BSG: Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1

Adama and Apollo are sparring in the gym. Apollo gets in a good shot, then Adama decides to teach him a lesson. He punishes Apollo with some hard shots, hits him in the face and knocks him down. Then he tells Apollo, "You never lose control. That's why you don't win."

[Nice.]

The scene is intercut with scenes of Apollo and Starbuck getting it on. Only, when Starbuck moans, "Lee," "Lee" turns out to be Baltar. Starbuck gets her clothes on and gets out of there. Baltar look really unhappy. Number Six looks unhappy too.

Caprica-Boomer catches up with Helo. She tells him to shoot her and get it over with, He does.Galactica-Boomer sits in her rack, plays with her pistol and contemplates suicide. She's interrupted by a summons over the intercom.

Baltar and the pilots are engaging in their regular poker game. Apollo is with them for some reason. Baltar is totally smashed. He laps ambrosia from his glass like a dog. "You can't compete with me," Baltar drunkenly taunts Lee. "I always win!" Lee doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Starbuck wanders in. Baltar offers her a seat, then says perhaps she's rather sit by Capt. Adama. Baltar then demands to be called "Mr. Vice President." Kara walks out, not too fast, not too slow, but now Lee gets it.

[As usual, Baltar has the best line: "There needs to be some decorum here. Or is this a pirate ship?" LOL!]

Baltar meets with the President. She's trying to get him up to speed on how the government is run, but the presence of Number Six is distracting him, as usual. Baltar gets out of the meeting after acting manic, though he truthfully brings up the point that it's unreasonable for her to expect him to learn how a government is run so quickly – she's been in government for her whole career.

In the bathroom Number Six accuses him of being in love with Kara and she slams his head against the mirror. Then she tells him that he doesn't want to be on Galactica because something is going to go down.

Galactica-Boomer and Crashdown go out on patrol and find a beautiful planet with all the criteria for supporting human life. Crashdown is sure it's Earth, but Boomer says to herself, "No, it's more important."

On Caprica, it's raining again. Boomer is tied up and Helo is a few feet away with his gun trained on her. He gives himself a radiation injection, and Boomer comments that it's not working too well, is it? He tells her she isn't Sharon. She tries to explain to him that there is no Sharon.

Cut to an angry Apollo, striding into the hangar bay where Starbuck is working on the Raider. He gets on her about calling the Raider a "he," then segues into "I'm not as smart as Dr. Baltar," then "you can't keep your pants on," then "it's just like when you got drunk and couldn't keep your hands off that major." The last comment makes her take a swing at him. She misses, but he swings back and punches her in the nose. People stare at them.

[Way to go, asshole.]

"Just tell me why," he says. "I'm a screw-up," she says.


The President, Elosha and Billy review the surveillance photos of the planet. Billy points out a photo of ruins estimated to be 2,000 years old. Elosha says that's when the ancients founded the Colonies. Roslyn looks at the photo and says, "That's an inhabited city." She looks again and, oops, just ruins. But Elosha asks her for details about what she saw. She then shows Laura a picture from her bible of a city matching that description. Elosha says the planet they've found must be Kobol, where the gods and man lived in paradise before the exodus.

Galactica-Boomer is back in her rack, toying with her pistol again. Baltar comes in, looking for Starbuck. He seems that Boomer is in distress and he talks to her. He gives her some ambiguous advice: "Embrace what you know to be the right decision." He leaves the room and she shoots herself.

Adama meets with the President and Vice-President to discuss the planet. He says they should consider permanent settlement. He also says they should do a survey of the ruins. Number Six urges Baltar to volunteer to go on the survey mission. Again, his reasons sound, well, reasonable. Since he's the chief scientist, he'll have to examine any samples brought back anyway, so he might as well collect them in the first place.

Cut to the infirmary, where Tyrol goes to see Boomer. She botched her suicide and only shot herself through the cheek. She confirms his suspicions that her "gun cleaning accident" story is bullshit. She tells him that she wakes up wondering if she's going to hurt somebody.

Roslyn tells Adama in a private meeting that the planet is Kobol. She tells him that an artifact called the Arrow of Apollo back at the Temple of Athena on Caprica will lead the way to Earth, according to the scriptures. She proposes that they use the captured Raider to jump all the way back to Caprica, get the Arrow, and come back to Kobol. Adama says, no, those stories are myths. The Raider is a military asset that can't be used for something like that. There is no Earth, he says.

Cut to the ground survey teams, piled into two Raptors. On the Raptor with Baltar are Crashdown, Callie, Tyrol and, inexplicably, Spc. Socinus.

[Okay, wasn't Socinus sentenced for treason in the witch hunt episode? Is he on work release, or has he been fully pardoned after only twenty days or so in the brig?]

The Raptor jump and ends up in the midst of a shitload of Raiders and a basestar. Baltar's Raptor is hit and the pilot is killed. Tyrol has the presence of mind to tell the other Raptor to jump back to the Galactica immediately. As the Raptor goes down, Baltar freaks out and gets in everyone's way.

[Interesting to note that he yells, "Oh my God!" Not "gods."]

On Galactica, Gaeda is showing Tigh and Adama two devices that look like smoke alarms that are Cylon transponders. He explains that the two devices send out signals to each other when they're within a certain proximity.

[I assume one is the device Number Six pointed out to Baltar in the pilot, but I don't know where the second one came from. Has to be from the Raider, but they should've shown it being removed.]

Dualla alerts them that one of the Raptors has returned and they learn what happened.

Later, Tigh tells Adama that Starbuck is working on a plan to use the transponders to get close enough to the basestar to plant a nuke. Lee, who was not in the loop, is pissed that she ignored the chain of command. He goes down to the hangar bay again, screams at her, has her stand at attention, then at ease. She explains the plan, but he still has a pissy attitude. She says she'd sorry (obviously about fucking Baltar, not the transponder bullshit), but he marches off.

Cut to Billy telling the President that her plan to have someone get the Arrow will bring down the government. She says the gods have a different plan. She summons Starbuck and reveals her plan. Starbuck's reaction is, you gotta be kidding me. Laura tells Starbuck that she has terminal breast cancer and this may be the only chance to find Earth. Kara insists that Adama knows where it is. Laura says, "Go ask him."

Kara does. She meets with Adama as he watches the Raider being prepped. She asks him, are we getting closer to Earth? Can you guess how much longer? He gives her evasive answers ("It's hard to say") and she knows him well enough to know he's lying.

Starbuck is out flying in the Raider on an attack prep test. Lee is close by in his viper. She makes her decision. She asks to speak to Adama on a scrambled line and she tells him, "I believed you. I believed in Earth."

"What are you doing?"

"Bringing home the cat," she says, referring to the cadence she was jogging to in the miniseries.

"Be sure, whatever you're going to do, you don't regret it later," he says. "Do you understand me?"

"I guess we'll find out," she says.

She jumps back to Caprica.