BSG: "Bastille Day"

Going out of order here just because I'm not nearly as crazy about "Water" as I am about "Bastille Day," and I have to make headway somewhere.

Okay, relevant stuff from "Water" that needs to be mentioned: Adama put on a big formal greeting for Roslin, thinking she'd like it. She hated it, dreading the notion of having to do this sort of thing all the time. Lee told her it was a peace offering from Adama, so she made him (Lee) her military advisor.

In this episode, we find out that Adama doesn't like that, and says Lee has to choose a side.

So, in this episode, the following things happen:

Lee chooses a side.
Lee becomes my favorite character.
Jamie Bamber's accent slips for one word (no, you find it).
Richard Hatch (the original Apollo from the 1978 series) shows up.

Yeah, it's an Apollo-centric episode.

Other stuff from "Water" that was important: someone (Sharon the Cylon) blew up the water tank on the Galactica, forcing everyone to go look for water. Eventually, they found a planet with a bunch of ice on it, which is close enough. Unfortunately, the ice needs to be broken up into chunks, which is going to be hard labor. Fortunately, we've got a ship full of prisoners! Unfortunately, our bleeding-heart Education-Secretary-turned-President isn't big on slave labor. Or to put it another way, our practically-retired, shortsighted Commander thinks slave labor is a-ok.

(Unfortunately, a lot of the Adama-Roslin tension kind of vanishes after this episode, or at least takes a massive backseat to the other plots, and for it to come crashing back at the end of the season is kind of jarring.)

Lee gets sent over to round up some volunteers, having proposed a system whereby prisoners could earn points towards gaining their freedom. Roslin's aide, Billy, goes with, and Billy picks Dualla to represent the Galactica staff. To round out the team, they send over Cally, a cute technician.

Turns out one of the prisoners is Tom Zarek (Richard Hatch's character), a terrorist from Dualla's home planet. Billy and Lee respect him; Dualla does not. Cally's only there to be threatened by inmates, so she's not afforded an opinion. (Okay, that was a joke, but seriously, Cally has a very similar quality to Willow in early Buffy seasons, in that you just know the monsters are going to go for her.)

In the middle of a philosophical discussion between Lee and Zarek, the prisoners break out and take over the ship. Zarek demands Roslin's resignation, as she was never duly elected. In America, at least in theory, the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. This doesn't explain the Presidencies of people who lose the popular vote, and it certainly doesn't explain President Ford.

So, while it pains me to say it, and while I certainly have issues with some of his views in "Colonial Day," the terrorist has a point. Nobody elected Laura Roslin. She did a fantastic job rallying the fleet together, but she did so on, let's face it, some very tenuous authority. (Pop quiz: who's America's Secretary of Education right now? No, you can't Google it.)

Well it turns out that Zarek is planning on martyrdom; he knows Roslin and Adama won't negotiate with him and will instead send in the troops, and he wants his glorious last stand. One of his fellow former inmates just wants... well, it's never outright stated, but it's strongly implied that he has fairly ungentlemanly intentions towards Cally. Cally freakin' bites his ear off and gets a bullet in the gut for it. (People getting shot in the gut will be a recurring theme on this show.)

A standoff ensues; Lee gets someone's gun and shoots the would-be rapist (thus establishing another recurring theme), and then delivers an ultimatum to Zarek at gunpoint: his men are going to mine the ice for them, and then they'll have their elections. Nobody else has to die, but if Lee reneges on the deal, Zarek can still have his last stand.

Roslin and Adama chew Lee out for negotiating without authorization, but Lee points out that Roslin is just serving out the remainder of the previous President's term, and that term is up in 7 months. According to the law, there's an election then. Lee's picked his side; rather than be loyal specifically to one person, he's going to be loyal to whatever the Colonies have in lieu of a Constitution.

Which, on the one hand, feels like a cop-out ending, if only because we had no idea prior to this episode that the President's term was almost up. On the other hand, compared to the way "Act of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again" wraps up (that is to say, entirely predictably), this is nice. Lee figured out which side he's on, and if you throw out all the rules, he just won't play.

Despite the "oh, by the way, your term's almost up" ending, this is probably my favorite single episode of the season. The line has been drawn; even though there are less than 50,000 people left, the law will still be obeyed (at least until Lee himself says otherwise at the end of Season 3). Other episodes may draw on more personal conflicts ("Act of Contrition"), have more humor ("Tigh Me Up, Tight Me Down"), feature more action ("Hand of God"), or touch on other political subjects that, with the benefit of hindsight, seem strangely lacking in other space operas ("Colonial Day"). But this is a nice, tense little number that shows Lee thinking on his feet and finding his own moral footing. Can you blame me for suddenly liking the character so much?