My Review/Recap of BSG 4.04 "Escape Velocity"

In Baltar's temple to the one true god, people are just going about their daily business. Tory visits a sleeping Baltar, and plucks a hair from his head to wake him. Then they have this weird discussion about pleasure and pain.

Tear gas is thrown into room, and these commando type guys come in and rough up the women, wanting Baltar to reveal himself. Baltar instead cowers behind a pillar out of side. And of course the women cover for him.

Chief Tyrol's working on a raptor, memories of his life with Cally flooding him. Racetrack asks if he's done, he puts a part in his pocket and says yeah he's done. The raptor launches, and immediately runs into problems. Something blows, and the raptor spins out of control. They make a hot landing, really tearing the ship apart.

Baltar demands to know where the Admiral is to some kind of security. Imaginary Six appears to Baltar and asks if he can still read the old text. Baltar whips around and looks at the graffitti. "Sons of Ares" he reads aloud. He tells the security gaurd they are a fundalmentalist group and they attacked him and his people. He whispers to himself about how they must be protecting the old gods.

Imaginary Six is sitting next to an older woman and says, "The old gods die hard, even among your people. Baltar kneels down in front of the woman and asks what she is holding. He gently pries her fist open, revealing an idol of Asclepius, the god of healing. "I know you'll heal our people, but...." Imaginary Six says the old gods are fighting back.

On the hangar deck we see the raptor is just a pile of scrap metal now with lots of maintence crawling all over it. Chief Tyrol pulls out a bad part, the one he was supposed to have fixed earlier, and realizes he pocketed the good one, not the bad one. Skulls starts chewing him for his screw up, but Racetrack stops him. Tyrol starts ranting about how it was his fault and he doesn't need to be coddled. "You're only human," says Racetrack.

"People only have room in the hearts for one great belief, you or the old gods," Imaginary Six tells Baltar as he stares at the idol of Asclepius. "Which one will it be?" She goes on tell him that a man who takes on the old gods all by himself must be magnificent. That really strokes Baltar's ego of course. Imaginary Six watches as Baltar tells his beaten up followers that they're not going to take this from the fundalmentalists. "The time has come to make a stand." He walks out and his cult follows him to the old gods' temple. They desecrate the temple while Baltar badmouths Zeus and the other Lords of Kobol. Marines come in and arrest Baltar.

President Roslin is packing away paperwork into her briefcase in Sickbay when Admiral Adama walks in, asking if he's late. She informs him that she was just there for a check up, a blood test. He's brought a new book for them to read. He tells her it's his favorite, but he doesn't know how it ends because he's never wanted it to be over.

Admiral Adama takes Roslin's briefcase for as they leave the sickbay. He tells her Baltar's been arrested and back home in the brig. They talk about the attack on his people by the "Sons of Ares", how this must have been retaliation for that. Roslin and Adama do not want a religious war on their hands. They agree that Baltar has an uncanny way of stirring everyone's emotions. Adama wants to keep him in lockdown indefinitely. Roslin says no way they are making a martyr of him. "Those 'girlie groupie sex whatevers of his' already think he's a god." Adama suggests kicking him off of Galactica. Roslin wants him close by to keep an eye on. She heads for the brig so that Baltar can see her.

In the brig, the Colonel returns to see Six. He asks her how it feels to be responsible for the deaths of billions. How she deals with all that blood on her hands. She's horrified that he has asked her this. She tells him that she really does feel the pain of it. He doesn't believe her. He figures there's a switch in the Cylons' heads to turn off the pain. "You think we're different, but you know we're not." That freaks Tigh out and he calls for the Marines to train their weapons on Six.

On the hangar, Chief's welding away the time.

In the brig, Six bares her arms to Tigh. "Look! Veins, not wires." Suddenly it's Ellen in front of him, not Six. "Do you see, we're the same." He asks Ellen to tell him how she lives with what she has done. Ellen, "Saul, are you asking for absolution? Forgiveness?" Tigh turns and tells the Marines to stand down and leave. When he turns back, it's Six again, not Ellen. "You have nothing to offer me, we're not the same," Tigh says and leaves.

In another cell, Baltar wakes and sees Roslin standing in his cell. Roslin sits down in front of Baltar and tells him she's wearing a wig. Her hair is falling out from the treatments for her cancer. She's dying. "Look in my eyes, you can see that I am dying." She says that she's going to continue her job and aggressively look for the people who attacked him and his cult and limit the size of assemblies to protect him and his. "I'm going to be slipping away from this life soon, and I've gotten curious about what that's going to be like. I've done research. And there are some people who say that when one reaches the end of their life, they don't care as much for rules, laws, and morality." He think she's threatening him. She corrects Baltar. She just tells him that she's not going to indulge him any longer.

Chief Tyrol's at the bar, drinking. Adama joins him. Adama tells Tyrol that he understands if Tyrol needs time off to deal with Cally's death. "I guess she couldn't take it, being married to a Cylon, mother to a half-breed abomination," Adama says before taking a drink. Tyrol looks at Adama in shock. Adama's drink arrives and he thanks the barkeep. Adama raises his glass in a toast to Cally and says she was a good woman. Tyrol says, "If you really belived that, you wouldn't have stuck her up against a bulkhead and threaten to shoot her. It's ok though, I thought of doing it many times myself. How many of us really ended up with the people we really wanted to be with? We got stuck with what was left, best of limited options. Why? Because the ones we really want are dead, dying, or turned out to be Cylons. Boomer..."

Adama tries to get Tyrol to leave, that he's only saying this because he's drunk and grieving. The bar goes quiet and they all watch as Tyrol rants. "I didn't know. I didn't know and I stuck my head in the sand and I took it and I settled. I settled for that shriek. Those dull vacant eyes. The boiled cabbage stench of her. And why? Because this is my life! This is the life I picked. And it's fine. But you know what, it's not. It's not fine. This is not the life I want. This is not my frakking life." Adama is stunned and asks him not to do this. Not to do this to the memory of his wife. "I'm sorry I'm not doing this the way you want me to, or the way you might. But I will not make an angel out of someone who was not an angel. But I can see you have. You came down here to be in my club, but you not in my club. Because you don't ask the right questions." Adama again tries to get Tyrol to leave, pain clearly showing on his face. Tyrol starts up again but Adama cuts across him telling him to stop or Adama is going to have to do something about it. Tyrol begs him, dares him to do something. Demote him. Kick him off the ship.

"Specialist Tyrol I want you off my hangar deck before you endanger another one of my pilots. Report to Petty Officer Bason in the morning for reassignment."  Adama stalks off, and after a moment Tyrol seems stunned and sits down.

There's a Quorum of Twelve meeting on the Colonial One. Lee Adama is challenging the president about the measure she enacted when the Quorum wasn't in session to limit the size of assembly. Roslin says it's her job to keep the people safe. The other Quorum members are worried that this measure isn't goig to be used just for Baltar and his cult, but for others as well, whenever they get a little pesky. Lee's not letting it go. He opens it to a vote to be overturned. Roslin argues that he was terribly dangerous with political power, think of what Baltar could do with blind religous devotion.

Back in the brig, Colonel Tigh sits on the bunk watching Ellen sleep. Six wakes, startled to see him there. She notices there are no guards. He still wants to know if she can turn off pain. "I want the pain, it's how I learn. Yes, I was instrumental in the destruction of humanity. But at the same time, I fell in love with a man." Six changes to Ellen. "And he was mortal. And fallible. And he had this incredible pride in himself. He thought he knew everything there was everything to know. And I loved him with all of my heart. Then one day I realized I wouldn't have him forever. I understood what I had done. And that pain taught me to understand death. Baltar could die." Tigh, "No!" Ellen, "Baltar's heart was a femoral artery," Six, "Baltar's body was fragile in my hands." Tigh, "No! No we are not going to talk about the fragile body of Gaius Frakkin Baltar!!" Tigh runs into the security camera room and tells the guards to clear out. They wonder what the frak he's going to do to her. He turns off the cameras.

He returns to the cell. Six, "I can tell you how to turn it off, but there's clarity there. Wisdom there in the pain. Our minds were designed on your minds. We know things about your minds that you have never known." Ellen, "That's where you focus your mind, as sharp as the point on a knife." She lifts his eyepatch to see the empty socket. "I can give you that clarity again."

Baltar and his followers arrive at their temple. There are guards at the door. They tell him they can't enter because according to Executive Order 117, there can't be more than 12 people in a gathering. One of the people inside offers to leave so that Baltar can go in. The guard isn't having it. Imaginary Six appears and tells him this is his moment. This is his moment to take a stand. Everyone sees him mutter to the air that he doesn't want to be a hero, he just wants to go to sleep. "I promise you, if you go forward, you will not be hurt." Baltar asks the thin air, "You promise?" Baltar goes forward, the guard hits him with the butt of the gun.

Back in the brig, it's Six and not Ellen who has her hands on Tigh's face. He gets angry, "Get your hands off of me your freak, you machine." Six punches him. Over and over and over again. "Can you feel it Saul, the clarity?" She keeps punching him.

Imaginary Six tells him to do this, that the gain will be more than the cost. She grabs his elbow and drags him up from the floor. To everyone else it looks like he gets to his feet with his elbow weirdly up in the air. He steps forward again, to enter the cult's temple. Again the guard knocks him down using the butt of his rifle. Six picks up from under the armpits and moves him forward. Everyone else sees Baltar acting like some kind of human marionette. The guard hits him once, and as he goes to hit him again, Lee races forward and tells him to stop. The Quorum has met and restored the right to full assembly, they go inside. Baltar thanks him, and tells Lee he does these things because his god compels him to.

In the sickbay, Roslin tells Adama that his son, Lee, does not know what he's done, what he's unleashed. Lee refuses to see the pragmatic realities. Adama says Lee is doing what he thinks is right. Roslin it probably is right, but the right thing to do is a luxury sometimes. She stops because she's not supposed to get upset during the treatments. She asks him to continue reading. She closes her eyes and smiles when he begins to read again. Adama puts the book down and says, "I couldn't feel anything, and that's what scared me. You came into my thoughts, you filled them. I felt good."

"More," asks Tigh to Six. "No, I made a mistake. This isn't what you need." She leans down and kisses a bloodied up Tigh.

"I'm not a priest, I've not been a particulary good man. I've been a selfish man. But that doesn't matter. Something in the universe loves me. I choose to call this something god. A spark that lives in every person. Look deep inside yourself to find it. Love your faults. Embrace them. If god embraces them, how can they be faults. Love ourselves. If we don't love ourselves, how can we love others," Baltar preaches. Tory is standing next to the Imaginary Six, drinking all of this in.

On the Demetrius, Starbuck is asleep with her head on the starcharts covering the desk. There must not be much air conditioning in there, she's got a sheen of sweat covering her. Anders walks in to check on her. In a voice over, Baltar is still preaching, "And when we know what we are, then we could learn the truth about others."

Lee stands there watching Baltar preach and the soaking up what he's saying. Is that bewilderment or disgust on his face? "Truth is, we are perfect as we are. And god only loves that which is perfect. You are perfect as you are." Tory smiles big, Imaginary Six looks at her.