"So I Guess A Pity Frak Is Out Of The Question."

"There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain —'
Tis Pain's Successor —
When the Soul
Has suffered all it can"
- Emily Dickenson

This is what happens when the Ship of State is left without anyone manning it. Roslin has retreated into hiding and is waiting out her remaining days in the fleet. Because of this lack of leadership within the civilian fleet, Tom Zarek has managed to swoop in turn the situation to his advantage in a political power grab. Zarek has some excellent points about the captains of ships having some say over any equipment retrofits, and about having any Cylons come aboard, and it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the people in the fleet and in the Quorum haven't been watching the show; they've been cooped up in tin cans for 3 of the last four years, and the only hope that the government held out for them turned out to be a sick joke.

Of course, it didn't help that all along, Roslin made many of her decisions classified, so that for the most part nobody has any idea why the fleet should be siding with the rebel Cylons, or why they can (mostly) trust them. It's this secrecy that makes it all-too-easy for a propagandist like Zarek, conveniently holding the post of Vice President, to swoop in and start a revolution, for that's what we saw begin this week.

On the what's-Baltar-espousing-this-week front, he hasn't quite made the leap back to Atheism, but seems to be settling into the God-is-a-shithead camp. All well and good, but I'd like to see Baltar become more involved in the story than he's been since his trial back at the end of season 3. He's literally been relegated to the bowels of the ship, and they should put him to better use as one of the more interesting characters on the show. Still I'm certain he's got bigger things ahead of him in this last run of episodes. But as it stands now, Roslin could have let him bleed to death during the attack on the Resurrection Hub and we wouldn't have lost any of the story in the last few episodes.

One minor continuity quibble: Callie would have gotten pregnant during Baltar's presidency (she was still pregnant at the end of season 2, one year after Baltar was sworn in), and Baltar threw his hat into the ring to be elected on a freedom of choice platform. Now, Cottle says that Callie came to him for an abortion and that abortions are illegal, so either the story doesn't add up, or we can add "Politician who goes back on campaign promises" to his list of sins. All in all, I think it's more of a retconning issue than it is evidence of a bigger conspiracy, and Ron Moore's comments on it seem to support that.