Battlestar Galactica: “Hero”

Title: “Hero”
Original Airdate: 11/18/2006

Previously, Adama gave a lot of great speeches. The one in the miniseries about how we can’t play god. His “We are at War” and “You are poison” to Saul. Unfortunately, this is episode has a lot of speeches but none are as good as those.

Space! Eyes of sweaty man. They’re going to call him “Bulldog” but we love him as DIXON!!

Colonial One. Tory brings a portrait of Baltar to Roslin, who suggests they hang it over the toilet. Hee. Tory points out Adama’s been in the Colonial Fleet for 45 years. Roslin decides to him him a metal. Can we hope for metal with benefits?

Galactica. Lots of noises and flashing lights in the CIC. Dualla, Gaeta and Helo inform the Admiral that two Raiders are chasing a third. Starbuck and Kat take out the two. A radio signal comes over. Dixon manages to get out “This is Bulldog”. On the hanger deck, they get another use out of their Raider prop. It leaks some goo and then Dixon falls out. He salutes Adama.

41,421. In a flashback, Adama gets his orders to go on a black opts mission. Doc Cottle confirms Dixon is not a Cylon. In Adama’s quarters, Dixon eats like there’s no tomorrow. He tells Adama about how he escaped a baseship. Turns out he was on the one infected by the virus. The Cylons got sick and he didn’t. Dixon does push-ups in a cell as Xena taunts and clangs the bars on the outside. She’s looking sickly. He gives her one punch to the face and takes her out in a gloriously ugly way.

Galactica. Adama and Dixon tell Roslin about their BIG FAT LIE mission. Tory points out that even though Colonists shot him down, that he survived in his ejection seat long enough for Cylons to pick him up. Roslin kicks the others out of the room and then asks Adama for the real story, but he doesn’t budge. He visits his best friend Saul to tell him about Dixon, but Saul is still poison and throws Adama’s mistakes in his face. Dixon comes to visit Saul who spills the beans about what really happened that day. “I shot him down,” Adama finishes the story to Apollo. Their mission was to get information about the Cylons. Apollo realizes that some people knew the Cylons were out there a full year before the attack. Dixon’s ship went over the armistice line which might have prompted the Cylons to war. Adama shot him down to keep from getting caught. Dixon leaves Saul with a fist full of rage. Adama blames himself for starting the Second Cylon war.

In a Galactica hallway, Xena walks suspiciously before getting cornered into a door that reads “End of Line”. She wakes up in her baseship bed next to Baltar and Caprica Six. Eew. Xena tells a Centurion to execute her and then forget about it. In between her death and download is a cool montage of her journey.

Starbuck watches the film over and over. She realizes the two raiders that chased Dixon missed him when they could’ve iced him. She shows her findings to Saul. The Cylons let him go to enact revenge on Adama, which he does with a tire iron. The Cylons left the door open for him, but Dixon doesn’t want to believe it. Saul comes to the rescue and gives a speech about moving past the pain.

Colonial One. Adama tries to quit. He and Apollo are more alike than ever. Adama never felt like a hero nor does he want to. Roslin pulls the president card on him. She lectures him and tells him he’s getting a metal whether he likes it or not. At the ceremony, everyone’s excited except the Adama men. Dixon gets his uniform back before leaving Galactica. Saul joins Adama for a drink.

Jo works a boring job in a small Texas town and reserves the right to spell it “ya’ll”. One day she’ll be a novelist, but until then you can read her sarcastic thoughts about TV at http://brickstorm.blogspot.com.