Battlestar Galactica

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8. Flesh and Bone

"Are Cylons man or machine?" Kara Thrace discovers her own humanity in the most ironic place after she's ordered to torture a Cylon who claims he's put a bomb aboard Galactica.

PRESIDENT LAURA ROSLIN has just awakened from a nightmare - of the Cylons LEOBEN is chasing her through the woods - when she is informed that a Cylon, also Leoben, has been captured aboard the Gemenon Traveler, a civilian ship. It seems the decision to go public with their knowledge of the Cylons has paid off, as Leoben was identified from photographs that were passed around the fleet. COMMANDER ADAMA wants the Cylon executed immediately. But Laura demands that the prisoner be interrogated, a request that Adama reluctantly agrees to, though only if KARA THRACE is the one doing the questioning.

 

Before sending Kara off to the Gemenon, Adama gives her the report from his run- in with the Leoben model. (Adama killed Leoben in the mini-series.) Adama also gives Kara a stem warning, that 'it' (Adama refuses to refer to Leoben as a 'he') is cunning and manipulative and will exploit any weakness he can find in Kara's psyche. Kara takes this under advisement but she is still slightly unprepared as to Leoben's true danger.

 

Kara arrives at Gemenon flanked by a couple of marines. She is briefed by the CAPTAIN, who shares her view of Cylons as machines, not human. After being injured and put out of commission by a Cylon, Kara is especially jaded, so it is with less than zero mercy that she approaches Leoben in his cell. She peppers him with questions What is your mission? Why were you hiding aboard the Gemenon? - all of which Leoben dodges. Leoben tries to draw her in, even calling her by her call sign 'Starbuck' (which he had no way of knowing), but Kara is unwilling to play his games. That is, until Leoben tells her that he is planting a nuclear warhead aboard one of the ships and it will go off in 12 hours.

Kara calls and apprises Adama of the bomb threat. While he's convinced it is just a Cylon mind-game meant to buy Leoben time, he can't take any chances and orders an intensive search. Laura tells Kara to keep trying to get Leoben to talk, try to unfold his web of lies, especially now that the lives of the fleet depend on it. Kara returns to the Storeroom where Leoben's being held, determined to take the hard-line approach with him.

 

Speaking of Cylons, the two Sharons continue to play their role in the Cylon plan. The Sharon on Caprica has succeeded in getting Helo to fall in love with her and they've had sex, an important step. Meanwhile, the Galactica Sharon knows Tyrol suspected her of being a Cylon sleeper agent, something that she has wondered about herself. She thinks that if she can prove otherwise, they can rekindle their love. She goes to DR. GAUIS BALTAR and asks if he can test her on his Cylon detector. He insists it is still a prototype, not yet ready, but she begs him to do it, if only for her peace of mind, and he agrees.

 

Back on Gemenon, Kara's hard-line stance has quickly become full-on torture. When she tried to play nice and get answers from Leoben, he only wanted to talk about God and the meaning of life. Kara knows that Leoben, as a machine, can switch off his pain threshold anytime, but as her marines lay into him, she also knows if Leoben does so, it will mean he's not human... something the Cylons pride themselves on. But as her methods become more extreme, so do his, and he succeeds in getting into her head, touching on the nerves of her unhappy childhood and painful relationship with her mother. It is at this moment, where Leoben has broken through to Kara and appears to have the upper hand when Laura Roslin walks in, wanting to know what is going on...

 

With less than an hour to go on Leoben's 'bomb threat', Laura decided to see this Cylon face-toface. She had already glimpsed him in her dream of course, something she still can't figure out, but now she finds Leoben battered and bloodied and Kara still without answers. Laura is compassionate toward the prisoner, ordering him cleaned up and unchained. She gets on Leoben's good side and he admits that the bomb threat was a lie. He also tells her something else, 'Commander Adama is a Cylon.' Laura is taken aback, even if Loeben's announcement is just more Cylon mind-games, then she orders Leoben thrown out the airlock. Kara watches in disbelief as Leoben is sent out into space to die, still rattled at what the Cylon told her...

 

Back on Galactica, Sharon Valerii's Cylon test comes back Positive. An aghast Dr. B altar lies and tells her it was negative (for reasons even he doesn't know).


Cast & Credits

Edward James Olmos   Commander William Adama

Mary Mcdonnell   President Laura Rosiin

Jamie Bamber   Captain Lee Adama

Katee Sackhoff   Lieutenant Kara Thrace

James Cailis   Gaius Baltar

Tricia Heifer   Number Six

Grace Park   Sharon Vaierii

Michael Hogan   Colonel Saui Tigh

Aaron Douglas   Chief Gaien Tyrol

Paul Campbell   Billy

Tahmoh Penikett   Helo

Kandyse Mcclure   Dualla

Matthew Bennett   Doral

Callum Keith Rennie   Leoben

Christina Schiid   Playa

Biski Gugushe  Eick

Eric Breker   Gemenon Captain

 

Director   Brad Turner
Writer   Toni Graphia