Resurrection Ship Part I by Luke Hung

            Even though several months have passed for us, not one second has passed for our heroes. We see a little more of the Vipers being launched with close ups on some of the pilots. Actually it’s a magnificent series of shots with the prerequisite drums pounding in the background. Kat requests instructions and Tigh suggests to Adama that he order both the Vipers and the Galactica to open fire. Tigh can do the math and if the Galactica doesn’t fire first she doesn’t have much of a chance against the more modern Pegasus and her numerous state of the art Vipers.

            We don’t find out what Adama orders right away because we now flash over to Starbuck who is blissfully unaware of the firestorm back at the fleet. She nervously gets in real close to the Resurrection Ship and takes photos so precise you can see the faces of the inactive Cylons. Her ship darts between the wide wings of the Resurrection Ship, through hundreds of Raiders and escorts who fail to see her. Little does she know, her infiltrating a Cylon war fleet, coming mere meters away from a capital Cylon warship is infinitely safer than what she would have been doing if she was back with the fleet. She completes her little recon mission and winks out, the Cylons none the wiser.

            Back to the melee around the Colonial fleet, the two masses of Vipers close until the get in such proximity that they must maneuver or collide. Kat begins to ask for weapons free as the Vipers are now at point blank range and swing about each other in a dangerous ballet. The communication traffic gets more confusing as now multiple pilots are filling the airwaves with requests for assistance and permission to fire. Cain continues to make tactical moves by ordering Stinger to relieve Apollo of duty and assist in the attack on Galactica. Stinger gets the drop on Apollo drawing his weapon first and orders him to the back of the Raptor. Tensions continue to rise amongst the Viper pilots while Adama and Cain stand stone faced, both knowing eventually someone will get nervous and fire without permission.

With little else to do Apollo sit in the back of the Raptor and types an encrypted message to Starbuck, who just popped back into the sector. She not surprisingly is very confused about the two masses of Vipers spinning about each other. However her response to Apollo does not go unnoticed as both Battlestars see an unidentified craft nearing their ships. Both commanders assume it’s a Raider and a prelude to a Cylon attack. This forces them to recall their ships to mass against the Cylon threat. This is great for the Adama and Cain and not so good for Starbuck as every single Viper in the fleet is bearing down on her. She immediately recognizes her plight and makes a panicked call over the wireless. “Starbuck to all Vipers, do not fire, repeat, do not fire! I am a friendly, okay? We're all friendlies. So, let's… just… be friendly.” 

Adama uses the break in the action to call Cain and suggest that everyone stands down. Cain doesn’t give a response immediately, but when Starbuck downloads the photos from her recon mission Cain decides that there are some useful personnel aboard the Galactica. She agrees to a mutual stand down and wants Adama to report to her on the Pegasus. Adama declines the part where he goes to the Pegasus as he accurately presumes he will be arrested the moment he steps aboard the ship. She then suggests ‘neutral’ ground Colonial One.

The tone on Colonial One is little better than what it was with the battling Vipers. Cain angrily argues her point; that the men she convicted committed murder they admitted to it and the punishment for that crime is death. Actually to hear Cain explain it, it makes a lot of sense. Roslin, clearly on Adama’s side states that there must be a better solution for this than summary executions. Cain bottom-lines it. “We are at war” and don’t have the luxury of protracted legal trials. Roslin responds to her candor with an equally honest statement if they don’t comprise they will fight and then everyone loses. Cain gets to the real reason why she called off her ships, the recon mission. She wants the Cylon fleet and she needs the Galactica to do it. She agrees to stay the execution until after the attack. Adama who was pretty silent during this whole debate asks for his men back, which only gets a “you’re fracking lucky you are not looking at your own (death) warrant.” Roslin agrees to Cain’s terms for Adama with one proviso that they will return to Colonial One to resolve the issue after the attack. Personally I think Adama was so quiet for two reasons, one you don’t argue with a crazy woman; two because in the back of his mind he thinks what he did was wrong on some levels. Not necessarily wrong morally, but wrong militarily and he is a military man. Helo and the Chief did kill and officer, who was following orders. He did order an attack on a superior and fellow Colonial warriors and later defied an order to stand down. Also notable in this scene is that aside from sitting when Roslin was standing Cain did not once show Roslin the courtesy that would be given to the President. She barked at her and when thanked for her presence stalked out without a word.

Later, Starbuck nervously walks to Cain’s quarters. She stands at attention and after a moment is ordered to stand at ease and come forward. Cain the offers her promotion to CAG on board the Pegasus. She states that Stinger couldn’t cut the mustard as both Apollo and Starbuck out smarted him. Starbuck is understandably surprised. Normally when she disobeys an order she gets in trouble for it or at best gets tacit approval, but never an out and out reward. Cain also offers to go back for the insurgents Starbuck left behind on Caprica. Still on Colonial One, Roslin tells Adama that Cain needs to be killed. She is too arrogant, too manipulative to let live. She will bide her time then when attention is elsewhere she will overthrow Adama and leave the civilian fleet to fend for itself. Adama calls it a world gone mad.

In the sickbay Doc Cottle is examining Boomer. He says that there is no evidence of permanent damage from the attack. He should have said permanent physical damage. Adama adds that the attackers were not from the Galactica, but Boomer is unimpressed. She wants to know what Adama is going to do about Helo and the Chief. Adama has no answers but apologizes for her treatment. He orders Cottle to check her out again to confirm she’s okay and then send her back to her cell. On the Pegasus, the Chief and Helo wonder why they aren’t dead, since their execution time came and went. Apollo, who chooses that moment to come into the brig, answers their questions. He fills them in on the near fight between Pegasus and Galactica and they all stare amazed at the fervor their actions caused.
In Baltar’s little fantasy world he expresses that he is bored. Holo-six initially thinks he means with her, but he explains that it is with the fantasy condo, which is the principle setting of his delusion. Personally I think it is her, but he’s afraid to admit it. She tells him about a little ritual she went through about a pyramid game and an extra ticket that he always held for him; yeah, sure, sweet, whatever. In the real world (kind of), Baltar escorts Cain to see the prisoner Gina-Six. She makes a few comments about him teaching Gina how to beg and roll over. However, she get quickly disgusted by Gina’s continued existence kicks her once. Baltar stops the beating before it could go any further by saying any contact could damage the work he already has completed. Cain can get behind that idea and demands information on the Resurrection ship. She spits at Gina and stalks off. The moment that Cain is out of the cell Gina attacks Baltar who tries to crawl away. He’s got no chance of beating her but she inexplicably releases him and scurries away, once in the corner, she asks to be killed and if Baltar could help her.
Adama in the Galactica hanger meets Larry. He quickly determines that Larry is not originally military and asks Cally for some details. She talks about the Sillia but has little else to offer. Adama then sends Tigh to question Fisk and after a few drinks Fisk confirms that the Pegasus found the Sillia and a few other ships after the original attack on the Colonies. He reports that Cain ordered the stripping of anything useful, including FTL drives, spare parts, and people. Some of the people resisted ‘enlistment’ and Cain executed some of their families to motivate them to come along peacefully.
Starbuck and Apollo briefly meet. He expresses frustration over his demotion and the prisoner situation, but Starbuck just wants to continue on. She says that they can’t do anything about it and should just do their jobs. Apollo is unimpressed by that answer but carries on. Baltar meets with Gina who after being given some pants asks again to be killed. She explains that she really wants to die and not be resurrected. She knows the only way to do that is to destroy the Resurrection ship so she volunteers to Baltar the information he was to force out of her. Baltar now gives this information to Cain and both she and Starbuck are excited to be able to strike a real blow against the Cylons. They hope if the Cylons would actually die after every fight they might lose interest in war.
Adama visits Roslin. She is laid up in a bed and coughs repeatedly during their conversation. He confirms her fears about Cain’s viciousness and tells her about the small civilian fleet Cain left for dead. Roslin says she isn’t surprised and that Cain would kill Adama without a second thought. She warns him not to give her the chance. In the brig Helo and Tyrol discuss the changes they would make in their life if they get out of jail. Tyrol says he’s got to let Boomer go and Helo talks about how insane his decisions about Sharon have been.
Adama and Cain sit alone in their respective offices contemplating their options. After a bunch of quick clips of the two of them staring at reports we flash into a mission briefing. Basically they are going to sucker the Raiders away from the Resurrection ship using damaged transports as bait. When the Raiders are far enough away, the Galactica and Pegasus will jump in and take on the two Cylon Baseships toe to toe. Their Vipers will target the Resurrection ship after Apollo uses the stealth ship to take out the Resurrection Ship’s FTL drives. Throughout the briefing Cain stares coldly at Adama who just listens impassively.
            Cain okays the operation, but Adama makes up some story about needing more information about the plan. He requests that Starbuck remains behind to answer some questions. Instead Adama uses this opportunity to tell her about his plan to assassinate Cain. He tells her following the mission she is to take Lee and go to the bridge and shoot Cain in the head. On a Raptor, Cain simultaneous informs Fisk that he is going to be assigned to Galactica with a contingent of marines and after the attack he is execute the entire Galactica command crew. Ironically they both chose to use the excitement of the victory to kill the other commander, much like Caprica Boomer did to Adama in last season’s cliffhanger. We get some light drums and now we have to wait for next week to find out what happens.

Overall the episode was an A-

Acting: A, I continue to love Michelle Forbes. I feel she is significantly better in this series than I’ve seen her other roles. It might be because darker characters allow an actor to express more range. Whatever the reason she continues to impress. Olmos does more with silence than many can do with multiple lines of dialogue. McDonnell were good, so was Sackhoff and Bamber in limited roles. Helfer looked and sounded terrible and that was in of itself is impressive for both the make-up department and her.

Plot: A-, A tight episode. The details fell in very smoothly for Adama and Roslin’s very pragmatic take on the Cain situation demonstrates a degree of brutality that is surprising given how little evidence she has in regard to Cain’s personality. We know her to be right, but she didn’t get any substantiation to suggest she was correct until the end of the episode. 

Action/Episode Energy: A-, A fantastically paced episode. Smooth energy and a great deal of interpersonal tension, not quite as tight as Pegasus, but I don’t know what episode is.