- Gaius Baltar causes intense unrest within the fleet when he begins to openly promote belief in the Cylon god. Colonel Tigh, Galen Tyrol, and Tory Foster argue over how far they should go to ensure their secret is not revealed.
- Funeral services are held for Cally Tyrol but the Chief feels guilty about what happened to his wife. He's slipping on the job as well and makes a serious mistake that could have resulted in death for the crew of a Raptor. Harsh words with Admiral Adama in Joe's Bar results in him being demoted from Chief to Specialist and designated for reassignment. Col. Tigh visits Caprica Six in the brig to advise that her request the see the child Hera has been denied. He's shocked at what he sees however. Meanwhile, Gaius Baltar and his acolytes are attacked and beaten in their quarters by the Sons of Ares, a vigilante group. As a result, he goes on the offensive and desecrates a temple in revenge. President Roslin promises him she will pursue his attackers but also seeks the Quorum of Twelve's support in passing new legislation to reign him in.—garykmcd
- This week on Galactica: "Escape Velocity."
Or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Inner Robot."
That's Tory Foster's (Rekha Sharma) point of view, anyway. Fresh from offing fellow secret Cylon Galen Tyrol's (Aaron Douglas) wife Cally,(Nicki Clyne) Tory has decided that Cylons represent perfection -- heightened strength, the ability to shut down emotions like guilt and shame. Her heart has become mechanical, and it has nothing to do with Dr. Jarvik.
But first, Cally's funeral. Tyrol utters a heartbreaking eulogy that speaks of his deep love for Cally, calling her his love, the breath in his lungs, the blood in his veins, the light in his eye. "Now that breath is gone. That blood, and the light are gone." His lament is oceans deep...in that moment. (More later.)
Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), sitting by Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos), says, "I like this service."
"It's not for me, I'll tell you that," Adama gruffly responds.
"I know, but I want you to know what I like," she says. Roslin's wearing a wig. She doesn't have much time left.
Adama and Roslin walk up to pay their respects. Then Tory and Tigh (Michael Hogan) approach him, and he grabs them with an urgency, his eyes widening as stares at them. Alarmed, Tigh and Tory break away, muttering their apologies for Chief's loss, then hissing to each other under their breath that he'll get them both killed.
The brig. Tigh goes down to visit Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer) ostensibly to tell her that her request to see Hera Agathon has been denied. She questions his motivation for coming to visit her in person, and the fact that he never asks questions. Then, as she steps out of the shadows, we see that from Tigh's point of view, she has tranformed into...his dead wife Ellen! (Kate Vernon) Six/Ellen asks if there's something he needs from her, and he yells at her to stay away from him. He leaves abruptly...heading off to....
The Chief's quarters, where Tory and Tyrol already are chatting and Nicky's (naturally) crying. Tyrol tells Tory that Cally thought the two of them were having an affair. "But we weren't," she says.
Tyrol is not comforted "I don't even know what I am anymore. I don't know which of my memories are real. I don't know that I've had one action in my life that isn't programmed," he says.
"Galen, you're perfect," Tory replies. "You don't need guilt. We were made to be perfect."
Tigh dismisses that as Baltar's mumbo-jumbo One God crap, but Galen asks Tory if she means she can live without guilt. "Just shut it down," she says.
That does not quite compute with the Chief, who turns to Tigh and asks him if it isn't true that they're the same people, that they'll be the men they are until they day they die. Tigh gruffly agrees, assuring him that the feelings he's experiencing now are normal and human. "And it's not going to end any time soon. It'll be there every day. You'll see her every day, you'll see her...." Tigh trails off.
Gee, I don't think he's talking about Cally anymore.
"Be a man, Chief," concludes Tigh. "Feel what you've got to feel. But don't risk us!"
"Just think about it," Tory offers. "Think about what we are. What we can do!" And with those conflicting messages, Tigh and Tory exit -- and the opening credits roll!
Survivor count: 39, 675. One fewer...adios, Cally.
After a commercial break, we check in on Baltar's (James Callis) cult HQ, to be referred to from now on as Church with Benefits. While other cultists cook and string beads, Baltar is napping. It's good to be the king!
Tory walks in on him and begins yanking single hairs from his head while pleasuring him, chatting about the confusion caused when the body's sensations clash.
He tries to sit up, but she throws him back down; he comments on her strength and is alarmed when she starts tonguing his cheek.
"I think I preferred it when you cried," he quips.
Then she asks him if it's true that if you sin and ask God for forgiveness, then the sin was absolved...and therefore, if a person were to become one with a god, she could never do wrong.
"Well, no," Baltar says, "because that would imply we were perfect."
"Perfect," Tory whispers happily. "Perfect, just as we are!"
Baltar moves to disagree with her...but before he can do that, there's a raid on a compound. See, while Baltar and Tory were having conversation/S&M foreplay, a group of booted thugs were running toward the sect's headquarters. When they arrive, they throw in a smoke bomb and, in the confusion, attack people all willy-nilly, punching the acolytes -- and Tory -- in the face while asking for Baltar. It's an organized strike, and once a minute passes, one of them writes something on the wall. They dash out, assuring the cult that they'll be back for Baltar, who has hidden on a beam above them.
Meanwhile on the flight deck, Tyrol's repairing a Raptor, but his mind keeps drifting to images of Cally. Cally coming up to check on him at work. Cally, the mother of his son; Cally, waking him from a nightmare and getting beaten for the favor. The Raptor pilot interrupts his dark daydreams to ask him if he's done with repairs; he says yes. Minutes later, the Raptor has launched and is in the midst of its mission when suddenly the thruster controls cut. The pilots are forced to turn back to Galactica to make an emergency landing, but they come in too fast -- the landing is so rough and explosive that it doesn't look like there are any survivors. Uh oh...
Back at Church with Benefits HQ: Injured cultists are on the ground, and Colonial authorities are there to take information about the attack. Baltar's demanding that the authorities do something -- then the Six in his head points out the graffiti on the wall. It reads "Sons of Ares."
"Old gods die hard," Baltar's Invisible Six tells him. Kneeling over one woman, she adds, "Even among your people." Baltar approaches the woman in question and, seeing she's clutching something in her hand, pries it open. She's holding a medallion of Asclepius, God of Healing. "The old gods are fighting back," Baltar's Six concludes. Later, his Six tells him that it's time for him to take a stand. At first, Baltar is reluctant, but then he rises and tells his followers that he intends to respond to the attack. He strides out of their quarters; the cultists follow, a bit confused and worried.
Turns out that Baltar's heading for a service for followers of the old gods. He walks in and, interrupting a ritual for Zeus, immediately makes new friends by informing the churchgoers that they're worshiping a serial rapist. With the congregation in a full-blown uproar, Baltar rushes the altar and upsets the incense and holy symbols, and his followers clash with the churchgoers. In almost no time at all, the fleet authorities are there to haul him off.
The flight deck: Tyrol looks over the Raptor's wreckage and notices that he failed to swap out a critical part. In fact, the fresh part was still in his pocket. The pilots apparently walked away with no major bruises, save for a few to their confidence in Tyrol. Although the co-pilot is visibly angry, his partner implores him to forgive Tyrol. But the Chief is having none of it.
"I don't need to be patted on the head, you can tell me I frakked up," he says.
"Nobody got hurt, OK? Forget it! You're only human!"
Oh, that does it. "No! Don't say that! Tell me I frakked up! Say it!" And things head south from there. Another mechanic tells Chief that he'll take over for him so he can have some much needed down time.
Yes, that certainly is a good idea.
The medical ward: Roslin is getting blood tests. Adama comes in carrying a book called "Searider Falcon." Roslin is thrilled, saying she hasn't read it in years. Adama admits he hasn't ever read the ending, even though it's his favorite. He likes it so much, he says, he doesn't want it to be over, so he's saving it.
"Maybe I should do that!" Roslin says enthusiastically. Then they share a look that acknowledges the folly in that statement. "That's a bad idea, maybe not," she quickly interjects.
Then Adama picks up her bag (awww, he carrying her books, they are soooo going steady!) and they discuss the Sons of Ares debacle. Adama can't find them, and Roslin's worried about the effects the situation will have on the rest of the people. Adama offers to put Baltar in lockdown, or kick him off of Galactica, but Roslin shoots down those ideas; she wants him close.
Then she heads to the brig. "I want him to see me," she says.
In the brig, Tigh is visiting Caprica Six for the second time in the same day, accompanied by armed goons. "You asked me what I want. I want to know how it feels to have killed billions of human beings, to have all that blood on your hands."
"I feel it," she says. "Do you really think that I couldn't?"
"Do you?" Tigh replies. "Or do you turn it off? Is there a switch in your head that you turn off?"
"You talk like we're different," she responds, "but you know we're not."
Tigh freaks out at the dual meaning of that observation, and he instructs the guards to arm their weapons.
Six explains that he's wrong if he thinks she's made of switches and relays, and holds out her arms. Look, she says, veins. No wires...we're the same.
Then, through his eyes, she turns into his dead wife again. "How can you live with what you've done?" Tigh says.
"Saul, are you looking for absolution? Forgiveness? I can give you that," Six/Ellen says.
Tigh makes the guards leave. "Just tell me what the trouble is," Six says, to which Tigh replies, "You have nothing to offer me."
In a nearby cell, Roslin is visiting Baltar and makes him look directly at her. This is a wig, she says. "I'm dying. Now, if you look into my eyes...you can probably see it." She doesn't want his pity, she says. She's still doing her job. In fact, she pledges to aggressively pursue his attackers and limit the size of public assembly to protect his followers.
"But," she adds, "I'm going to be slipping away from this life very soon, and I've gotten kind of curious as to what that's going to be like. So I did some research. And there are some people who say that when people are getting closer to their death, they just don't care about rules and laws and conventional morality...I'm just saying I have a quiet life, and I'll die a quiet little death. And everyone will be happy. It's just that I'm not in the mood any longer to indulge you, so that's" -- pregnant pause -- "all." Then she tells him that he's being released, so stay safe!
Joe's Bar: Adama sidles up to Chief Tyrol and tells him he should take time off. Tyrol responds that he doesn't need special treatment. Then Adama responds, "I guess she just couldn't take it, huh? Being married to a Cylon, being mother to a half-breed abomination?" OK, Adama doesn't really say that...Tyrol hallucinates the comment. Adama orders another shot of booze, then actually says, "She was a good woman."
"If you really believed that, you wouldn't have threatened to stick her up against a bulkhead and shoot her," Tyrol spits. "That's OK, though. I thought about doing it many times myself."
You can already tell that this is not going to go well for old Chief, who launches into a tirade about being stuck with the best among limited options, and how many of the people on Galactica really ended up with the people they wanted to be with, anyway? The ones they really wanted were dead, he continues, and the others? We all remember the Boomer situation. You almost feel for poor Chief, until he begins speaking ill of the dead, specifically his dead wife.
"I settled for that shriek! Those dull vacant eyes! The boiled cabbage stench of her! And why? Because this is my life!" Ye gods...ouch.
He continues the ranting and raving, accusing Adama of making an angel out of someone who wasn't."You came down here to be in my club. But you're not in my club. You don't know what frakking club I'm in because you don't ask the right questions."
Chief keeps pushing until Adama warns him he's risking a demotion. Tyrol goads him to do it, something you only do to Bill Adama if you mean it -- because he does. In that moment, Chief is stripped of his role. So. As of this point in the episode, he's just Tyrol, another Armageddon survivor who's losing his marbles.
A meeting of the Quorum: Roslin's proposition to limit public assembly goes down about as well as fish heads coated in bile sauce. The other members of the Quorum won't stand for it, and Lee Adama pledges to override her decision with a vote. Roslin tells them to go ahead and vote, and if they succeed, to take it back to their constituents and tell them what they've done in the name of the people's will. But, she warns, they had remember what happened on New Caprica when Baltar had unfettered political power -- and urges them consider what he'll do with blind religious devotion.
"So go ahead," she says. "Vote."
The brig: Tigh watches Six sleep, but of course it's not Six he sees, but Ellen. Six wakes up, and notices he doesn't have his guards. Tigh says she didn't answer his question: Can she simply turn off the pain?
She responds that she doesn't want to turn it off, that it helps her learn. She admits she was instrumental in the destruction of humanity, but she also fell in love with a human on Caprica. "He was mortal and fallible. And he had this incredible pride in himself. He thought he knew everything there was to know, and I loved him with my whole heart."
Tigh thinks this is Ellen, of course, and that she's talking about him. "And then one day, I realized I wouldn't have him forever," Six/Ellen continues. "I understood what I did, how I betrayed him him and humanity. And that pain taught me to understand death."
"Baltar could die, and I could lose him." This makes Tigh angry...very, very angry. "Baltar's heart was ephemeral," Six continues. "Baltar's body was fragile in my hands." Tigh yells for the personnel watching the monitors to leave.
Six/Ellen offers to help him turn off his guilt, by granting him pain. Pain, she says, will help him focus on who he really is and bring him clarity, sharp as a knife. Hmm, that sounds promising but...shouldn't he try mediation first? Maybe?
No dice -- she starts punching him in his yap, with a gleeful smile on her face. When she stops, Tigh asks her to keep going, but she refuses, apologizing by saying this isn't what he needs. She kisses his forehead.
Back at Church with Benefits, Baltar is trying to get back inside their quarters but armed guards are blocking the entrance, saying that the maximum number of people allowed under the new executive order already is inside. Baltar insists that he be allowed in, but the guards remain in his way. Then his Six appears, telling him that he has to walk inside. He doesn't want to be a hero, he mutters to her, but she insists, assuring him he won't be hurt.
He steps up, and is welcomed by a rifle butt to the jaw, knocking him down to spit out blood on the floor. Invisible Six tells him to get up, but he can't -- so she lifts him, pushing him forward...he looks like a marionette buoyed by invisible strings. The guards beat him to the ground again, and Six lifts him. It happens another time...but right when it looks like the guards are going to beat him to a pulp, Lee Adama races up and stops them. The Quorum voted to override Roslin's order, Lee announces, making the guards stand down. He tells Baltar he's free to enter his home.
Baltar thanks him. "I don't do these things for you," Lee replies. Baltar says, "You do them because your god compels you."
Lee's facial expression ambles towards horrified, but makes a pit stop at bewildered.
Flash to the medical ward, where Roslin is getting her cancer treatment with Admiral Adama at her side.
"He has no idea. He really has no idea," she says. "There are pragmatic realities he refuses to face."
Adama: "...He's doing what he thinks he's right.
Roslin: "Well, yeah. He's Lee...but sometimes doing the right thing is a luxury." But she soon stops complaining, and asks Adama to read her the next chapter of "Searider Falcon." It's the part he hasn't read, he admits. The prose expresses his feelings for Roslin as she approaches the end of her life.
Inside the Church with Benefits, Baltar's followers listen, along with Lee Adama and Tory, as Baltar tearfully sermonizes about the lessons learned from their latest trial.
Something in the universe loves the entity that is me, he says. I'll choose to call this something God, a singular spark that lives within all human beings. He invites them to love their own faults, because if God embraces them, how can they be faults? And, he adds, they must love themselves, because if they don't, how can they love others? Well, that doesn't sound so bad...but, wait. In an ominous statement, he adds that loving themselves allows them to see the truth in others. And the truth is....we are all perfect, just as we are. God only loves that which is perfect, and he loves all of them because they are perfect, just as they are.
The followers begin to applaud and cry. Invisible Six and Tory look on, broadly smiling. Lee's facial expression completes the journey -- he looks utterly horrified.
Next week: Mutiny on the Demetrius?
Previous synopsis:
Religious freedom is debated and defended as the messianic Gaius Baltar promotes his belief in one true God.
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