Battlestar Galactica

Episode #212 - "Resurrection Ship, Part II"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

49,604 survivors in search of a home called Earth.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

In the brig, the Sunshine Boys (Gate and Vireem) arrive. Gage tells Helo and Tyrol, "The man you killed saved my life and the lives of fifty other men, you miserable fraks." Vireem adds, "So I guess you were both getting your poles greased by that filthy little robot girl." Tyrol is in a fighting mood and says, "I'm sorry. I don't think I heard that quite right. The glass. I can't hear you. So why don't you open the door, come in, and we'll talk about it in here." Vireem responds, "That's a great idea, Chief." A Marine orders them to put their hands over their head, then begin to strap them to their bunks. Helo tells them, "Sow it down. Just think about what you're doing here."

Gage threatens to abuse them. "You see, the gut, that's a vulnerable area. Lieutenant Thorne told me that once. He said if you really want to do some damage without leaving a mark, go for the gut." Vireem continues, "You'd be surprised what you can do with the simplest things. Bar of soap, plain old towel. How bad could it be, right? You'd be surprised." He begins smacking Helo with the towel and soap. Tyrol calls them cowards, and the pair begin to beat up the prisoners when Fisk arrives and orders the restraints removed from the prisoners. He asks, "Specialist Gage, let me ask you something. Those men in there, are they wearing Colonial uniforms?" Gage replies yes and so does Vireem. "Yes sir. They killed Lieutnenant..."

"Shut your frakkin' mouth! You see, I don't quite understand what I just saw because I think I saw you two knuckledraggers treating those men like they were Cylons, which of course couldn't be right, because if, in fact, that was the case, then you're both subjec to charges of assaulting a chief and a lieutenant under color of authority in a time of war. Which if I'm not mistaken, carries a penalty on this ship which is quite severe. Now, get the hell out of here." Tyrol and Helo thank him. "I don't want your thanks. I owe Lieutenant Thorne my life, as do many people on this ship." "He was trying to rape a prisoner." "You can't rape a machine, lieutenant."

Kara is in Cain's office. "You drink, Thrace?" "Only to excess, sir." "Learn that from Colonel Tigh, did you?" "Not exacxtly." "I understand you belted him once." "That was something I did without really thinking." "Don't apologize. Some people get exactly what they deserve. From what I read about your XO, maybe he needs to get popped in the mouth every once in a while, hmm?" She continues, "I know you're very close with Adama." "Yes, sir." "And I know he's a good man. And I know he's had to make some very hard choices over the last few months. Lord knows I have." "Well, then maybe you can understand why he did what he thought he had to do when you said you were going to execute Helo and Tyrol."

"Let me tell you something. I've had to watch a lot of kids be put into body bags. They're covered with flags and they float out that airlock. You think I don't understand his feelings towards his men? Sometimes terrible things have to be done. Inevitably, each and every one of us will have to face a moment where we have to commit that horrible sin. And if we flinch in that moment, if we hesitate for one second, if we let our conscience get in the way, you know what happens? There are more kids in those body bags. More kids floating out that airlock. I don't know why, but I have a lot of faith in you. And I want you to promise me that when that moment comes you won't flinch. Do not flinch."

Lee arrives in Commander Adama's quarters. "Courier run from Pegasus, sir." "They got you doing courier runs now, huh?" "Well, I volunteered for thi sone. Kara told me about her, uh... her mission." "Come to change my mind?" "Just wanted to hear it from you." "Decision's been made." "Assassination. That's your decision. That's how you resolve your differences with your superior officers.""If you're gonna hvae some problem backing up Starbuck, I can find somebody else." "It's not about me watching her back." "I'm not going to debate this with you. This was a very hard decision. But I think the President's right. This is the best way to safeguard the fleet." "The President? "So you... you and the President..." "Yes. She's masde of sterner stuff than people give her credit for. Is this all I have to sign. "Uh, yes sir. Thank you sir." "Lieutenant. It's good to see you."

In the Pegasus hallway, Fisk is preparing his Marines and Kara is getting her flight suit on. CIC comes over the intercom. "Attention Pegasus. Jump prep underway. Viper pilots report to ready room in five minutes. Decoy squadrons, check in with CIC. Fire control, set parameters for Cylon Baseship. Upon jump completion, target Cylon Baseships. All ressurrection strike squadrons, report to mission briefing in ready room four. Special Marine detachments assigned to Galactica repor to debarkation stations on starboard hangar deck immediately. Make ship ready for combat jump. Set condition one throughout the ship." Fisk tells Kara, "Good hunting, Captain." "You too, Colonel." Later on Galactica, Fisk apologises to Tigh. "Sorry about this, Saul, but the Admiral didn't feel comfortable with our Marines under your command." "Yeah. Sorry about a lot of things. Be sure your Marines and our Marines are aware of their areas of responsibility in case we're boarded by the Cylons. The last thing we need is Colonials shooting at each other." "Amen to that."

Adama has a conversation with Sharon in his quarters. "I've asked you here to find out why the Cylons hate us so much." "I'm not sure I know how to answer that. I mean, hate might not be the right word." "I don't want to fence with you. I just want to know why." "It's what you said at the ceremony before the attack when Galactica was being decommissioned. You gave a speech that sounded like it wasn't the one you prepared. You said that humanity was a flawed creation. And that people still kill one another for petty jealousy and greed. You said that humanity never asked itself why it deserved to survive. Maybe you don't."

The battle begins. In CIC, Gaeta reports, "Resurrection ship's firing up their FTL drives. They're getting ready to jump." Lee flies the Blackbird into the resurrection ship. "Don't anyone look out of the window right now, please." He destroyes the FTL engines." "Starbuck, Apollo. Target's FTL is history. She's all yours." "Roger that, Apollo." A raider collides with his ship. "Frak! Drifter, drifer, drifter. I've been hit. Ejecting." Dualla tells Adama, "I just received an emergency transponder from the Blackbird. It's the auto-distress beacon." "Alert the search and rescue raptor. See if he had time to eject." Galactica and Pegasus launch their attack squadrons. Pegasus CIC tells Kara, "Resurrection Ship Twelve low at fifteen." Lee notices a leak in his suit and tries to stop it by applying pressure. His oxygen is nearly out.

Baltar is with the Cylon prisoner (and Number Six) in the Pegasus brig. Number Six tells him, "Tens of thousands of Cylons are about to die. Tens of thousands, Gaius. God will not forgive this sin." He asks the prisoner, "Do you think god will forgive this?" "God forgives all." Number Six disagrees. "Don't listen to her. You think she can help you? You think that that broken woman can offer you even a fraction of what I can? I know God's plan for you. I know how to help you fulfill your destiny." He then repeats what Number Six told him earlier. "Do you know what I miss most? You're going to laugh when I tell you this. Sports." "Don't do this." "Yeah, that's right. I used to love getting to the pyramid game just before tip-off. By timing it right, I could sit down right at the horn and then let the emotion of the crowd flood over me. Waves and waves of it. Like electric current." The prisoner replies, "That's beautiful." "And I always had two tickets." "One for me. And one for you." Number Six disappears.

Dualla continues to radio Lee to get a fix on his position but doesn't reply. He's stops pressing on the oxygen leak. "I'm sorry, Kara." One of the Basestars is destroyed and the Vipers concentrate their assault on the second Basestar. They attack the resurrection ship and it explodes. Lee returns to his water dream and sinks into the water. Then, a Raptor arrives in time and finds him. Pegasus CIC states, "Captain Thrace is reporting massive detonations. The resurrection Ship has been destroyed." Cain replies, "Yes! They've done it." Racetrack resuscitates Lee above the Raptor. "He's all right. He's a little shaken, but he's all right." In the Pegasus brig, the Cylon prisoner pleads, "I'm ready to die. Send my soul to God. Please."

Kara is aboard the Pegasus in CIC. She says to herself, "I wish you were here, Lee. Oh, what the hell." Cain says, "I am so very proud of you." Tigh sets condition two throughout the ship. "Division officres, submit casualty and damage report to combat. Glad we didn't need your Marines today." Fisk replyes, "Yeah, me too." Dualla puts Cain on the line. "Contratulations, Commander." "Congratulations to you too, Admiral. A significant victory. Is Starbuck with you." "Yes, she is." "I've been thinking about what we talked about before. It's not enough to survive. One has to be worthy of surviving. That's all." "I think that's very wise, sir. Thank you." Cain asks, "Commander, I wonder if my XO is standing close by." "Yes he is." "Congratulations, Jack." "Thank you, sir." "That's all." "Yes, sir." Tigh says to fisk, "You look like you could use a drink."

In the Pegasus Brig, Baltar signals the guard to let him out and thanks him. "Oh, by the way, there was something I wanted to tell you. Last night, I was walking down this corridor here when I saw." The Cylon prisoner attacks the Marine, flips him and snaps his neck. She hands his gun to Baltar. "No! I can't... I can't do this." "Suicide is a sin. But I need to die." "What you need... is justice. I know a place where you can stay, where you will be safe. Where I can look after you." "Why would you do that?" "Because I love you." Later, the prisoner is now in Cain's office, where she is unwinding after the battle. "Tell me, Admiral. Can you roll over? Beg?" She holds a gun to her head. "Frak you." "You're not my type." She shoots Cain.

A funeral for Cain is held in the Peagsus launch bay. Fisk tells those assembled, "And she died knowing that her ship and her crew were safe and that her mission had been accomplished. Nothing was more important to her than her ship, her crew, and her mission. And as I take command of Pegasus I pledge to uphold those values that made her such an effective and heroic leader." Kara delivers her own eulogy. "I only knew Admiral Cain for a short time, so what I have to say about her will be short. She faced things. She looked them right in the eye and she didn't flinch. That's something that we do a lot around here. We second-guess. We worry. When I think about what she went through after the attack -- all alone, one ship, no help, no hope -- she didn't give up. She didn't worry. She didn't second-guess. She acted. She did what she thought needed to be done, and the Pegasus survived. Might be hard to admit, or hard to hear, but I think that we were safer with her... than we are without."

Kara talks with Lee in Galactica's pilot quarters. "Lee, you OK? Are you OK?" "No, not really. I broke my word to you." "What're you talking about?" "I let you down. I wasn't there when you needed me." "Look, a close call like that, that would mess anybody's head. All right? It turns out I didn't need you anyway. S, let's just be glad that we both came back alive, all right?" "That's just it, Kara. I didn't want to make it back alive." Helo and Sharon reunite in the brig.

Aboard Colonial One, Laura asks Adama, "So, how did we manage to get off the Pegasus undetected." "No one really knows. There was so much chaos in the aftermath of the attack." "Thank the gods that you didn't have to do what I advised. That makes me very happy." "Yes, thank the gods. How are you feeling." "I could sleep for about a year. But you, however do not have that luxury because you have a new job." She has Billy hand him box. "It took a little while to find that jeweler." "Rumor has it I know very little about military protocol, but I do believe that someone who commands more than one ship is called an admiral. Congratulations, Admiral Adama." "Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Billy. I, umm... I never gave up hope. I just stopped trying to get these along time ago." "Just goes to show you, Bill. Never give up hope." "Same goes for you, Laura." He kisses her and Billy helps her to her bed.

Ron Moore's Commentary

1/13/2006 -- I knew that from the word go that I did not want to destroy the Pegasus. That was very important to me. When the audience approaches this show, when see that there's another battlestar showing up, and it's another battlestar with an admiral on board, it's much more powerful ship than the Galactica, the one thing the audience probably takes to the bank is, "Of course they're going to destroy the Pegasus at the end of the episode." And so I just was determined that we were going to subvert and undercut that assumption on behalf of the audience. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- When we went back and shot scenes, it felt like, Helo and Tyrol are now on Pegasus, and aren't they really hated and detested over there, and what's going to happen to those guys that are in the clutches of Pegasus? And it just quickly came up, that the Yeehaw Boys, the Sunshine Boys as they are called in the script, may have something to say, too, and it may not be very pleasant... We played around with the exact incident that happens here quite a lot. Some of this is inspired by Full Metal Jacket, where they're beating on one of the recruits with a bar of soap and a towel, and the scene in the Grifters, where Anjelica Huston is briefly threatened that maybe she's going to be beaten in the stomach with oranges wrapped up in a towel. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- Well, is she a machine or isn't she? She looks, walks, talks, smells, seems to be a person, but she is a machine. And if she's a machine, can you rape a machine? It's another way of always providing the sense of imbalance, of the audience never being quite comfortable in their assumptions of what's going on and who to root for, and how they should deal with a very complicated situation, which is one of the things that I enjoy about the show. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- This scene was also an additional scene that was written and shot after the fact. When we were viewing the original episode, we realized that Cain and Starbuck were really sparking off of each other really well. It was an interesting relationships. Michael particularly liked the way the two actresses played together, and it seemed like there was an opportunity to do at least another scene between the two of them, to take Cain a little further down the road of bonding with Starbuck. You see a little more humanity of her, but at the same time, getting a little firmer handle on her philosophy.

The great irony of the scene, of course, is that her philosophy that she's espousing is essentially telling Starbuck to kill her, that there's hard things that have to be done. That you can't flinch from certain ugly matters that have to be done in order to ensure the survival of the ship and its crew, and in a larger sense the human race. Inevitably there is a moment where we all face a great sin, and we have to decide whether we will act on that sin or not... All of us face sin and all of us face compromises and things that we may or may not do for larger goals. It's a question of how you respond to that, and Cain's philosophy is that you don't flinch from that moment. You don't turn back, you move forward, particularly in a wartime context. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- I'm very fond of this callback to the miniseries and the sentiment that Adama expressed. It's one of the fundamental underpinnings of the show that Adama wondered why they were worth saving... That is one of the key tenets of the show. It is not enough to survive. You have to be worthy of surviving, and if Galactica has a certain point of view, and as much as I think it doesn't, Galactica in a very real sense tends to posit questions and make you the audience think about it and question and come to your own conclusions. This is one of those moments where it does have a point of view, and that point of view is that you have to be worthy of survival. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- I should talk a little bit about the inspiration for this ejection. This was something that came up very early in the development of the entire Pegasus Resurrection Ship storyline, in our effort to find a different way to tell battle sequences... Part of this notion came out of a true story from the Second World War. In the Pacific, there was a Navy flyer whose name is Ensign Gay, and he was a pilot for a TBD Devastator torpedo plane in the battle of Midway. And he was launched from the U.S.S. Hornet, and during the American attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier, his entire torpedo squadron was wiped out, every single plane was lost. And Ensign Gay was the only survivor, and he survived because when he went down, he got out of his sinking aircraft and stayed in the water with his little life jacket, but he was in the very heart of the Japanese fleet, and he had a ringside seat to watch the battle of Midway play out all around him, and he saw American dive bombers sink three Japanese aircraft carriers, he saw the entire attack. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- This whole beat with Baltar and Gina and Six is of course a callback to the first episode where she talks about sports... There was something delicious about the notion that he would then steal that story and the heartfelt nature of that story and the vulnerability of that story and use it to get the woman he now wants, in defiance of Six hanging on, literally on his shoulder... They're both versions of the same woman, and yet he's robbing from one to get to the other, and he's doing it for complicated reasons of genuine feeling he has for Gina because she's a real woman. And yet it's all based on a lie. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- Tricia had a very astute observation. Gina is a victim of gang rape and torture, and that she just would not as a character be open to a lot of physical contact, that she would be very standoffish, that she wouldn't want to be kissing Baltar in any way, shape or form. And as soon as she said it, I knew she was right. And it really spun a different direction in terms of how we would play the relationship between those two. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- We have this whole sequence of "will she, won't she kill Cain," and "will he, won't he kill Adama." And that's really where we've been leading for a full hour. Even though the battle sequence is traditionally the high point of the drama, the biggest flashiest thing where you would traditionally end an act four, in this particular case this was better. This is what the show's about. What are these people going to do? Are they really going to do this or not? (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

I'm sure there will be many questions on how did Gina get off the ship. And frankly, I don't know how Gina got off the ship. Baltar helped her get off the ship. You can make up your own fifty different ways come Sunday of technobabble of how Baltar overrode security protocols and hid her in a storage box and got her off. Who knows and who the frak cares.

1/13/2006 -- Suicide is a sin is another interesting idea of the Cylons, that they have notions of sin. The Cylon view of life is that life to them is precious. There is something very special about life. They do not cavalierly give up their lives, as it were. They do not cavalierly destroy life. It's that inherent contradition that makes the Cylons interesting, as it makes human beings interesting. Our own conflicted feelings about when to take life, and the preciousness of life is a constant battle in our own society. I like the fact that it's a contradictory element of the Cylon civilization as well. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- This funeral sequence is something we shot after the fact. The funeral of Cain seemed like a great opportunity to take one more step in through the complexity of what she was and what she meant to all of them. Starbuck, who almost killed her, speaking at funeral and coming to the conclusion that she didn't flinch and that we flinch a lot around here, and the hard thing to hear is that we were probably safer with her than without her. The audience is essentially left to ponder what they really think about Cain at the end of the day. Cain did pull back. Cain didn't shoot Adama. She is human. There is something of value in there. She did keep that ship together. She did make them all survive. She got them to this point. She took out that resurrection ship. In fact, as you look at it, Cain succeeded in every single thing that she set out to do. Admiral Cain was successful in all the ways she wanted to be successful, with the exception of not surviving herself. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- [Lee] had gone through this experience lost in space, and seeing this battle and getting to a place through the hypoxia, through his own observation and moral struggles had gotten to a place where he didn't want to come back. And then what happens to that character is the interesting thing we wanted to play. And you'll see in subsequent episodes, particularly in "Black Market," the places that is sending him. It informs who he is for the rest of the season. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/13/2006 -- She promotes him, she gives him the admiral's stars... I think it's an unexpected end to the show. The other thing that's nice in the scene -- it was written in the script and I wrote it -- was the affection between the two characters. That she's giving him something but she's on her way out. There's a valedictory chord being struck here and she's giving him his last gift as it were before she dies, and his refusal to accept that... The moment at the end where Eddie kisses Mary, is something I believe Eddie improved in the moment. I think he just did it because he felt it. And you can kind of see her surprise. (source: Resurrection Ship, Part II podcast)

1/18/2006 -- We had initially planned to do a clip show as ep 18, but then dropped those plans once we made the decision to split "Resurrection Ship" into two parts, thereby giving us an extra episode and obviating the need for the clip show (which was being planning for budgetary reasons). Some confusion out there about why Roslin didn't simply promote Adama over Cain at the start of all the trouble or try to relieve the wacky admiral herself. My reasoning was that Cain would never accept it, especially since her acquiesence to Laura's authority as President was shaky at best. Laura should be smart enough to know that Cain wasn't the kind of person who could be taken down by a legalism and so she shouldn't give an order that she knows will be disobeyed, thereby undercutting her own position as President. There used to be a line to that effect in the script, but it got cut over the course of the rewrites.

2/23/2006 -- I see [Cain] as a very complicated person who had a very different take down the road that Adama went down. But at the same time she was faced with a very different set of circumstances than Adama was faced with. She was literally on her own and she made some hard choices that she felt had to be made, and they were all in service of the same idea that Adama was dealing with, which is survival and striking back at the Cylons. And I think some of the things that she sanctioned were horrific and morally questionable, to say the least, but I don't think she was a mustache-twirling villain. I just think she was someone who made a different call. (source: Now Playing)

Commentary

"He gets into a very dark place and almost does away with himself. He gets lost in space for a bit and thinks nobody's going to rescue him and goes to a very dark moment which then affects everything else that he does. He questions everything that goes on and holds everyone else at a distance. Basically falls apart a bit and in that, he falls into many different arms, so it's gonna to be interesting. It's a really good story for him in the second half of the season, and I think he ends up then commanding the Pegasus as well for a bit. He's got a lot to do." -- Jamie Bamber (Apollo) on 10/6/2005 (source: EOnline)