It is now week 4 of the Colonel Tigh experiment on Battlestar Galactica. To say that he wasn't quite prepared to take command of the ship was sort of an understatement. Even if his best and perhaps only friend on the ship hadn't been shot, he was unprepared. Even if that friend wasn't the commander of the fleet, he would have wanted no part of it. Even if that commander had just taken the President into custody, he would have taken a pass. Unfortunately, all of those things happened, and Tigh was the one who had to step up because, well, who else was there?
Tigh took the death of Commander Adama very hard. Lt. Valeri, the hot Asian Cylon who shot him, had passed Dr. Baltar's Cylon detector with flying colors, but she went through some problems and shot herself in the face. She was a bad shot, and it didn't kill her, and when Adama needed her to blow up a Cylon Basestar, she did her job well. After cooperating, we thought that her threat was pretty much over. Then she shot the the Commander, and the shit just went downhill from there.
The Colonel was quite pissed at the shooting, as I hinted before, and he slapped Valeri around quite a bit trying to get information about other Cylons in the fleet. She has always denied being a Cylon, and she denies knowing anything about any other Cylons that might be among them. Whether this is true or just part of her programming, we can only guess. Despite his best efforts, Tigh was unable to get any information out of her, but he knows that she must have had some help, and he's determined to figure out who her allies were and he knows were to start.
Chief Tyrel and Valeri had a relationship dating to a long time before the Cylons were destroying civilization. People didn't really care because the Galactica was more of museum than anything else, and really, what's so bad about a little sex? Tyrel is the first person Tigh targets for his interrogations, and he slaps him around pretty good as well. Seriously, how in the hell could Tyrel not realize he was sleeping with the enemy? He is a traitor and Tigh wants information NOW! The Chief is not completely innocent because when Valeri was acting strange, and strange things seemed to happen on Galactica whenever she was near, he helped cover for her. In his defense, a lot of people were deceived by the Cylons, including the smartest man in the world - or I guess you would say universe, technically - who was also fooled by hot Cylon snatch.
In reality, Chief was forced to end his relationship with Valeri, but still held feelings for her. However, when he returned to Galactica and learned that Valeri had shot the captain, he wanted nothing to do with her. Therefore, when Tigh put the two of them together in the same cell, it's not exactly like old times' sake. Luckily for Tyrel, he still has a lot of friends on the outside, and his number one fan is Cally. She knows that Chief can't be a Cylon, and wonders why Baltar isn't helping him.
Last season, Baltar created a Cylon detector, which they were supposed to use throughout the fleet to see who was a Cylon and who wasn't. It worked, but Baltar fudged the results and let Valeri pass. Why? Well, I believe at the time Six was straddling him and about to, uh, help him along during one of their imaginary sex sessions. The point is that even if Baltar passed Tyrel, there was no indication that anybody else should believe him. Gaius doesn't say as much to Cally, but generally just blows her off. How much trouble can a junior engineer make for the Vice President anyway? Well, when that junior engineer was witness to what was, in essence, the murder of an officer, she does hold a little bit of leverage.
Now, although Gaius knows that when he killed Crashdown he likely saved the lives of everybody on the ground as well as the rescue party, he decides he needs to do something. He visits Colonel Tigh and tells him that he has worked out the kinks in the Cylon detector. Parameters this and anomalies that, and he won't let another one slip through. Tigh laughs at him, and then laughs at him even harder when Baltar suggests that since he is Vice President he should be in command. Clearly, he is going to have to come up with another plan.
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Comments (9)
This show rocks! The final scene was :( and the whole ep was damn good. Arent they all? ;)
Great recap as always.
1 of 9 | Posted by HIM | Posted on August 10, 2005 4:38 AM
That episode rocked. Hopefully they'll be sendin' out a new Boomer to replace the dead one. I neeed my Hottie Asian fix...
2 of 9 | Posted by dumbanddumber | Posted on August 10, 2005 6:46 AM
I still don't get how there were two Boomers in the fleet, apparently very closely assigned, and no one noticed.
3 of 9 | Posted by Lady J | Posted on August 10, 2005 7:00 AM
I don't believe there were two Boomers in the fleet. The "original" Boomer left Helo on Caprica and returned to the fleet with Baltar. Then another Boomer showed up on Caprica claiming to have returned to rescue him but then getting stuck there with him on the run (which apparently was part of the cylons plan). I'm guessing when they knew Helo was left behind they just sent in one of the many Boomer copies to complete mission "get knocked up by Helo".
Should be interesting to see what happens if Caprica Boomer makes it back to the fleet since she's in love with Helo but the Tyrel loves her and Cally loves Tyrel. So now all we'll need is some Cally on Boomer action and the circle will be complete. Throw in Six for good measure and now you got yourself a show worthy of Cinimax... too bad its on SciFi.
4 of 9 | Posted by MODULUS | Posted on August 10, 2005 7:52 AM
You know, if the Cylons are creating endless copies of hot Asians and a SMOKING hot 6 foot tall blondes, what the hell is the problem? Why are we fighting them again? Did you SEE how androgynous and boy like Starbuck is? This is what the Human race is defending? Gimmie hot cylon snatch any day.
so starbuck and helo get into a 5 minute firefight against an elite squad of surviving marines and whatnot, and no one on either side gets so much as even wounded? Its like those old GI Joe cartoons were tehy would shoot a million laser beams at each other and never actually hit anything.
I really enjoy the Tigh storyline. His rampant alcoholism, his endlessly bad mistakes making the situation worse. And even that impromptu hate fuck with his wife was kinda hot. But then I realized their both about 60 years old, and then it was not so hot.
5 of 9 | Posted by EdHill | Posted on August 10, 2005 8:37 AM
I thought that the sex scene with Tigh and Lady Tigh was pretty damn disturbing.
Do you think that Adama was sorry that he left Tigh off the hook after he heard about the multitude of ways that it had gotten all fucked up?
The final scene with Boomer was good. I liked the way that they recalled the earlier scene with the Chief getting beat on, with the two drops of blood.
6 of 9 | Posted by dumbanddumber | Posted on August 10, 2005 9:45 AM
FWIW, I think the Caprica Buccanners were (are?) a military unit similar to the Special Forces or Rangers, rather than a sports team. Seems like I heard something on the ep about how Starbuck had seen them play at one of the interservice get togethers (which are pretty common IRL). I don't have a DVR so I can't go back and watch the episode to confirm, but maybe someone else can.
7 of 9 | Posted by Roman Totale | Posted on August 10, 2005 11:21 AM
FWIW, I think the Caprica Buccanners were (are?) a military unit similar to the Special Forces or Rangers, rather than a sports team. Seems like I heard something on the ep about how Starbuck had seen them play at one of the interservice get togethers (which are pretty common IRL). I don't have a DVR so I can't go back and watch the episode to confirm, but maybe someone else can.
8 of 9 | Posted by Roman Totale | Posted on August 10, 2005 11:22 AM
Damn double post. Sorry, looked like the first one didn't go through...
9 of 9 | Posted by Roman Totale | Posted on August 10, 2005 11:22 AM