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Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy #9

Recap

Aboard raptor 718, Sweet Eight confesses to Gaeta her treacherous past. At first Gaeta refuses to believe it. He remembers seeing people from the list alive on New Caprica. Sweet Eight admits to saving some, but only enough to fool him into trusting her. She accuses him of being seduced by hope.

Gaeta asks why she didn't kill them all right after the jump. Sweet Eight insist she's not a monster and tells him that she only kills when probability dictates. Gaeta tells her he trusted her and insists that he couldn't have known about her treachery. She informs him that Baltar knew.

We flash back to series three. Aboard the Galactica, Gaeta questions Baltar about his activities on New Caprica. Baltar, incensed at being called a traitor, accuses Gaeta of playing both sides. He moves in close and whispers “I know what your Eight did.”

Back in the present, mimicking his attack on Baltar, Gaeta stabs Sweet Eight in the neck with a scalpel.

Thoughts

Well, things are looking bleak. Sweet Eight's now officially not-so-sweet and Gaeta's much lauded moral core is seemingly DOA. I did rewatch the episode “Taking A Break From All Your Worries,” and the part where Baltar says “I know what your Eight did” was inaudible in the original broadcast. According to Ron Moore, the line was a throwback to a dropped subplot. So it was pretty cool of Jane Espenson to pick up on a line of defunct dialogue and breathe new life into it.

And it's looking as if Sweet Eight wasn't lying after all – unless of course there's some big reveal in the last episode. She did kill everyone on board and she did kill everyone on the list (after throwing Gaeta a few freebies to buy his trust). Poet John Dryden once wrote, “Fooled with hope, men favour the deceit.” I guess that's applicable to poor old Gaeta. Offered a slim nibble of hope, he effectively gorged himself on it – to the extent that he started to ignore what was right there in front of him... or rather what wasn't. There were no freed prisoners. Just words.

What was so significant about the names on the list? Were they resistance members... or other undesirables? Gaeta simply described them as people he hadn't seen in a long while. If the Cylons already had them incarcerated and they were just random people, then why not just execute all prisoners? This part didn't quite make sense to me.

So, was Gaeta trying to silence Baltar? I don't think he was guilty of “playing both sides” as per Baltar's claim. But if Gaeta truly believed that his worst crime was in trying to help his people, then why try to kill Baltar? It was the comment “I know what your Eight did” that pushed him over the edge. What did Gaeta think he was referring to? If all Sweet Eight had ever done was try to help, then why kill Baltar? Why would it be detrimental to the cause for this information to get out?

Quotes

Sweet Eight: “I saved a few. So you could make yourself not know about the rest.”

Sweet Eight: “Felix. I'm a woman, and a Cylon. I didn't seduce you. Hope seduced you, and the more you ate of it the less you saw. You ate yourself blind.”

Gaeta: “Why didn't you just kill us when you knew we were lost?”
Sweet Eight: “I'm not a monster. I didn't want to do it, I did it when the probabilities dictated it. You kill when you're in a war. You kill when you have to. You kill the ones your enemy values. It's basic. You should know that!”

Baltar: “If your friends only knew the truth. But don't worry, I can keep your little secret. I know what your Eight did!”

2 comments:

  1. I hope your review of webisode 10 goes up before the premiere tonight, because I just didn't get it.

    Seriously, I've been waiting the last week for an unannounced bonus webisode or something.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Sloth,

    Please include me in the group of people that didn't fully "get it". I just watched the last webisode and episode eleven of Galactica back to back this morning. I was hoping for answers. But all I got were more questions.

    I guess we should be used to that now though right....lol?

    ReplyDelete

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