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In the wake of President Roslin's disappearance, Tom Zarek tells everybody he should be the interim President, but Lee tells the Quorum that his Dad would never ever support Zarek, so then they fight for awhile about who the President should actually be. You should make your most obvious guess right now, because you are right.
Natalie dies holding Cottle's hand, and the Admiral screams his ass off at Athena for killing her, and won't even listen to her crackheaded explanation about how she was simultaneously acting nuts in the imaginary Opera House while acting nuts on Galactica. Adama eventually takes her kid away and puts her in the brig. Back on the bridge, he learns that the Resurrection Hub and the rebel Baseship have disappeared, and sends Tigh off to question Caprica. Saul, of course, immediately lets her in on Adama's giant crush on Roslin, and then she starts getting weird on him again, turning into his dead wife and talking all about love and shit.
Racetrack investigates a randomly arriving lone Raptor, which contains cute dead Pike and a jacked-up copy of Searider Falcon. The follow the Raptor back to where it jumped from and find a bunch of dead Vipers and debris, so Laura's obviously dead. Except obviously she isn't, but that's this whole episode in a nutshell. Cottle tells Bill that cancer sometimes acts up in the absence of medical treatment, and also that Caprica is totally pregnant. A Cylon! Pregnant! With a Cylon-Cylon baby!
Lee goes to Romo Lampkin for help finding a new/temporary President, and Romo plays a bunch of crazy games with his head as usual. Romo is also now the proud owner of an imaginary cat, which replaced his dead cat, which he is now carrying around in a duffel bag because he is also crazy himself. Romo decides that Lee should be President, but because everybody saw that coming from a mile away, he randomly goes crazy and holds Lee at gunpoint for awhile to give weight to the imaginary concept that Lee Adama has ever earned anything in his entire life. President Leland escapes this situation by making yet another very long speech, and gives Romo a dog.
Tigh and Bill have a little bit of a discussion about how Tigh knocked up Caprica, and beat the shit out of each other. They agree that they are total screwups and ruining everything because of their love of the ladies, but this is okay by them. So okay, in fact, that Bill promotes Tigh to Admiral before their noses even stop bleeding. Yes he does! And why? So he can quit his job as Commander of the Fleet and climb back in the cockpit to go find Laura his damn self! Nobody really has a problem with this, because it is way obvious that Bill will wither and die without Laura, so the Twins see him off, and then he sits all alone in a Raptor and watches the Fleet jump away... under their new one-eyed Cylon Admiral!
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IT IS NO DESERT
We do have to do this. We have to have an episode without Laura, in order to feel anything at all. It's the same reason we don't know what's going on with Boomer: because when we find out, time must have passed. It's a lacuna, a frozen moment in time over here, so that time can pass over there. I know I said I would put this crap at the end from now on, but this time I kind of need a mission statement, because I don't want to get tripped up in explaining why I'm talking crazy in the middle of a scene. So I'm just going to talk crazy right now and then, like, coast. You know I love you, right?
I hated -- well, hated is a strong word -- I had challenges with this episode the first and second and third times I saw it, which is weird considering it's A) a Michael Taylor episode and B) a Season Four episode, but I've never been one to wait for the mountain to come to me. The way I look at it, when faced with untenable alternatives you consider your imperative. Entertainment is provided for us, and we are being told a story. If that story is told poorly, or inexpertly, that's not a reason to celebrate. But I don't think this is a poorly told story, I think it's an unexpected and weird story, told from a weird and unexpected angle.
Much like Razor, it's sufficiently ambitious and strange that the imperative becomes considering it from other angles than the ones we are most used to. If you don't hit your audience, yes you've failed at one thing, but it's possible you've succeeded at something else. Optimally you do both, but I'm not bothered personally. And I don't think it's because the show is making undue demands on us, or in order to ease some kind of cognitive dissonance, but because the show is trying to tell us something, like the Hybrid, and we'd be remiss to just let the signal get lost in the noise. That's lazy and it's not something that speaks highly of us as viewers, tossing it overboard like that because it came from the factory in a different shape from the last one we bought. It's wasteful.
But by the same token I don't want to fill in blanks or stretch analytically to make the necessary apologies. This isn't a cleanup job. I am not arguing for the Starbuck pass for this show, or for Taylor, and I'm not cheerleading. I am telling you that I hated it, had challenges with it rather, and that given enough time I've changed my mind. In the last week I've been assured, with a straight face, that consideration and investigation of our entertainment is cheating; that one's first response is always correct; that art which rewards reflection and interrogation is not art. Or is failed art. That something is not good if you have to think about it. And while I think less old people/more nudity, less unanswerable and questionable morality/more shit blowing up would increase the ratings of the show exponentially, I'll be damned if that would make the show better, which is where you're heading with critiques like that.
The easiest trap is our own shame and our own obsessions: and what's more easily obsessed upon than the image we hold of ourselves? Lee is the Good Boy, Captain Apollo -- but it's his lot to engineer coincidences that benefit him alone. Ask Zarek, ask Dee. Bill is the unassailable façade, as Carolanne said: the Admiral without a wife, the single father mourning an extinct civilization. Except he's in love, and we all know it. Admitting that love, and more importantly, the fact that it's fucking him up beyond bad, is more painful than going on without her. Saul is the Royal Screwup, the bad little brother, the guy with no responsibility at all because Bill's his soft place to land. And now that he's terrified of even himself, responsibility is the last thing he wants; the broken man, the cancer, is his self-image right now. And he's wrong, because what Saul Tigh is, is the heart of the Fleet, just like Galen is. That's scary. Admission of our ugliest shit, the stuff that attacks our Helo Suits most directly, is exactly how we burn off what doesn't work. It was Kara's path, too.
We have to do this, and we basically have to do it this way, to get anywhere. We have to walk Romo's path to Leland's Presidency and Bill's resignation, because this is a story about shocking Lee and Bill out of their own denial. What's painfully obvious from Go to us is also painfully obvious to Lee, and to Romo, and to Bill, and the pain of this story -- and the sometimes awkward steps it takes over those jagged rocks -- is in knowing how much those painfully obvious facts hurt the ones that are forced to admit them. Romo is theatre, and he doesn't want the best from us: he wants us to admit the worst, because he's the very devil. He doesn't speak one word of truth; believing his theatre is exactly the mistake that leads us to believe Tory believes the shit coming out of her mouth with her whole heart. Yeah, they're both nuts, but neither of them are telling the truth. Tory wishes she were, but she's really no different than she ever was. Romo ... Is a nutsack, but he's usually right. In his effects, if not his causes or his methods.
In the military we used to talk about facts on the ground. At moments of extreme change, or extreme weirdness, or disappointing developments, or straight-up confusing plot points, it's helpful sometimes to consider the imperatives of the show itself. As a critic I tend to jump back and forth between explication and amplication, which is to say, sometimes I want to talk about what's going on within the show and the intratextual meanings of a thing, and other times I feel like talking about what it reminds me of, or what it could mean, or what it implies extratextually. (Usually, what I wish it would mean.)
Like no, obviously I don't think the writers of the show sat down and talked explicitly about the Goddess triune when constructing their Opera House, for example. But it works out, of course, because that's how stories work. They tell self-organizing truths, just like we all do. But speaking as a writer, there's a certain give-and-take with interpretation and the facts. You'll only ever hear a writer say, "That's amazing! I didn't even intend that!" Point being, I'm going to keep the amplification to a minimum this week, and try to stay a little more focused on the facts on the ground and the imperatives that brought them about. I'm not trying to Cavil you: you're free to think whatever you like, regardless of what some dude on a website says about it. On the other hand, I think it shows the areas of our blindness when we throw away a toy instead of figuring out how it works.
Though you'd really be surprised how much of that stuff is actually intended and iterably true. The people who write this stuff think about it more than you do. And I don't think my track record would be as good as it is if we weren't at least sometimes on the same page with this stuff. Think like a writer, not like a passive consumer. Some of it's the blueprint, and some of it is looking back at the historical record of past episodes and seeing the paths they could follow, and discarding them one by one until the obvious-but-still-interesting solution presents itself. In the case especially with Final Season-itis, and I could give you approximately a billion examples from Sex & The City to Once & Again to Dawson's Creek and The O.C. (the easiest ones to see because of those show's reliance on Jungian typology), there's a mandate that must be followed in order to finish the story: everything turns into its opposite.
What's the first article of faith? "This is not all that we are." Samantha loses her sex drive, Charlotte marries a Jew and adopts an Asian baby, Miranda gets saddled with a very sudden and very demanding family, and Carrie leaves town: everything must turn into its opposite, for the same reason that the first colors in alchemy are black and white.
And you might say that I'm universalizing my shit, and you're right about that, but it doesn't make me wrong about the show. There is no "wrong about the show." But in this case, it's very much my shit: It's the same reason I love the Cylons and Sarah Porter and Gaius Baltar: somebody has to, and I don't really want to, so I have to. If I cross the territory from Me to You, I own mine, and yours, and all the land in between. And frankly, I think you'd find it more challenging to find a show that doesn't go there, if allowed to do so before getting cancelled, in the final season. The last thing in alchemy is gold. That's all these two poor nations are trying to find.
IN THE SHADE OF THE TREES
Natalie groans and wheezes, whispering and moaning nonsense, as they wheel her into sickbay. Unlawful discharge of a firearm. Cottle's team moves her onto a bed, cut up into her shirt, put on an oxygen mask. She's fading. On Colonial One the rumors are flying. Geminon is sure that Baltar was involved in the mysterious unplanned road tour of Roslin and the Rebels. Jacob Cantrell thinks it was one of "Adama's Marines" that shot a Cylon, causing the abduction. Jacob's been talking to Zarek again, I see: this is exactly what he needed to say, before Tom arrived, to set up Tom's power play against the possibility of another Gideon. Lee consults with the Marines at the door in a hush, wondering where the Veep is. Everybody wonders where the Veep is. I hope he fell in a big stupid hole.
Bill breezes right past some girl -- I think her name's Anastasia but I can't quite remember what she looks like -- into sickbay, to check on Natalie. Without Laura, he can't really think; he can't stomach the thought of talking to Zarek, so he ignores her and heads to Natalie's side. Tigh is already there. Saul reminds him in a hush that, as part of the alliance, they gave up half their wing. Kara can't even get a CAP together. Having checked on the rapidly failing Natalie, and Laura still not having materialized out of wishes and starlight, Adama heads off to scream at Athena for awhile.
Zarek finally enters, at exactly the right time, the Romo moment of greatest effect, and the Delegates all shout and freak. He cautions them to calm down, even though this is exactly what he wanted: a stirred-up crowd of needy representatives who are always looking for the bomb to hit. He stomped the anthill because he wanted to drop Bill on it, face down, and geld him and Tigh for the power vacuum that's going to ensue if Laura's gone forever. And since Bill won't take part in this, because he's falling apart, Zarek's going to have to tell all those ants where the food is, so they'll swarm, and sign off on whatever he wants.
Not that he's a dick, he's trying to do the same thing as Laura does, which is save everybody at once according to his plans. Frankly, I liked him more when he was a dick. The best thing about Tom Zarek, to me, was always Maier. Zarek tells them Laura's not been assassinated per se -- just the question shakes Tory badly -- and answers their pleas for information with phase two: "Clearly, our first priority is to get out as much verifiable information as we can to avoid exaggeration... To that end, I asked Admiral Adama to come and answer our questions directly. Unfortunately, he wouldn't take my call." The Quorum starts shitting themselves and Zarek's all innocence, like, "I know, right?"
Natalie stands in the shade of the trees, in her private heaven. Older than old, author of so many lives and loves; younger than young.
"President Roslin was apparently aboard the Cylon baseship, along with Gaius Baltar and many of Galactica's pilots when it jumped away, after one of their own leaders was shot aboard Galactica. We have no idea when or if they'll return, or if the President or the other captives will be subject to reprisals."
I wonder if every alliance has this many coincidental fuckups; I'm guessing yes, but I also think it's important for both sides of the equation that these two events become conflated: whether it's the reconnected Hybrid or hallucinating Athena, it's just a hiccup in programming. It wasn't human error.
Natalie reaches out, in pain, suddenly afraid. Offer your people death and see who steps up first to try it out. Cottle holds her hand, tightly; his eyes above the mask are infinitely caring. Hers are bifocal: even now, she can't help but project. His hand holds hers, but her heart is in the forest.
"For now, by the powers granted me by law, I have taken over as President." Giving another sign of his complicity, Jacob calls for a round of applause; they give it, scaring Lee. His father will never accept Zarek as a replacement for his lover, let alone as the leader of the free government. This is a family. We all need our family. Tom was never in the family, and Bill knows how wrong it can go, when you get behind the dark horse candidate. Rights of succession mean nothing: this is a family. We'll see another coup, or worse.
Or is there something else, too, just to the right of the fear, just behind knowing that? Lee Adama has never made a choice in his life, he's never had to weigh his desserts and his qualifications. Why should Zarek just step in like this? Why, when the family is torn apart, and Laura is dying, somewhere far away and cold.
Natalie weeps, in a forest. She sails on the barge with a breeze in her hair; her million sisters welcome her to the shore with kisses. Raven-haired and honey, platinum and gold. A broken New Caprica girl blazes in the light, finally whole; Gina Inviere smiles warmly, and puts strong arms around her: tawny, kissed by the sun. She doesn't shrink from Natalie's touch, or her tears. And beyond them, so much more love: an infinity of brothers and sisters, welcoming her in, applauding her bravery and her strength. Natalie smiles, in a forest. Today was her birthday.
And yet I could look beyond all this,
To a place of infinite beauty;
And I could see the loveliness of her
Who walked in the shade of the trees.
When I gazed,
All was lost
But this place of beauty and her.
THE LITTLE MAN WHO STOOD AGAINST THE MOUNTAINS
Lee stands, bitching on the phone at his poor beleaguered father while the anthill hollers and storms and scatters. Can't Bill see how, with every moment of reticence and arrogance, he's selling Zarek's drama better than the man ever could? "Their suspicions don't concern me." But is this a coup yet? Lee pleads; whether or not Zarek is a shitslice, the Fleet remains, and it needs reassurance, and stability." And since that doesn't really apply here, he qualifies: "Exactly the kind that only its military commander can offer." Bill tells his son to calm the Fleet down his damn self. "That's your job now. You can tell Zarek he can go to hell," he says, and hangs up. One might say that Bill Adama has sort of already lost the plot, but it's a matter of juggling contradictions: who is he, right now? The father of a frightened family? The commander and Admiral of a ruined, limping Fleet? The man who lost his lover before he ever touched her? A father, disappointed as usual in the missteps and mistakes of his children, and the troubles they heap upon his platter:
Athena stands in the corner, afraid, but with her back straight. This is what he will respect: conviction. Luckily, that's what she feels. "Do you hate your people so much that you look for any excuse to kill one?" Obviously not. It's not about hate, it's about love. You pick your side and you stick, otherwise you'll never have anything, no love, no family, no life to call your own. But it starts with love, and with family. With Helo and Hera, and then Adama, and then the Fleet. She's a robot but she's not an asshole, and this is the most robotic thing about her. The only time Athena's ever gotten scary -- I mean head-bashing, face-bleeding, cage-screaming scary -- was the last time anybody threatened her child. It hurt to watch. So did this one. Point being, she's a woman with a list, and she's still enough of a Cylon (and don't tell her I said this) that "Life To Call Your Own" is the last item on it. It's very short and small and she is at a loss as to what she can add to it now, but she's got a list. And her visions are on that list, too, even if you can't see them.
He comes toward her like a mountain: "Or did you deliberately try to sabotage this truce." She's offended: "No sir, of course not." Because -- and here's what's awesome about Athena -- more than anybody, more than Hera, more than Nicky, more than Laura, or Kara and Three, even more than poor fucked-up Caprica, Athena transcends the Shape of Things to Come. It's not the perfect future, it's not even the perfect near-future, she's not a person driven by visions (I mean, except for right now), she's not this Jacob ideal where everybody has tea politely like good citizens and uses their indoor voices and remembers to vote and to floss and to recycle, she's not the series finale of forgiveness and rapture: She is right fucking now.
Athena Agathon, wisdom and goodness, is a grown-ass woman making her own decisions, loving without breaking, who soldiers on with zero damned credit; who sees all around her in the Fleet the million pieces of her heart. Whose imperative is all around her. A woman who turned her coat inside-out and changed her skin for nothing more, or less, than love. She's not a hybrid, not a child of the revolution, she doesn't have collusion and synthesis written on her bones like Hera: she did that herself, because she is awesome. She's Nurture Girl, crossing hate like so much salt: created to love and be loved in return, like us all.
Athena is a grownup like you and me, not a kid without choices like Hera and Nicky, making a conscious choice. She is a person who, out of nothing but love, made the jump and stuck with it, across the salt and across the fear, sat in chains for months, took out her heart and looked at it, got commissioned, got married, made ugly choices and suffered uglier choices. She went so far she got boring, frankly, and we forgot what she is and what she means, but the truth is that she's probably the best thing going forward, the anti-Cally in at least the way that she's the ultimately adaptable. I'm embarrassed that I didn't key into this sooner, frankly, because I forgot that boring usually means excellent once you look at it right: Athena is the Shape of Things the Way They Fucking Are.
"Then you tell me why. You make me understand why you did this." Athena flashes back: the corridor, the Opera House. The unspeakable power of vision: take a dream and turn it into words, it always slides back down and away. Every word you speak changes it and destroys it, turns it into story and logos. Turns the Hybrid talk back into gibberish: "They were going to take her. The Six. She was going to take my child." And there are ways, I am sure, that this is true. But you say it out loud and it fades away like water in the desert. Adama shakes his head: "There were too many witnesses. They all said the same thing. Your daughter was lost. The Cylon merely kneeled down, was talking to her." Athena knows: that's what it looked like, but that wasn't what it was. There was more. It was a moment. It was a moment where dreams and reality collided, and the future hit the past and the present and made a Maelstrom, and for a moment the three of them stood in the middle, buffeted by gales. "I know."
Adama scoffs, but Athena tries to explain again: I had a vision, a vision where the Six and Baltar were taking Hera away from me." He turns away, choking on it. Now everybody's getting visions. He's like, "I got a vision of a fucking cheeseburger. You ladies need to cut this shit out. Last time somebody said fucking 'Opera House' my girlfriend blew up."
"It was more than just a vision, sir. When I saw them together, I knew that they would take her, that they would take away my child!" That's a version. That's the Athena Suit: when faced with untenable alternatives, you consider your imperative. But that's only half the quote, from that old philosopher. The other half is what Adama's talking about. "You murdered an unarmed woman. And by doing so you put the lives of every single person in this Fleet at risk." As Cain said -- she was the old philosopher I was talking about -- "Look around you. Our imperative is right here. In our bulkheads, in our planes, in our guns, and in ourselves." Athena forgot that; she begins to cry as Adama reminds her she also killed the President and her husband. Or, sorry, it's Adama v. all reason, once again: she "quite possibly" cost the lives of her lover and his.
"You disobeyed the direct orders of a superior officer, but more importantly--" (More importantly? Hell kinda military you running?) "-- You betrayed a promise to me. I trusted you." We need our family.
"Sir, I will accept any form of punishment that you think I deserve. I just ask that you please don't take away Hera." But he's not hearing it: she took away his hostage, so he'll take away the star she steers by. "I'm afraid the brig is no place for a little girl. Guards! Get her out of my sight." Athena goes dark. This is her punishment, then. Not the brig: she made a home there. The absence of home. No love, no family, no life to call your own.
"At one time," says a Delegate, "Admiral Adama supported Gaius Baltar's administration. Isn't there a chance he'd support yours?" Not even on a sunny day. "I'm afraid only Admiral Adama can answer that," says Zarek, stirring the pot, and Jacob takes the bait again: "Then I will address this question to Delegate Adama. Do you honestly think that your father will hand over power to this administration?" Zarek smiles angrily and looks down, but I had to wonder: how much of this is theatre? Not even a fuckin' Sagittaron should fall in line this easy with what Tom wants; therefore, he's a collaborator. Right? He sets 'em up, Tom watches somebody else knock 'em down. Lee admits the truth, the thing he was afraid of and no hint of the thing behind that, and another wall falls down. 39,674 survivors.
Once I saw mountains angry,
And ranged in battle-front.
Against them stood a little man;
Aye, he was no bigger than my finger.
I laughed, and spoke to one near me,
"Will he prevail?"
"Surely," replied this other;
"His grandfathers beat them many times."
Then did I see much virtue in grandfathers --
At least, for the little man
Who stood against the mountains.
WHERE EYES ARE USELESS
Tigh hangs up on CIC and comes to Bill, moping at the tactical board. "Recon Raptor just reported back. The Resurrection Hub's gone. No sign of the Baseship carrying the President, assuming that's where they were headed." Bill reminds us that they were looking for Three; to us it means we get to see her again, she'll stand and walk and love again. To Saul, it means his life ends. "We find it, we'll find them," gruffs Bill, and turns away. By "them," he means "her," of course; Saul coughs. "Starbuck's having trouble fielding enough planes to fly a standard CAP. Wants us to consider having the Fleet bunch up tighter, so it's easier to defend." Gather the wagons; bring the family closer. It means nothing. "It means counting on a bunch of civvies flying close formation... Organize it." He stares and goes off. He's already gone.
On Colonial One, Zarek's having the obligatory fit on Lee's tiny ass. This isn't about power, it's about how this all happened before and will happen again. He stayed close, stayed sharp and stayed strong; he organized the Circle, he fought for his people. It's not id and it's not ego: "I got you appointed to this job. Pulled strings, called in favors, all because I thought you might do some good. Now you're advising me to step aside from a position that by law is mine. A position I was elected to." Lee points out that he wasn't elected President, and Tom reminds him that of all the Presidents since the Exodus, exactly one was elected, and he landed everybody in hell. "But I was! Elected! To office! Which is more! Than Roslin! Can claim! Why do you think she kept me on in the first place? To thank me for rolling over? No. No, to help legitimize her coup." So that's the story he's telling himself now. It's not wrong, but it's not the most expansive either.
"In the military, we used to talk about facts on the ground. Well, the facts on the ground are these: Right or wrong, Adama will never recognize you as President, and we need someone he will. Now, the Quorum has a legal authority to appoint an interim President in a time of crisis." Zarek shakes his head, wanting to get to it. Wanting to just get there already. Because I'll tell you this: Lee was heading for this the second he said goodbye to Kara in the brig, before Demetrius. He's been heading for this since the very second Laura Roslin reached out and blessed his head like Esau, and told him one day he'd weigh their lives in his hand. The word is trajectory.
"And I suppose! You have someone! In mind?" No, no, not yet, nothing but that, don't be ridiculous, nothing of the sort, nobody at all. "Which is why we need to form a search committee and start looking for a candidate as soon as possible." Zarek tells him to eat a dick, and he leaves. To go do just that.
Hottie McManus talks to Tom later, on the wireless: "...Mr. Vice President Zarek, do you really believe that this government's in danger?" Zarek begs him to face the facts. The facts on the ground are these: "What we had these past five years isn't a true government, but a tacit agreement between a military strongman, and a political strongwoman, to rule together by fiat." Not untrue, not really questionable; not anything but a narrative the likes of which Gaius Baltar would approve. "I've heard you asked the Quorum to authorize the creation of a civil defense force?"
Romo drinks, as he's been doing for months; Romo strokes Lance the cat, as he's been doing for months.
"After what happened during the last military coup, we don't wanna depend on Galactica's Marines to guarantee our safety..." Lee turns off the wireless and looks at Romo, asking if he gets it. "Lampkin's first rule of legal dynamics. When an irresistible force meets a movable object, stand aside and wait for the class action suit." E pluribus unum.
"Except I'm not sure if it's to anyone's benefit, if we just sit around waiting to pick up the pieces. This thing's heading for a showdown. There's gonna be bloodshed..." Unless, Romo knows, we find this mysterious somebody. "Someone your father won't reject, someone the Quorum would approve of, someone to take Tom Zarek's place as interim President until the round of elections." Lee snaps his fingers at him, just like a man, like an equal and a grownup: Exactly! You have put your finger on it, Romo Lampkin! A mysterious person! Romo takes off his shades, meaning we're about to go into the bad places. "Don't take the case, Counselor. It's a loser." That's the first test. In the Hero's Journey, the first thing the madman does is tell you to go home. Don't do it. Or do, I guess. It's really up to you.
"I have to. We have to."
Romo smiles, as he's been doing for months; he watches Lance walk across the room, as he's been doing for months.
"No one on the Quorum is going to lift a finger. Zarek's got them inhaling fear and exhaling anger. But you have taken the pulse of the Fleet, and you know character." Zarek has the air, but Romo knows the heart. And how to eat it. "And frankly, you need a reason to get out of this room. Unless you want to start discussing what's been keeping you here..." That last burns; Romo is steeled, and he turns.
"So you won't be dissuaded, will you? Not even when you hear my fee?" That's the second test. Lee grins at him; like a grownup, like an equal. He's in the Maelstrom and he doesn't even know it. He thinks we're joking around. We're not joking. "Appearances to the contrary, I'm actually in this for the money. I have a reputation to maintain after all." Two lies right there. "Okay, so what did Roslin offer you to defend Baltar?" Romo points to a tiny square window, over his rack: "Room with a view." Lee laughs and doesn't counter. "Then pro bono it is, counselor." No, it isn't. It's pro the same malo it always is, with Romo. Not the pretty picture but the cracks in the canvas. Lee is a cat in a box, neither alive nor dead, neither ego nor id, particle nor wave, oscillating, between-states, between being one thing and becoming another, until Romo says the magic words. Not yet:
"Word to the wise? Sometimes it's better to settle for what you've already got," he says, the third test, as he's been saying for months; Lance stares up at him and licks his chops. As he's been doing for months.
A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."
IT MAKES NO MELODY AT MY WILL
"Colonel Tigh," Bill says, with his last semblance of gravitas. He's a cat in a box. "I understand you've developed a relationship with the Cylon prisoner." Tigh takes issue with the term, but admits she's been more cooperative. There are so many things he wants to say, all the time, every single moment of the day. The songs he'd sing Bill, if he could trust him; the melodies of his new life. The Admiral sends him off to ask about the Hub, and for a moment Bill is weak, and afraid; it breaks Saul's heart. "We'll find her. We'll find all of them." The Lie of Laura.
Yes, I have a thousand tongues,
And nine and ninety-nine lie.
Though I strive to use the one,
It will make no melody at my will,
But is dead in my mouth.
Tigh enters Caprica's cell, where she stretches like a cat in a box, luxuriating, defenses down; he barks it out immediately: "The Resurrection Hub. How do we find it?" Caprica's slow to adjust, slow to recognize it isn't Saul that's entered, but the Colonel. "I'm sure the others have told you..." He demands again, and she sits up, steel in her back and in her eyes: it's going to be one of those days. She coughs it up: "Only our Hybrids can locate it. And then only after it completes a jump. Even they can't anticipate where it's going." He swears she's holding something back; she's lying. Yes, but not about this: she's offended again. "I have never lied to you, Saul. Why don't you trust me now?" Because he's so much younger than she is, and lying about so much more. "Because there are too many lives at stake, lady. Your buddies took off with half an air wing, not to mention the President of the frakking Colonies herself..."
Caprica cocks her head; the cat leaves and the shark comes in. "She's the real reason you're so angry, so worried. I can hear it in your voice. Why is a dying woman so important to you?" Saul shakes, with fear and no sleep. "Not to me, Godsdammit! To the old man." She almost smiles; Tigh sits down on the rack, at his wit's end. Having given her something she can't use, and wouldn't if she could, but still having given something up. Collaborated that inch that scares him so badly. She kneels before him, looking him in the eye. She takes his fragile body in hand, and smiles warmly. She becomes Ellen.
"Saul. Do you love me? Ellen: Be honest with me. I've been honest with you." Saul is shocked by this, because he doesn't know yet why she's asking. The PA goes off, Condition One, and he shakes it off. Saul takes his lover by the throat. He's a cat in a box. "This has gone too frakkin' far. I don't know what kind of mind games you are playing with me, lady, but it ends here!" He tosses her in the corner -- he takes something he loves and hurls it against the wall, in protest -- and she touches her throat and watches him go. The fragile bodies of us all. Remember:
God lay dead in heaven;
Angels sang the hymn of the end...
From the far caverns
Of dead sins
Came monsters, livid with desire.
They fought,
Wrangled over the world,
A morsel.
But of all sadness this was sad --
A woman's arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast.
CHARITY, THOU ART A LIE
Tigh returns to CIC, where a random missing Raptor has just jumped onto dradis. Tigh asks for more sitrep and Adama responds easily, telling him the story. Giving him the information he needs. He's already made his decisions. This is the first test.
"Transponder checks out, it's one of the Raptors that boarded the rebel Baseship. No radiological signature. Racetrack and Skulls are on their way to intercept." Racetrack radios in: the mysterious Raptor is shot to hell, venting fuel and O2, not responding to hails. "Someone had to jump that bird," muses Saul, and Racetrack either turns into Samus or heads out for a really poorly CGI'd EVA. She gets the hatch of the mystery bird open enough to look inside: the screens are flickering and dumb, and the grav is out. Against the ceiling bobs a beautiful boy: Pike, Gonzo, the only one stupid enough to go up against Kara on Demetrius. Helmet frozen over, eyes clouded and dead. Bill is sad. Me too.
Bill investigates the Raptor closely on Galactica's deck. Tigh climbs aboard as Bill's looking at Searider Falcon, breath catching in his throat. It's burnt and crispy, but that doesn't mean it's evidence of what plainly happened, no, nothing like that, not a solitary thing could harm a hair on her head if she had any hairs on her head, she's fine. "This is the shuttle she took over to the Baseship." Saul namechecks Laird ("Hi!"), who possibly has replaced Galen as deck chief I suppose, since he outranks Figurski, and has placed the jump as originating somewhere or something. Oh, and "President" Zarek, Saul snots, is still calling -- waiting to be "briefed" on the mystery Raptor and its horrible cargo.
"Recall the CAP. Spin up the FTLs," says Bill, because secondly of all he's not talking to fucking Tom Zarek about shit, but firstly because Laura is out there and needs him. It's nothing we haven't seen him do a billion times, but here's the difference: every one of the hundred times Bill did this for Kara, it was a bad idea yes, but we also knew he was right, because we were also there with Kara. So the best thing this Laura-lacuna does is finally make Bill look actually nuts, which I quite like. I mean, it's Laura, her hot ass isn't going anywhere and we know that, but by leaving her out we're able to see just how fucked up his perspective actually is, for the first time. Usually he beats somebody up and tells us about it, but this time, he's abandoning the Fleet altogether, right before your eyes, and that is amazing all on its own. Saul asks about the Fleet -- you know, the remnants of humanity they've spent like five years protecting, even as they shed their own -- and Adama is like, "Fuck them because we out."
Romo sticks with the test: "We are essentially looking for an understudy. Quandary is, one doesn't generally get the chance to wield political power without the ambition to actively seek it."
He puts down his dufflebag, which is to say his baggage, which he's been trying to do for months; he speaks calmly, comforting Lance inside, as he's been doing for months.
"That same ambition often compromises the unselfish motives that begat the quest. In other words, a battle of id versus ego that ego rarely wins." And he's talking here not about unreconstructed Freudian "ego," that bugaboo of so many '70s self-improvement courses, but the actual Ego, the organizing and ordinating and unifying instance of personhood; the difference between humans and Cylons. For the purposes of this conversation, imagine your mind is a Raptor. You're the pilot: that's Ego. Superego is the ECO, telling you where you're supposed to be going and how to get there and don't bump into other planes. And so what Romo's talking about is: imagine that in the cargo area of this Raptor there's a crazy man or woman who looks exactly like you and wants to fuck (up) everybody between the Ego and what it really wants, which Ego can never ever admit because it runs counter to all the things the Ego thinks it is. What is the first article of faith?
(Lee's Ego, the thing that makes him Lee, is the Captain Apollo Suit. And what it's been subverting is the Id, which is ambition. Baby Zarek. And all Romo's trying to do is crack open the Apollo Suit by destroying its sine qua non at the root, so Baby Zarek can come out and play, and Lee can combine the two. Because Captain Apollo is wonderful, and deserves to be around, but if that's all you are, you're hollow. You're just the product of a distant father and a violent mother, standing in your dead brother's shadow, trying desperately to make somebody, somewhere, sometime, love you.
Meanwhile, Bill's Ego, the thing that makes him Bill, is the Unassailable Façade suit. And what it's been subverting is the Id, which is humanity. The Cabin-Builder. And all Romo's trying to do is crack open the Admiral by destroying its sine qua non at the root, so the Cabin-Builder can come out and play, and Bill can combine the two. Because Bill is wonderful, and deserves to be both, but if that's all you are, you're hollow. Admirals don't build families, fathers do. Without her, you're just the product of a Lie that never ended, trying desperately to let somebody, somewhere, sometime, love you.)
"Roslin never sought power," Lee protests, and Romo points out that she is arguably just as much a "study in repressed ambition" as Lee is: "Never seeking out a job until it's handed to you? Flight leader, Battlestar Commander, Quorum Delegate... A man doesn't carve out a path like that through life without..." Lee nips that right in the fucking bud, because he's getting to close to that thing, the cat in the box, the thing that Lee can't admit without dying. Actually dying a little, burning off everything that makes him Lee and turning into something nobody can predict.
I walked in a desert.
And I cried,
"Ah, God, take me from this place!"
A voice said, "It is no desert."
Romo stares out a porthole at Lee's other father, moving through the Fleet, slowly against the sky. "Does your father have some other place he wants to go?" Lee's confused, but they both see him jump. "Where the hell did they go? And why didn't they tell us?" Romo bites his lip and it is totally adorable.
289 heads into the detritus of a brutal war, one blinking transponder singing to the night. It's Sandman's Viper, but it's empty. Saul exposits this new, awful situation the mystery Raptor jumped from: radiation signatures from multiple nukes, Baseship fragments. Debris indicative of resurrection technology. "I'm afraid it paints a pretty clear picture," Saul begins, and Bill goes even more defiantly nuts: "They found the Hub! And they destroyed it! Looks like our pilots helped! Question is, where did they go from here?" Saul stares at him, his heart breaking and his mind blown. "Oh, Bill. You are way too close to this. The President's Baseship was destroyed."
Bill assures him, as only a crazy person could, that it is totally a different Baseship. "We'll search every square inch of this debris field until we come up with a clue." And leave the undefended Fleet with their asses hanging in the wind? Like they're doing right this damn second? "Detail four Raptors to stay behind. They keep searching until they find something concrete." Saul stares, but he's not giving an inch. "Give my order."
Detail eight young men and women, he just said, to wait in the black until the monsters come back. Let them wait in the darkness for it to swallow them up. Because I love her.
I cried, "Well, but --
The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon."
A voice said, "It is no desert."
FREE INTO THE MIGHTY SKY
Colonial One, where the Quorum has apparently been continuing their collective pants-shitting fit this whole time. A Delegate points out that Bill's little crazy stunt of disappearing has left like 39,000 people completely undefended, and once again Zarek swoops in like a caring father, shushing them, practically humming to them. "All right, everybody. Gather round please. Gather round. Please, please. I'm sorry, Admiral Adama will not be coming to answer your questions. I did learn, however, that he's contacted the Fleet's Captains, to inform them that several of their ships will be requisitioned to expand the search for Laura Roslin and the missing Baseship, while all tylium shipments will be diverted to support that mission." The Delegates freak, like he knew they would, and he feigns bureaucracy, sympathy; he stamps on the anthill with a smile on his face and a lollipop in hand. Romo and Lee bounce, because the only thing grosser than playing Twelve Angry Delegates is watching them get played.
Back in Romo's quarters, Lee suggest Captain Doyle Franks, last seen being awesome at Gaius's trial. She was the main lady, the one that's actually married to Tigh in real life. And weirdly, the Captain of the most corrupt ship in the Fleet, at one point. I guess maybe she rules because she whipped them into shape, and they no longer suck. "I was impressed by her gravitas during her attorney's judge in the Baltar trial," says Romo. Plus her vote. But Lee admits she's already been approached and has no interest in politics. What test are we on now? "Sadly, now she really impresses me." Lee still doesn't hear him, tripping over Lance's empty bowl. "Gods! You wanna feed that animal? Where is he anyway?" Right in front of you, Lee. He's looking right at you, can't you see him yet? You will.
Romo smiles down at Lance, as he's been doing for months; the world retreats.
Lee asks, muffled, if Romo won't pull it together and help him. "Who would Adama respect as President?" Romo snaps out of it and stands up with a whiteboard, setting it on the tripod, and begins to wipe the names away.
"What does this search for paragons net us, anyway? Except greater guilt at our own failings? Or worse, the idiot's solution of the clean slate." Fixed is not unbroken. "The fresh start." Sometimes it's better to stick with what you've got, he's saying. Not Captain Apollo, paragon and imaginary being: Lee Adama, man and boy, son and hero. There is no such thing as a fresh start until the moment that you are strong enough to bear it. As my friend Rachel says, and could have said about the Cylon long ago: "The ones who come back are the ones who suffer. Live as if you've never lived before." If it doesn't hurt, if it doesn't feel like dying, it's not change.
Lee can't handle it, and tries to stop him wiping away the names, the ones they haven't ruled out yet. That word "yet," he uses now. Romo smiles, as Lee starts writing the names again, begging him to hear, smiling as he doesn't, smiling because his denial, the inability of Captain Apollo to hear the words, speaks as highly of Lee as it makes him a punchline: "This one's a loser. An exercise in futility." Lee fusses over rewriting them, busily, murmuring to himself about lawyers. Romo's not talking lawyer, he's talking devil. Fuss fuss fuss. Right in the room with Romo and Lance the cat, and Lee can't hear or see either of them: Three cats in a box.
In sickbay, Bill is fussing too, grilling Cottle about how this involuntary vacation is going to affect Laura's treatment. I would say the fact that her ass got BLOWN UP speaks very highly for the treatment of her cancer, but I don't know about the concomitant symptoms.
Even Cottle's like, "Um, you mean if we assume no other changes in her circumstances?" Like how she got blowed up and you know that? Adama is fierce, and lovely: "Yes." Diloxin is an ass-kicker, so she'll actually be getting friskier for a while as the poison he's been injecting into her body slowly drains away -- and let's seriously consider what a frisky Laura Roslin is capable of doing on a Cylon Basestar, given five minutes or so, and let's maybe tremble a little bit -- but then the cancer will also get its shit together, which feels less awesome. Bill, almost in tears, asks for a hard deadline: how many hours does he have to wish her back? Cottle won't give. "Let's just say that the sooner you get her back here, the better her chances are." And while he's digesting that, Cottle also has some interesting news about some labs he just got back on Caprica Six. Bill tries desperately to give a crap about that. His body is a cat in a box but his heart is somewhere else. It calls.
If I should cast off this tattered coat,
And go free into the mighty sky;
If I should find nothing there
But a vast blue,
Echoless, ignorant --
What then?
SHOULD THE WIDE WORLD ROLL AWAY
God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.
Adama drinks a barrel of scotch while Tigh reports to him about the Raptors, which are still showing up empty-handed. Bill takes the opportunity to not talk about Laura or around Laura or do anything Laura-related for like one second so he can bring up this interesting new couple of facts that he just learned, which is that Tigh is A) fucking Caprica Six and B) has knocked her right the hell up.
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, "Comrade! Brother!"
Saul, his eye glinting about sixteen different kinds of freaked out by this conversation, protests a bunch of different ways. Bill's like, "I would be better able to understand if you were turning off the cameras and waterboarding her, but toasterfrakking is strictly for younger men."
What he means is, "I have just endangered the Fleet, four Raptors, the future of humanity, and my own dignity because I have lost all judgment, because I am in love. Because I put my heart above my duty, knowingly, and I cannot fucking wait for the opportunity to do it again, because my heart has claws and it's climbing in my chest like a cat in a box every second she is gone. What kind of a man does that, tosses the rulebook out the window, puts his family in jeopardy, for a woman? What kind of man would possibly do that? I'm the Admiral. I don't build cabins, I watch other people build cabins but I don't build cabins and I don't move into them. My lover is gone, and I never even touched her."
But that's the only secret Saul ever told her, isn't it? Whom the old man loves, besides Saul himself. "Who was interrogating whom? How many of our secrets have you told this thing?" Saul shakes, insulted, poked in the bruise: "How can you even ask me that? Question my loyalty?"
What he means is, "I would never collaborate with the enemy, not for sex and not for love. For love I killed my wife, and for nothing, I killed my wife. I cannot collaborate with the enemy because I am the enemy, and it crawls in my chest. I have a snake in my heart, and one day it will attack, and you will be left dead at my feet. It rattles all the time, singing danger, danger. Danger in the garden. My life and my pain are put aside so that I can be worthy of your shadow, and I hold my darkness and that of my brothers and sister in the balance every second of the day, because I don't know what I am. I am a cat in a box, howling all the time, and you have the balls to question my loyalty? When it's taking strips off my back every day, you question that."
But Bill Adama loves Saul Tigh, and would never question that -- that's Saul's shit, and he scoffs at it -- but one thing he will always question, in his first officer, is his judgment. "I need your competence. I'm through jeopardizing this ship, putting it at risk because of your weaknesses."
What he means is, "This is the second test. I have already made my decision. Earn it."
Saul points out that of the two old men in the room, it's Bill whose judgment is complete frakked right now. The Fleet is a cat in a box, neither alive nor dead, because Bill's off chasing a dead woman. Again. "You watch what you frakking say about that woman! She's the President, not some frakking skinjob that I've been banging. What do you think Ellen would say about this?" Dirty pool, Husker! Too nasty! "What do you think Ellen would say about her husband impregnating a frakking Cylon prisoner?" Well, needless to say, Saul punches the hell out of Bill. And technically he's right: that's exactly what Ellen would say. BAM! POW! And then they would make out. Which: stay tuned.
They fight and fight and fight, and hips get broken, and dentures go flying across the room, and somebody's sciatica does whatever those do, and oh my back and oh my old tennis injury, and then Bill launches Saul across the room with both feet, in a truly righteous manner. I mean to say he takes something he loves, and hurls it against the wall like a thrown bottle, in protest. And Saul lands, of course, right on that old model ship, which is a METAPHOR.
Then they rest, because they're old. "You know how many times I've had to repair this thing?" Every single day, for the rest of your life. He pulls it toward him, and they sit there being adorable. "What are you gonna do with that woman?" asks Bill tiredly, and Saul sighs. "What are you gonna do about Laura? ...If you ever find her?" Neither of them know. They are so, so tired and so, so awesome.
I don't want metaphors anymore. I want answers: In the brig, a family is broken. You know how many times she's had to repair this thing? With her hands, sometimes bleeding, sometimes in shackles. Athena paces her cell, alone. No love, no family. The scariest thing for a Cylon. For a human, too. She hums a lullaby to no one, weeping.
A NEW ROAD
Okay, so this seems to be something that's hard to track: Kara Thrace is not crazy. She hasn't been crazy since she died. She acted crazy when she got back, because she was right, and everybody else was being crazy assholes and not doing what she said. She acted crazy on Demetrius because she was right, and everybody else was being crazy assholes and not doing what she said. She acted slightly crazy when Natalie was giving her whole speech, but I mean, if I told you that you were the Antichrist, possibly that would freak you out a little bit.
She is currently not acting crazy because Laura is doing exactly what Kara's daemon needed her to do, which is connect the Opera House visions to the Hybrid, because this is not all that we are: Kara brought the Dying Leader a little bit of the newest golden arrow, Kara gets a cookie. There's bad crazy, which is what Kara was before she died, and there's good crazy, which is what Kara's learning to be, which is what we're all learning to be, because Seal told us long ago that we wouldn't survive otherwise. And obviously, the man who gets to go to bed each night with Heidi Klum knows something about making good choices in life, no? Anyway, the whole Uncrazy Thrace concept seems to throw people for a loop, but I mean: look at her hair. This is not the hair of a crazy person, this is the hair of a mythical lipstick lesbian perched exactly on the sweet spot of some butch/femme spectrum I imagine exists but don't actually know about for sure. Girl looks perfectly perfect.
Anyway. Adama orders the Raptors and the civilian ships he's totally commandeered to start searching, and CAG Kara is like, "Um..." He asks her if she has a fucking problem with that, and Kara points out that there are two pilots confirmed gone, and not even enough sticks to rub together to come up with a decent CAP. "Now you're asking me to send the remainder of the Raptors out on a blind search, looking for a ship that very well may have been destroyed. My people are gonna feel like they're being asked to go on suicide missions..." Adama assures her that he is not asking, and she stares. This is his truth, his true thing. His trajectory. "You're dismissed, Captain." She stands at attention long after he's gone. This is what it looked like, this right here: somebody completely convinced of their rightness, and you just have to look at them and remember that you love them, and then put them in a submarine and tell them to go be crazy somewhere else until they do whatever the daemon wants them to do.
There were many who went in huddled procession,
They knew not whither;
But, at any rate, success or calamity
Would attend all in equality.
There was one who sought a new road.
He went into direful thickets,
And ultimately he died thus, alone;
But they said he had courage.
Adama watches from Olympus as they get the birds ready on the deck, recon for a dead woman. Romo takes off his glasses on approach, and Bill asks WTF he's bugging him for: "Writs of forfeiture for the ships you're borrowing. The Captains want to be absolved of any blame should anything untoward happen." Bill takes them: this is a piece of his heart he can look at: the lives of the people on those ships, he can weigh them in his hands. Sign off on their deaths, one page at a time. Civilians: his people. "One of the less ennobling consequences of a legal culture -- no one wants responsibility," Romo patters, handing Bill a pen. "Lee said you once gave him something before a mission. A lighter, was it?" (I so wanted Romo to produce the lighter at this point and be like, "Was it this lighter right here? I am incorrigible!") Adama, signing: "It belonged to my father. Foolish to think a hunk of metal could keep him safe."
"And yet that's what we do, isn't it? Hang on to hope, in every hopelessly irrational way that we can. But not like those poor bastards, giving away their luck, just when they need it most." The crew, pilots, ECOs on the deck: laughing, embracing. "It's like they've given up." Adama tells Romo, as a non-combatant, that he knows less than total jack about it. "I always imagined you a realist, Admiral. Not one to indulge a vain hope at the cost of lives." Really? Because maybe you should rethink your instincts about people. Especially today.
Except not: Romo doesn't tell the truth, he tells the lie that tells the truth. He takes off his glasses and he lies right to your face. Not the pretty picture but the cracks in the canvas; Bill is a cat in a box. Talk to the Admiral, dazzle him with something shiny in your hand, talk about his son, about his imperative, so the Cabin-Builder can show his face. And then strike: "But then, everyone has his limits. Sine qua non, as they say." Adama ignores him studiously: "Without which not," he grunts. His father's language, paterlingua, lawyer talk. Logos. Romo nods. "Yes. Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life in general loses its specific value. Becomes abstract."
They look down, at two pilots in love, embracing for what could be the last time. They look like young Husker and Jaycie. And he's putting them on the altar. Their thing without which is each other, and he's killing them both. Because he's in love.
"You may have a point, counselor." Romo nods, and ups the ante: "Tom Zarek may not be an ideal President, but we could do worse." Adama assures him that Tom Frakking Zarek is the proof that Adama's realism has limits. The point at which he calls Tom Zarek President, or treats him as such, or thinks of him as such, or sees his face, or hears his voice, she dies.
Bill watches the kids suit up, and passes the last test, and calls Lee to his quarters. There comes a point at which Mommy and Daddy go away and leave you to clean up the pieces; Joyce will always die and Giles will always take off for England. It's part of the story too, and it has to happen. Lee is wearing a simultaneously hilarious and violently hot red disco shirt, with hilarious moussed-up grownup Man Hair. I don't know whether to kiss him on the cheek for being adorable, or hold a gun to his head. Or reach out and hold him, for what's about to happen. Luckily, I do not have to make that decision. Lee listens to the following, which is bit like a kiss and a gun to the head at once, and slowly shades from worry, to sadness, to fear, to stark raving terror.
"I can't give up on her. I can't let her go. I've lost my objectivity. And now that I see that, I have no choice. Tell the Quorum that I am relinquishing command, effective immediately."
Bill doesn't look away.
THE GREAT SIMPLICITY
Romo stands alone in his box of a room, talking to himself, as he has for months; Romo stands alone in his box of a room, talking to Lance. As he has for months.
"No man is perfect. No man is less perfect than a candidate for high office. Thus," he says, wiping the names away again, "The ranks of likely suspects is winnowed to none."
Lance meows softly, stretching against the dufflebag.
"What if we're going about this backwards, hey Lance? What if instead of picking names and finding fault, we ask ourselves the qualities that we want -- No, that we need -- in a chief executive, see if it fits that bill. Honesty, of course. The wisdom to recognize the correct if unpopular choice, as well as the courage to see it through. Experience. When the wrong choices cost lives and the right ones save. Tall order."
And an obvious one. But like Lee's lovely speech in "Crossroads," it has to play out no matter how obvious it is. "We might as well just spell out one name..." He hisses like a cat in a box, and grins like a shark. "Just one. One we knew from the start."
Romo digs around under his bed, looking for something, and talks to a cat that isn't there. As he has, for months.
"Sometimes you take on a losing case, and you make yourself a believer. Other times, no matter what you tell yourself, in your heart you know the outcome is fixed. The verdict inevitable. Lance? Defense rests." He picks up the dufflebag immediately, having found what he was looking for. Without sparing a second to put the cat inside, because he's already there. "Come on." And if I have to tell you what's on the board as he leaves, you haven't been paying attention.
Romo bumps past Lee in the corridor and apologizes, then turns so that he's between Lee and Adama's quarters. "We found our candidate. Someone the Quorum won't hesitate to approve, even over Zarek's objections. Someone the Admiral can't help but accept." Lee's all wide-eyed innocence as Romo congratulates him, and his smile falls as the Suit takes over: "My name was never on that list..."
"Of course not! That would be too blatant. But it is everything you always wanted, isn't it? Why you had me cross forty-seven names off that list? Come on, admit it. Savor your victory, Mr. Adama." And out comes the gun. "Because you'll never get the chance to serve."
You know what has never happened in the history of the world? In real life or in stories? This is a very interesting fact. Nobody, in the history of the world in real life or in stories, has ever done anything for No Reason. Imagine! There's always a reason for things. It's very scary to live in a world where everything's accountable, but that's where we live. Those reasons can be obscure, or poorly explained, or poorly imagined in the first place, and maybe in another story that wasn't awesome, one of those latter two would be true. Or, and I do think this is the case, the reasons that this is happening, which seem pretty transparent at this juncture, actually require some effort to understand. Just a thought. On the other hand, some great big jiggling scary hard fake circus tits always seemed to cut the bullshit on The Sopranos, so maybe that's what's required here. Maybe some hot chicks would make it seem more like fun, and less like work. Or we could always just genocide the Cylons and finish this story right, I don't know. I don't throw away my toys when I have the option of figuring out how they work, and I don't believe things happen for no reason, and neither does Lee Adama.
"Why? Because you're perfect for the job, of course. Because after the vicious aberration that was Baltar's presidency, and the bitter disappointment that was Roslin's, you are a shining beacon of hope." True enough. "Only hope is the last thing we need. We're a doomed race, and it's time that we made our peace with that essential truth." Lee smiles sweetly, scared now: "Romo, what the hell are you talking about?"
What he's talking about is Lee's well-documented suicidal ideation, his inability to breathe, his Captain Apollo need to believe that just because nothing happens for no reason, it follows that everything must happen for a reason. He's talking about putting on the mask of death and asking Lee to look him in the eye; he's giving voice to the secret fear in the back of Laura's head every second of every day. He's asking if we're worthy of survival, in the form of an essay question. "Yes" is an easy answer. "Why" is much harder.
The President of the Twelve Colonies stands between her people and anarchy, and makes awful scary choices every single day, and nobody makes more sense than Laura Roslin. But what nobody really talks about is that the President of the Twelve Colonies also stands between her people and darkness. Every second of the day and all through the night, like a mother bear, growling, snapping, hissing, bleeding for them. Shouting into the darkness, and shining in it. She writes the names of the dead on her heart, scratches them into her skin like a razor. And she does this because at the end of the journey, they're going to open that box, and the Fleet will either be dead or it will be alive, and if it survives it must be worthy of survival. She is Athena, all the time: the Goddess, and the regular one too. Mama Bear. Romo knows that ambition is the territory of fools and innocents: once you attain power, it doesn't feel good. It feels like staring into the mask of death, every single second of the day and all through the night. Romo knows. And what gives Romo the right, or the inclination, or the motivation, to put on that black shroud?
"Why? You wanna know why?" He grins like a deaths-head, and kicks the dufflebag across. Lee opens it up, and chokes on the fetid stink that rises. He looks at Romo, his heart breaking. This is a test, too: the President looks into the stinking mess and madness of humanity, and loves it anyway, as fiercely as a beast. You pick your side, and you stick with it, because they are your people.
"That's right. They killed my cat!" They? "They! Those debased dregs of humanity out there! That lost tribe in search of a new home, so they can roost and rot again!"
You either love them, he's saying, or you don't, but if you love them you love all of them, because you're the man that stands in the dark. But Lee already loves them, he gets that part: Forgiven. There's a whole forest of crazy out there, people climbing the walls, moms disappearing and dads disappearing, the Fleet all alone in the night: they're everywhere. But right here, right in front of him in his little shirt and his hair: there's a tree, a man whose pain is very real. The singular entity that is Romo Lampkin, who is in trouble.
It's the thing that his Dad can't seem to do, always lurching from the Admiral to the proud Papa and back again, letting Galen and Cally go to New Caprica, beating the shit out of Galen a year later. It's the thing Laura can't do, always finding new ways to rub off her edges and get stronger, faster, sharper, more ruthless. Cut down more trees to save the forest. But what if he could do it? He's been military and he's been a politico. He's walked in civvies and in uniform, he's committed sedition and treason and led the Air Group, he's jumped back and forth across that line more than once. I'm not saying he's there yet, but isn't the proper story for Leland Joseph Adama that he manages to take the best of them both? Ah, shit. Who knows? I love him, you can't trust me at all.
"Romo," he says, worried and choking, "How long has the cat been dead?" Romo starts to shout. "It's irrelevant! It's immaterial, since it wasn't even my cat!" Lee looks him in the eye. "Romo. It's been dead for weeks." And he went into that little box, with the tiny square window, and he didn't come out.
"It belonged to my wife. I'd just retrieved it from a vet on Geminon when the bombs started to fall, and fate presented me with a choice. I could get back on that shuttle, or I could run home and try to save my family. How do you think I chose?"
Romo chose safety, the day of the Exodus. And as long as Lance lived, he was penance and he was guilt and he was shame and he was survival. He was wife and daughters, and he was Geminon and Caprica and Tauron and Aerelon. He was that which remains; he was that without which. And then he was gone, and Romo crawled into a dark place and couldn't come out for anything but Lee.
"Romo. We've all had to make difficult choices, you don't think I know? Your wife's name was Faye. You had two daughters, Jennifer and Katie. There were over two hundred passengers on that shuttle; only a handful chose to stay behind." Romo looks at him. "Yeah, that's right. It was in your file when you were handed the job as Baltar's counsel. But no one blamed you, Romo." Romo can't swallow that. Nobody wants the embarrassment of absolution. Romo doesn't know, can't believe, that young green Lee Adama wrote the Olympic Carrier on his heart the same day Laura did: "Because at a certain point, we all made decisions that saved our lives at the cost of others. You think you're unique, Romo? Think your sins are so special?"
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."
"Is that it, counselor? You're gonna rest your entire case on that pathetic little bit of insight?" Romo's barely there; his Suit's ripped open and his shame is showing. The box is open: alive or dead?
"No, on this. The clean slate, the fresh start. Maybe they are illusions, like you said. But at a certain point, faith -- in ourselves, in our right to survive as a species, as a people -- that's not a given, that's a choice. Well, I've made mine. And if you can't stomach that, then you had damn well better squeeze that trigger right now. Go on. What are you waiting for?"
If forgiveness is too heavy a burden, if hope is your enemy, then I am your enemy. Shoot your enemy.
Lee cocks his head and makes a very cute face. "Or you can make a choice. Put your past behind you, put the gun down and help me, because I'm telling you I'm gonna make a difference in this Fleet."
"Is that your final word?" Because he passed the test, he lives. "That's up to you," says Lee, still in crisis mode, but the crisis is over. The box is open. Just walk out, into the light. "Then swear it."
Enjambment: "I, Leland Joseph Adama, do now avow and affirm..." ...That I take the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol without any moral reservation or mental evasion. Romo takes a drink, in his little box, and listens intently. "...That I take the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol without any moral reservation or mental evasion."
There's no pride, in his face. No love. Nothing but Romo Lampkin, in a box like a cat, thinking Romo Lampkin thoughts. The floor is empty; Lance is gone now. Romo is alone. Because somehow, he's so manipulative he just managed to Romo Lampkin himself: not the pretty picture, not the jaded mercenary who always takes a fee and believes only the worst of humanity. Not the Romo Suit. But what's underneath it, nobody knows yet. But I'll tell you this: if God loves even Gaius Baltar, you know He gets an almighty kick out of Romo.
THOUGHT OF LOVE & PLACE TO DREAM
Enjambment, perhaps, with Lee's oath still ringing in our ears: "This is a frakking joke." Bill shakes his head at Saul: "You're the only man I can trust to command this ship." Saul reminds him of the last time he played shofet, when the Gideon ran with blood. "Maybe you're crazy enough to pull a stunt like this, but you can't be crazy enough to leave me in charge." But Bill knows better: he's always seen Saul more clearly than Saul does. Particularly the parts that shine. "That was a long time ago. You're not the same man you were. You're not even the same man that came back from New Caprica. You've found out a lot about yourself --" Saul rolls his eye, predictably, like a horse on methamphetamines "-- Been tested in ways I can barely begin to imagine. You're ready." He takes off his Admirals wings; holds them in his hand. "Besides, don't count on this being permanent." Tigh, to his credit, keeps his voice from cracking: "What if it is."
"Put these on," Bill says. He's calmer and softer than he's ever been. His heart is somewhere out there, calling; it's getting closer. "Then you lead the people to Earth, the best way you can. The Fleet has stayed here too long already."
Aye; but, beloved,
When I strive to come to you,
Man's opinions, a thousand thickets,
My interwoven existence,
My life,
Caught in the stubble of the world
Like a tender veil --
This stays me.
No strange move can I make
Without noise of tearing
I dare not.
If love loves,
There is no world
Nor word.
All is lost
Save thought of love
And place to dream.
"Any other last orders?" asks Tigh, who has begun to pace. "Just one. Give Athena back her daughter. She needs her family." And you know? I don't think the model ship will be back. I think building that thing was just practice, for what he has to do now. "We all need our family. Take care of this one."
They almost make it. They almost get through this, arguably the largest thing that has ever happened to them in their lives (maybe Tigh slightly less so), happening in this room, all around them. They almost man up and get out from under it in time. But we know them better than that. Saul nods, slowly and quietly. Bill puts his hand lightly on his greatest friend's shoulder, and for a moment they look at each other, as if memorizing the moment and their faces. And then like a wave, it breaks, and Bill gathers him in, roughly. Saul shudders, and nearly weeps, and too quickly, it's done. He leaves, wings in hand, and Bill takes all that courage and faith and holds them tight, alone.
AT IMPOSSIBLE DISTANCES
President Adama signs off on something, and Tory Foster gathers the pieces of paper and leaves as Romo's entering. He points to the dog on the couch and cocks an eyebrow at Lee: "One day in office, and you've already got a First Pet?" Lee smiles. "Jake here's a genuine hero of the Resistance, aren't you, Jake? Unfortunately, his owners had to let him go." Jake looks at Lee lovingly. "Jake, meet Romo. Romo, meet Jake." He tosses a ball across the distance between them; Romo catches it easily. "Your new best friend."
There's a funny little humor in Romo's voice and carriage: it's like he's a man, a person all of a sudden. There was so much to burn off! "If there's one thing I hate more than cats, it's dogs." Lee's pleased. He'll never take anything Romo says at face value again, he finally learned that lesson too. "See? A new pet for you to loathe. I knew it would be the perfect gift!" He grins goofily and leaves, wishing Jake luck. Romo rolls his eyes, almost giggling with pleasure. Somebody loves him, and for once it's not about proving some other point: it's Romo qua Romo. Lee tends the trees and the forest together, and the first one he planted will always be Romo Lampkin, whom somebody loves.
...When I had before me the summit-view,
It seemed that my labour
Had been to see gardens
Lying at impossible distances.
Adama chats easily with Lee as he packs. "I hear you're keeping Zarek as Vice President?" Lee admits it, but says he wants the advice, and something interesting: "And as long as he knows he's heard, I think I can trust him." Which is not only hopefully true and his Maier days are far behind him, but more than anything it reminds me of Roslin tossing Galen a dog biscuit for Danny Noon. "Oh, yeah. Your opinions matter. Now stop bugging me."
Adama and Lee agree that, now that that they are both men, the stupid things that they do are up for discussion and critique, but won't be changed. Lee is dumb for not killing Zarek or whatever, and Bill is dumb for doing what he's about to do. Which is so awesome I might die. "The only difference is, you're gonna be President. I'm just getting in a plane." Lee clarifies this characteristic understatement: "Waiting alone in a Raptor, while the rest of the Fleet jumps away, that's not just getting in a plane. That... That sounds a lot like... Well, that sounds a lot like suicide, Dad." Lee would know, once upon a time. "At least this time I'm only risking my own neck," Bill says, and smiles. Hard to argue that one.
Lee's voice starts cracking all over, like it does: "So I guess it won't matter if, as President, I order you not to do this?" He's so pitch-perfect, I love that. He really has no idea what parts of him are ridiculous and which are legit. I love that guy. This too:
"I don't know if I ever told you this, but one of my first missions was a solo recon. Being alone in a Raptor in enemy space... I'm not going to lie to you, I was scared. I told myself that I was doing my duty, and ultimately I faced my fear. That's a good memory."
Lee asks why he's doing this, and his father's answer is very shocking, and very honest, and very beautiful, and very not a metaphor, and very about goddamn time.
"Because I can't live without her."
He grins, bright as five stars, and Lee cries. You can't ever see your father, I mean really see him, until you're a man yourself. Ergo, Bill couldn't do this, admit this to Lee or take off on this crazy-ass Starbuckian quest, until Lee became a man. Which is what just happened. This is how the dove takes flight.
"And Laura is gonna get to the rendezvous point. I have to believe that."
GOLDEN DAYS & SILVER NIGHTS
Bill "Husker" Adama boards the Hangar Deck in uniform, and looking quite spiffy. The usual tons of salutes attend him. At the wing of the Raptor stand the Twins, looking like respectable adults. Kara's still rocking her uniform, and Lee's in a nice suit. They salute him as one. If Bill looks at Lee, they'll both collapse, so he looks at Kara instead.
"What do you hear, Starbuck?" Nothing but the rain. "Grab your gun and bring the cat in." Boom boom boom. She grins at him, the fear pushed far enough back that it won't bother him, but it's there. "Keep a light on, I'll be back." She knows. She already did this part.
Husker boards the Raptor and takes his gear. The Twins watch the hatch closed, impressed, and when it's done they look at each other, terrified.
Athena paces with Hera in her arms, humming the song to her. Sitting, humming. I mean to say that Bill and Saul took something broken, and put it back together.
The Raptor takes off and Bill puts on his headset. "Galactica, this is Husker. I'm in position."
Tigh, shivering on CIC, acknowledges, and then calls the jump.
Bill watches the Fleet vanish, one ship at a time, like the stars going out. One by one, his people, his family and his friends and his whole world, vanish in the black. For a moment they are everywhere and nowhere at once, and Galactica's the last to go, shining like a diamond, and then he is alone. He puts on his glasses, deliberately, and picks up the burnt Searider Falcon: a piece of her, until she comes back to him. He begins to read. All around him is just darkness, and stars like jewels, and hope.
Places among the stars,
Soft gardens near the sun,
Keep your distant beauty;
Shed no beams upon my weak heart.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Not your golden days
Nor your silver nights
Can call me to you.
Since she is here
In a place of blackness,
Here I stay and wait.
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