Tag Archives: Pegasus

Jan 27 2012

BSG on BBC: Razor

In the world of fan fiction, Razor (★★) is what is called a missing scene, or in this case, scenes. Fans speculate about what happened off the screen or page and create their own stories to fill in the blank. Missing scene fiction can be a lot of fun to read. It, like all fan fiction, can also be overly dramatic and a bit cheesy. Razor hits all those notes – it details events we were teased about during season 2 (the death of Cain’s XO, the events with the civilian fleet, the relationship between Cain and the Six, Gina), gives us overwrought drama and a serious case of cheesy acting.

It was disappointing in season 2 when Admiral Cain and the friction she and Pegasus brought to the fleet with them lasted only two episodes. It was a rich vein of storytelling and drama that Moore and Company just dropped. Razor attempts to rectify that by fleshing out what happened to Pegasus before they met up with Galactica and also by giving Lee, as a the new battlestar commander, a mission to call his own. Up until the last 15 minutes of the movie, you think that is all you are getting. Until, Kendra Shaw, the Pegasus officer that has been central to the movie, discovers a Cylon hybrid who tells her, and I’m paraphrasing here, Kara Thrace will lead everyone to their death. That’s when you realize that this hour an a half you just sat through wasn’t about Kendra Shaw, Lee Adama or Admiral Cain at all. It was all about giving the viewer that one nugget of information about Kara Thrace. It should be no surprise that was the least interesting part of the episode for me.

Kendra Shaw is a great character, in concept. Unfortunately, the woman they cast to play her looked and sounded ridiculous in her tough girl act. Her idea of menace is talking deep and frowning. Of course, she and Kara clash, not because of any logical reason, but because they are two alpha women and they are supposed to clash. If this were real fan fiction instead of creator canon fan fiction, Shaw and Thrace would have been involved in a torrid lesbian relationship – based on mutual dislike, natch – making the final scene where Shaw orders Thrace to leave her behind on the Cylon base star fraught with emotional meaning. That would have been much more interesting. As written and shown, Shaw’s sacrifice was meaningless because she never developed an emotional attachment to other characters, nor did the viewer particularly care about her.

My biggest problem with Razor, though, was that it was shown so long after the events in the show occurred. I was constantly trying to remember if this was before or after New Caprica, Baltar running for President, Billy dying, Lee and Dee…This all happened so long ago, roughly when Roslin was dying and having hallicunations about Baltar and Six. It had been so long since the Pegasus was even a part of the fleet that throwing it back into the story was jarring. Honestly, I don’t really see the point of the movie whatsoever. Take away the one quote by the Hybrid at the end of the movie (that Kendra hears before she dies and none of the main characters ever become aware of) and this movie could have been a high-priced DVD extra or webisode.

Other Thoughts

  • While I thought the movie was pointless, overall, there were a couple of great scenes. When Cain asked for her XO’s sidearm and shot him in the head it was shocking, even though I knew it was coming.
  • It was barely suggested in during season two, save by Cain’s intake of breath to Six’s line, “You’re not my type” before she killed her, but it makes sense there was a relationship there.
  • Are the Cylons really so stupid to send a Six onto a battlastar where another six is station? I guess so.
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Oct 18 2011

BSG on BBC 2.16/2.17: “Sacrifice”/”The Captain’s Hand” – “And was it worth it?”

Billy Keikeya

Image via Wikipedia

Before I start every review, I open up IMDB and click on the list of Season Two episodes to check the numbers, titles and cast and crew details. This time, when I scrolled down the episodes of season two I marveled at how far we’ve come in 16 episodes and how different in tone the second half of the season is than the first. The first 6-7 episodes of the season took place over a short amount of time and were filled with urgent crises. Hell, Starbuck was on Caprica at the beginning of the season, Baltar was on Kobol, Roslin was a fugitive, Tigh was in charge of the fleet and Adama was near death and being operated on by a medic. Since then, Baltar murdered Crashdown, Cally murdered Boomer, Lee has nearly died (twice), Kara was the subject of human experimentation by the Cylons, we found Pegasus, Cain was killed, Adama was promoted, Cain’s replacement was killed, Roslin was cured of her cancer by Sharon’s fetus, Sharon was almost raped, Chief and Helo were thrown in the brig for killing the attempted rapist, Baltar gave a version of Number Six a nuclear bomb and they discovered the path to Earth. Whew. With all that going on it’s no wonder that the tone of the series in the second half of season two is completely different, but I confess to being a little nostalgic for the tone of season one and season 2.0.

After the mid-season drama of discovering Pegasus, destroying the Resurrection ship and the death of Cain, the next three episodes focus on one character and highlight fleet issues; Roslin and Cylon peace advocates (Epiphanies ★★★★), Lee and the underground economy (Black Market ★★) and Kara/Cat  and the grief over losing people you love (Scar ★★). With Sacrifice (★★★) and The Captain’s Hand (★★★), this dual focus of episodes continues with Billy and grief-stricken Cylon haters calling for the death of Sharon Valeri in the former, and Pegasus and politics taking center stage in the latter.

If you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan, you will remember that Tom Hank’s platoon had a running bet, trying to guess what their commanding officer’s job in the civilian world was. If you know absolutely anything at all about standard story structure and writer’s tricks, you know that his death warrant is written as soon as he tells them he is a teacher. Anytime a character, especially a soldier, starts talking about his girl back home or his mamma’s home cooking, you know that he’s about to get a bullet to the brain pan. So, the first time I saw this episode and heard Billy vocalize his opinion so freely to Adama and Roslin and propose to Dee in the very next scene, I knew that poor Billy was about to die. The body count of season two continues to rise, unfortunately none of our major characters are ever in real danger.

Dana Delaney guest stars in Sacrifice as Sesha Abinell, the widow of a man killed during one of the many Cylon battles the fleet has engaged in over the course of their flight from Caprica. She and her cohorts are calling for Sharon Valeri to be handed over to them so they can enact revenge for their lost loved ones on a flesh and blood Cylon. Roslin and Adama refuse, sticking to their policy of not negotiating with terrorists. When Adama realizes that some of the hostages Abinell and her co-conspirators have taken on Cloud 9 include Lee, Dualla, Ellen Tigh and Billy Keikeya, he sends Kara to lead of the Marine squad to rescue the hostages. Things go poorly, of course, with two marines killed and Lee caught in the crossfire, most likely by a bullet from Kara’s gun. The disaster forces Adama to improvise and he sends the terrorists what they want, Sharon Valeri’s body. When the terrorists realize Adama send the body of Boomer, killed weeks ago,  they target Dualla, who, as Lee’s date on Cloud 9, they assume would be a good retribution death. Billy goes for one of the terrorist’s gun and is killed.

I’ve never quite understood Adama’s obsession with the dead Sharon Valeri, the Cylon that tried to kill him, or his attachment to the pregnant Sharon Valeri. But, Adama’s obsession with visiting Boomer’s corpse in the morgue results in one of the best scenes of the season between Adama and Roslin when the latter goes to visit Billy’s body. Roslin stated earlier in the episode that Billy was the closest to family she had left and her pain at his death is written all over Roslin’s face. When she asks Adama if his calculated risk was worth it, her voice cracks. When she sees Billy laying on the slab she struggles for control as Adama stands, his back to her, stoically listening to her grief. Roslin fixes Billy’s hair and says, her voice shrill with emotion, “You’re so young!” It will go down as one of the biggest travesties of Emmy history that Mary McDonnell was not recognized (with even a nomination!) for her work in season two.

Other Thoughts:

  • Billy proposed with his debate club ring. How dorky and cute is that?
  • I believe I stated in a previous post that I don’t really buy the Lee and Dee attraction. It seems to have come out of the blue, though I guess technically they’ve been planting the seeds since Dee was Lee’s go between when he was in the brig with Roslin.
  • I’m also turned off by their rhyming names.
  • I guess Lee decided to go in with Dualla after his disastrous close encounter with Kara at the end of Scar. I don’t blame him, at least Dualla is honest about her attraction to him. Kara is too busy playing games to be honest.
  • Billy is right in that Dualla should have told him about her and Lee. Dualla in this episode (and the next) doesn’t come off too well, IMO.
  • This is Lee’s second near death experience in five episodes, third if you count almost being garrotted in Black Market. Just kill him off, already. (Just kidding.)
  • The last scene with Kara eavesdropping on Lee and Dualla is a mirror of the scene at the end of Resurrection Ship, Part 2 where Dualla eavesdrops on Kara and Lee.
  • “I really am an idiot, aren’t I?”
  • “We want Sharon Valeri.”
  • “This isn’t about Sharon. It’s about something much bigger than that. It’s about the long-term survival of the Fleet. It’s about the way we conduct ourselves in all of this.”
  • “You know, if people knew how much you’ve relied on that thing’s so-called intelligence, they’d be scared out of their wits.”

*~*

For all the excitement of finding Pegasus, the ship has been mostly absent from the story since Cain’s death. That all changes in The Captain’s Hand (★★★), an episode set primarily on Pegasus.

A month has passed since the events of Sacrifice and Lee and Dualla are in a full on relationship. Whether or not that relationship is well-known is left vague, as is if the policy against fraternization between officers and non-coms is still in effect. Dualla isn’t too broken up about Billy and Lee is recovering nicely from almost being accidentally killed by Kara. Kara is on Pegasus as the CAG, maybe? Whatever her role, she is butting heads with Commander Garner, the replacement for the garrotted Commander Fisk. Garner is a grease monkey, or snipe in BSG vernacular, and is better with machines than people. Adama sends Lee to Pegasus to smooth things about between Kara and Garner. Both resent Lee’s presence, but for different reasons.

The entire Pegasus storyline – the search for two lost raptors – is merely a vehicle for resolving the tension and bitterness between Kara and Lee, killing off another of Pegasus’ commanders and to pave the way for Lee to take command of Pegasus. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good storyline, but I just can’t write with much interest anymore about the ups and downs of Kara and Lee’s relationship or care much for a character we meet at the beginning of the episode and who dies, saving the ship, natch, at the end. I think the powers that be are going for “tragic love story” with Kara and Lee but, really, their back and forth is annoying. The most interesting thing was Lee’s admission that he’s bitter because Kara always bucks authority and gets away with it. The one time he tried, he nearly lost everything. I still haven’t figured out what he is referencing with that line.

What is more interesting is the b-story, the return to Colonial politics and the upcoming election, the one Lee promised in the beginning of season one. Billy’s replacement, Tory Foster, gives Roslin the results of a fleet wide poll showing her comfortably ahead of her chief rival, Tom Zarek. Zarek, meanwhile, understands that he will not win a general election because of his terrorist past and approaches Baltar about running in his place. Baltar is coy and noncommittal but you can tell that the idea of power appeals to him. He finds his opening to announce his candidacy when Roslin bans abortions. Roslin does it against her personal preferences for the rights of women but, pragmatically, and after Baltar tells her that according to his calculations of the population birth and death rate, the human race will be extinct in 18 years, she decides that the good of the whole is more important than individual rights. Whether or not Baltar agrees with her or not is irrelevant, he takes the opposite stand and announces his candidacy. It is a rare double loss for Roslin – she abandons her beliefs and is now faced with running against a charismatic, egotist who A) has a vendetta against her and B) she knows was part of the Cylon plot to attack their world. You can see all of the little plot threads from everything that has come before weaving together.

Other Thoughts:

  • The battlestars have nicknames – The Bucket for Galactica, The Beast for Pegasus.
  • Lee trying to take over from Garner when Garner goes against Adama’s orders is ripped, almost word for word, from Crimson Tide.
  • I love the way Bill, instead of leaving after their meeting is over, silently sits down. It’s obvious he has more to say. Laura sits as well and, after a moment or two of silence, she says, “What?” You can just tell there have been many conversations like this between them and that each is the sounding board for the other.
  • Bill reminds her of what she said in the mini-series, “We have to start making babies.” His counsel, and it is against what he believes as well, changes her mind about the abortion policy. This is one of the rare times that he persuades her.
  • “She’s no Billy.”
  • “Barely competent and paranoid. That’s a hell of a combination.”
  • “People might say she’s a victim of political persecution. Hell, she could apply for asylum.”
  • “He was used to working with machines. Command is about people.”
  • “You have your pound of flesh. I suggest you take your victory and move on.”
Sep 27 2011

BSG on BBC 2.12/2.13 – “Resurrection Ship, Part 2″/”Epiphanies” – “It’s not enough to survive, one has to be worth surviving.”

One of the drawbacks of ending Resurrection Ship, Part 1 in such a jaw dropping fashion is the worry the conclusion won’t live up to its predecessor. Though Resurrection Ship, Part 2 (★★★) did disappoint me in one particular area, which will somewhat skew the stakes of the entire show to a safer ground, the episode works on enough levels, and the series is so good as a whole, I can forgive it this one, big drawback.

from Battlestar Galactica Wiki

At the end of Resurrection Ship, Part 1, Baltar is gaining the trust of Pegasus Six, Roslin is succumbing to cancer, Helo and Chief are waiting to be executed and Adama and Cain were plotting the others’ demise.

This is probably my fourth or fifth viewing of this episode and this is the first time it has occurred to me that Cain knows Adama has tapped Kara to assassinate her. Apparently I’m not the savvy television viewer I think I am. In the conversation between the two, it sounds as if Cain is daring Kara to go through with it, to not flinch.

Lee is crushed that his father has ordered the assassination of Cain. He’s even more devastated when Adama tells him that he and the president are in on it together. Lee is such an idealist, he is a poor fit for an organization that requires unquestioned obedience. This episode marks the beginning of the end of Lee’s military service though don’t worry, it is a long process.

If so much wasn’t going on with the characters and interpersonal relationships, the battle between the battlestars and the Cylons would be the highlight of the episode. What we see of it is beautiful, but there is no drama in it. There’s no doubt the humans will prevail though you do wonder if Lee will survive after his ship is destroyed and he is ejected. We see the battle from his point of view, as he floats off into space and tries to plug the hole in his flight suit with his finger so his oxygen won’t vent before he is rescued. As Lee watches the destruction of the Cylons he gives up, unstopping the hole and floating away. Did he give up because he has lost faith in his father and Roslin? Because the line between right and wrong has become so blurred? Knowing Lee and his navel gazing proclivities, yes.

Once all those humanoid Cylons are killed, Kara does her walk of dread to Pegasus’ CIC to kill Cain. If Cain doubted the exsistence of Adama’s plan, Kara’s lack of euphoria and enthusiasm after the destruction of two base stars and the resurrection ship should clue her in. “I am so proud of you,” Cain says to Kara, almost like a mother. Adama and Cain make the necessary calls to congratulate each other and Adama asks to speak to Kara. She’s dreading the signal and is relieved when he backs out. Cain sees what happens and her better judgement prevails. Neither decide to go through with their plan.

Gaius and Pegasus Six are sitting alone in her cell while the battle rages. She can feel when they destroy the resurrection ship. Gaius lures the guard into the cell and Six kills him, taking his gun and giving it to Gaius to kill her. He refuses. She insists, saying suicide is a sin but she wants to die. Who knew? The Cylons are Catholic. Gaius tells her she needs justice and gives her the gun. Somehow, she manages to walk through the Pegasus without being detected and into Cains quarters, where she kills the Admiral.

From such a shocking end of the previous episode to this satisfying but rather pedestrian ending. Everyone gets what they deserve, I guess. Pegasus Six gets her revenge and escapes into the fleet with Gaius’ help. Gaius has a corpreal version of the woman he lost. Helo and Chief are released. Lee is saved (though he wishes he had died) and Roslin promotes Adama to an admiral, the correct rank for someone who commands two vessels.  The only one that will have lasting effects of the events is Lee, who will have a hard time coming to grips with life once he gave up on it, though there will be repercussions for Gaius’ actions, as there always are. But, part of me feels like everyone got off pretty easy.

Which is my major problem with the episode. Everyone got off easy. By my count, six people were in life or death situations (Lee, Adama, Cain, Helo, Chief and Six). One person died. The guest star. Now, don’t think I’m bloody minded like Roslin and want these characters to die.  But to have that many people on the cusp of death and have none of them die? That is what you call lowering the stakes, my friends. From this point on, you should never really consider it possible that a main character will die because it isn’t going to happen. I’m sorry to spoil you like that and maybe you don’t care. Maybe it is a relief that everyone is relatively safe for the run of the series but I don’t know. I feel like it’s kind of cheap.

Other Thoughts:

  • It always bothered me that the only human Cylon model you saw in the Resurrection Ship was Six. They could have included Sharon, Leoben, Simon (doctor from Caprica) and Doral (PR man from the mini). It isn’t like the whole thing wasn’t CGI and images couldn’t have been manipulated from earlier episodes. I’m not one to deeply question some of the stuff they hand wave away, but things like this irritate me. Seems lazy.
  • It was his conversation with Sharon that changed Adama’s mind. She is brought to his quarters and he asks why the Cylons hate the human race so much. She brings up his speech at Galactica’s decommissioning (no idea how she knows about it) and says he asked why humanity deserves to live. She said, “Maybe you don’t.”
  • Though Cain suspected Adama’s plan, I don’t think he had any idea her XO was in the CIC after the battle to kill him.
  • It’s curious how Pegasus Six is able to walk through such a secure ship without being noticed. Kara had to show her ID just to get into the CIC and she had been there numerous times. There is also no explanation as to how she got off the ship. The show glosses over stuff like quite a lot.
  • Kara gives a speech at Cain’s funeral that is surprisingly positive for the Admiral considering just a day before she was prepared to assassinate her.
  • Of course, one of my favorite scenes is between Adama and Roslin when she promotes him. She looks awful, poor thing, and when she rises to leave, Adama kisses her. That moment was improvised by Edward James Olmos. He thought it felt right and did it, surprising Mary McDonnell and everyone. They liked it so much they did other takes, to get multiple angles. Nothing was as good as the first take, which is what we see.
  • It’s a shame that Emmy voters don’t ever, and I mean ever, reward sci-fi shows because Mary McDonnell deserved an Emmy for the slow demise of Laura Roslin. Tricia Helfer also deserved award recognition for her portrayal of all the incarnations of Number Six. They are both stellar in this episode.
  • “Do you drink, Thrace?” “Only to excess.” Cain and Kara, drinking and talking about not flinching.
  • “Do not flinch.”
  • “She’s made of sterner stuff than she’s given credit for.” Adama, talking to Lee about Laura Roslin.
  • “Suicide is a sin, but I need to die.” “What you need is justice.” Pegasus Six and Baltar
  • “So, where do we go from here?” Sharon to Helo, when he is freed for killing Thorne.
  • “Congratulations, Admiral Adama.” Roslin after promoting Adama.
  • “I never gave up hope but I just stopped trying to get them a long time ago.” Adama on being promoted.

Epiphanies

from Battlestar Galactica Wiki

Flashbacks are a tricky device that can work well or be a total disaster. A new show I’m watching, Ringer, is using flashbacks with middling success, as is another new show, Revenge. In fact, the entire series of ˆ is a flashback, if I’m not mistaken. Battlestar Galactica did them at least once or twice a season, if not more, and were successful more often than not. One of their best uses of flashbacks is in Epiphanies (★★★).

When we first meet Laura Roslin in the mini-series, she is getting the news that she has a very short time to live. Then, the world ends and she has to take up the mantle of President of the Twelve Colonies and discover her destiny as the dying leader that will lead the human race to earth. Whew. That’s quite an agenda for anyone, let alone someone with terminal breast cancer. She’s kept it hidden, used it for political gain, fought through it to lead a jungle expedition but is finally succumbing.

I’m thrilled they followed through with Roslin’s cancer, that they didn’t sweep it under the rug, letting her linger on with treatment for months or years. Here we are, halfway through the second season and she is on the cusp of death. I remember when I watched this season “live” I was freaking out that she might die. She and Adama quickly became my two favorite characters, probably because I can relate to him as a flawed parent and I dream about being a high-powered important woman like Roslin. I was going to be crushed if she died. After watching Resurrection Ship, Part 2, I had my doubts that she would. On the other hand, this is Mary McDonnell. She is a critically acclaimed actress on a sci-fi cult show. If anyone would leave for bigger roles, it would be her or EJO.

So I watched this show with trepidation and half a mind, one focusing on what was going on and the other on Roslin’s fate. That means, basically, I didn’t pay a hell of a lot of attention to the “Let’s work for peace with the Cylons/Sabatoge the military” subplot. I should have, because it comes important at the end of the season. It is a better than average subplot, with the nuke Adama gave Gaius in season one coming into play and the explanation as to where this “Make Peace With the Cylons” idea that will be important later on is coming from. It’s Gina, better known as Pegasus Six.

The more interesting story in my mind is Laura’s slow descent to death. As she is fading in and out of consciousness she flashes back to the last day on Caprica, when she got the horrible news and she left for the Galactica. Let’s just put my hair obsession aside (I hate her hair in the mini-series and it is inconsistent throughout this episode, as is her wardrobe) and focus on the part of the day that we didn’t see in the mini-series, namely her meetings with President Adar and a representative of the striking teachers union. We learn a few key points in these flashbacks: one, Roslin was having an affair with Adar; two, she was willing to take charge and go out on a limb for something she believed in; three, Adar asked for her resignation as Secretary of Education before she left for Galactica; and four, she saw Baltar with Six that day but didn’t realize it.

Flashbacks are most effective when they flesh out a character or reveal important plot points. These flashbacks do both. They show Laura as a strong politician with initiative, something that will be vital just a few hours later. The knowledge that she was less than a day away from being ousted from her cabinet role makes her elevation to president all the more astounding. The revelation of the Adar affair humanizes her in a way that the cancer diagnoses cannot, as a sexual being. Now, to many that might be an ewww factor, since for the younger viewers she is more like their mother than anything else. But, for older viewers, it is a natural part of life that many shows choose to gloss over or ignore altogether with their mature characters. Finally, her discover of Baltar’s relationship gives at least one character the knowledge that the viewer has had since day one. What will that mean? Nothing if she doesn’t live.

Enter Baltar, Cottle, Sharon and her baby and, to a certain degree, Gina. Cottle discovers abnormalities in the baby’s blood, which leads Roslin to make her final act as president be the destruction of Sharon’s child. Baltar doesn’t know quite how to save the baby, so he takes a bit of time out to go get a little nookie (he hopes) on Cloud Nine from Gina, who he has been hiding there in the weeks since the destruction of the Resurrection ship. She is pushing him to be the bridge between Cylon and human peace when he becomes president. He realizes, almost simultaneously, that he doesn’t want to be president and the key to saving Roslin might be in the Cylon/human baby’s blood. Needless to say, it works and Roslin lives, but not before she fully realizes that Baltar was complicit in the destruction of their world.

Other Thoughts

  • Shockingly, I don’t have any “other thoughts” for this episode.

Next up, one of the worst episodes of the series, if my memory serves. BBC is taking a break from BSG for a couple of weeks, to premiere a new show. I am going to try to watch a two-part mini-series based on Pegasus’ time before they met Galactica and review that. For some reason, it isn’t available to stream instantly on Netflix like the series is. Weird.

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Sep 24 2011

BSG on BBC 2.10/2.11: Pegasus/Resurrection Ship Part 1 – “It’s like a dream.”

 

Pegasus (★★★★)

When a large ship with colonial signals jumps into the fleet’s range, Galactica discovers they weren’t the only battleship to survive. Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes) survived as well. This means new people, new supplies and more firepower to take the fight to the Cylons.

Another interesting development: since Cain is an Admiral, she is the senior officer in charge. Adama will take orders from Cain. This realization rattles Roslin especially since Roslin and Adama have made peace and have embarked on a professional relationship based on mutual respect. They’ve come too far to have a new dynamic thrown into the mix.  Based on some of Cain’s answers, Roslin immediately doesn’t trust her. It’s apparent that Cain thinks she is in charge, that the military needs supersedes the civilian.

While the three leaders of the human race are having their tete-a-tete, Cain’s XO is relaying a story to Tigh that may or may not be true: Cain shot her previous XO in the head when he refused an order. It’s apparent to the Galactica crew the environment on Pegasus is very different from theirs. Cain integrates the crew, reassigning Lee and Kara to Pegasus but Adama can do nothing about it. He has to follow orders.

The knuckle draggers from Pegasus tell about how they interrogate Cylons on their ship, rape, torture, etc., and the practice of letting the crew go in and take turns raping their Cylon prisoner (who is a Six model). Helo and Chief rush to help Sharon and, while protecting her, accidentally kill Thorne. They are immediately take into custody and to Pegasus for trial. Adama goes to bat for them to no avail. They are given a swift trial and are found guilty. Cain sentences them to die. Adama launches alert fighters and a strike team to go get his men. She launches hers in return. Pegasus ends with Vipers from each ship flying into battle against each other.

Other Thoughts:

 

  • Cain asks Baltar to interrogate Pegasus’ Cylon prisoner (who is a version of Six). When Baltar visits her it is obvious she has been abused, tortured and raped. Baltar is determined to help her because she is a living, breathing version of the woman he fell in love with on Caprica.
  • Adama assures Roslin that he has no problem with taking orders, he’s been doing it his whole life. She admits that if Adar had gotten off the Raptor, she would have been disappointed.
  • Lee and Kara just can’t stop being rebels. He gives her a camera and tells her to take the stealth ship and take pics of the mystery Cylon ship, against orders from Pegasus CAG.
  • Admiral Cain: “Madam President you look like I just shot your dog.” That’s one of my favorite lines of the series.

Resurrection Ship, Part 1 (★★★★★)

While Adama and Cain are fighting each other, Kara has jumped to the Cylon fleet and taken pictures of the mystery ship. She returns to the standoff, completely confused. Both ships think she is a Cylon raider since they didn’t know about mission and turn from each other to fight the enemy. I gotta say, it’s pretty cool when all the Vipers that had been fighting turn to fight together.

Cain sees the pictures Kara got and calls a truce with Adama. They agree to meet on neutral ground, Colonial One, where Roslin proceeds to smack them both down. It’s pretty funny. Roslin telling the two military officers to grow up; Cain wondering how in the world these two have survived while molding Colonial law to whatever they want; Adama indignantly asserting that his Galactica would take on Pegasus and win. Roslin asserts her authority as the Commander-in-Chief and tells Cain to suspend the executions until after the joint mission. Then, they will meet again and resolve it. Cain agrees, but you can tell that Cain has plans to subvert Roslin and Adama the first chance she gets.

It’s an indication to how far from teaching kindergarten Laura has gone when she tells Bill the only way to be free of Cain is to kill her. Adama is as shocked as the viewer. Laura is right, though, in that Cain will abandon the fleet as soon as she gets rid of Adama. Adama does some digging and discovers that Cain cannibalized civilian ships of equipment, weapons and people and left the remainder to the mercy of the Cylons. This knowledge, along with the realization that Laura is very close to death, is all Adama needs to make his mind up.

Cain promotes Kara to CAG of Pegasus air group because of her initiative with the Blackbird. She pushes Kara’s buttons, in a good way, by promising to return to Caprica, rescue the resistance and kick Cylon ass. But first, Kara has to plan the mission to destroy the mystery ship. After Kara presents the plan to Adama, he asks her to stay behind to go over the operational details. She does, and Adama lays out a special mission for her: assassinate Cain. While Cain is on her way back to Pegasus from the briefing, she briefs her XO on her plan for him to terminate Adama’s command.

Other Thoughts:

  • Baltar gets Pegasus Six to trust him. She explains that she always knew she was a Cylon, she was a soldier with a mission. She expected to die in the initial attack and be downloaded. But, the humans didn’t kill her, choosing instead to rape and torture her. All she wants is to die. She explains what the mystery ship is and if the fleet destroys it, she can die and not be resurrected. Baltar is shocked.
  • This episode is a treasure trove of quotable quotes…
  • “I’m a friendly! We’re all friendly! So let’s just, be friendly!” – Kara, when the Vipers turn on her thinking she is a Cylon.
  • “Is this what the two of you have been doing for the past six months? Debating the finer points of Colonial Law? We are at war.” – Cain on Adama and Roslin
  • “How the two of you have survived this long I will never know.” – Cain on Adama and Roslin
  • “Has the whole world gone mad?” – Adama’s response to Roslin suggesting Cain’s assassination.
  • “I want you to pull out your weapon and shoot Admiral Cain in the head” might just be the most shocking dialogue of the series.
  • Roslin to Adama: “I have good days and bad days. Don’t worry, I’m not dying today.”
  • Adama to Roslin: “What’s gotten into you. You’ve become bloody minded.”
  • “I know that as long as Cain lives, your survival is at risk. I know that.” Roslin says this ultimately out of concern for the fleet. She knows that she’s about to die. She trusts that Adama will balance civilian and military needs when she’s gone. I also like to think that her concern for Adama is personal. That they’ve become friends is obvious in their exchange when Laura is sick, in bed. His concern is plain. Her concern for him after she’s gone is evident as well.
  • The tear that Adama wipes away from his cheek when Roslin calls him back into her room is so touching. As I said in the last BSG post, they do such a great job building up to these emotional moments. It makes them that much more poignoient for the viewer.

Next up Resurrection Ship Part 2 and Epiphanies. Will Cain and Adama go through with their plans? Will they destroy the Resurrection Ship? Will Tyrol and the Chief be executed? Will Laura die? Wow, sounds pretty bloody-minded, doesn’t it?

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