Battlestar Galactica: The Woman King

I am a big supporter and fan of shirtless Helo. In fact, the uniform for Helo Agathon and Lee Adama should just be pants. Pants and no shirt. Sure, it’s cold in space, but that doesn’t seem to bother Caprica Six.

OK, synopsis. There’s a disease outbreak, which is conveniently not airborne, and luckily, easily curable if caught at the first stages. The only people who seem to really be in danger are Sagitarrons, who are religious fundamentalists that don’t believe in medicine. On the surface, not really a big deal. But, Sagitarrons starts dying in the care of Dr. Robert, played by Bruce Davison, and Helo starts poking around, pissing people off like he does.

I don’t know where I got this, but I had it in my head that one of the main characters was going to die in this episode. I was absolutely convinced that Helo was going to bite it. He’s under a lot of stress with these Sagitarron fundies, he’s married to a Cylon, he has a half Cylon baby. Life isn’t easy for Helo.

Let’s take a look at Helo. Back in the mini-series, he gave up his place on the Raptor to save Baltar because he believed that brains like Baltar would save humanity. Earlier this season, he suffocated a holding cell of infected Cylons to prevent them from downloading the infection to the entire resurrection ship. He recently shot Sharon so she could download on the basestar and get their daughter back.

Helo is the guy who consistently does what is morally right, and that behavior has no place in an environment of survival. The phrase is “survival of the fittest”, not “survival of the good guys” for a reason. You don’t have to be good to survive; you have to do what’s good for you. Helo doesn’t do what’s good for him.

Then Dualla, who is a Sagitarron, showed up looking for vaccine from Dr. Robert and for a few minutes, I was absolutely sure she was dead. That would have been a handy way to turn the Love Rhombus back into a Love Triangle, but I’m getting the feeling that the whole daytime drama love story is done. Lee seems to be in love with his wife again. Starbuck and Sam will keep on with whatever swinging marriage they have.

Saul Tigh. Ugh. I’m just going to call him Eyepatch from now on. Eyepatch has an attitude problem. He kills his wife and now that entitles him to act like the biggest jerk in the universe? For a while during this episode, Tigh was making some uncomfortable faces, as if he had something to do with the genocide.

Overall, I was glued to this episode. It wasn’t centered on action or the Cylon-Human war, but it was one of those episodes that dealt with the realities of being in that particular situation. That is, being the last pocket of an entire species, traveling in a ragtag, fugitive fleet to a planet that may not exist. It was drama without being The Young and The Restless, while still providing the beefcake. Nice.