Blowback

Synopsis: We pick up with Lacy at the spaceport on her way to STO training on Gemenon. A group of trainees are taken on a plane of some sort only to be hijacked by polytheists demanding their apostasy. Lacy and another guy she meets, Odin, stage a rebellion. But it turns out the whole thing was a ruse anyway; the first exercise for the STO trainees. Graystone is given two weeks to get his program working. The Ha'La'Tha is planning to kill him whether or not he succeeds. It is revealed the "confessor" person is actually the guy in charge at the GDD, and he succeeds in getting Lacy's pin to Clarice. It is indeed a storage device. Duram knows something's fishy, and tries to get cameras to help Amanda's spy mission. But he must reveal that he's got a spy in there. So Clarice is warned there's a spy in her house and she kills Marbeth, thinking it is her. At episode's end, Duram appears to know more than he lets on about who the mole in the GDD is.

I know that some of you won't believe me, but I figured out that that pirate raid was all a ruse almost immediately. I take real-time notes while I watch so I remember what things to write about. The very first note I have reads, and I quote, "FINALLY some conflict between polys and monads -- unless it's all a ruse." I found this so frustrating because it seemed so terribly obvious, especially because this show has a history of such "aren't we clever?" writing turns. Right away I suspected something was up because to date we have never seen ANY conflict between the polytheists and the monotheists on Gemenon. And you would think there would be. I'm very surprised there's been nothing. So I was hoping there might actually be some, but I immediately suspected something was up. Then, when they started "executing" kids, I knew it had to be false. If they really wanted to just kill kids, why would they showily walk them over to the airlock and have them kneel down? Why not just shoot them where they sat? By the time the girl was made to stand up, I was positive this was just an exercise. They even closed the door to hide the shot from us (and the kids on the plane). I'm surprised not one of those recruits figured it out. I really thought Lacy was starting to put it together, and was annoyed that she didn't.

Now let's look at Clarice and the spy in her home. It's all Clarice's own fault that there's a mole in her house. She wasn't going to bring Amanda home; she said it would cause friction with her spouses. But then because she was so desperate to get any word on Zoe's belongings, she changed her mind and invited Amanda over. So she brought it on herself.

And we have an annoying switcheroo once again! They fiendishly edit the episode to make us think she's going to kill Amanda, only to have it be her wife. Sure, shocking twist, but does it make any sense? Why on earth does she suspect her wife of being the spy? Sure enough to kill her! Maybe I wasn't paying attention. The final scene seemed to suggest Duram knew that would happen, as if he threw shade on Marbeth to distract from Amanda. Otherwise, his actions were downright reckless and nearly got Amanda killed. So I don't know what's going on here, but it seemed like sloppy writing just for shock value.

Duram is very clever for playing the GDD mole, suggesting that Marbeth was his informant. It throws him off the trail. I like this Duram guy and wish there was more of him.

Then at the end, we are back on Gemenon and some of those kids are being executed. Now, my DVD skipped a bit so I may have missed something, but why were they killed? Because they were afraid to die for the cause? And their executioner was a Cylon, which means the Taurons are supplying Gemenon with military robots. I don't understand the STO at all, and I don't understand why Lacy is still there and this was yet another shock for shock's sake. "We killed kids! Just kidding, we faked it! But then we did it for real!" And that's the problem with this episode, and a growing problem with the show in general. It's just too many twists.

I got bored sitting through the STO stuff because I already knew what was going on. So I was just waiting for the reveal. This episode was just shock twist after shock twist, and a steady diet of that actually kills tension because we no longer trust the series and we start second-guessing everything we've seen. This means we start to spot the ruses before they are revealed. While certain threads are finally getting traction, it bothers me the show feels it needs to create this artificial drama instead of focusing on the real stuff. Willy Adama might as well not be on this show, and what is going on with Zoe and Tamara? They've been missing for two episodes now, and I just know when we get back to them it will be more annoying New Cap City stuff that I'm tired of. And with Graystone deleting the Amanda avatar files, is he essentially back to square one? What will become of Zoe now that Clarice has her data? And why should I care about any of it?