Jun

10

“The Hub” - Recap

Posted by battlestar

June 10, 2008 |

12 Models.  7 Known.  4 Living in Secret.  1 to be Revealed.

Previously on BSG: The D’Annas were boxed because they know who the Final Five are.  An alliance between the rebel Cylons and the Colonials is made to unbox D’Anna so she can tell them who the Five are, since it’s believed they came from Earth and know how to get the fleet there.  The other part of the plan?  Blow up the facility that lets the Cylons resurrect themselves into new bodies after they die.  And Laura and Gaius go to the rebel baseship to talk to the Hybrid about her knowledge of Roslin’s visions, but the Hybrid makes the ship jump away from the Colonial fleet.  Most of Galactica’s pilots are there to so they can set up the mission to blow up the Hub.  Once they go missing, Adama sends his ship to go looking for them and finds a debris field.  Knowing he “can’t live without [Roslin]” he leaves Saul in charge of the fleet, takes a Raptor, and lets the rest of the fleet jump away while he waits by himself for Laura (and rest of the Colonials with her) to return.

We open with a note letting us know what we’re about to see happened two days before Adama watched the fleet jump away.  It dissolves into Laura, Gaius, Helo, some Marines, an Eight, and a Leoben walking into the Hybrid’s chamber.  The Hybrid has been offline since Kara ordered it to be shut down so they could make repairs to the ship.  Roslin tells the Eight to plug it back in.  She does, and the first thing the Hybrid does—like any wounded animal in enemy territory would do—is run away.

During the jump, Laura has a vision.  She’s on the Galactica, but it’s empty and quiet save for one other person: her late spiritual advisor, Elosha.  The women hug and the vision ends as the baseship completes its jump.

Laura looks around the room for an explanation, and turns toward the Eight.  The president asks where their new location is, but the Cylon is more worried about why they jumped in the first place.  The Hybrid, now back online, starts her rambling again.  Gaius volunteers himself to talk to the Hybrid, while Helo is curious about the fact that she can navigate the ship.  For a second time in under a minute or so, the Hybrid jumps.

While the jump takes place, Laura is back on the empty Battlestar.  Elosha asks her to walk with her.  Roslin does so and asks what’s going on and if the ship is empty.  Elosha tells her “It is.  Feels bigger this way, doesn’t it?”  The two continue walking down the corridor until Laura peeks around the corner and sees herself in a hospital bed, far more ill, and gasping for breath.

Opening theme.  It reads 39,673 survivors, so since I last did an update, they’ve lost Emily (Roslin’s cancer buddy) and Jean Barolay.

The jump ends, and so does Laura’s vision.  Roslin and the Eight try and figure out why they’ve jumped a second time, while Baltar reiterates that he should be the one to talk to the Hybrid because “it knows me, trusts me.”  He continues to ramble about how the Hybrid and he are best buds while Laura watches the Eight manipulate Cylon controls, which means putting her hand into liquid and resting it on a glowing panel of lights.  Roslin asks how the process works, but the Eight is too worried about the Hybrid’s panicky condition to answer.  Gaius, meanwhile, kneels down at the end of the Hybrid’s tub opposite from her face.  He asks her what’s up with all the jumping.  She says, “The Six who went among the Makers is no longer.”  Eight translates that the Hybrid is talking about Natalie, who must be either injured or dead, and that this is what is causing the Hybrid to go jump crazy.  Roslin asks if there are any methods they can use to calm the Hybrid down.  Eight tells her that they can’t control her, and they can’t shut her down again because the Hybrid has wired herself in with life support—meaning if they shut her down, they will all shut down.  Gaius, making a brilliant return to his early days of being the crazy comic relief, begins to make shushing sounds to the Hybrid and tells her “Hey.  Hey, stop jumping the ship, alright?”  The Hybrid responds with, “Calm your mind.  Cease countdown.  Cease countdown,” and then returns to talking about filters.  Gaius, quite proud of himself, stands up with a grin and starts talking about how he “opened [himself] up to [the Hybrid] on a spiritual level.”  But as soon as he finishes the sentence, they jump again.

Laura is back in a vision and back at looking at herself in the bed.  On the bed’s right is Doc Cottle, and on the left is Admiral Adama.  But then (something I didn’t catch on first viewing) after a quick shot of Laura walking up to the scene, we cut back to the bed and on the right is now Lee and Kara, with Bill and Doc Cottle on sick Laura’s left.  Elosha walks over to the bedside, leans down, and asks the dying president, “Don’t you just hate these people?”  Sick Laura barely gets out a “No.”  “Oh, but you don’t love them, either,” Elosha responds.  She says the people around the bed are the closest things she has to family, and she’s “been their President.”  Kara moves into an embrace with Lee, while Bill puts one hand on Laura’s while the other hand moves gently across her face.  Elosha says that Sick Laura doesn’t let people into her life anymore, doesn’t love them.

The jump and vision end, and the Eight announces that she thinks they’re jumping towards the Resurrection Hub, and that their mission might still be a go.

The Eight and Helo are now in another room, but she’s still hooked into the computer.  He asks her how long it will take to reach the Hub.  She tells him it’s complicated because the Hub is jumping, too; there’s no way to know many jumps behind they are or when they’ll catch up.  Helo points out that the other Cylons will pick up the heat signatures and the electronics of the Vipers as soon as they’re launched for the attack.  Eight wishes there was a way to mask it, and Helo suggest that they go in with everything shut down.  Eight finished the thought with Cylon Heavy Raiders pulling the Vipers into the battlefield so that the Colonials can wait till the last second to power up and take out the FTL drive on the Hub.  Phase two of their plan involves the two of them boarding the Hub to get D’Anna out.  Helo then reaches up and tries to massage a knot out of his neck and shoulder while complaining that they’re being forced to come up with a plan on the fly and they might get burned for it.  She walks over offering assistance and begins to massage his neck.  He stands and lets the Eight know that Athena didn’t know how to do that when they met, and he wants to know how she knows how to do such a thing.  The Eight confesses that she was interested in the Agathon family, so she downloaded Athena’s memories from the last time she was resurrected (over the Algae planet in order to rescue Hera).  Helo looks slightly nauseated at the fact that someone who looks exactly like his wife has all of her memories, knows all the intimate details of their life together, and walks away.

Helo goes to meet with Laura, who is sitting in the Raptor with her eyes closed, clutching Bill’s favorite book.  Karl tells her that the mission is going to be very dangerous, but she thinks that if there’s even a remote chance they can make all the Cylons mortal that it will be worth the risk.  She then tacks on the order that Helo is to bring D’Anna directly to her, even though—as he reminds her—the Cylons expect the debriefing to be done together.  Roslin doesn’t care, and repeats her order.  Her reasoning for this is because she doesn’t want the other Cylons to know who the Final Five are.  Helo, being the loyal officer he is, reluctantly agrees to the order and leaves.

At the Hub, D’Anna comes back online with a Brother Cavil and Boomer watching over.  The Three asks the One why she was unboxed, and he tells her about the civil war among the Cylons.  She looks over at Boomer and asks Cavil if the Eights are against him, why is she there.  He says Boomer is his “pet Eight” and that “she’s seen the light of reason, and an Eight can make a passionate ally.”  D’Anna’s response: “Until she’s seen something shiny.”  So say we all.  D’Anna asks again why she was brought back.  Cavil tells her that she can put an end to the civil war.

We see the Eight with Athena’s memories and Helo standing on the edge of the Raptor addressing a group of Colonial and skinjob pilots.  By the way, only Sixes and Eights are pilots, so the Leobens are apparently too good to fly ships or there was a draft and they played the religious card to get out of it.  The two try and brief the pilots about the mission, but the groups are too busy calling each other names to pay attention.  Wannabe-Athena then gives them a big motivational speech about how Athena has never let them down (she wisely leaves out how Boomer’s military career ended) and how she’s “the same as [Athena]”.  And again Helo looks nauseated.

Gaius and Laura are again trying to get information from the Hybid.  Laura is kneeling where Baltar was earlier, while her former vice president paces circles around the room.  He encourages her to go ahead and ask the Hybrid about the visions, and she starts to, but the whole time the Hybrid is doing its rambling.  She tells Baltar that it’s “pointless” and he starts talking more forcefully to the Hybrid and repeats Laura’s question about the opera house.  Laura takes the questioning over again, and begins to ask about the door she saw the Six and Baltar take Hera through.  The Hybrid then mentions something about closing the doors and “protect the child.”  Laura gets excited because Caprica Six said that’s what she was doing in the vision, but Baltar argues to the Hybrid that he was the one holding Hera, so he was the one protecting the child.  Laura says it wasn’t clear what he was doing, and to stop talking so she can listen.  The Hybrid then begins a short chance of “Booting up” and then continues to ramble while the other two fight about what kind of tactics to use when addressing the Hybrid, who then says something about closing the doors.  Laura hears it and tells her to open the doors back up.  Baltar gives up and says he’s going to leave, and Laura shouts at her, “Open the door!”  The Hybrid immediately sits up in the tub and announces, “Three!  The Three is online.  The Three is online.”  Laura correctly puts together that D’Anna has been brought back before the Hybrid makes them jump again.

Laura’s vision picks up where it left off, and she asks Elosha why they’re watching the same scene again.  Instead of answering, the advisor begins to give Laura and roundabout lesson on morality.  Laura says she doesn’t need to hear about it because there are people who have screwed up more than she has.  Elosha asks her if she’s referring to Baltar.  The two turn the corner to see Sick Laura in the bed, but this time Bill is sitting beside her and reading to her.  The last line we hear him read is, “This island had saved my life, and I had done it no service.”

After the jump, Baltar is walking around a corridor, when he starts to move past a Centurion.  He stops and tells the toaster that he’s noticed that the Centurions are on the low end of the totem pole, which goes contrary to what the Cylon god says.  The Centurion looks a little confused (as much as they can) and Baltar asks if the others told it about god.

Helo and Laura are once again discussing details for the mission.  She tells him that she believes D’Anna is turned back on and functioning again.  He’s pleased to hear it, but still looks uneasy.  She asks him about it, and he tells her that he thinks she’s being dishonest with the Cylons about wanting to keep D’Anna for herself.  She tells him she’s doing it to protect the location of Earth from the Cylons, and says that if the roles were reversed that they’d be doing the exact same thing.  He disagrees, at least with respect to the Sharons.  She tells him, “You are not married to the entire production line.”  I’m sure that’s exactly the opposite of how he feels right now.  She tells him if he can’t handle the mission, then he needs to find someone to take his place.  Alarms start to go off, and Helo thinks they’ve caught up with the Hub.

On the Hub, Boomer still has her hand on the light panel and tells Cavil that a baseship has jumped in unscheduled, because apparently the Eights are the Uhura of the Cylons.  They both ignore her.  D’Anna asks Cavil why he’s talking so much about the civil war and hasn’t brought up the Final Five.  He says that he doesn’t think they’re supposed to know them.

The Heavy Raiders with Vipers in tow launch from the rebel baseship.  The Raiders drag the Colonials into position, cut the cord, and veer away.  The Vipers power up and move towards the Hub’s FTL.

Boomer figures out that it’s the rebels who have shown up and that they’re moving to blow up the Hub.  Finally, Cavil and D’Anna take interest in what she’s saying.  Cavil says the rebels will commit “mass murder” if the Hub is blown.  Excited about the idea of “permanent death”, D’Anna reaches up and chokes Cavil.  Boomer runs away scared.

Fighting commences.  The FTL explodes.  Helo and Wannabe-Athena start their mission to retrieve D’Anna.

Baltar explains to the Centurion that the Cylon god doesn’t want any of his people to be slaves.

More space fighting.  Helo and Wannabe-Athena find a robed D’Anna toweling off from her stay in the goo, grab her, and run.  Outside, Lt. Pike announces that his Raptor (the one with Adama/Laura’s book in it) has been hit.  He gets scared and tells them that he’s going to jump back home.  Seelix tells him not to, but he preps the jump anyway.  Just then a bullet pierces his canopy, and then him.  His last move is to press the big red button and jump back towards the Colonial fleet.  Inside, Helo stops at a room filled with Sharons waiting for download.  With a sick look on his face, we know that he knows he’s just made his wife mortal.

Baltar continues to talk to the Centurion, until the rebel baseship starts to take heavy fire and the two of them are knocked down the corridor by an explosion.  The Centurion is blown into about a half a dozen pieces, and Baltar sits up to see blood.  And for the first time I realize how much I actually don’t want Gaius to die.

A Marine helps Laura move Gaius to a makeshift bed and she sees that his wound is a large laceration across his stomach with some internal organs threatening to spew forth.  She puts some gauze on the wound to try and stop the bleeding and gives him a shot of morpha.  Laura flutters about while Baltar tells her that he knows god and Laura would benefit from knowing him, too.  He then lets slip that before knowing god, he used to carry around a terrible burden.  Laura stops moving and becomes very interested.  She asks him what he feels guilty about.  Baltar sarcastically replies that he doesn’t feel guilty anymore, so nothing.  She asks him what he used to feel guilty about, and he confesses that he was the one who gave the defense codes to the Cylons.  Baltar starts rambling about how he was relieved of his guilt.  Laura, on the hand, is so overwhelmed with the news that her breathing becomes unsteady and her whole body begins to shake.  Baltar asks her to pray with him, but she instead decides to take justice into her own hands.  She removes the bandage from the gaping wound in his stomach and is prepared to let him bleed to death for his crime.

More space fighting, including an impressive shot of a Raider taking a head shot.  Over the comm, we hear Helo announce that they have D’Anna on board, that they’re away from the Hub, and that the rebel/Colonials are free to launch their nukes.  One reader was curious as to how the Colonials would have this many nukes left after all these years.  I guess I just assumed they were supplied by the Cylons because while I can see Adama letting pilots and Vipers go over to the baseship, I really don’t think he would give them nukes.  Regardless, the Hub and Cavil’s baseships are blown to bits creating the debris field the Galactica will soon find.

Baltar repeatedly tells Laura, “Don’t do this to me, please.”

The baseship jumps, and another vision starts where the other left off.  Elosha tells Laura that Humanity can’t make its argument for survival on a “case by case basis”, referring to Roslin’s feelings about Gaius.  Laura asks Elosha what she wants from her.  The answer? “Just love someone.”  In the room, Bill watches Laura’s heart rate flatline with tears in his eyes.  He leans into kiss her and sits back down at her side saying, “You go. You go. You go, you rest now. I’m not going to be selfish anymore. You go, rest.”  He then takes the wedding band from off of his finger and places it on hers.  And I feel like I’m the one with the gaping wound in the stomach, not Baltar.

The vision/jump ends and Laura spots the bloody gauze on the floor.  She rushes over and checks for a pulse, which she finds, and hurries to put another bandage on Baltar’s injury.

Wannabe-Athena, D’Anna, and Helo make their way through the baseship.  Helo tells them they have to see the President first, Wannabe-Athena reminds him that that wasn’t the deal.  Wannabe-Athena looks crushed, but if she knows Helo so well, she shouldn’t be surprised.  He won’t go against his orders unless there’s a mutiny to be started.

Helo brings D’Anna into the room where Laura is watching over Baltar.  D’Anna rushes over to Gaius to check on his condition, and she believes he’ll live.  Helo tells Roslin that the Hub was destroyed, and she orders him to keep everyone else out of the room at all costs.  D’Anna asks Roslin about what she wants to know; Laura says she has questions about the Five Cylons in her fleet.  D’Anna then plays a joke on Laura and lets her believe that she’s one of the five.  Laura is not amused.  D’Anna says that while she does know how they are, she’s not going to tell anyone for a few reasons—she’s the only operating Three, she’s mortal, she doesn’t trust anyone whether they’re Cylon or Human—and she needs to keep the identities secret for insurance.  But she is willing to tell the names if Laura gets her back to the Colonial fleet.

Laura is sitting in the Hybrid’s chamber by herself listening to the rambling.  The ship jumps again, and Elosha is there, but they’re still in the Hybrid’s chamber and not on Galactica.  Laura tells Elosha that she thought killing Baltar would earn “Humanity’s right to survive”, but Elosha lets her know that it doesn’t work that way.  Elosha says that all the small jumps and course corrections they’re doing are “disorienting.”  Laura responds, “I like it, I’m used to it. Every jump brings us a little bit closer to home. Galactica.  My home. Maybe there’s something there for me.”  Elosha foreshadows, “Maybe even closer.”

We cut to Adama laying down in the lone Raptor reading Searider Falcon.  A bright flash quickly lights up the interior.  He moves forward towards the cockpit and a range of emotions cross his face as he sees the rebel basetar: curiosity, fear, determination and hope.

Cut to the Raptor within the baseship.  The hatch is opening, and Laura is standing there alone to greet Bill.  And because the scene is too great to describe, I’ll just give you the dialogue:

Bill: Missed you.
Laura: Me too. (With her head buried in his shoulder) I love you.
Bill: About time.

They kiss and hug.  I squee.  Roll credits.


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