreats, falls to her knees, sits across from him.
"It doesn't help, does it? Nothing feels quite like it did before. Does it?" When it used to make it better. When pain, and not glory, was the better choice. "What are you doing to me?" she asks, making the Kara duck-lips she always makes when she's about to crack. If she cries in front of Leoben Conoy, she'll never forgive herself. Not once, on New Caprica, did he win. But what's he doing to her now?
"All of your life..." He looks into her eyes. Imagine something infinitely wise, and infinitely loving. "...You forced back the truth by lashing out at everyone around you. Anesthetizing yourself with ambrosia and empty affairs. But you've lost the taste for those petty things." She swears again that she's the same person; he's not saying she's not. Not really. He's saying it was burned off. "No. There's a void, an emptiness that can only be filled by taking the step on your journey." She interrupts. She keeps interrupting: "-- What happened to me the two months I was missing?" He looks up and to the right; he says he doesn't know. "The mandala, the paintings, my mother. It had to mean something."
"You have to make peace with your past." This is the singularity: she had to say goodbye to it, so the angel could carry her across into the thing. But when the holy man returns to the village and starts crapping his pants, there's going to be the temptation to stop being holy and start being normal. Every second she spends back here, her past is all around her. She has to say goodbye from this side, too.
Imagine if Boomer had done that -- and I think she's a little bit Tory right now, pretending she's a Cylon, playing at it -- on Caprica. If she'd been able to say goodbye to Sharon Valerii, the way Kara needs to say goodbye to Starbuck now. If she'd truly made peace with her past, and let it burn. In Boomer's case, it wouldn't have turned out so well, but it's the same struggle. Guilt and grief are so easily confused: how about forgetting and forgiving? Is forgiveness possible, or are we just pretending to forget and calling that mercy? How do we measure loss? Is a sin of n diameter forgivable, while a sin of 100n is something we gloss over and only pretend to forgive? Where's the line? How can that possibly be how it works? How do you make peace with your past, when all your past is war?
"Why?" Just one word, to a man covered in blood.
"Because that part of you is gone. I told you when I first came aboard this ship that you had changed. I look at you now, I don't see Kara Thrace. I see... an angel, blazing with the light of God. An angel eager to lead her people home."
Downstairs, the villagers are restless indeed. Seelix: "This is bad. This is really bad..." She's not wrong. Neither is Felix: "She can't explain this one away." So then, Karl asks again, is she a Cylon? "Starbuck's racked up more kills than any pilot in the Fleet." To which Pike responds that, yes, Starbuck maybe okay was this ace pilot, but they still don't know who the hell got off the Viper two months ago. Was it a raven? Or a dove?
Kara enters, and they stand, and she takes the center of the room. It was a funeral all along.
"I'm not really very good at any of this. We've all come to remember Sergeant Erin Mathias. To grieve for our loss. To honor her.
"Mathias is dead. Because of me."
"We've all heard the words, the prayers, but I don't know what any of it means anymore. We want to believe that she died for something. But in this war, people die and it is just ... stupid, it's an accident. There's no nobility to it. There's nothing we can grab onto that's gonna make it any easier. They're just gone. I have to live with that."
She changes topics, but she's still moving too fast. She tries to speak human language, and they can't hear her.
"You know, I know that this has been a difficult mission. And maybe I haven't..."
Nothing. Too long without anything. Nothing comes from nothing, but silence. They stare. Felix steps forward, better than he has been in years, shining with it, his voice tender and worried and anxious in the silence: "Captain, we've downloaded the rendezvous coordinates to the FTL. We're ready to jump back to the Fleet on your order." Felix can forgive.
"...We're not going back to the Fleet," Kara explains, freaking Pike the hell out. "We came out here to complete a mission. That Baseship has something to do with it, I know it. Captain Agathon, lock down the ship, prepare to jump." She leaves, reminded by his kindness and Leoben's words of who she is, what's she's becoming. Back on the track, guided by her daemon. We're not going back to the Fleet, we're going to find Earth.
"No, you know what? Frak her, and frak her little pet Cylon, okay?" Hotdog reaches out to Pike, shouting his name. "This Baseship was never part of the mission, okay? One of us is dead now. One of us is dead, and if we don't leave right now we are all going to die, all right?" Hotdog begs him to let it go: she's dragged him through this more than once. He called her to the dance, once. There's a scuffle, and Helo yells at everyone to stand down, but Pike has had it. After two months, Pike is done. Should have known anybody that hot would end up some kind of redshirt. "We're all gonna die! Get out of my way!" Helo reminds him of his orders, and tells him to back off again. "You better choose which side you're on, Captain..." This is the price of command, this is what XO's have to do. Button up: "Walk away. Walk away and this doesn't go any further!"
But Pike's the Antigone now, caged up with a madwoman, heading into enemy territory, into certain death, on the words of a ghost girl and a demon. He'll strike out with everything he's got. And that is good, too. Imagine how different it would have been if Marlow or Willis were wrong, and Kurtz was right. You know? Totally different story. When the end of the world comes, you consider your imperative, and that means applying Occam's Razor: either God wants us to go have tea with the frakking Cylons, okay, or else that bitch is crazy. And they'll tell the story of a submarine, sky-bound, that sailed off into madness, like a virus, and one by one her crew fell to the enemy; how they walked into it with their eyes open, on the basis of a painting and a girl who cannot possibly exist. There's the kind of mutiny we all do at once, and there's the kind that we do inside our heads, to save the world. It's not racism, it's the righteous anger of the caged and trapped and suffering, who knows that he is right, when everyone around him is losing their heads: "Figures you'd be the one to protect that Cylon thing, right?"
And what Karl does to him , well, that's okay too. No bad guys in this scenario, just viewpoints that must be upheld. Sharon's like, Seriously? And Seelix drops to help him, her fellow soldier, and everybody is freaked, and Helo, who is already having maybe the worst day of his life, including the time he was left for dead on an irradiated, robot-occupied world, the time his pregnant girlfriend was a Cylon, the time he shot her in the gut to save their kidnapped child, and the time he had to be involved in "The Woman King," just wants a nap. I mean, that's a lot of bad days, but somehow this seems to be the worst of all.
TELL ME THIS MAKES SENSE
(Faith is not love, nor Love faith.)
Galen looks at a picture from New Caprica, the Chief and his wife, squinting and smiling in the sun, impossibly young. So grateful, that the Admiral reconsidered.
"Gaius," whispers Jeanne in her hushed voice, as they make their way down the corridor, "I just don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. I mean, this man is psychotic." Gaius gives her the cult answer, which is not the real answer, but is a concise definition of something Jeanne will be doing more of, soon enough: "My message is for everyone. Especially for the ones who don't want to listen." She says again that it's not safe, and he knocks on the hatch of Tyrol's quarters, telling her it'll take five minutes. She continues to worry as he opens the door and lets himself in. He's wearing civvies, a cute hoodie and denim jacket; he looks very young, and very kind, and very small, and very breakable. But he's not doing this to win, he's doing it because he has to. Whether Galen welcomes him with open arms or bashes out his brains on that very floor, with that very wrench: he has to do it.
Galen Tyrol lies on the bed. He looks very young, and very tired. He doesn't move, he hasn't moved in an hour, but he doesn't take his eyes off Gaius's face.
"Look, uh, Chief. I'm ... I'm here to ask for your forgiveness. About my presumption earlier. You were right, you know. I hardly knew your wife. I'm sorry. Would you mind if I... just, um..."
He sits down, and looks back into those eyes. They go on forever. Galen doesn't move.
"I know it's hard to... make sense of things sometimes. In my own life, I..."
Not the sermon, not Dr. Baltar. Human language. Remember.
"In my own life, I joined the Fleet as a scientist, as a skeptic. As supposedly a man of reason. Only to have fate turn that all on its head. But I understand now that there is a purpose to it."
Galen doesn't blink.
"We change. We evolve. Maybe we even learn something along the way..."
More Gaius, less Baltar. You are two men, alone in a room, with no one watching. It is possible to speak. Remember.
"I have committed... Unconscionable crimes. And I have been offered one last chance at redemption. Because I chose to accept my fate. Not fight it anymore."
Galen's eyes soften. This is the part he gets. To choose the man you are, that's all he was looking for. To know what that is. It isn't faith Gaius is asking for. Gaius stands to go.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Chief," Gaius says, and looks down at their picture. They were so beautiful. "She was a very beautiful woman, your wife. I'm also told quite spiritual. You know, I don't expect you to believe me, but... I would very much like to have known her better."
They look at each other, men who have lost something. Gaius turns to go.
And that's when Specialist Galen Tyrol, without taking those eyes off his face, holds up one great hand. Gaius takes it, shaking in gratitude. "Thank you," he says. And the shake in his voice, the way he is moved, the absolution in that touch: nobody will ever see it.
It is real.
ASSUMING WE BELIEVE
(Two Mutinies collide.)
Gaeta sets condition one for the jump, and Sharon asks if he's really doing this. He swears he doesn't have a choice, but she knows better. Kara enters, and everybody sweats and looks around some more.
"FTL's spooled, Captain," Helo says, and she tells him to set the clock. He must call for her twice, to get her attention, again: "Captain. Captain, I'm asking you to reconsider." She blows him off: not enough time. Jump now, or lose their shot.
"That's assuming we believe the Cylon," says Felix. True. "That's assuming we believe that Leoben's coordinates are right. We don't jump into a nest of baseships, or the middle of a star..." All true, all possibilities. Helo joins the chorus: "Galactica's standing orders are clear. If we miss the rendezvous, Adama will assume we're dead or captured. They will leave us." Kara knows better: "No. Not Adama." Helo swears to her that they can jump to Galactica, re-supply, come back out with an armed patrol. An entire plan, that takes everything into account. Almost everything: she begs him not to do this. It's not love she's asking him for, it's faith. She leans forward, like Cain, steely.
After one sad moment, he shakes his head. "I can't allow you to risk the lives of this ship's crew..." Kara speaks. "When the Admiral put me in command, he told me to trust my instincts. Find the marker, see if it checks out. Lead the people from the Fleet home. That is what I intend to do. Now...prepare to jump!" He can't. Sam stares. Kara relieves him from duty, and in a beat of silence names Gaeta the new XO. "Prepare to jump, on my mark." She's hurt by his refusal. Sam begs everybody to stop, to think about what they're doing. Helo and Athena, Hotdog: they all look down, at the floor.
"They have thought about it, Sam. They all have. It's a mutiny."
And Karl Helo, nearly crying, under Article X of the Colonial Military Code and speaking as the XO of the Demetrius, relieves the Captain of her command.
TO BE CONTINUED