Cable for One – Battlestar Galactica – Episode 3-18

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I’ve been randomly voluntold to take a first-aid course at work this week. I don’t mind the course itself, but I normally never work earlier than 1 PM. You’d be surprised how earlier 10 AM can seem when you’re used to working afternoons and evenings. So if I seem a bit off my game this week, you’ll know why.

Well, we still don’t know if Starbuck is really dead or not. They did take Katee Sackhoff’s name out of the opening credits (though there’s still a brief shot of her piloting a viper), but that doesn’t really prove anything. Unfortunately if Starbuck is really dead, we’ll probably never know for sure until the series ends. The scenes with Sam, Apollo and Admiral Adama trying to come to grips with Starbuck’s death were touching, but if she’s not really dead, they’ll retroactively lose some of their impact.

I have to say, I don’t really follow Admiral Adama’s logic with pulling Apollo off of CAG duty. He was worried that Lee wasn’t at his best while coping with the Starbuck situation, so I can understand why he wouldn’t want Apollo in charge of something as vital as the CAG. But why would he assign Apollo to guard Baltar’s lawyer? After the first lawyer was killed, they had every reason to believe there would be an attempt made on the second, one which could also kill anyone assigned to guard the lawyer, and yet the Admiral thinks this would be a nice job for Apollo until he can get his focus back?

The reveal that Kelly was the one behind all the murders was far from shocking and/or dramatic. When I was watching, I thought Kelly looked vaguely familiar to me, but it wasn’t until I checked IMDB that I realized he had been in a few episodes before now (though none since very early in season three). If I had remembered his earlier appearances, his actions would have had a bit more meaning, but even so he was still a rather minor character.

Kelly’s confession might have had a bit more impact had it made any sense. Basically he had to watch a lot of people die over the years, so he felt compelled to kill Batlar’s lawyer because somehow by agreeing to represent Baltar, it means that the lawyer might be more willing to die for a human than a Cylon? I suppose he could have meant that he wanted to kill the lawyers because he thought Baltar preferred Cylons to humans; his whole speech was confusing.

If Kelly was killing people in an effort to hurt Baltar’s chances at the trial, that seems like a waste of time. There’s no way Baltar’s ever going to be allowed to walk, no matter who represents him. It’s not that there’s such a preponderance of evidence against Baltar that no lawyer could get him a not guilty verdict (In fact, Baltar hasn’t really done anything criminal with regards to the occupation of New Caprica), it’s just that there’s no way the President will ever allow Baltar to be released. And even if he was released, if he stayed with the fleet Baltar would probably find himself assassinated rather quickly. So there doesn’t seem to be much reason for Kelly to go around killing Baltar’s lawyers and anyone who happens to be nearby.

And it looks like they’re ramping up the tension between the Adamas yet again. When you’ve already had the son mutinying against the father, any later conflicts tend to be colored by a ‘been there, done that’ mentality. Hopefully the previews are somewhat misleading and next week’s episode won’t be too bogged down Adama drama.

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