By Jacob
Adama and Tigh weren't blown up so much as knocked out by the bomb at the end of last week's frenetic episode, and are taken into custody. Meanwhile, the Raptor bearing Roslin and Baltar to the Baseship narrowly avoids being blown up as well. A peak experience with the Chief causes the newly sprung Mad Bomber What Bombs At Midnight to radically reconsider skinjobs, his own absurd racism, and whether or not murder/suicide is ever a good idea. He ends up joining Adama's posse, redeeming himself in the middle of a much bigger shitstorm and making his insides look a whole lot more like his outsides.
Not so fortunate are the entire Quorum, whom Zarek has executed the second they blink about his self-declared Presidency. Goodbye, Jacob Cantrell. We especially liked your hip new 'burns. When not gunning down entire governing bodies, Zarek amuses himself giving speeches to a quickly fading Felix and lying about everything, to everybody, all the time. Half the time he doesn't even know he's lying, but still manages to demoralize people at their most vulnerable: first telling Bill that Saul's dead just as Felix is throwing him a ridiculous mock trial-slash-existential ass-cover, then telling Laura Bill's dead and expecting her to roll over. Roll over she does not.
Also not rolling over: Admiral William Adama, who literally spends the entire episode telling every single person in the world to fuck off as loudly as one can through one's dentures. He is a Lean, Mean, Fuck You machine. It is amazing. Turns out his Bucket List has one item on it, and that item is: Everybody Goes To Hell. Bill's Care Bear Glare powers have never been so magically delicious. He tells Gaeta to cram eleven things up his ass, invites Zarek to blow him, calls his lawyer a pimp, tears holes in the hull using his glare... A couple of lieutenants actually cry, because he's that scary. Finally they have no choice but to tie him to a chair in front of a firing squad. Then he just starts spitting at people.
Chief spends the entire episode crawling through exceedingly tight ducts and getting into hilarious scrapes, then pulls out the actual guts of the Galactica FTL drive with his bare hands at the very last second, saving the day. Meanwhile, Lee and Kara spend the entire episode running around beating the shit out of everybody in incredibly awesome ways, and eventually free the Cylons and toasterfrakkers from the brig. While trying to find and help Bill retake his command, though, Sam Anders gets shot up real bad -- only to be rescued by Kara and the reluctant Romo Lampkin. The rest of the Cylon/human posse meet up with Adama and take back CIC in about one bloodless second.
Laura meets resistance in the form of Final Fiver Tory Foster, who is totally uninterested in hanging around the Fleet now that it's gone pear-shaped and can't save everybody from Cavil. Laura gives fifteen speeches about the awesomeness of Bill Adama before getting real and declaring war on the Fleet itself from the helm of a Cylon frakkin' Basestar. Needless to say, when Madame Airlock returns, it is both very awesome and very loud. (Also: Leoben finally got hot. Very distracting.) Laura's about to deliver the whoop-ass, too, when Felix suddenly realizes that he has been fortune's fool, pees himself, and gives up exactly one second before Adama's posse takes over the whole Fleet again.
Gaius swans about on the Baseship for awhile with new Farrah-haired Lida Six before realizing that A) even though his cult is totally lame, they're still his responsibility because they love him, and B) if that's true about the cult, it's one thousand times truer about Felix Gaeta. So he rushes back to the Galactica just in time to watch them clean up the mess, have one last truly heartbreaking date with Felix, and then witness his execution, Zarek alongside, by Adama's firing squad.
So, yeah. It's definitely the second half of the story, and moves just as quickly as "Oath," but between the lyrical language (in particular, Bill and Laura get multiple Tigh-quality soliloquies), laugh-out-loud moments, real nailbiters, and Felix's deftly sketched and moving final hours, I'm giving this one the edge. Which is surprising, given the narratively perfunctory/obligatory nature of this mutiny, and its speedy resolution. But then, frak knows what's going to happen . Here's to seven more hours of this quality shit right here... Starting week with the return of one Ellen Motherfrakkin' Tigh.
Take a look back at the most frakking good moments of this show. Come back week for the full detailed recap.