Recap - 3x02 Precipice
Hey guys, sorry for the delay! I got a little distracted by the holidays and it got in the way of my MASSIVE GIANT PICSPAM that will kill your internet. But I'm here now, so let's discuss "Precipice"!
This episode begins with such an fantastic scene I don't think I can accurately convey it in pictures or words. (It was really a battle to restrain myself from doing 80 screencaps of it. This is me restrained.) Seriously, Baltar + Roslin + jail cell = good times, always. In the wake of the previous episode’s graduation bombing, Laura Roslin has been detained for questioning, and President Baltar arrives to try to get some common ground with her. Let's see how well that goes!
He wants her to join him in publicly condemning the suicide attacks, and for a moment makes her feel genuinely bad about the tactic and unable to defend it. She tries to turn the moral high ground back on him by reminding him the Cylons keep arresting and torturing everybody, and he... all but covers his ears and runs away singing the la-la-la-can't-hear-you song, because torture is like a tree falling in the woods and it doesn't exist if you're not standing there, I guess. He has her released and asks her to follow the dictates of her conscience, just like he does. Her conscience probably does not live in her head wearing sexy outfits.
Jammer, who amazingly got out of that bombing without a scratch on him, is about to lead another late-night raid with the New Caprica Police. A Cavil shows up to give them their orders, and Jammer shows just a tiny bit of reluctance before heading out to kidnap his friends.
Meanwhile in the Resistance Bunker of Anti-Cylon Irony, Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders are waiting to make contact with Galactica. Tyrol has some morality pangs again at the thought of putting civilians in danger, leading Tigh to make his awesomely WTF speech:
Which side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that.
I TYPED THAT BY HEART, PEOPLE. Ahem. Before he can go any further with his creepy-ass Tigh Poetry Jam, they make contact with a raptor and begin typing out their sitrep.
Above ground, Jammer and co. put on their ski masks and night-vision goggles and barge into various tents to drag people out of bed, including Cally. Tyrol arrives home later and sees she's disappeared and left baby Nicky behind, a pretty clear sign she didn't go anywhere willingly.
The remaining top brass on Galactica (omg women! hi Kat! hi Dee!) are going over the New Caprica info. There are less insurgents on the ground than they expected, the Cylons are holding the keys to all the grounded ships they could use to evacuate, and Lee is being a Negative Nancy about the whole entire plan.
The morning after the raid, Gaeta talks to Tyrol, who is distraught and ragey over his wife's arrest; Gaeta promises he'll try to help but there's not much he can do. Neither of them know they're secretly BFF via dog bowl communication, so Tyrol pretty much hates Gaeta and thinks he's just a pretty-eyed collaborator.
Woobie Jammer finds a piece of Nicky's mobile on the floor and flashes back to Cally's abduction. Tyrol has his second awkward conversation in a row with someone who isn't what they appear to be. When he complains about the NCP traitors, Jammer not suspiciously at all tries to defend them as nice guys who thought they were doing the right thing and just got in over their heads and they don't want Chief to be mad at them, plz. Tyrol isn't convinced and bitterly declares that Gaeta and his ilk will be "strung up" when all this is over. (That? Is the sound of my heart wincing almost as hard as it did when Kara 'joked' that she'd shoot Sam in the head if he was a Cylon. Just saying.)
HEY SPEAKING OF KARA.
She's still being defiant and uncooperative in Leoben's Malibu dream house, and he decides she does not understand the preciousness of life enough, so he drops a brand new bombshell on her: He briefly goes upstairs and returns with an adorable little toddler named Kacey, declaring she is Kara's daughter. O_O
In Pegasus CIC, Dualla gives Lee the news from Adama that he's sending Cylon Sharon Agathon as a liaison to the resistance on New Caprica. Lee realizes now that his nay-saying earlier was just a practice run, and there is a *whole new world* of things to react to negatively. He marches off to see his dad.
...and proceeds to follow him around the ship arguing with him (not wrongly) about the trust-a-Cylon icing on Adama's cake of reckless decisions. (Yeah, that metaphor just happened. Shut up.) Lee admits he's gotten soft but he's determined to protect the tiny fraction of the human race that got away with them, rather than go on a suicide mission. On the specifics of Sharon, Adama explains it's actually an awesome idea because the consciousness-lacking Centurions won't be able to tell her apart from the other Cylons. On the overall reckless mission thing... yeah, Lee's right. Which is why Adama's going back with Galactica, and leaving Lee and the Pegasus with the rest of the fleet.
With Adama, there are no arguments. There are only manly goodbye hugs.
Back in Kara's crazy house, she hides in the stairway while Leoben plays with little Kacey and explains where she came from in more detail. He claims that some of Kara's eggs were salvaged from the Farm, so he fertilized one, popped it into some poor doomed surrogate mother, and nine months later -- voila, adorable Kara/Leoben fanfic baby. Kara remains skeptical that she's the mother and that the kid is even human at all, but despite her protests not to take care of "this" (ouch, this show with the pronouns), Leoben leaves them alone together to get acquainted.
In the Bunker of Irony, Laura interrupts the resistance sausagefest to demand Tigh stop using suicide bombers. When he pissily accuses her of siding with the Cylons, she smacks him in the face, which is yet another reason this episode is awesome. He goes back into philosophical terrorist mode and maintains there's no difference between sending Viper pilots or these guys out to die, and he's in a War and so on. (I'm paraphrasing. He said it prettier.)
As more prisoners are shuffled into the detention center, there's a brief scene with Boomer and Caprica-Six, who are sad the occupation contains much less love and sunshine than they imagined it would. :( Boomer complains that they're just making more enemies, but Caprica's not sure how else to keep people from blowing things up. Jammer interrupts to ask Boomer for help. They remember each other from Galactica, and he tells her Cally is in detention and he's worried for her.
Kara paces around her fake apartment and tries to ignore adorable Kacey, who's bouncing all around and trying to play with her (when she isn't having fun throwing herself face-forward into things, a pastime that will turn out to be dangerous). Kara finally retreats into the bathroom to get her sanity together, but after a minute she hears a crash from outside.
And returns to the living room to find Kacey has fallen down the stairs and cracked her head. D:
They take baby Kacey to the hospital, I guess. (Or did they just hook up an IV in the creepy apartment? I could never tell.) Kara is upset and guilt-ridden, and Leoben brings her coffee and sits with her.
And now, in the episode's *second* uncomfortable prison visitation scene, Boomer decides to make amends with Cally. Let's see how well that goes!
...Well, nobody got shot anyway. Boomer offers her some tone-deaf "I'm not getting you out of jail but I'm so happy you and my ex-boyfriend have a baby now", and Cally almost punches her, then settles for yelling in her toaster face for a while. It doesn't seem to make either of them feel better.
Somewhere on New Caprica, a woman who looks like Erin from "The Office" enters a power station, shoots a guard, and sets off another suicide bomb. A cabal of Cylons watch the security camera footage on Colonial One and report a whole mess of Cylon casualties, a handful of dead humans, and a power outage in half the city.
The models take a quick consensus vote to strengthen their control (which is unanimous, except for the fact Caprica-Six does not look very thrilled with the other Sixes right now). D'Anna gives Baltar an order for the summary execution of 200 people, and tells him to sign it as acting president. Or to "cover their existential asses" and shift the blame to him, as Cavil puts it. Gaius Baltar, however, decides to grow a pair of balls for a brief shining moment, and he refuses.
…Let's see how well that goes?
So, yeah. One of the Dorals puts a gun to his head, and also shoots Caprica (which is temporary but still zomg) to keep her from protecting him, while threatening him very loudly. Baltar panics and cries, like even more than he usually does. In his mind, HeadSix returns and gently talks him into saving himself. He dissociates and signs it and looks very shaken afterwards.
Oh my god, it's the New Caprica arc and something GOOD is happening to somebody. *takes a thousand screencaps* Sharon is officially sworn into the Colonial fleet. She and Helo celebrate outside and Helo goes off on a corny yet darling speech about how symbols, like her uniform, matter. They kiss. On the hangar deck, she asks Adama how he knows he can trust her, and he wisely answers: I don't. That's what trust is.
Oh good, we're back to horrible things happening. I got worried for a minute there. Ellen is still indebted to Cavil, and they have some "Seinfeld"-inspired banter involving sexual moves best left un-thought about. But then he essentially reveals he's been playing her the entire time, since letting Tigh out of detention had little to do with her, and he promptly starts pressuring her to give up information about the resistance. She briefly tries to sexy her way out of it, which is pretty heartbreaking to watch, but he demands to know the time and location of a major meeting, under threat of Saul getting locked up and tortured again.
Bunker of Irony. Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders are going over the plans to rendezvous with Sharon at Breeder's Canyon. Ellen arrives with snacks, and they all continue talking as BLATANTLY AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN about how totally important and resistance meeting-y this important resistance meeting will be. When they're about to destroy their map of the location, Ellen fakes throwing it into the trash fire and pockets it for Cavil.
On Colonial One, Gaeta sees the execution list and runs to confront Baltar, freaking out and appalled that his boss signed it. Baltar says he couldn't do anything, and Gaeta backs off when he realizes he's talking to a drunk, traumatized wall.
NCP officers arrive to pick Roslin up in the middle of her class. People already being detained are also sent off, including Cally. Boomer makes one last effort to pardon her by reminding D'Anna her husband has union power behind him, but D'Anna tells her to get behind majority rule and be happy God is punishing Cally for trying to kill her that time.
Tom Zarek gets into the execution truck next to Roslin, as it turns out he's been jailed since the beginning of the occupation (he refused to remain Vice President under Baltar and the Cylons). They have some cute gallows banter blaming Baltar for their current predicament. (NO, GUYS, HE WAS VERY SAD REALLY.) Gaeta chases after the trucks for a bit, trying to see inside them. :(((
Sharon lands her raptor and hooks up with Anders and his (new) resistance friends. "C-Bucks rule!" More hugs! Anders making an inappropriate Cylons-looking-alike comment that he will rue one day when it turns out he invented them!
In what feels like another episode entirely by now, Kara prays to the gods at adorable Kacey's bedside. She blames herself for neglecting her and Leoben puts his hand on her shoulder (this is really blurring the line between aww and eek) and assures her it wasn't her fault. The little girl finally opens her eyes, and Kara unthinkingly grabs Leoben's hand in relief.
The trucks stop in the middle of a field, and the passengers are let outside for a "five minute rest break" which will be the LAST FIVE MINUTE REST BREAK THEY EVER HAVE. So the episode ends on a multiple cliffhanger...
Jammer anonymously pulls Cally aside, cuts her free, and orders her to run.
Elsewhere, the Sharon/Anders rendezvous is ambushed by robot snipers and they all duck for cover.
And Roslin and Zarek are still in the field with the Centurion firing squad. They continue to bond and joke with each other, as she admits to him that she did try to steal the election the year before, and he admits that would've worked out better. *g* When the guns come out they realize what's happening and back up. Cally continues running and the screen cuts to black as we hear gunfire behind her.
So, possible questions:
1. When this was on the actual TV, did you believe Kacey was really Kara's daughter?
2. What is Tigh even talking about with that demon speech?
3. Do you feel sympathy for Baltar? Ellen? Jammer? OR IS YOUR HEART MADE OF STONE?
4. Why did Cally, of all people, get arrested and almost killed? Is she the secret mastermind of the insurgency? I wish she was.
5. How come Leoben is never at the Cylon meetings, ever?
...okay, I got nothing. Just discuss the episode. And my picspam. And my lateness.
This episode begins with such an fantastic scene I don't think I can accurately convey it in pictures or words. (It was really a battle to restrain myself from doing 80 screencaps of it. This is me restrained.) Seriously, Baltar + Roslin + jail cell = good times, always. In the wake of the previous episode’s graduation bombing, Laura Roslin has been detained for questioning, and President Baltar arrives to try to get some common ground with her. Let's see how well that goes!
He wants her to join him in publicly condemning the suicide attacks, and for a moment makes her feel genuinely bad about the tactic and unable to defend it. She tries to turn the moral high ground back on him by reminding him the Cylons keep arresting and torturing everybody, and he... all but covers his ears and runs away singing the la-la-la-can't-hear-you song, because torture is like a tree falling in the woods and it doesn't exist if you're not standing there, I guess. He has her released and asks her to follow the dictates of her conscience, just like he does. Her conscience probably does not live in her head wearing sexy outfits.
Jammer, who amazingly got out of that bombing without a scratch on him, is about to lead another late-night raid with the New Caprica Police. A Cavil shows up to give them their orders, and Jammer shows just a tiny bit of reluctance before heading out to kidnap his friends.
Meanwhile in the Resistance Bunker of Anti-Cylon Irony, Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders are waiting to make contact with Galactica. Tyrol has some morality pangs again at the thought of putting civilians in danger, leading Tigh to make his awesomely WTF speech:
Which side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that.
I TYPED THAT BY HEART, PEOPLE. Ahem. Before he can go any further with his creepy-ass Tigh Poetry Jam, they make contact with a raptor and begin typing out their sitrep.
Above ground, Jammer and co. put on their ski masks and night-vision goggles and barge into various tents to drag people out of bed, including Cally. Tyrol arrives home later and sees she's disappeared and left baby Nicky behind, a pretty clear sign she didn't go anywhere willingly.
The remaining top brass on Galactica (omg women! hi Kat! hi Dee!) are going over the New Caprica info. There are less insurgents on the ground than they expected, the Cylons are holding the keys to all the grounded ships they could use to evacuate, and Lee is being a Negative Nancy about the whole entire plan.
The morning after the raid, Gaeta talks to Tyrol, who is distraught and ragey over his wife's arrest; Gaeta promises he'll try to help but there's not much he can do. Neither of them know they're secretly BFF via dog bowl communication, so Tyrol pretty much hates Gaeta and thinks he's just a pretty-eyed collaborator.
Woobie Jammer finds a piece of Nicky's mobile on the floor and flashes back to Cally's abduction. Tyrol has his second awkward conversation in a row with someone who isn't what they appear to be. When he complains about the NCP traitors, Jammer not suspiciously at all tries to defend them as nice guys who thought they were doing the right thing and just got in over their heads and they don't want Chief to be mad at them, plz. Tyrol isn't convinced and bitterly declares that Gaeta and his ilk will be "strung up" when all this is over. (That? Is the sound of my heart wincing almost as hard as it did when Kara 'joked' that she'd shoot Sam in the head if he was a Cylon. Just saying.)
HEY SPEAKING OF KARA.
She's still being defiant and uncooperative in Leoben's Malibu dream house, and he decides she does not understand the preciousness of life enough, so he drops a brand new bombshell on her: He briefly goes upstairs and returns with an adorable little toddler named Kacey, declaring she is Kara's daughter. O_O
In Pegasus CIC, Dualla gives Lee the news from Adama that he's sending Cylon Sharon Agathon as a liaison to the resistance on New Caprica. Lee realizes now that his nay-saying earlier was just a practice run, and there is a *whole new world* of things to react to negatively. He marches off to see his dad.
...and proceeds to follow him around the ship arguing with him (not wrongly) about the trust-a-Cylon icing on Adama's cake of reckless decisions. (Yeah, that metaphor just happened. Shut up.) Lee admits he's gotten soft but he's determined to protect the tiny fraction of the human race that got away with them, rather than go on a suicide mission. On the specifics of Sharon, Adama explains it's actually an awesome idea because the consciousness-lacking Centurions won't be able to tell her apart from the other Cylons. On the overall reckless mission thing... yeah, Lee's right. Which is why Adama's going back with Galactica, and leaving Lee and the Pegasus with the rest of the fleet.
With Adama, there are no arguments. There are only manly goodbye hugs.
Back in Kara's crazy house, she hides in the stairway while Leoben plays with little Kacey and explains where she came from in more detail. He claims that some of Kara's eggs were salvaged from the Farm, so he fertilized one, popped it into some poor doomed surrogate mother, and nine months later -- voila, adorable Kara/Leoben fanfic baby. Kara remains skeptical that she's the mother and that the kid is even human at all, but despite her protests not to take care of "this" (ouch, this show with the pronouns), Leoben leaves them alone together to get acquainted.
In the Bunker of Irony, Laura interrupts the resistance sausagefest to demand Tigh stop using suicide bombers. When he pissily accuses her of siding with the Cylons, she smacks him in the face, which is yet another reason this episode is awesome. He goes back into philosophical terrorist mode and maintains there's no difference between sending Viper pilots or these guys out to die, and he's in a War and so on. (I'm paraphrasing. He said it prettier.)
As more prisoners are shuffled into the detention center, there's a brief scene with Boomer and Caprica-Six, who are sad the occupation contains much less love and sunshine than they imagined it would. :( Boomer complains that they're just making more enemies, but Caprica's not sure how else to keep people from blowing things up. Jammer interrupts to ask Boomer for help. They remember each other from Galactica, and he tells her Cally is in detention and he's worried for her.
Kara paces around her fake apartment and tries to ignore adorable Kacey, who's bouncing all around and trying to play with her (when she isn't having fun throwing herself face-forward into things, a pastime that will turn out to be dangerous). Kara finally retreats into the bathroom to get her sanity together, but after a minute she hears a crash from outside.
And returns to the living room to find Kacey has fallen down the stairs and cracked her head. D:
They take baby Kacey to the hospital, I guess. (Or did they just hook up an IV in the creepy apartment? I could never tell.) Kara is upset and guilt-ridden, and Leoben brings her coffee and sits with her.
And now, in the episode's *second* uncomfortable prison visitation scene, Boomer decides to make amends with Cally. Let's see how well that goes!
...Well, nobody got shot anyway. Boomer offers her some tone-deaf "I'm not getting you out of jail but I'm so happy you and my ex-boyfriend have a baby now", and Cally almost punches her, then settles for yelling in her toaster face for a while. It doesn't seem to make either of them feel better.
Somewhere on New Caprica, a woman who looks like Erin from "The Office" enters a power station, shoots a guard, and sets off another suicide bomb. A cabal of Cylons watch the security camera footage on Colonial One and report a whole mess of Cylon casualties, a handful of dead humans, and a power outage in half the city.
The models take a quick consensus vote to strengthen their control (which is unanimous, except for the fact Caprica-Six does not look very thrilled with the other Sixes right now). D'Anna gives Baltar an order for the summary execution of 200 people, and tells him to sign it as acting president. Or to "cover their existential asses" and shift the blame to him, as Cavil puts it. Gaius Baltar, however, decides to grow a pair of balls for a brief shining moment, and he refuses.
…Let's see how well that goes?
So, yeah. One of the Dorals puts a gun to his head, and also shoots Caprica (which is temporary but still zomg) to keep her from protecting him, while threatening him very loudly. Baltar panics and cries, like even more than he usually does. In his mind, HeadSix returns and gently talks him into saving himself. He dissociates and signs it and looks very shaken afterwards.
Oh my god, it's the New Caprica arc and something GOOD is happening to somebody. *takes a thousand screencaps* Sharon is officially sworn into the Colonial fleet. She and Helo celebrate outside and Helo goes off on a corny yet darling speech about how symbols, like her uniform, matter. They kiss. On the hangar deck, she asks Adama how he knows he can trust her, and he wisely answers: I don't. That's what trust is.
Oh good, we're back to horrible things happening. I got worried for a minute there. Ellen is still indebted to Cavil, and they have some "Seinfeld"-inspired banter involving sexual moves best left un-thought about. But then he essentially reveals he's been playing her the entire time, since letting Tigh out of detention had little to do with her, and he promptly starts pressuring her to give up information about the resistance. She briefly tries to sexy her way out of it, which is pretty heartbreaking to watch, but he demands to know the time and location of a major meeting, under threat of Saul getting locked up and tortured again.
Bunker of Irony. Tigh, Tyrol, and Anders are going over the plans to rendezvous with Sharon at Breeder's Canyon. Ellen arrives with snacks, and they all continue talking as BLATANTLY AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN about how totally important and resistance meeting-y this important resistance meeting will be. When they're about to destroy their map of the location, Ellen fakes throwing it into the trash fire and pockets it for Cavil.
On Colonial One, Gaeta sees the execution list and runs to confront Baltar, freaking out and appalled that his boss signed it. Baltar says he couldn't do anything, and Gaeta backs off when he realizes he's talking to a drunk, traumatized wall.
NCP officers arrive to pick Roslin up in the middle of her class. People already being detained are also sent off, including Cally. Boomer makes one last effort to pardon her by reminding D'Anna her husband has union power behind him, but D'Anna tells her to get behind majority rule and be happy God is punishing Cally for trying to kill her that time.
Tom Zarek gets into the execution truck next to Roslin, as it turns out he's been jailed since the beginning of the occupation (he refused to remain Vice President under Baltar and the Cylons). They have some cute gallows banter blaming Baltar for their current predicament. (NO, GUYS, HE WAS VERY SAD REALLY.) Gaeta chases after the trucks for a bit, trying to see inside them. :(((
Sharon lands her raptor and hooks up with Anders and his (new) resistance friends. "C-Bucks rule!" More hugs! Anders making an inappropriate Cylons-looking-alike comment that he will rue one day when it turns out he invented them!
In what feels like another episode entirely by now, Kara prays to the gods at adorable Kacey's bedside. She blames herself for neglecting her and Leoben puts his hand on her shoulder (this is really blurring the line between aww and eek) and assures her it wasn't her fault. The little girl finally opens her eyes, and Kara unthinkingly grabs Leoben's hand in relief.
The trucks stop in the middle of a field, and the passengers are let outside for a "five minute rest break" which will be the LAST FIVE MINUTE REST BREAK THEY EVER HAVE. So the episode ends on a multiple cliffhanger...
Jammer anonymously pulls Cally aside, cuts her free, and orders her to run.
Elsewhere, the Sharon/Anders rendezvous is ambushed by robot snipers and they all duck for cover.
And Roslin and Zarek are still in the field with the Centurion firing squad. They continue to bond and joke with each other, as she admits to him that she did try to steal the election the year before, and he admits that would've worked out better. *g* When the guns come out they realize what's happening and back up. Cally continues running and the screen cuts to black as we hear gunfire behind her.
So, possible questions:
1. When this was on the actual TV, did you believe Kacey was really Kara's daughter?
2. What is Tigh even talking about with that demon speech?
3. Do you feel sympathy for Baltar? Ellen? Jammer? OR IS YOUR HEART MADE OF STONE?
4. Why did Cally, of all people, get arrested and almost killed? Is she the secret mastermind of the insurgency? I wish she was.
5. How come Leoben is never at the Cylon meetings, ever?
...okay, I got nothing. Just discuss the episode. And my picspam. And my lateness.