Battlestar Galactica — 2x04 — Resistance
Synopsis
Col. Tigh's imposition of martial law threatens to split the crew and the fleet. He's thrown Chief Tyrol into the brig on suspicion of being a Cylon and his dismissal of the Quorum has provoked the other ships to refuse to send fuel and other supplies to the Galactica. His judgment blurred by drink and the goading of his ambitious wife, Ellen, Tigh sends armed troops to one of the ships to take supplies by force, a move that ends in disaster when civilians are killed.
Amid this chaos, Lee schemes to free President Roslin to establish a democratic opposition. He makes a break for freedom with Roslin, while Roslin's close aide Billy chooses to stay behind. Tigh threatens to shoot down the Raptor carrying Roslin away from the Galactica, but he can't bring himself to kill his friend's only surviving son, and Lee and Roslin escape into the fleet at large.
Meanwhile, Baltar uses Sharon's love for Tyrol to intimidate her into revealing how many Cylons are lurking in the fleet.
On Cylon-occupied Caprica, Kara and Helo find themselves in a standoff against other humans. Cooler heads prevail, and the pilots meet their new allies: a group of 53 survivors, led by Anders and Sue-Shaun, members of a professional pyramid team that survived the nuclear holocaust because they were training in the mountains. Kara enlists their help in her mission to get off Caprica.
Remarkable scenes
- Tigh interrogating Tyrol.
- Tigh: "You know what we do with Cylons, chief?" Tyrol: "I'm not a Cylon!" Tigh: "Roslin came up with the execution method." Tyrol: "I'm Galen Tyrol!" Tigh: "She put a Cylon out of the airlock." Tyrol: "My father was a priest! My mother was an oracle! I've served on battlestars since I was 18 years old! Pegasus, Columbia, Atlantia, Galactica!"
- Tyrol's decidedly hostile reunion with Boomer.
- Baltar: "I am the vice president. Legally speaking if the president is incapacitated shouldn't I take over her duties?" Tigh: "Legally speaking I've declared martial law. That makes you nobody."
- Ellen: "It just feels kind of touchy feely. You know, let's all sit down and talk about how we feel about martial law. Bill would never do that."
- Cottle to Tigh regarding the civilian massacre: "What'd you expect, genius, you put a pilot in charge of crowd control."
- Tigh and Ellen fighting and then making out. God I love that scene.
- Baltar forcing Boomer to admit that there are eight Cylons left in the fleet.
- Gaeta: "Things are pretty frakked up these days, huh?" Dee: "Well, things are pretty frakked up most days."
- Roslin making her case to the marine, pushing the marine's gun aside, and walking right past her.
- Roslin: "Well, Mr. Zarek, it would seem the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
- Adama showing up at Tigh's quarters.
- Cally shooting Boomer.
Review
Resistance is a decent episode, but the first of the season to not be utterly spectacular. It is at the very least engaging, however, and it serves as a nice, well rounded character piece.
First and foremost to discuss is Tigh. He may have proven himself in battle, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear he's not the man you want leading the fleet itself. His drinking and the negative influences from his wife are ultimately what led to the massacre aboard the Gideon.
Adama returns to us in this episode, and I liked how the first thing Tigh says to him is "I frakked things up good," he admits his mistakes to Adama without sugar coating. Not only that, but Adama just accepts it and moves on, declaring that he and Tigh will pick up the pieces together. It's great how Adama just understands that Tigh had to make hard decisions and that he's human and can't always make the right decisions.
Ultimately, true to the title of the episode, the story is all about resistance. Resistance to Tigh's military dictatorship and resistance to the Cylon occupation of Caprica. However, I felt that the latter story was somewhat weak. It's cute and amusing that a professional pyramid playing team survived, and their survival excuse is valid, but I just kind of felt that introducing an organized group of survivors on Caprica resisting the Cylons was kind of lame. I mean, if they wanted to exploit that idea, why didn't they do it in season one with the group that Helo was with?
Instead, they just vanished and Helo had a solitary story with Sharon. Now the writers are trying to have it both ways and I just don't find it tasteful at all. Additionally, I felt that it is completely unnecessary to set Starbuck up to fall in love with Anders; it comes off almost as if finding the the survivors was an excuse to give Kara somebody to frak. While I'm not fond of that plot point on Caprica, I'm at least happy that it's made pretty clear that at least Helo and Starbuck have not forgotten that their mission is to get off Caprica. One can only wonder why the resistance group hasn't done so already.
The Tyrol and Sharon stuff is the best material in the episode in my opinion. There's so little of it, yet it says so much. Even after Tyrol disowns Sharon and treats her terribly all throughout the episode, when Cally's rage finally forces her to take Sharon out, she dies in Tyrol's arms. No matter how much he tries to hate her, he can't let go of the love.
So this episode comes off as a pretty mixed bag. There's some great stuff, some okay stuff, and some downright lame stuff. But in the end it's still a pretty engaging, nicely done episode.