GALACTICA

PRE-EPISODE THOUGHTS

This is a George Gershwin song from 1926, and also a 1987 movie staring Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers.

10:05 PM

Tyrol is SHOCKED that Six wants to kill "Boomer" as punishment for treason.

Didn't Bill Adama kill Gaeta and Zarek a few episodes ago? No one complained about that.

Even more relevant, wasn't Tyrol part of the Star Chamber that executed people involved with aiding the Cylons?

Will anyone act consistently in this series?

10:19 PM

"Boomer" uses "Cylon projection" on Tyrol, and he doesn't like it.

What the heck is "Cylon projection" and how come we never heard about it until now? And why is Tyrol even surprised by it? Isn't he Cylon now?

10:30 PM

Tyrol lets "Boomer" do the "Cylon projection" think with him. Meanwhile, Starbuck is getting close with the piano player.

I've been noticing glassware. Starbuck drinks from shot glasses. I hard drinker like Starbuck should be using a bigger glass to get drunk.

There were a lot of ornate wine goblets in the cabinets in "Boomer's" "Cylon projection" house.

10:41 PM

Tyrol has a brilliant idea. Replace "Boomer" with some random Number 8 that he abducts. They all look the same, so no one can tell the differnece, right?

But somehow, the Cylons know each other. "Boomer" encounters another Number 8, whom she has to beat up and knock out because she has been recognized.

I couldn't tell if she used super-Cylon strength to beat her up. Of course, they are both Cylons, and should both have super-Cylon strength, so that factor should even out.

11:00 PM

There was three different sizes glasses on the table in the bar where Saul and Ellen were drinking.

How come they never run out of booze? Are they distilling the stuff aboard the fleet? Even if they are, shouldn't the booze be white? Amber booze is aged in oak barrels, I doubt that they have a ship full of oak barrels with aging booze.

Starbuck has been playing the Cylon song since she was a kid. And Hera drew the notes to the Cylon song. Before "Boomer" kidnapped her. Before kidnapping Hera, Boomer had wild Cylon sex with Helo.

In the previews for next week, we see that Galactica is "dying" and we will learn some new secrets.

10:05 PM

That reunion with Ellen and "Boomer" happened pretty quickly. I guess, with only a few episodes remaining, the writers have to move the story along.

How did "Boomer" know how to find the fleet? If "Boomer" can find it, why can't the rest of the Cylons?

10:19 PM

I notice that the Six who got into an altercation at the food line had super Cylon powers, she was able to beat up a whole bunch of men. Tori had super Cylon powers once. How do these super Cylon powers work? How come the humans can't detect Cylons if their bodies are so different that they have super Cylon powers?

Anyway, the main plot is that Ellen is mad at Tigh because he got Caprica Six pregnant.

10:33 PM

So Ellen is still an alcoholic. Gaius still has a Six in his brain, but I think this is the first time we've seen her in this half-season. We haven't really seen much of Gaius either. His worship-harem is pissed at him because he tried to give away their food stockpile to the needy, but men with guns came and took it all.

10:45 PM

Ellen voted to leave with the Cylons just to piss off Saul. That not the behavior I'd expect from a thousands-year-old woman with the brains to design new biological Cylons.

Before the commercial break, Caprica Six had some sort of pregnancy problem.

10:57 PM

Gaius told Bill Adama something about how Galactica is becoming "blended ship." Then Adama had his troops give a bunch of assault rifles to Gaius' worship harem.

I think Anders is coming out of his coma.

PRE-EPISODE THOUGHTS

No exit from what?

POST-EPISODE WRAP-UP

The purpose of this episode is to finally explain everything, at least most of everything, and it seems to be very close to what I guessed in my post from three days ago.

By showing what happened after Ellen resurrected after Saul killed her, and by giving Anders his memory back on account of getting a bullet in his brain, we are told most of the story. (It was easy to predict that Anders would not be able to finish the story after the operation to remove the bullet. The writers need to leave a little bit of mystery so we watch the remaining episodes. So now Anders is in a coma.)

The "final five" Cylons are actually time travelers from the past who went to the colonies in order to prevent the human race from developing Cylons and having those Cylons rebel. But they got there too late, so instead they made a deal with the Cylons to end the war, and in return they would help the Cylons develop human bodies. (Why would the Cylons even want this?)

Ellen was the chief designer of the humanoid Cylons. Apparently she did a bad job of designing Cavil, whom she calls John. Cavil/John had the "final five" Cylons killed, and when they resurrected he planted fake memories into their brains and left them with the human colonies. Cavil/John was the one who broke the peace agreement and ordered the destruction of humanity.

The story doesn't tell us if "Earth" is the Earth that we live on. I think that the answer is yes. Here is my guess: the "final five," who lived in our future, somehow recovered the ancestral Cylon memories which are otherwise dormant. This explains how we are Cylon but don't know it.

This episode demonstrates how evil and racist Gaeta and Zarek were. If their plan had succeeded and they had killed Tyrol, Anders, Tori, and Saul Tigh, they would have destroyed humanity's only hope for survival. This demonstrates why racism is bad, and why, here on the real Earth, we should only vote for Democrats.

(Of course, I need to point out that if the final five are really the good guys, why did Tori kill Callie? Tori doesn't seem so good to me.)

Besides the real story of what happened, there are three other plot developments in this episode. (1) Roslin wants Lee to take over as the--well I'm not sure exactly what. Acting president? Vice president? (2) The Galactica is falling apart, and the only way to save it is for Tyrol to use Cylon bio-technology. It's a good thing that Gaeta and Zarek were stopped, otherwise they would have destroyed everyone when they jumped. (3) Ellen Tigh has escaped from Cavil/John's evil clutches with the help of Boomer. I guess there will be a reunion with the fleet in a future episode.

In a comment to my post on the most recent episode, “Blood on the Scales,” Stephan wrote:

Aha... a scar at the FTL drive. FTL uses a distortion in the space/time fabric to jump faster than light. What if due to a fault, they don't jump in space but in TIME. That would make a lot plausible, but on the other hand... less mystical.

Yes, that explains everything. The fleet, along with the Cylon renegades, will travel back in time. The humans will go back and re-colonize the original 12 colonies. The Cylons are the 13th tribe, and they will re-colonize “Earth.” That’s what the hybrid meant when she was spouting the nonsense about how “this all happened before and it will hall happen again, yada yada yada.”

“Earth” will now be revealed to be our Earth. Yes, we are Cylons. Isn’t that such a cute ending? All the time we hated the Cylons because we thought they were the others. This is supposed to teach us a lesson about racism.

I’ve learned nothing. This is not reality, but a story with a poorly contrived ending. The people we thought were “humans” had every right, and in fact, a responsibility to destroy the Cylon race, and Helo should have been executed as a traitor for interfering with the plan.

PRE-EPISODE THOUGHTS

The title must refer to the trial of Bill Adama that was hinted at by last week’s previews. I am reminded of the fact that Adama subjected Gaius Baltar to a trial for supposedly cooperating with the Cylons (you know, the guys that Adama is now cooperating with) when, as far as I could tell, Gaius had no other choice in the matter. (I haven’t forgotten that Gaius is guilty of giving a nuclear bomb to a Cylon, a crime for which he should be punished with death, but apparently everyone else has forgotten about that.)

I’m still rooting for Gaeta and Zarek because I think the fleet needs a change of leadership. But I am pretty sure that Gaeta and Zarek will lose, because the writers will punish them for their racist anti-Cylon attitudes. Either Adama/Roslin/Helo et al will take back the fleet, or a horrible consequence will befall the remainder of humanity on account of the new leadership's racist anti-Cylon initiatives.

Does anyone remember the episode from Season 3, Collaborators, in which the vigilante group, The Circle, sentences Gaeta to death for being Baltar’s assistant? Who was on the circle? Tigh, Anders, Kara/Starbuck, and Tyrol. All of the Cylon crew.

Let’s also recall that Gaeta lied at the trial of Baltar in order to bolster the prosecution’s case. I could never figure that part out. It seemed out of character for Gaeta to commit perjury. But it also seems out of character for Gaeta to be the leader of a mutiny.

10:10 PM

Gaeta has captured Adama again. Once again, he makes the mistake of not killing him.

10:18 PM

Starbuck and Tyrol are on the loose and sneaking around. I wonder what they are up to?

Romo Lampkin is back! I know that Gaeta is making a mistake with this trial idea.

Zarek orders the council executed because they become wusses and refuse to go along with him. No revolution is accomplished without some bloodshed.

10:29 PM

Gaeta is wussing out after he saw that Zaerk had the Council massacred.

Tory, who blew Callie out the airlock last season, says that the Cylons need to jump out of there. But Roslin is hysterically insisting that the Cylons stick around and that Bill Adama will recover control of the fleet.

A guard in the armory lets Tyrol get away because of fond memories of him.

Lee and Starbuck free the Cylon contingent from the brig, but Adama is being held elsewhere as he awaits trial for treason. (Gaeta really should have stationed more guard around the brig.)

10:45 PM

Bill Adama is found guilty and sentenced to death. Zarek is the judge, jury, but not the executioner. Dumb move, he should have killed him on the spot.

Anders is near-mortally injured. Will he survive?

Romo Lampkin kills his guard with a pen. Who knew that a lawyer could do super-commando stuff?

Bill Adama is, of course, freed by the Cylon contingent. If Gaeta had only listened to me and killed him when he had the opportunity.

10:57 PM

Tyrol sabotages the FTL drive seconds before Galactica is about to jump away from Roslin and her Cylon friends.

Adama retakes control of the bridge.

Adama has Zarek and Gaeta executed , and he does not give them a trial. It was kill or be killed. Gaeta failed to kill first, so he was killed.