Escape Velocity - Recap

A small service is held for Cally with several of Galactica's crew in attendance, including the Adamas, Roslin, Tory, and Tigh. After Adama gives his condelences to Tyrol, Tory passes by and shakes his hand, at which point Tyrol, seemingly without thinking, holds onto her and grabs Tigh's arm before the two play it off. Tigh meets with Caprica-Six in her cell to personally tell her that her request to see Hera Agathon has been denied. Caprica is curious about Tigh coming all the way down just to tell her that, at which point he sees her as his wife Ellen, as she continues to ask if there's something he needs from her. Later, Tigh and Tory meet Tyrol in his quarters. Tyrol is unsure of who he really is anymore. Tory tells him that they're perfect, above guilt. Tigh, however, refutes this, telling Tyrol that what he's feeling is grief - it's normal and it's human.

Tory meets Baltar in his commune. Plucking hairs from his head, she talks about feelings - the parallels of pain and pleasure. She then moves on to talk about guilt and that with God's forgiveness, then one can never do wrong and it's therefore implied that all are perfect. Just then the commune is raided by men looking for Baltar, who vandalise the area and indiscrimintely attack the followers before calling off their attack to time being avoided by a security response. When they arrive, Baltar chastises them for doing little work to find the group that committed the attack, a fundamentalist group named the Sons of Ares. He realises that they are only protecting their Gods, at which point Number Six points out a follower holding onto a figurine of Asclepius, the god of healing.

After a Raptor that Tyrol had been fixing experiences a problem and crashes, Tyrol realises that he made a simple mistake, but insists that he be told that he frakked up. To his frustration, nobody will blame him for the incident.

Number Six prompts Baltar to take a stand against the fear-mongering people who believe in irrelevant gods. He rallies his followers who join him as he enters a temple where a service is being held. There Baltar makes several blasphemous comments regarding some of the Gods before he is subdued by marines.

Following one of her blood tests, Adama visits Roslin in the sick bay. He offers to read another book to her - Searider Falcon - so much a favourite that he has never read the ending. Adama then brings up Baltar in the brig, arrested for desecrating the temple, Roslin believing it to be revenge for what happened to his commune. She also believes that Baltar is provoking the more religious groups. Seeing Baltar as the central point of the problem, they go over options, including holding him in the brig or kicking off of Galactica.

As she goes to visit Baltar in his brig, Tigh visits Caprica-Six in her cell. He wants to know what she feels to be responsible for the deaths of billions in the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. She refutes the idea of a "switch" that she can turn off. She insists that she is too human for it. It is then that he again sees her as Ellen. Tigh then asks her how she can live with it. Caprica, in turn, asks if he is asking for forgiveness. Her visage returns and Tigh leaves, believing that she cannot offer him anything.

In Baltar's cell, Roslin tells him that she is pursuing, aggressively, the people who attacked he and his followers. She goes on to tell him that, as she is dying, she has researched and discovered that people approaching death have been found to be less bound by rules and morality. However, this is not a threat - she promises to die a quite death if he moves onto a quite life. She finishes by telling him that she is not in the mood to tolerate him any longer. She tells him that he has been released, before leaving.

Finding no peace in work, Tyrol goes to Joe's Bar where Adama sits next to him. He broaches the loss of Tyrol's wife, which prompts him to put his feeling toward Cally in a lesser light, that he married Cally because he had to settle and refuses to make an angel out of her. When Adama tells him to shut up or threaten action, Tyrol takes the opportunity to which Adama subsequently orders Tyrol to report for reassignment.

In a Quorum meeting Lee takes issue with a crowd control measure for Baltar's group. Roslin defends it by the fact that the group is not provoking other groups if they are not gathering en mass, but Lee notes that it is not applied to other religious groups. This causes a stir with the other delegates for fear that the measure could extend to other similarly practised groups. When Roslin refuses to open the resolution for further discussion, Lee notes that the Quorum can override her decision. Before leaving, Roslin implores the delegates to think about what happened when Baltar was in power and what could happen with blind religious devotion.

Tigh has again visited Caprica-Six's cell, this time for an "informal chat". Tigh still wants the answer to his question from his last visit. She tells him that she wants the pain, to learn from it. She goes on to describe falling in love with a man, as Tigh sees her as Ellen. She fell in love with him, and realising that he would not be around forever, made her understand death. But the illusion is shattered when she gives up the name Baltar, and not wanting to hear about his "fragile body", dismisses the marines monitoring the room, shutting off their survillence equipment. Returning to her cell, Caprica offers him the means of shutting off the pain. Pain is how she learned from the guilt. In it she finds clarity and wisdom. She tells him that the Cylon brain was designed after the human's and that they learned things from it that humans aren't aware of. Seeing her again as Ellen, Caprica tells him that one learns who they really are when in pain. She takes his eye patch off and offers to give him such clarity again. When Tigh barks at Caprica to take her hands off of him, she hits him, knocking him to the floor. Crouching over him, she repeatedly punches him, clearly taking some joy in it. When asked if he can find the clarity, Tigh doesn't respond, and she continues to hit him. Tigh then begs for her to continue, but she refuses as she believes it was a mistake. She realises what he really needs and kisses him.

Baltar and several of his followers approach the entrance to their commune, but are cut off by maines. Because there are already 12 inside, he cannot legally allow anymore inside. Number Six then appears and tells him to take a stand and promises that he won't be hurt. When Baltar tries to enter, the marine shoves him back and hits in the face with his gun. Six again tells Baltar to stand, that the gain will outweigh the cost. She goes as far as physically propping Baltar up and pushing him forward. After a couple of blows, Lee interjects, telling the marines that the right of public assembly has been fully restored. Baltar thanks Lee, but Lee doesn't return the gratitude because he didn't do it personally for Baltar.

In sickbay, Roslin tells Adama that Lee refuses to look at the effects of overriding the crowd control measure. Adama agrees, but adds that Lee is simply doing what he believes is right. Roslin thinks that Lee doesn't want to think that there potential consequences that go along with the "right thing". However, Roslin stops herself because she's not supposed to get upset during treatment. She then asks Adama to continue reading from Searider Falcon, but is warned that he is approaching the part of the book he hasn't read yet. He begins reading as Roslin goes to sleep, closing the book, apparently knowing the words that seem very personal.

Still bloody and beaten, Baltar addresses his followers with Lee and some of the media present. He says that despite his inperfect past, he believes that something in the universe loves him, a singular spark in every living being's soul called God. He encourages them to find this spark, to look deep and embrace their own faults because God embraces them. God loves only that which is perfect, concluding that because God loves them, then they are all perfect.

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