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Well, it all goes the hell down. We've been waiting sixty-seven episodes for everybody to crazy at once, and it finally happened. Felix uses his remarkable reach to get Zarek out of the brig and back onto Colonial One with everybody thinking it's a political coup and not an actual one. Laird is killed in the process, and we learn that Racetrack and the possibly late Skulls have joined the mutiny. That's when everything starts.
The mutineers still don't have much of a point, but they sure are full of all the best, most untrashy characters, such as the Circle's Connor, and the rapists from Pegasus. Birds of a lovely feather for our friend Felix. And don't forget the always-classy Seelix, who continues her reign as Cally 2.0 by selling Sam into the hands of the rebellionistas because he won't smooch her.
Because this entire thing is based on racism, ignorance and fear, the Cylons are rounded up and brigged immediately. Sam, Caprica, and the Agathons are still in the brig for the time being, with that creepy Pegasus frat boy rape guy promising Athena a repeat performance just as soon as everything is as crappy and stupid as possible. Even Athena is getting tired of Caprica's constant religious shit, which is pretty hilarious.
Meanwhile, Lee gets played for a total fool by Zarek, but once the actual shit hits the fan, he and Kara slip right back into the old Twins routine and work their way through the ship. There are smooches, because Kara is finally out of that funk you often fall into when you find your corpse on a burnt-out alien planet and it's too weird to tell anybody about, and wants to have some fun. Of course, Felix's acting-out couldn't be happening at a better time for her, but Lee has some mixed feeling about it. He manages to express DEMAND HATE's point better than any of them ever could, but nobody's there to hear it.
Laura heads over to the Cult of Gaius Baltar, where she gets major attitude before she and Gaius have yet another of those heart-to-hearts they're so fond of. He lets her use her wireless to make a pretty good speech, but eventually Team Zarek cuts the sound off. So she heads to Chief's rendezvous point to make sure Bill's okay, and gets Gaius to call Felix and work some of that Baltar magic. Felix makes a hilarious "my ex won't stop calling me" face, and though Gaius gets some traction, he manages to mention just the wrong shit, and Gaeta ends the episode ordering alert Vipers to blow up Gaius and the President both.
Saul and Bill, after CIC is blown to hell, take out an entire fucking squad of Mutiny Marines using their Grumpy Old Man powers. They make sure Galen, the Twins, and the Prophets get onboard a Raptor and head for the Basestar. That's right, the senior staff will be fighting the mutinying Fleet from a Cylon ship, because this show is awesome. Meanwhile, Bill and Saul say goodnight Gracie and get blown to hell in a final blaze of glory.
See our list of the most frakked up moments on this show... though clearly, we're gonna need to add to it from tonight's episode. Phew. Check back week for Jacob's full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!0620: Adama offers Tigh some coffee but he's not interested because it tastes like algae. They talk about how three more civilian captains have refused the Cylon upgrades, and it's a telling response indeed when Bill goes, "Didn't we already worry about this?" Tigh points out that just because Adama doesn't feel like dealing with it doesn't mean it's going away, but Bill is so not feeling that concept lately. Even the Hitei Kan is still acting uppity, "screaming bloody murder to anyone who'll listen, claiming they're being illegally seized by our Marines." And Bill is like, "Ugh. Well, go tell my son to tell the democratic government of our society that I will put them in jail if they don't start doing what our military dictatorship says."
Tigh's like, "You know how much I love a coup in the morning, especially now that Roslin's completely abdicated and will do whatever you tell her, but did you know I'm a Cylon? Which is sort of a crux among cruxes here?" Laura swans into the room in her bathrobe and delights in Tigh's wide-eyed shock that she's been spending the night there since, what, like New Caprica? He immediately runs off to his Roslin/Adama shipper board to squee that it's canon, or whatever, I don't really know what those words mean, but I understand that giggling about sex is a big part of it. Bill gets kind of annoyed at Tigh even bringing up how he's a killer robot in public now, and sends Tigh off to suspend habeus corpus or whatever. Laura thinks about speaking up, but realizes there are limits to even her hypocrisy, and shuts it down.
0632: Felix visits the VP in his cell with a contingent of rebel Marines, and escorts him from the brig. What's going on here is that because Felix is the Galactica's entire nervous system, he can do all kinds of House shit to her, like make her think there are fires happening that aren't, or selectively turning her blind. So he can tell anybody that asks that Adama ordered Zarek's release, up to and including Lee and the Quorum itself, because the only person that could disprove that is Adama himself, and he could give a fuck about anything right now. Which is one of the nicest ironies about Felix's nasty little mutiny: the way Roslin and Adama's West Wing elitism and voluntary blindness to the needs and desires of their people is exactly the blind spot getting exploited. If all you see is the forest, you'll never notice the creatures in the trees, the moss on the north sides, the giant spiders, the rot and disease spreading. It even serves a narrative function for us, because we've stayed up at the top of the tower with them the whole time: for this story to make sense, we have to come down and look at it from the perspective of a nation that's been lied to and controlled at gunpoint since the attacks eight -- er, I mean four -- years ago.
Sergeant of the Guard, young Nowart, is among the revolutionistas. Felix's former judge/jury/executioner, Charlie Connor -- seen most recently slitting Gaius's throat and getting the bejesus walloped out of him by Paulla -- is, as usual, up for anything as long as it's trashy and vengeful. He's providing the weapons for their well-armed militia. Steel-jawed pilot Narcho and Private Paley are also in, using their positions and uniforms to terrorize people into senseless evacuations, back and forth, back and forth. Felix scratches at his stump: the phantom ache of something that's not even there anymore. He can't help himself.
Much like Bill, Zarek knows his chief problem is the Quorum. Felix is correct that all Zarek has to do is isolate them from the rest of the Fleet and remove them from power, and Zarek spins it back right: "They'll huff and puff, but reality will trump their sense of duty soon enough." Right, because a "sense of duty" is the last thing you need at the end of the world. Especially when the only "reality" Zarek knows is bringing down the world and hoping he can build something better in its place. So much planning, and I haven't heard the slightest excuse for what happens . Après le deluge... what, exactly? Kill all the Cylons in the Fleet, all the Roslins and Adamas and... what?
The reason that all revolutions turn to the right is that the only people selfish enough to agitate violence toward any kind of praxis or new paradigms are the same people who are too short-sighted to put something better in place, or else they would realize it's possible to do so without all this drama in the first place. One big day of damage is never as good as the hundred or thousand days before it that you could have used to work toward a better world.
Also of note: has there been a season in which Tom Zarek didn't attempt to kill Lee and Bill Adama, for little to no reason? Even before Lee was a proper human being, even when he was just the CAG, Zarek was all about killing him. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Doesn't it seem questionable that Zarek was fine with him right up until the point that he started questioning Zarek's bullshit agitation, and suddenly the Adamas were evil again? Could history ever really have respected Robespierre? Felix sends Tom off to fuck with Lee and freak him out, and Tom nods like he's following orders, like any of this is Felix's idea.
"The Colonel's right," Laura says tentatively, over their coffee. "The Fleet has never been comfortable with this blanket Cylon amnesty." Bill, uninterested in talking about it, happy in the cabin, doesn't even answer her properly. "Siccing Lee on the Quorum is only gonna be seen as a shot across the bow. He can hedge it all he wants, but the delegates will see it comes straight from you." Bill promises her that Lee can handle it, because he doesn't know something woke up ten minutes ago that's coming for all of them.
Laura remembers to back off, like she promised herself. Bill looks at her, finally, but doesn't speak. She nearly laughs at him. "Yeah, the legendary Adama silence. I can see right through it. This passive-aggressive pretense that you are okay if I don't get involved." He grins and says he doesn't "do passive-aggressive," which is one of the funnier lines ever uttered on this show, and she calls him out for it: "Yes you do, you just don't know that's what it is." He laughs and tells her to get some rest, and they playact at domesticity, sweetly but with a little too much irony for it to be completely sweet. She says she'll have supper waiting, and they grin. As he's heading out the hatch, she shouts in spite of herself: "Cantrell's the key. Tell Lee. If he can get to Cantr..." Bill turns and looks at her, silent again. "I'm not..." she protests, and he smiles and leaves.
Why would it be Jacob? Sagittaron has the whole weird oppressed/pacifist thing happening, so I guess that makes sense. I don't imagine Sagittaron -- especially on the record -- can really spare Zarek much consideration, given his history. I'm not sure where Cantrell came from, or what sort of family, but considering Zarek was in jail for the cold-blooded murder of political figures before the first Exodus, it could turn out to be personal. That's interesting. I would have said one of the more affluent Colonies, besides Caprica I mean. Obviously xenophobic Aerilon's out, and Tauron was born for this; the only thing the Geminese hate more than civil liberties is Big Gubmit, so of course they're going to jump on the false Hobson's Choice Tom's given them as far as individual ships having individual federal rights, blah blah.
I don't know much about anybody else. Picon or Virgon, I'd think. But Sagittaron's apolitical stance, and constant worry about getting their due, tagging along behind the Fleet's opinion and begging for protection all the time, I can see them knuckling under the Cylon orders no problem. The last thing a tiny, underrepresented Colony like that wants is yet more splintering. Cantrell just wants some food and, like, herbs and spices. Of course, I also think the Quorum itself should have been disbanded years ago, and the ships should be representing themselves in a new republic, but that seems to be what Zarek's going for, so we'll see. When you're sharing all the same resources and getting assigned to other ships based on what you did for your summer vacation, reinforcing those outdated stereotypes and intercolonial hatreds seems really stupid. I mean, in Bill's lifetime these twelve countries were at war. The Articles of Confederation were written during the first Cylon war, and they always forget that. No wonder all they understand is hate and fear.
Racetrack clears the hangar deck by manufacturing a fictional fuel leak, and only Baltarite Jeanne sticks around long enough to see what happens : Felix and Tom, attempting to commandeer a Raptor to get Tom to Colonial One. The LSO -- maybe the Mad Bomber What Bombs At Midnight Aaron Kelly? -- is also with the mutiny, leaving only poor old fucking Chief Laird, who watched Kendra Shaw and her buddies shoot down a room full of people and still wouldn't back down, to ask for some paperwork or confirmation that the known terrorist and murderer who just engineered civil war aboard the most precious ship in the Fleet, apparently just for fucking giggles, is now supposed to get the red carpet treatment right back to the center of Colonial government.
Felix tries to snow Laird, because Felix has no idea what it was like under Cain and doesn't know that she didn't even allow them to sit in chairs, much less let huge fucking implausible things slide. Laird asks for proof of this stupid order about eleven times, and finally goes to ask CIC directly, so Zarek kills him with a giant wrench. Felix is shocked and feels for a pulse, while Skulls finally develops a personality. A shitty one! "Well, good riddance. Frakker's been up Adama's ass since he transferred in from Pegasus." Which isn't really a diss on Laird -- because that's gratitude, for not killing him or taking his stuff or shooting his kids some more, that would cause him to be up that particular ass -- but yet more hatred for Adama himself.
The greatest thing about DEMAND HATE is that it replaces the Cylon -- who have helped keep humanity alive simply by existing and being terrible, who have forced them to cooperate for the last four years, who leave for five minutes and the Fleet goes to shit every time -- with the idea of the Cylon. A thing that not even the Cylons can wrap their heads around anymore. A thing that means nothing at this point, and turns the very idea of humanity's predators into a political football for the destruction that Zarek's creating in his own honor.
I do think that a people, a nation, expresses its collective trauma in shockingly gross ways -- I'm not looking forward, for example, to looking my kids in the eye and admitting that we hung Saddam -- and that's all very interesting and it's what we're seeing here. It doesn't really matter what they're rebelling against, because really what they're rebelling against is the complete death of hope that Earth's shittiness represents. And of course that's going to express itself this way: in pointless, self-destructive acts of hatred that do nothing and create nothing and only diminish us further. And of course if it weren't Felix and Tom, it would be somebody else. (It would probably still be Tom, though.)
But here's my thing: why not try? Why not take the high road and consider your move? I'm not interested in excuses: these are grown-ass fucking people, mob rule or no. FRAK EARTH or not. Just because it makes sense doesn't make it okay. A serial killer who got beat as a kid is still a serial killer. It comes back down to that relative morality clause that says because somebody slapped you, you're entitled to slap somebody else: that your victimhood is a virtue that excuses you from basic standards of behavior. And that's absolutely the trashiest thing I can think of. We are capable of better than that, at the very least. On the other hand, this really should have happened four years ago, and the only reason it didn't is because Roslin and Adama straight-up lied to everybody that there was something better.
So it's this like coalition of the unwilling and ignorant, people who have literally tried to kill each other in past coups, the Circle and the Pegasus and people who hated the trash from the Pegasus and the people who nearly got killed by the Circle, people who have tried to kill Gaius and people who have tried to fuck Gaius and people who both, all working together in this ... Beautiful white trash symphony of hate. You know who would have loved this more than even Seelix and Connor do? She died too soon, man. She could be the Madelyn Pryor Goblyn Queen of this bullshit.
Felix flips out about this first murder, and Jeanne runs off to tell Chief and Gaius what's going on, and Zarek just smirks at Felix about how this is just the first of many eggs that will get broken before they come to their senses, and Felix doesn't want to hear it, and just keeps yelling at Zarek to get on the Raptor they just bought with Laird's blood. "Success doesn't hinge on some grand operatic ideal or the will of the people," Zarek offers meaninglessly. "It hangs in the cumulative moments, each one building on the , and it could be lost with the slightest hesitation." Felix is like, "I am aware of that. My intention is to die, and bring the entire world down with me, because I am a miserable little shit. Now go subvert the civilian government so I can continue to pretend I have any idea what's going on."
0704, heading into CIC. 39,643 souls in Fleet, now minus one Deck Chief, who made it past the enemy line and survived Shaw's initiation as a Razor and tried to pull his life back together, and got punished with murder for doing his job. Tigh and Adama go about their morning business, confirming that the CAP is out and there's no sign of Cavil's forces. More's the pity, because Cavil is exactly what these fuckers need right now. Felix takes his station on the bridge, and they discuss how Lee's hopefully going to talk the Quorum into acting human for once.
Hoshi calls Felix up, across the bridge, and mentions a random unlisted launch; Felix blames Laird and stalls a bit longer; Tigh talks about how Nowart is getting his Marines together, they think, to pull rank on more of the rebelling ships. Adama points out that the Hitei Kan was a regrettable one-time thing, because if they keep killing everybody every time, they won't have any ships to install the FTL upgrades into anyway; Hoshi's still worrying about the Raptor, so Felix talks circles around Tigh and gets everybody to think that it's a problem with the dradis itself. "Four years without a pit stop," he crusts, "Equipment's sketchy as hell." He gaetas for a full diagnostic, and Felix pretends to push buttons and get that started for him.
0741 on Colonial One, where the Quorum is freaking out as usual. Lee calls them to order, as ad hoc Chair: "I remind you once again that Mr. Zarek was taken into custody because he was agitating against a lawful order. Now, these Cylon FTL drives are essential if the Fleet is going to move on..." Zarek walks in, smiling warmly, and they all snap awake. He smarms at Lee about how Adama had to let him go, because "even [Adama] knows when he's holding a losing hand." The Quorum is happy, because brojobs are Zarek's specialty and they all think they're his special girl, and he takes the gavel back from Lee. The walk back to his seat as the Caprica rep is awkward, and long, and very quiet.
Sam plays the kind of lonely solo Pyramid you only really enjoy when your ex-wife is going loony once again. Seelix stands behind him in the doorway for awhile before chuckling to herself, and he nods. "Yeah, I used to be pretty good at this game... Making the shot. Winning the big game. Can't believe that used to matter to me." Seelix muses about how far away and long ago the Colonies seem now, but really she's talking about how hard she tried to find something to replace it: Sam, drinking, moving from knuckledragger to New Caprica terrorist to Viper nugget to pilot, and all the different hairstyles along the way. She's always been pretty; today she is beautiful. She finally comes around in front, getting weird and girlfriend-crazy.
"I really thought there was something between us, you know? And when that didn't happen, I wondered: was it me?" Sam swears it wasn't, calls her Diana, but he doesn't recognize this look in her eye like we do. "Now I'm thinking, no. Maybe it was something else. Some Cylon thing. Your programming." He shakes his head sadly, because OMG they are just not going to let this go, how he's a robot. And again: this needed to happen. It's kind of unbelievable that Tigh would stay XO, and Sam's presumably still a pilot, and Tory's off with the Basestar, possibly Chief too when he's not hanging out with Gaius. But Sam's got no protection at all. He stares sadly at her as the hostility comes up, and up. "Gods, I know it's been months, but I just can't let it go..." Connor's boys grab him, and bag his head. She stares down, and away; she enjoys it. One of the guys goes to town on him, on the floor, kicking and punching until he's almost unconscious. One of the others tells him to save it; they've been promised more vengeance than this.
Adama's giving Private Jaffe some files when the alarms go off: a fake fire warning on Deck C, near the main antenna array. Felix orders a diagnostic there too, and after a fake moment to think, calls out: "Admiral, if the wireless array goes down, we could lose communications across the Fleet. Given our current situation, I'm thinking this fire might not be an accident." Smart, very smart. Tigh jumps right in line: "Zarek's true believers would have a field day if we went dark." Adama gaetas the Marine fire unit along with the damage control party, and evacuates C Deck. Just like Gaeta wanted.
0812, on C Deck, Hotdog's shoving a thousand toys into his rucksack, for his new son Nicky. Kara's enjoying the hilarity of "proud papa" Brendan Constanza, but wisely stays away from the most uproarious part, that it was Cally he knocked up. When Hotdog's had enough, he goes to the "On the other hand you're a childless whore who's frakked the entire Fleet" place, which stings just enough that she throws her morning slop at him across the table. Feelings hurt, he takes off down the corridor just as the evacuation warnings come across the PA. Out in the corridor, she tries to find out what's going on from Narcho, wondering why he's in charge and not a Marine. He shrugs her off, way rudely, and gets all xenophobe about how nobody even knows what she is anymore. He stomps off, and she just stares because he has no idea.
Skulking and trying to figure out what smells weird, Kara comes up on Connor celebrating the second amendment with his Marine pals and giving them orders to blame the Admiral if anybody questions them. She goes back to her own locker, which is just as full of guns and ammo, of course, and loads up. Basically now they are even. She calls in to CIC, and Felix answers the phone and totally whitewashes her. "Godsdamn it, we've got civilians arming themselves down here!" He hangs up lightly, and looks around himself like he still can't quite believe we all got out of bed this morning.
Lee, of course, has just gotten out of the Quorum meeting and also calls CIC, only to get another line of static from Felix. "I'm sorry, Lee, we're having a bit of an emergency right now... Nothing damage control can't handle, but you know the Admiral." Lee's like, yeah, until ten minutes ago when he sent me the flaming bag of dogshit that is Tom Zarek. Felix is like, "Whaaaaat?" and Lee whines for awhile before finally giving Felix a reason to hang up on him.
Zarek enters immediately, ten different shades of Iago sleazy, and asks if Lee isn't happy to see him. Lee is the most interesting person in this whole episode, because he's completely himself the entire time: "I'm glad you're out. My father overreached when he had you arrested." But, of course, he's still all about the Cylon FTLs, which Tom never cared about in the first place, so now Tom gets to have a fake conversation about a fake issue just to see how high he can make Lee jump. The answer is, quite high but not high enough to live through this. "Problem with you is that you're trying to have it both ways. Honor thy father, or be true to your oath as the Caprican representative. At some point the two don't mix. Do you know why he released me? Because I'm only a threat if he recognizes civilian authority. Afraid our experiment in democracy is about to end."
Tailor-made for the Admiral's son, that little speech. I think I mainly hate Tom because he doesn't lie: he says true stuff with such warped intentions that it makes everything disgusting. He really is like a grosser Romo, isn't he? "Adama entertained it until now because of Roslin. But since she abdicated the throne..." Lee protests, but Tom points out he's done it at least a few times before. "Tell me, what excuse did he give this time when he refused to take your call?" A bridge too far, Lee thinks, too pat, and starts putting it together. He heads off to Galactica, snotting back over his shoulder, "To prove you wrong!" Zarek sits back and waits for the heads to roll; Felix informs the CIC that the imaginary fire has just fictionally taken out both the main and backup communications grids.
Maybe my favorite thing about this episode, besides the pulse-pounding intricacy of it and the way Felix has every corner covered, is the essentially lonely nature of the actual trauma of it. We get to see thirty characters in different parts of the mess, all over this huge ship, and watch them try to figure out their piece of it. And of course, at the same time, they're all convinced it's about them: Caprica won't shut up about her magic baby, and assumes the mutiny is about her; Gaius of course thinks it's because he's such a powerful cult leader that he cannot be suffered by the active parties to continue preaching the gospel; poor fucking Lee still thinks it's about the jump drives; Bill and Laura rightly assume, separately, that it's all about him. And every single rebellionista thinks they're owed something, that they're doing the right thing because it makes it hurt less.
In years past we've talked about how the whole Personal Is Political thing is not, to my ears, all that honest: that the Political is actually just the aggregate motion of a bunch of Personal wills and neuroses, and that pretending your everyday existence is politically meaningful is a great way to do nothing, until you're finally drowning. Well, this is what that looks like: this is politics in action. 39,643 madnesses blending together in different directions, creating the river of history right in front of you. Not pretty. I'm not troubled by the idea that people only ever act on self-interest, because that's obvious, but it's irksome and scary when they take it to the level of taking choices away from everybody else.
0902 and the ships out on CAP and running between ships in the Fleet have started getting nervous at Galactica's sudden silence. Lee's Raptor shuttle finally lands, and before he can even ask what's gone wrong with comms, Connor's dudes take him down and hold him up, punching him. "Whatever this is about, you're making a big mistake," Lee starts, and Connor gets weird and ugly and messy, conflating outrages all across the last four years into one big monster that gives him the authority to make everybody else hurt as much as he does: "Oh, sure, we're confused. Maybe we should have a trial, sort it all out. After four years of fighting with those Cylon things, did you really think you could make a deal with them?" Except before it was Lee, it was Gaius, and before it was Gaius it was something else, and before that it was the Cylons, and before that everything was perfect, right? Absolutely perfect, until other people gave you the right to start killing, when your son died. Once there was a Them, it started shifting to whoever was in front of him. I have no sympathy for grieving when it results in shit like this. This is how Billy got killed.
Racetrack finally starts looking perturbed as a Marine holds a gun to Lee's head and Connor, enjoying himself, spits, "So where are your precious Cylons now?" Then the Marine drops with a single shot, and standing behind him is Kara. "Take it from someone who died once, it's no fun. Let him go." Skulls tells her to frak off, and she shoots him too, without a second's delay. How long has it been, since the world made this much sense? "I could do this all day. Who's ?" She takes out a second gun. "Racetrack? Connor?" Please, yes. Connor lets Lee scamper over to her, and Lee immediately tries to get Kara to leave with him, but she's enjoying herself too much. "Kara, now." She follows him, grinning: "Follow me. Please." Skulls rolls around on the floor groaning, and even Connor rolls his eyes, because this is bad. You want to not let Kara and Lee, of all people, go running willy-nilly through the guts of the ship. If you can possibly help it.
Athena and Helo are of course in their quarters with Hera, because that's all they do now, and like everybody else, not enjoying the algae-derived slop they have to eat -- Because do you get it yet? Let them eat algae-derived cake! -- when they hear the jackboots in the corridors and realize that it's entirely possible the thing they always kind of thought would happen is happening. A bunch of mutineers, this time including Gage of the Sunshine Boys, come smashing into the room and pistol-whip Helo for awhile, then kidnap all three of them. Helo apologizes to him for accidentally killing the guy who raped his wife, like that was tacky of him to do, and Gage continues to bitch about how not only was that totally uncool, but then also Helo got a promotion to CAG instead of being killed. Life is unfair for everybody, but often I find that rapists are the least lucky of us all. Helo grunts, "Frak you!" and the hopes of a thousand pathetic sheltered clueless creepy slash-shippers rise into the air that they're finally going to see some boy-on-boy noncon, because isn't that so feminist, but are then dashed as Gage underlines his preference for raping Helo's wife, and the girls have to go back to getting their kicks pretending the brothers -- or the actors! -- on another show are secretly fucking. The mutineers bash Helo's head in, but it is a blessed relief.
Meanwhile, Lee is just hopping mad about Skulls and Racetrack, but Kara's more blasé about it, because Racetrack's barely ever had a personality beyond being bitter and angry about anything anyway, and there are a million reasons you would be a part of this. Some of them might not even have anything to do with an unrequited crush at all, although Racetrack's always had a thing for Helo. They discuss how the hangar deck is obviously just like comms, intended to isolate the ship so they can take CIC. "Zarek played me just right," Lee whines. Is that really part of the story, that Tom herded Lee off Colonial One and over to Galactica? I guess I can buy that. Lee despairs that Zarek's new buddies have Vipers, Raptors, gun batteries at the ready, and dips into being a little bit of an American't before Kara slaps him out of it with a big old sloppy kiss on the mouth:
"Right now all we can count on is you and me. Take a breath, Lee. Feels good being alive, doesn't it?" He's sort of bemused and adoring, and asks WTF is going on with her now. "Feeling right for the first time in weeks!" Lee acknowledges that she's adorable, but reminds her that there is shit happening. "Okay, Kara: My Dad. Where is he?" CIC, she says, and hands him a gun; at least when it started he was on CIC. Thinking that's somewhat protected -- since they don't and can't know that this is all Felix -- and knowing Bill will wreck shop on anybody he can find, they head out looking for other half of the tyrannical dominant paradigm: the President, who is literally in bed with the Admiral at this point in their lives.
0908. Tigh and Hoshi figure out that there's not even a fire, and Felix is like, "No, there is a fire, which has caused us to not think there is a fire, and thus we cannot believe anything, so in addition to comms being down we are also now blind." Bill is not having that, and sends Jaffe down to check in with damage control. He's the one that used to bring Bill his coffee, the young guy whose name Bill kept practicing, in that episode where his dead wife haunted him.
Karl is not doing great when they get the Agathons down to the brig, and Gage shoots more rape vibes at Athena, just so we get the point that he is no good. In case you missed how literally every line he and Vireem have had in this entire television series are about what giant rapists they are. So you've got: Seelix, who has always been trash; the Sunshine Boys who are 100% rape; Felix Fucking Gaeta, who lost his soul the day Gaius surrendered New Caprica and has done jackshit to get it back since then; and Tom Zarek, who's always been an ape in a tuxedo...
One man's "there are no good guys" is another man's "then it follows that there are no bad guys," and I try to stay on the right side of that line, but this deck seems really stacked. It's all people who either A) don't matter or B) are so disgusting they don't matter, which means that anybody who throws in alongside them ceases to matter as well. Which is not how this should go down, because I want to root for everybody. Or, maybe in this case, for nobody. It's hard to see where the insurrectionists are coming from when this is the company they keep. I guess somebody that's not me could similarly say that it's hard to see where the loyalists are coming from when most of them are Cylons and all of them are suddenly pro-Cylon, which tracks because the Fleet is ignorant enough to think that "Cylons" are still the problem. But I've actually been watching the show for four years, and it's nothing like that simple. I just wish it were less simple to come down on this side, and I'm afraid one Racetrack -- whom I've always found boring -- and a few worried looks from Felix aren't going to cut it. This is a dumb plan, being carried out for dumb reasons, by the dumbest trash in the Fleet. How is that attractive?
Caprica's in the corner, wearing black for once and uttering dark premonitions about how dead they all are; Athena ignores her and asks Sam to help her bandage "Karl" up. Sam is banged up pretty severely as well. Caprica continues to natter on about how Hera and her own little strudel are "everything that the humans hate" because they're so disappointed that even after the Hub was blown, the Cylon nation might still survive. Because I don't know if I mentioned it, but when the Hub died, so did the Cylons. They did that on purpose: committed genocide on themselves, forever. I don't know why that didn't make more of an impression on everybody, but the fact remains that the Cylons currently in existence, in our Fleet and Cavil's, barring more strudel-babies or a miracle, are all the Cylons there are ever going to be. Just like humanity, but without even the option of procreation. For no real reason, they've now officially brought themselves down past our level. As a favor. Why doesn't that count?
It's like the Laura thing altogether: once she's burned the prophecies and refused medication for her terminal illness, what the fuck else can she possible do to stop being the bad guy? Nothing, same as the Cylons. I don't get it. It makes sense on the playground, or in some queer Quaker fantasy where fairness is the operating principle, but in real adult life, it makes no sense. It just seems like more excuses for shitty behavior, because there's no real justification for it, not even emotionally for you. If somebody else loses their eye, you're still going to be blind: you're just going to be the blind asshole that took somebody else's eye. How does that help anybody? I don't really understand grudges. I mean, I get conflict because it's how you solve problems, but once the problem is solved, I don't understand still being angry. It just seems tacky.
Athena finally tells Caprica to STFU, so Caprica goes to baseline, holding Hera tight. Maybe they'll be held there long enough for Caprica to give birth, and the Crazy Six Baby Math that said Chip Six and Gaius's baby would be born there will get even stupider. Athena, assessing the facts on the ground and not the weird personal issues everybody's bringing to the table, realizes that whoever is doing this shit, they're going to be the new face of humanity. Which means they're going to be negotiating with the Cylons in the Basestar, which means everybody in the brig -- Fightin' Agathons, Caprica and Hera, Sam; Chief and Tigh if they can catch them -- is just a hostage to the coup. "Especially you," she whispers to Sam, and he is so fed up with all this BS he just straight up goes, "Dude, I am worthless. I'm still not sure why everybody thinks I'm so special." She tells him to keep schtum about that, then, and he nods. He should totally rig up some weird Final Five shit, pull some kind of Dread Pirate Roberts trick where he's like, "Did you know I can bring the sun out of its orbit and shoot it through your face?" And they would go, "Really?" And the Cylons would be like, "Um, probably? We don't actually know. Sounds scary, though!"
0913. The Twins make their way down the corridor with yelling all around; everybody's covered in blood spatters and there are people shooting at the Marines, going past in different directions, all in a separate madness, the maximum chaos that Felix has created and still thinks he's doing something worthwhile. A loyalist holds up his gun and goes, "Whoa, whoa" when they come upon him. It's all just running around.
0922 and frantic on CIC; Jaffe comes running in yelling about how the array has been fucked with: there's no fire, no nothing. Just lies. Felix screams to Nowart, just like Natalie: "Sergeant of the Guards get your Marines in here! Nobody gets in or out!" Bill wonders aloud WTF is going on, and Felix crips on down toward them as somebody takes a shot and things go seriously Kent State. Jaffee shoves him out of the way and takes the bullet, and Felix almost starts crying with how fucked up everything is, and yells at his men to cease fire. Tigh tells him to eat a dick, and Felix stares around, freaking out and promising everybody he's in control of this. Even though it's obvious what's going on, which is an uprising by the forgotten trashy proletariat who haven't been besties with Athena or raised Hera on New Caprica or gone on a sweet dimensional roller-coaster jump ride in the arms of a Hybrid, and don't know what it's like to go more than a second without being hungry and angry and scared, Bill is more concerned about how Jaffee is dead.
That Gaeta song starts playing as Gaeta formally mutinies: "Admiral Adama, I am removing you from command of this ship. I am taking you into custody on the charge of treason." Adama stands right up from his knees about that, because what? "You swore an oath when you put that uniform on. You pledged to defend this ship and her crew." Felix is not interested in that oath, but he will be holding Bill to it anyway. "For seven years, I have done my frakking job and for what? To take orders from a Cylon? To let machines network our ship? No, you... you are not the leader that you were when we started. You're just a sad, old man that has let his heart and his affection for a Cylon cloud his judgment."
And then there's Felix, who believed in so much stuff, who sold out the Roslin administration to keep the elections pure. Whose heart, whose affection for a Cylon, clouded his judgment so much he became a mass murderer. Who less than two years later was willing to commit murder to keep that secret, both on and off the witness stand. "Always been a miserable little shit" is a poor description, I agree: the day that he lied on the witness stand, for petty vengeance, is when that started. Maybe that's when this started, too: the state wouldn't kill Gaius for him, erase all that shame and heartbreak and disappointment, so now he's going to kill the state. I very honestly don't believe anybody undertakes politics, either legitimate or crap like this, for good reasons. I don't think there are good reasons for wanting personally to effect change on this scale.
To have her please just one day wake
Adama rises like Moses, all Old Testament rage and gravitas, and explains shit to everybody that they really should already know: "I want you all to understand this! If you do this... there will be no forgiveness. No amnesty. This boy... died honoring his uniform. You? You'll die with nothing." It's a promise to Felix. His song goes warped and scary as he nowarts the senior staff to the brig. Nowart begs Bill to calm down and come quietly, and Hoshi meets Felix's eyes for a moment; Tigh goes willingly. Felix hurts, and knows it's going to be him or the Admiral in the end, and I don't really know that he signed on for that but I know what I want to happen. Preferably sooner, rather than later.
0925, three hours and five minutes since the episode began so quietly, and there are no Marines outside Adama's quarters where they should be. They nod to each other and head for the hatch; Laura's inside, dressed to the nines. They come inside and explain about the uprising: not sure how many are involved, across the Fleet, or who they actually are. Laura asks why Bill, the Marines, haven't already put it down, and they figure out from the lack of armed guards that Marines are no good. Laura realizes how close they are to losing the ship -- if they haven't already, which they have -- and gets very worried about Bill. Lee's like, "I know, right?" He changes the subject to Zarek's latest grab at the presidency, and Laura gets that airlocking face.
"He always had dangerous ideas," she says, using that phrase for the first time in human history without being the greater of two evils. Generally "dangerous ideas" are the best ones in these stories, but what's dangerous about Zarek -- and about what Felix took from Anastasia's philosophy -- was that destruction is somehow worthwhile in its own right, rather than being something you take upon your soul to earn. (Again: something the Cylon and Laura figured out a long time ago. Zarek would snap a baby's neck but he wouldn't cry afterward, because he doesn't get it; he thinks the baby isn't him.) Lee tells her to address the Fleet and call for calm, because the people will listen to her. If only, I guess, because they're used to it. At this point, anything that circumvents the Quorum is fine by me, because they have been written as lily-livered on their own merits, above and beyond Adama and Tigh constantly bitching about them. "I'll do whatever it takes," Madame Airlock says, "And I will not allow Tom Zarek to assume the presidency under any circumstances." There's blood all over Lee's face; she grabs the Twins and heads for Gaius's harem.
0934. Vireem and Gage are both on CIC, because like any frat guys they like to both rape and work together, because boys are creepy. Felix gages Redwing's Marines to the Engine Room to quell a fight. Redwing's been pissed since the Hub, so it's not surprising he would be a part of this. I just can't imagine so many people who give up on the military hierarchy itself, with random pilots being put in charge of Marine squads and random deck people operating the bridge. I don't get that. It's very scary. Gage starts to freak out when Gaeta mentions sending death squads to the Engine Room, looking to Vireem because those are their people, and Felix tells him to pull it together as coldly as Cain ever did: "Specialist Gage. Stay with us."
0942. Galen's directing the cult to fortify their position, while Gaius is preparing to get the fuck out of there. He reiterates many a time that he has no desire to leave them, but after all he is in terrible danger: "If they're coming for anyone, they're coming for me," he says. Mostly he's just looking for a way out of this, because his cult is sort of pointless now that God has screwed them over, and he's tired. Turns out even having an actual cult devoted to you is not that interesting after awhile, and that's like Gaius's own personal Earth right there. But once you've screwed all of them a hundred times, it all starts to seem kind of shallow. Jeanne cries that it's their fault he has to leave, because they can't protect him, and he's like, whatever, and she gives him some kind of empty religious gear, and as the gunfire starts up outside she buries her head in his lap. He gets very weirded out and runs away, laughing nervously, to have a strained conversation with Galen, who couldn't be less interested in his mess.
Gaius: Say loudly in front of everybody that I have to get out of here.
Galen: All we have is, there are people running around outside, and three hours ago Racetrack lied about a fuel leak.
Gaius: So that's all about me, then.
Galen: No, it's all about how the hangar deck, CIC, weapons and comms are down, and we are all seriously fucked.
Gaius: Also me? In particular?
Galen: [wanders away talking on a walkie]
Gaius: There you have it, folks: my martyrdom, part XXIII.
Everybody: We still have it in us to care.
Jeanne tries to give him some kind of fucking knickknack, filling up his suitcases as quickly as he's emptying them like some octopod grandmother, and he cutely tries to get out of her clutches; outside, Kara and Lee have arrived with the president. Unluckily, it's Crazy Smiting Paulla standing guard right now, and you know she's itching to fight somebody worse than even Kara, so finally Chief has to come up and tell her to move along so he can talk to Laura like a sane person. He doesn't even question why she wants to talk to Gaius, just straight up tells her what she needs to know first: they've marched Bill off CIC and down to the brig, trust no comms at all, and the loyalists are using walkies now. "The hangar deck's lost to us," he tells Lee. "If you can get your father to the secondary storage bay within the hour, I'll get him off the ship." Roslin sends the Twins off to find Bill, and she'll deal with the Fleet from here.
Randomly, Lee asks Galen why he's doing this, when the answer should be obvious. I'm not sure what this is about, at all: "Old man deserves a better fate than what he'll get from them. Go find your father, Lee." Lee's super grateful. But I can't figure out why that needed to be said. Was it just to add a little more spackle on the father/son stuff they always overdo on this show? Like any character could have said that line at this point and it would serve the same schmoopy purpose? Last time we saw Chief and Bill together, Bill was choosing the Cylons over humanity, and working to get them a seat in the Quorum. The fact that this hasn't happened yet is less about Bill being a liar and more about the fact that it was five minutes ago, and he passed it along to Laura just the way he said he would, and she agreed, unexpectedly. So even if Galen doesn't know all that, I still don't know why he would do anything but save Gaius and Bill and Laura, in that order: even if he is living on the Basestar after all, he'd get down there, and after Nicky and Hotdog, that's... I mean that's exactly what he would do. What am I missing?
0947. Trudging down the corridor, Adama tries to start shit first with Nowart, who is very sympathetic for a guy duck-walking you to your own brig, and then with Maldonado, who was actually with the president during her million and one Hybrid jumps and just an hour or so ago beat the shit out of Sam Anders. "I remember you too, Maldonado. Big mouth, not much of a soldier. It doesn't matter. Because when this is over, there's gonna be a reckoning. And live or die, it's how you act today that's gonna matter." He whirls around on Nowart: "So what's it gonna be, Nowart?" I love this so much, it's like every war movie at once is happening in Bill's head and he's just rolling the hard six. He gets the fuck in poor Nowart's face, as he's begging the Admiral to settle down, and gets gritty and grittier: "I'll be damned if I'm gonna let a guy like you run me off my own ship. You wanna shoot? Go on, let's see if you got a pair." Nowart starts whining, and he smashes the kid in the face, just as Tigh's grabbing the other one's gun. Bill shoots somebody and points his gun at Nowart, who repents down his pantleg. Bill checks in with Saul, who's doing fine, and wants to kill Nowart. Instead, Bill decides to take him with them for some reason.
Laura and Gaius act pissy with each other as usual, talking about how the Fleet is coming down around their ears and Gaius is usually at the epicenter of that sort of thing. He tries to be so, so serious and so, so professional and so, so religiously legit, and she just ignores the entire thing. It breaks his heart. You'd think she'd be better at this, but some people you just hate in a way that your brain cannot master, so she has to dig and jibe and act bitchy even when she's asking him a favor. It's sort of awesome. He's like, "Have you come to pray?" in this very holy, ridiculous voice, and she's like, "No, see, I'm actually important. I will get on the horn and tell the Fleet they don't need to be afraid of the Cylons right now, and to settle down." Which, I guess they learned nothing from their Hybrid experience, because one thing you never say to either of them is, "I am the special one here." So he sasses her about her "oratorical skills" and lies about his wireless.
Laura points out what an obvious psych that is, because everybody -- including her, not that she'll admit it -- listens to his batshit sermons every night, and Paulla steps in and gets Squeaky about how this is clearly the piggies trying to prevent Helter Skelter by taking away his wireless voice, and Roslin's like, "Girl, stick a pin in it while the adults are talking." Paulla goes twice as nuts, all frothy, and Laura laughs at her. Gaius finally tells her to shut up so Laura doesn't have to divide her condescension between them both, and Paulla bounces away to drink a few more Red Bulls. The reason religious zealots make me sad isn't because they're labile, it's because they're right about 99% of everything and tremendously wrong about the 1% that counts.
I have never seen people as driven or honorable or admirable as evangelists -- Have you seen Jesus Camp? Those people are my hero! Or Mandy Moore's character in Saved? I want to start a cult just based on her -- and then it's... Built on this one shitty thing that taints it. That's what always makes me sad about Gaius and Roslin, whether they're in cahoots or anti-cahoots, politically or religiously, whichever way the coin falls today: the two of them together make an entire worthwhile person. Mercy and justice; God and Gods; trees and forest; passion and wisdom. And it's like they know it, but they refuse it anyway, and backbite and fuck with each other like magnets with the poles lined up: all that wasted, ugly effort, by people who could be so beautiful. Isn't that sad?
"She's got a point, hasn't she? I mean, if you can convince the Fleet, why can't you convince her?" Which I mean, that's first blood. I don't think Laura's best interests are served by responding in kind, but it's a very skillfully ramped-up scene, dialogue-wise, that escalates the tension very nicely until you can believe she'd say this shit right here: "The thing is that I never really believed in your conversion, so I was counting on your well-honed sense of self-preservation." Gaius, sad, absorbs that and drops the nose-in-the-air vicar act. It's his usual whine that answers her: "I'm so sick of your insinuations. I recall your sudden allegiance to the priestess Elosha and the Scrolls of Pythia the last time your political fortunes were in doubt. Tell me, um, how is that working out for you now?" Laura's like, "Yeah, we're both frauds. You win, I guess. But we're all about to be murdered as People of Interest in this little coup, just like you always wanted. So why don't you atone with me by giving me the chance to address our people?"
0956. There are "civilians" barricading the aft supply hold, Connor -- A civilian! A fucking Dogville bartender! -- reports, and sends Marines to take care of it while he heads off to back up Redwing in the Engine Room, where four "civvies" have been murdered, but they still need more guns to subdue the rest. Tigh listens to all this, and Nowart tells them he was supposed to take them to the brig. "Gaeta wants all essential personnel and Cylons held until..." (Until what? Until when? What is the point of all this? Goddamn it, Tigh.) Tigh interrupts: "Might see some friendly faces there..." God, what I would not give to see Bill and Tigh storming that particular Bastille to rescue Athena and Caprica. That makes me want to cry like the fourth of July.
1012 and here's your wireless traffic: "We're unable to reach Galactica... Admiral Adama, do you read? ...Are they going to jump away like last time? ...Who's in charge of Galactica? Can't trust Admiral Adama... Is any vessel in communication with Colonial One?"
Gage gets Colonial One on the horn, and Felix reports his great news: he's taken the ship; "The Admiral and his senior staff are in custody." Zarek whines that he didn't kill Bill, and Felix points out how tacky that is. "It's a loose end," Zarek assures him, "I'm sure you have your reasons. Still, congratulations are in order. With the future of the Fleet at stake you've done a very courageous thing..." Felix cuts him off ("we can fine-tune our rationalizations later") and Zarek promises the Fleet will fall in line once he addresses them, showers them in... (In what? Until when? What is the point of all this? Goddamn it, Roslin.) Laura breaks across I guess the entire wireless spectrum, because I guess Gaius can do that now, and gives a nice little speech while Felix shits himself and starts yelling at Tom to turn the radio on.
"Women and men [nice] of the Fleet, this is your President. We have come to a crossroads in our long and painful journey. Of all the decisions that I've had to make since assuming the Presidency, none was more frightening or more difficult than agreeing to this alliance with the Cylons. But we have come to a crossroads in our long and painful journey. Cylons and humans have been at war for generations, we know nothing else." Chief and Gaius listen carefully as she wrings her hands, begging for the words; the Quorum stares up at the ceiling, quiet for a moment. "And we have been locked in a struggle that has seen both sides suffer unspeakable loss. But with our supplies running low and our options limited, our former enemies may represent our last, perhaps our only, hope. To those in the Fleet and on Galactica who would reject this alliance, I am asking you... No. I am begging you, to reconsider and place your trust back in those who have brought you this far, and to reject those traitors who would use your fear of the Cylons to destroy Colonial civilization..." And then the signal's gone.
1017. Four hours in, now. Lee doubles back to Kara, reporting he couldn't find a way into the brig. They come upon a quiet pair moving toward them, around a corner, and come out with guns cocked. It's Bill, with a gun and his prisoner. Lee and his father embrace, but Kara's more interested in the traitor Bill's got with him. "Easy, he's our prisoner. Starbuck. Starbuck! Lower your weapon." Kara explains the simple truth that, unbeknownst to Bill, they've taken over the entire ship, and this just became a double-mutiny to get it back: there is no time for Adama behavior like taking prisoners when there are exactly five sane loyalists left. He shoves Nowart down the corridor, just to get him away from Kara, and tries to justify it with a crusty-sounding "Get outta my face!" but she's not fooled, and gives chase, shooting after him. He grabs her and yells at her, and there's the most awesome act out ever on Kara's sort of horribly joyful, serious face: "They are not your men anymore. They are the enemy!" Boom!
1021, hiding in Chief's hidey-hole with Gaius. "Felix Gaeta. Who would've thought? You probably knew him better than anyone, back on New Caprica..." Gaius doesn't quite give up Felix's secret -- and how ironic would it be if that's how they bring Felix down, by outing himself as a collaborator who seduced the enemy and gave up their loved ones, when that's why he's doing this anyway; the operatic punishment he's asking for is something I'm willing to wait for, now that you mention it -- but he does mention that Felix's loyalties were "obviously" divided, "even back then." Um, yeah, Laura thinks: between you and the real government. I'm not disagreeing that he's slimy, but doesn't that sort of indict you way worse? Gaius folds him arms and hilariously notes, "Seems we both made rather bad choices when it comes to our presidential aides-de-camp, wouldn't you say?" She smiles where he can't see it, and nods. Word, girl.
1023 -- And how great is the ticking clock in this episode? You couldn't do it every time, but it does a great job of making this precise episode click and clack like a machine right in front of you, it's awesome -- and Tigh offhand mentions the dubiousness of Galen's bolthole. "You tell me, he's one of yours," snots Lee. Time and place, ya little pisher. Tigh's like, "Seriously?" and I guess Lee just needs a nap, because he totally goes, "Yeah, I got a problem. Your people annihilated the human race!" I'm not saying it's out of character, it's just not really the time to do this, and also: how is that relevant to what's going on?
Beyond suggesting that Lee could be at home on either side of this fence -- which makes him even more of a hypocrite than usual, because he benefits from the emerging aristocracy more than anybody in the Fleet -- it also resets his character to before "Measure Of Salvation," which sucks only because his greatest amount of growth has been past that. I realize that it's important to have this sort of racist hatred bubble up in somebody we love, to make some crazy point about how legit all of this is, but: Lee got talked down from actual genocide, okay? And then the genocide he was looking forward to perpetrating happened, when they blew the Hub. There's nothing else you can do to the Cylons at this point. You have won the war. And the fact that Lee of all people is just sort of spouting this brainless, hateful nonsense is... Not much of a cover for the fact that this mutiny is all about the lesser angels of our nature, and illegitimate as a result. In trying to balance the scales and present this as an equal-sided conflict, you've managed to make it look even sillier than it already did, because this is only legitimate if you somehow believe that one person's sin exempts you from your own, and you'd have to be a moron to honestly believe that. Which Lee sort of already is, I guess. I just thought he grew out of it.
Bill tells him to stow it, but Saul outright humors him: "No, let the great statesman talk." Oh, good. A big old speech. "You wanna know why Tom Zarek's got so much clout in this Fleet? Because when you get past the arrogance, he's right. We can pretend to put it behind us, exchange lofty words about an alliance, but if this is what survival has come to..." Um, that was you that did that. You were the one who exchanged lofty words about an alliance. You are the only one asking that this shit be put behind us, because you are a black-and-white immature idealist at best. You can't even conceive of a person able to deal with the ambivalent nature of reconciliation: it's either good or it's bad. Adama points out that survival, with the Thirteenth Tribe, is literally all "we" -- in the largest sense imaginable -- have got, but Lee refuses to calm the fuck down: "It's all they left us."
Good line, rhetorically speaking, but useless in this context, because that's not what this fight is about, not even for Lee. It's not even true: the reason they have to depend on the 268s now is because human beings fucked up the Scrolls of Pythia, and Kara led everybody, Cylon and human alike, down an oracular cul de sac. Earth would be a frakload whether or not the Cylons did anything at all. This is meant purely to hurt Tigh's feelings, and it does, and that's the entire function of it: Tigh is beyond sad about it, even though it's not really his problem or his responsibility, and way to go Captain Apollo. You got self-righteous and hurt somebody that has nothing to do with what's going on. How Cally of you. No wonder Zarek loves you so much. Kara comes back and urges them forward to the safe point.
Chief waits, nervous, with the prophets. Gaius stands in a corner, thinking nervously, and then suddenly pulls it together and picks up a phone. (Is that trackable? Should he just be blithely dialing CIC from their secret location?) Gage answers and looks at Felix, willing him not to get gay about this, and Gaeta makes a sour face even as his hand is heading for the phone of its own accord. "What do you want, Gaius?"
"What do I want? I want this to stop. Now. Right now. This is madness." Check out how he pulls out all the stops: "This doesn't become you, you know. Treason, or whatever they're gonna call it when this thing is through. I know you, Felix. I know you're a good man. You're an honorable man. You want to do the right thing." We love you, we love you, we love you. That is exactly how he gets to sleep with anybody he wants: because he is a player. However, that's only half the story with Gaius: "Even your failings have been understandable." Ouch. The tide turns, and this will not end well. Felix is like, "Oh, like serving in your corrupt administration?" Um, no. The thing I am always talking about in these conversations: Sweet Eight and the seduction of hope. "Our little secret? Sealed with a very special pen?" Felix loses the entire plot again, and waits for Gaius to hang up. Gaius doesn't even know how bad he fucked this up. "But I forgive you for that, Felix. I'm telling you... if you are hungry for redemption, this is not the way..." Gaeta hangs up on him and he talks to the air ("Felix, please...") before giving up. And the saddest thing about that is that he's all alone when he makes that call, and the only way he'd ever tell anybody he was willing to play the slightly queer Gaius/Gaeta card is if it worked out. So it's one more good thing Gaius tried to do, that nobody will ever know about. That's becoming quite a list.
Gaeta notices Raptor 619er taking off: it's the shuttle that takes people to the Baseship; he notices they've not radioed the LSO, and not heading for the hangar deck. Which means they're heading to the bolthole. 1032 and the Raptor locks with them, and an Eight stands on the wing. The Twins and the Old Men arrive; Bill greets Mr. Tyrol warmly. He explains this random place was trashed on New Caprica, but he got it back up and running sometime in the last four hours. Bill drops his guns and runs over to Laura on the wing of the Raptor. They make out hardcore without preamble, which causes the Twins to wriggle around uncomfortably and eventually turn around, the Eight and Tigh to watch them, and Gaius to smirk.
"I came here because I don't want you to worry about me," Laura says. "And I know what you have to do." She kisses his head, and Chief's guys warn them that Marines are on their way. Bill sends Chief away with the Twins, and orders Tigh to go with, but he refuses. Kara asks what he's doing, and they say they're going to make sure the President's Raptor gets out safely. Which is fine, except by the time the bad guys actually show up, the Raptor will be gone, so it would make more sense for Bill to just tell the truth, which is that the captain goes down with the ship, but whatever. Athena spools up, Chief and the Twins take off, Gaius tenderly helps the President onto the Raptor and, holding on his arm, she turns to look at Bill one last time. They're cutting through the doors; Saul is beautiful, standing strong with his gun, watching the sparks. Bill joins him on the floor, facing the door, as the Raptor heads for the Basestar. Everybody is okay.
1041. Gage notes 619er taking off from a weird place, and refusing to respond to hails. Hotdog and Narcho are among the pilots on CAP; it's a slight comfort that Gaeta knows better than to ask Hotdog to multitask and go kill whoever's on the Raptor, whether because he's a loyalist who is going to come home to a severely changed world or just because he's stupid I don't know. And I guess Gaeta doesn't technically know who is on that Raptor, but the list of possibilities isn't that long: it's somebody important, who slipped through the smokescreen and has enough backup to get not only a Raptor away but to land it in a long-forgotten part of the ship, and take off directly for the Baseship. There's like five people it could be. So instead of saying "he doesn't know it's the President," I'm sticking with, "He hopes it's the President and Admiral, the Final Five, Athena and Caprica, Starbuck and Lee Adama, so he can blow them all up without really feeling like he's killed anybody, and then all his problems will go away." At least that's the face he's making as he gages Narcho to blow it out of the sky.
Bill hands Saul another gun, while he packs his pistol, and Tigh notes he could have left with her; Bill shakes his head, and the mutineers crowbar the door open just enough for a gun muzzle. Bill opens fire on the tiny little hole, and of course he's a crack shot. He sits down on the stairs of the airlock, and Tigh takes aim. "It's been an honor to have served with you, my friend," he says. The mutineers prime a flash grenade, and toss it through the hole and into the room where Butch and Sundance are standing around, trying to kill everybody through a pinhole. It explodes in a flash of bright white fuego. Four hours and twenty-one minutes into the day, the Admiral is murdered and the coup is complete.
Tomorrow: Say hello to President Zarek, I'm guessing. The Twins and Chief will probably pull off some amazing trick and get Galactica back, and I'm so sure Bill's dead. I give this show a lot of credit, but not that much. And I'm guessing Gaius will fuck everything up somehow. Mostly: Fingers crossed Saul comes back in a tuxedo, two-eyed, Ellen on his arm, and aims a Heavy Raider right up Tom Zarek's means of production. So say we all!
Count 'em down ... Battlestar Galactica: The Most Frakking Good Moments.