Rating: **1/2
Written by: Carla Robinson
Directed By: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
"You Can't Go Home Again" is ostensibly a continuation of last week's "Act of Contrition," but as it turns out the circumstances that arose then - the death of a third of the Galactica's surviving pilot roster in a stupid, freak flight deck accident - completely vanishes from the narrative. Instead the focus narrows down to the core story of whether or not Starbuck, lost on a moon orbiting a gas giant after encountering a Cylon patrol while on a training mission, can be found and rescued before the "ragtag" fleet is forced to move on and leave her behind before the Cylons can find them.
Right away you can see the biggest flaw in this episode. Starbuck is a major member of the cast, which means she obviously isn't going to be left behind, so there really isn't any suspense about the ultimate resolution of the hour's core crisis. As I predicted last week, this ep was going to have to be carried by its characterizations and interactive dialogue. Unfortunately Ms. Robinson proves herself unable to live up to the standard Messrs. Thompson and Weddle set a week ago.
Even the premise is more than a little far-fetched, all but telegraphing that Starbuck will have to save herself in the end. Consider the task at hand. Barely more than two dozen pilots are given the charge of searching the entire surface of a Titan-like moon, a land area the size of a large terrestrial continent, which is obscured by corrosive clouds and buffeted by high winds all the way down to the ground. This means both zero visibility and inevitable damage to the Vipers and Raptors sent down into that witch's brew. They have to comb through that mess and locate a single, probably immobile pilot, all in the space of about two days. And that's assuming that she wasn't killed before she could reach the surface, or wasn't killed on impact, or killed after landing. Now I'm no expert, but unless Galactica had Starfleet-caliber sensors, this would seem to be a ludicrously impossible undertaking.
But don't tell that to Commander Adama, or he'll chew your ass off.
Oh, he didn't get snappy at first. Initially everybody joins in the search. President Roslin even offers Adama assistance from some of the civilian ships in order to increase the amount of ground that can be covered in the time before Starbuck's air is estimated to run out.
Ironically enough it is Baltar, egged on by Number Six's seductive taunting about how soon the Cylons will come looking for their missing patrol, who first points out the folly of risking the entire fleet all for the sake of one person who may already have perished. Roslin counters by reminding him of how much they owe to all the Galactica's pilots, an ironic twist given that not too much later she engages in the same debate, only from Baltar's side.
But then it is from start to finish a question of what is owed versus what is prudent and reasonable. Roslin isn't being insincere to Baltar in defending the search. She genuinely wants to find and rescue Starbuck, and, not being stupid, she knows that the odds of success are long. But she's not willing to do anything to attain that end. And as we quickly see, both Adama and Apollo are.
Adama is truly a tortured soul in this story. The wound over Zak's death has never healed, even after some degree of reconciliation with Apollo. Starbuck's confession of her role in the accident that killed his younger son tore it wide open all over again. And now her disappearance on what sure looked like a kamikaze run is like pouring salt into it followed by spreading it around liberally with sandpaper. The Commander quite simply blames himself for what happened to Starbuck, and he will not accept any outcome other than "finding our girl and bringing her home."
It isn't at all difficult to see the collision course between Adama and reality. It just happens to be Colonel Tigh who makes the mistake of blurting it out.
All Tigh was doing was pointing out the scope of the difficulties involved in the search and the drain on irreplaceable resources it was causing, as well as leaving the fleet functionally undefended. That's part of the role of a first officer, to be a sounding board for the CO and make sure that he is aware of all the facts and all the tactical options. Tigh was just doing his job.
But that isn't what Adama wanted to hear. The first time he angrily ripped Tigh in front of the entire bridge crew. The second time Apollo accused him of wanting to get rid of Starbuck and nearly threw a punch at him. And the third time Adama relieved him of duty.
Apollo's connivance in his father's obsession is a little harder to understand. Adama is being propelled by irrational, high-octane guilt, but what's Apollo's motivation? He's never had any loyalty to his dad before. And he should have no love lost for Starbuck given that she confessed her "sin of omission" to Apollo before she ever told his old man. Adama's feelings of shock and betrayal were immediate, but I can't recall Apollo ever exhibiting any reaction at all. Yet he willingly adopts the Commander's obsession as his own.
This comes as something of a shock to President Roslin when she calls Apollo and seeks confirmation that the CAP (combat air patrol) has been pulled to aid in the search and he replies that it was his idea. She's always butted heads with Adama (okay, it's still only been fifteen days, but still…), but his son is supposed to be less pig-headed and more even-keeled. IOW, a politician (I'll give the laughter a chance to die down, if it ever does).
That leaves Roslin with no choice. Apollo has flown the coop and Adama keeps stonewalling her with the insistence that the search for Starbuck is a "military decision." So she shuttles over to Galactica unannounced to have it out with both of them.
Curiously, Adama pulls Tigh out of his quarters and sends him to escort the President to his office. Tigh promptly unloads all his frustration about Adama's obsession, more confirming her suspicions about this thing being personal than their being any sort of revelation, but in any case undermining the Commander's case even further. Nope, Adama is definitely not a politician.
But he does know what's coming, even warning Apollo that "she's going to press." And, sure enough, she cuts right to the chase. Adama reiterates the "it's a military decision" dodge, which she rightly dismisses as "crap." She then cites the homework she did on the way over: a third of the remaining fighter craft are down for repairs, and the search has consumed nearly half of the fleet's fuel reserves. If the Cylons showed up now, humanity's survivors "wouldn't stand a chance." And that's a decision that affects more than just "the military."
However, she doesn't "press" as much as she could have. She, having accused Adama and Apollo of losing perspective, retains hers. She acknowledges - reminds them, really - that they're good officers and honorable men, and admonishes them to "clear your heads," and departs.
And that appears to be that. Apollo picks up the phone, and Adama orders the search terminated and preparations made to jump to the next system. This suggests that the two men had already arrived at the President's conclusion but hadn't fully acknowledged it to themselves, and hearing it from their commander-in-chief clinched it for them.
It wasn't a bad polemical scene. Shatnerian scenery-chewing really isn't Mary McDonnell's style, and no president should have to rant & rave. She simply told it to them like it was, and no counter-argument they could have made would have done anything other than to underscore her conclusion.
The disturbing thing is the father-son exchange that ensued.
Apollo, apparently having been even more committed to finding Starbuck than his father, asks Adama "why did we do this?" as in, "Why did you cave without an argument?" The Commander replies that "Kara is family," and "you do what you have to do, even if it means breaking the rules." Then #1 son asks what on reflection is a shockingly puerile question: "What if it had been me?" As if to say, "Yeah, Kara was family, but you still like me best, right Dad?" Almost like he was jealous of somebody that they had just written off for dead. What is he, thirty-five going on twelve? He's got some serious growing up to do.
His old man has even bigger issues to resolve. Adama's reply was even more shocking: "If it had been you, we would never leave."
Well, frak me and frak the human race if this is the mindset of the co-leader of surviving non-terrestrial humanity. He'd never leave? He'd defy the President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol herself? He'd let the remaining 50,000 survivors of his civilization's destruction be massacred? All in an insanely futile quest to find his son's corpse? This is a suicide complex. At the very least it raises questions about Adama's command fitness. I don't know if Galactica's CMO is authorized to relieve him on medical grounds, but if I were Colonel Tigh I'd keep this incident in mind and perhaps make some contingency plans with the President to take Adama out should another such set of circumstances ever recur.
As they almost certainly will. Apollo is the CAG. He's going to keep flying, and every time his life will be at risk. Sooner or later he's going to get killed. If Adama isn't prepared for that, he'd better damn well brace himself, or all of mankind will pay the price for his weakness and instability.
At any rate, it wouldn't have felt right if Starbuck had been plucked off that moon's surface and ferried home in a rescue craft. After all, this is Starbuck. Bold. Daring. Heroic. Larger than life. As much of a fool's errand as Adama's search was, that's how resourceful and inspirational her self-extrication proved to be.
After her parachute almost drags her over the edge of a huge cliff, ripping out her right knee in the process, she manages to drag herself up and starts hobbling to higher ground. And over what should she stumble but the one surviving Cylon raider that had plummeted moonward with her.
Approaching with weapon drawn (like that would have made any difference), Starbuck soon discovers that this craft is not manned, but rather is itself, for lack of a better term, "alive." Crawling inside, she finds the interior crammed full of, well, guts, pulsating tubes and "organs" and biological whatnot, apparently programmed to perform the function of fighter craft.
This appears to suggest the possibility of developing a biological weapon to use against the Cylons, either as a tactical measure to compromise fighers and perhaps even base ships, or as a weapon of mass destruction against the entire Cylon race itself. I'm sure Chief Tyrol will figure something out. In the meantime, since this was Starbuck, you knew that she'd figure out how to fly the thing, and would get it off the surface and into space, and would joyfully surprise everybody in typical Starbuckian fashion. In this case by outflying Apollo and then getting above him to show the word "Starbuck" painted on the underside of the raider's wings. And just as Galactica was about to jump, too. "In The Nick Of Time" [tm]. Pity there was never any other possibility, or this scene could have been a home run.
Meanwhile, back on "Cylon-occupied Caprica," Helo and Boomer II are getting all domestic in their appropriated fallout shelter. You can tell he wants her, but he's still retaining his gentlemanhood, at least for the moment. Unfortunately he waited too long. Just as he pops some bread slices into the toaster, a Cylon clanks by and, hearing the toaster go off, invades the restaurant, weapons blazing. In all the rucus, Boomer II emerges, briefly, and when Helo awakens she's nowhere to be found.
Immediate question: why would they have taken her but left him there, alive? Also, will he be able to take having to go back to settling for his right hand? I know they're going somewhere with this, but I hope they start throwing in some clues soon, or even I'll start losing interest.
It's actually hard to say whether or not Helo might be better off where he is, as opposed to out on Galactica under the command of a potential madman.
Maybe Adama'll relieve Apollo from duty, just to be on the safe side.
Next: the Big Secret - that Cylons now look human - is flushed out into the open.
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