Gaeta’s Last Meal: Battlestar Galactica 4.13/4.14 Review
“The Oath” and “Blood on the Scales” was a two-parter that told the story of Felix Gaeta and Tom Zarek’s attempt at a coup. As I’ve stated before, Adama and Roslin have brought this on themselves, so I was very pleased to see a mutiny happening on the Galactica — it just makes sense storywise. What doesn’t make sense it what happened in last night’s episode, after Gaeta and Zarek have taken control of the ship.
ADMIRAL ADAMA SHOULD BE DEAD
Okay — so I’m supposed to believe that Tom Zarek, an uncompromising revolutionary who has no qualms about blowing away everyone on the Quorum, wouldn’t have killed Admiral Adama the first chance he gets? Adama is the number one threat to the coup (and in Zarek/Gaeta’s minds the survival of the human race) yet they suddenly feel compelled to keep him alive? For some bullshit court martial? What a joke.
When Adama and Tigh are escorted to the brig, they are accompanied by only two — two — guards! Gee, I wonder how they’ll get out of this one!
I started these two episodes with a feeling that anything was possible — there’s a few episodes left, people are dying left and right, major stuff is going down, and no one is safe. But things started taking a turn to the conventional when Kelly spared Tyrol after a “tender moment” of insulting Cally’s reputation for getting around. What a load of crap.
That’s when I realized that there were a core group of characters that were untouchable (Adama’s clan) and suspense was thrown out the window. And so it was that Adama, Roslin, and Tigh escaped imminent death and waltzed back into command of the fleet in a tidy 90 minutes of television.
Despite the lame moments (Romo killing a guard with a pen, Tyrol pulling out a pipe to dismantle the FTL drive, Adama leading the crowd of supporters through the ship to take back control — I was expecting them to burst out into song ala High School Musical), there was a lot of good stuff here, particularly the final scene.
The look Zarek and Gaeta share before being executed was nice — as if they felt justified about the choices they made, despite the outcome. I’ve always thought Zarek was an underused character, but also knew that his story arc wasn’t going to end well for him. Gaeta was a wonderfully complex character who grew throughout the series and it was tough to see him go, especially since I really wanted to see him bitch slap Starbuck at some point…
BALTAR TURNS A CORNER
Is it me, or was last night’s episode the first time Gaius ever turned down sex? It seems that Baltar is tired of always dodging responsibility and wants to own up to his actions for once in his life. It’s not just that he’s grown fond of all his brainwashed cult kittens, but that he is opening himself up to true connections with people — we see this in the final scene with Gaeta. It looks as if his heart is truly breaking for Gaeta when he tells him, “I know who you are”.
This was my fave scene from the episode. The acting is top notch. James Callis and Alessandro Juliani totally bring it. The only thing that could have made it better is if Gaeta asked for a KFC Frak Pack as his last meal.
UMM…THERE’S A CRACK IN THE SHIP
After Chief Tyrol was done playing Die Hard by crawling through all those air ducts, he discovers a huge crack in the FTL engine room. Perhaps the ship itself is the “dying leader?” How many jumps does the Galactica have left in her?
This is a really interesting development — don’t you think?
Related:
