Battlestar Galactica 2x9 – “Flight of the Phoenix”
SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY
John: These last couple of Galactica episodes have been super sweet
for me because I’ve been getting what I wanted. Everything
is back to normal the way I like it. Roslin and Adama are in charge,
everyone is together on the ship, Apollo is the CAG, Starbuck is
playing cards and smoking cigars. While all this makes me happy,
it’s too bad things continue to suck for the Galactica crew.
Deteriorating conditions and the endless grind of running from the
Cylons have taken their toll. Everyone’s on edge all the time.
Starbuck: I know! Gods! When I’m not the most difficult person
to have a conversation with around here, you know things are frakked
up.
John: Helo’s been having a tough time readjusting to life
on the Galactica. A lot of his old friends are dead and the newer
pilots don’t like or trust him because of his relationship
with Sharon the Cylon. Racetrack, who I thought was Kat because
she looks a lot like her, mouthed off to Starbuck after the pilots
gave Helo the cold shoulder and got her face rammed into a table
for her insolence.
Starbuck: I don’t care who or what he fraks, Helo saved my
ass on Caprica. When I fell asleep in my old apartment with a lit
cigar, Helo put it out before I burned the whole place down and
us in it. And he shot Simon when I was escaping the farm. Or maybe
it was Anders who did that? Whatever, Helo’s all right with
me.
Rob: Is Helo back on duty? He's wearing the uniform and hanging
out in the crew lounge, but I can't imagine anyone trusts him enough
to let him take off in a Raptor.
Helo: Why not? Just let Sharon out of her cell and we can re-form
our old crew. It'll be just like old times.
Rob: I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.
SHIP SHAPE
John: Chief Tyrol’s life is all fucked up. All the ships he
and his crew are trying to maintain are falling apart. He still
misses his Sharon the Cylon, even though there’s one in the
brig, but that one is pregnant with Helo’s robot baby. Poor
Tyrol was planning on quitting the service with his copy of Sharon
the Cylon and starting a family with her. Now, all he’s got
left is a life of trying to fix broken vehicles with no parts. Tyrol
picked a fight with Helo that has been building for a while, then
he channeled his energy into building a new fighter.
Colonel Tigh: What the hell is he doing? There’s no way that
frakking thing’s gonna fly!
John: Despite all the pessimism from Tigh and even his own maintenance
crew, Tyrol’s efforts at building a new fighter impressed Adama
and soon, half the ship was helping out in its construction, including
Duala and Starbuck. Tigh went looking for Tyrol and found him making
booze to trade for parts from the fleet. Maybe it was Tyrol’s
sad story about not having anything else but his work in his life,
or maybe it was the warm feeling in Tigh’s heart when he found
a new supplier of hooch, but he helped out Tyrol by leading him
towards some spare engine parts on another ship.
Rob: Tyrol building the new Viper reminds me of the story about
stone soup, where you come into down with nothing, and then everyone
adds a piece. I guess it takes a village to build a space ship.
I don't understand everyone's negativity about the fighter.
Chief Tyrol: It's all I have!
Rob: That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is that you
don't have anything better to do. In all likelihood, they're all
going to get annihilated by the Cylons anyway, so let the Chief
have his fun for now.
DROP THE BOMB
John: A Cylon logic bomb that infiltrated the ship from when Gaeta
tried his firewall gambit has been causing systems to malfunction
throughout the ship. Dee got her first dose of what it’d been
like if she worked on Star Trek when her console exploded in her
face. When Tigh yelled at Gaeta to fix the problem, Gaeta yelled
right back at him, something he’s been bottling up for months
now.
Colonel Tigh: What the hell is his problem?!
John: You should see the tattoo he got on his chest. There’s
a lot more to Felix Gaeta than meets the eye. Soon after, Starbuck,
Apollo and Hot Dog were in the firing range shooting at pictures
of Sharon the Cylon when the Cylon logic bomb struck, dropping the
oxygen levels to kill them. Starbuck managed to save all their asses
by shooting the glass of the door out. Adama gave the order for
Helo to consult with Sharon the Cylon about the logic bomb and Helo
had his priorities in order.
Helo: You don’t still love the Chief, do you? Oh, and there
was something else I was supposed to ask you. Something about a
Cylon logic bomb… so, do you have memories of when the other
Sharon and the Chief had sex? Was he better than me?
Rob: Thankfully, the logic bomb works pretty slowly.
Sharon the Cylon: It integrates into your system and takes over.
It'll start by just dicking around and doing piddling shit like
blowing up consoles and dimming the lights for a half a second.
But eventually it'll kill everyone.
Rob: Including you and your miracle from God baby?
Sharon the Cylon: I'm not sure. I'm not in the loop on The Plan
anymore.
Rob: How is that baby doing anyway? What was going on last episode
anyway? One minute you were in the emergency room with a camera
shoved in your face in and the next you were back in your cell.
What was that all about?
THE BAD NEWS IS THERE ISN’T ANY GOOD NEWS
John: The outlook for President Roslin has worsened. She has less
than a month until she dies from breast cancer. I’m really
gonna miss Roslin when she’s gone. Roslin didn’t confide
the bad news to anyone and that’s a smart move. The last thing
anyone needs is for people like Baltar and Tom Zarek to start making
power plays knowing that Roslin’s time is limited. As if Roslin
didn’t have enough bad news that day, Adama tells her about
the Cylon logic bomb that’s about to disable Galactica as a
prelude to an all-out Cylon attack.
President Roslin: Oh Gods! Is that all?
Commander Adama: My son and Lieutenant Thrace were almost suffocated
today by the Cylon logic bomb.
President Roslin: Do you have any good news? Anything at all!
Commander Adama: Maintenance crewmember Cally, the one who shot
the Cylon who shot me, is out of the brig today. She’s back
on duty at the flight deck.
President Roslin: That’s terrific. Let’s give her a medal.
John: Adama did ask her advice as to whether he can trust the plan
Sharon the Cylon came up with to deal with the logic bomb.
Commander Adama: It took everything I had not to wrap my hands
around her throat.
John: Adama’s not the forgive and forget type when someone
puts two slugs in his chest.
Rob: Adama was really running out of options though. Sure, Sharon
the Cylon could've turned on them and screwed them over, but at
that point it was basically about picking which Cylon will kill
you. And Adama's already had experience with this model fucking
him over. I guess it's kind of a "the devil you know"
thing.
APOLLO HORNY
John: Poor Apollo can’t catch a break in the romance department.
I’m not sure if Starbuck ever told Apollo about her boyfriend
Anders on Caprica, but Apollo got the drift that he won’t be
romancing Starbuck any time soon when he told her he loved her and
she made fun of him. Now Apollo’s got a little crush on Dee,
grabbing her in the gym during sparring practice and pulling her
on top of him. Billy didn’t seem too bothered by it when he
walked in on sparring practice.
Apollo: It was just an innocent game of grab-ass. That’s how
we unwind on the Galactica.
John: Apollo’s best bet for some frakkin’ now might be
if Roslin asks him to take her for a last spin before she croaks.
Or he could ask Cally out. She’s pretty cute.
Apollo: Cally, huh? She did kill the toaster that shot my father.
Yeah. Why not?
John: Dude, go for it. It’s ridiculous a good-looking guy
like you can’t get a woman.
Rob: Especially with those abs. I can't get over those. You'd need
one of those explosive shells they were using to kill the invading
Cylons to get through Apollo's stomach if you want to gut shoot
him.
Sharon the Cylon: I'll keep that in mind, thanks.
Rob: You wouldn't think Billy would be much competition for Apollo,
but with Roslin about to die, he could end up holding a whole bunch
of cards. Of course, he'll have to watch out for a certain unstable
fellow with a conniving blonde whispering in his ear.
Colonel Tigh: Hey, why would I want to mess with Billy.
Rob: Sorry, Colonel, I meant the other one.
CYLON ON THE BRIDGE
John: Gaeta and Baltar came up with a crazy gambit to wipe all
of Galactica’s memory banks and cold start the entire system
with their pre-war startups.
Baltar: I must warn you, you will lose all your pre-stored passwords,
cookies, email addresses and preferences, but it’s the only
way to eliminate this logic bomb.
John: Just as hundreds of Cylon raiders arrived en masse to attack
Galactica, Sharon the Cylon was lead in chains to CIC, where she
cut her hand open with Dee’s father’s pocket knife and
inserted a fiber optic cable into her hand. I think I remember Viki
from Small Wonder doing something similar when the house she lived
in lost electricity. Anyway, Tigh was freaking out, the Viper pilots
staring at hundreds of Cylon raiders were freaking out, and Adama
put a gun to her head, but Sharon the Cylon not only cold started
Galactica’s systems and erased the logic bomb, she sent a signal
back to the Cylon fleet, disabling it. As the Vipers had fun blowing
the helpless Cylon raiders to smithereens, Adama and Sharon the
Cylon came to an understanding.
Commander Adama: I still want you dead. I hate you. Thanks for
saving my ship.
 
Rob: Was Helo on the bridge to see that performance from his girlfriend?
That would kind of gross me out. But then again, it's another input.
Talk about a hand job there. Anyway, it's good that one human-model
Cylon can just disable an entire fleet like that. They should just
keep Sharon the Cylon up on the bridge and have her wipe out any
Cylon opposition they encounter, since it's so easy.
THIS BIRD’S GONNA FLY
John: With no metal to build a shell, Helo came up with the idea
to use carbon composite for Tyrol’s newly-dubbed Blackbird,
making it a stealth fighter. Starbuck piloted the Blackbird on its
maiden test run and freaked Apollo out by pretending she disappeared.
So now the humans have a stealth fighter that neither Galactica’s
not the Cylons’ dradis can detect.
Racetrack: Good call using carbon composites.
Helo: Thanks, it was my Cylon girlfriend’s idea.
John: The crew invited Roslin to the flight deck to Christen the
Blackbird, which the deck crew all signed and named “Laura”
after the President. Roslin freaked them out when she went to smash
the champagne bottle on the Blackbird’s nose. That’s what
I would’ve done too. Aren’t you supposed to smash the
bottle on the ship when you Christen it? Anyway, with the victory
over the Cylons and everyone pitching into build a working Blackbird,
morale is up and people are happy. It’s a good time for Chief
Tyrol to have a heart to heart talk with Sharon the Cylon. Too bad
we couldn’t listen in on that conversation.
Rob: I don't think they're making too many more bottles of champagne,
so you probably don't want to waste perfectly good ones, even in
the name of tradition. This way, you can refill the bottle with
the Chief's hooch. The "Laura" looks pretty neat though.
Maybe if there had been more Lauras before the Cylons attacked,
humanity wouldn't be sitting on the brink of extinction.
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