Battlestar Galactica Recap: “The Passage”

Title: “The Passage”
Original Airdate: 12/8/2006

Previously, Kat got hooked on stimulants. Adama asked Tigh to come back to the CIC. Baltar is half convinced he’s one of the final five Cylon models. D’anna/Xena likes to play life and death, literally.

Sharon flies through a bright light and looks sick to her stomach. Back on Galactica, Adama explains to Roslin that somehow they have contaminated their entire food supply. Cottle concludes they have about a week’s left of rations. In the pilot’s quarters, everyone throws in their crackers to divide up and eat. Sharon’s looking for a passage to the planet with the algae needed for food, but the passage is ripe with radiation.

41,420. I’ve been waiting on this episode for months because it was written by the ingenious Jane Espenson. She’s basically written for every show you’ve ever loved including Buffy, Angel, Gilmore Girls, and Firefly. Jane has her own blog, www.janeespenson.com, where she gives advice to aspiring screenwriters. Her great insight on characterization and dialogue, along with motivations to write, is a must for any writer.

Cylon Baseship. D’anna climbs out of bed but wakes Baltar. Baltar compares Cylon existence on the baseship to fleas on a cat. Hee. Caprica Six tells him that D’anna’s been doing “things”. Baltar tracks her down and calls her out for her extracurriculars. She’s been committing suicide and downloading every afternoon. Baltar wants to know why, wants help understanding his own destiny and if he’s a Cylon. She shows him sketches of her memories in death. They listen to the hybrid talk. Baltar decides to stick his hand in the goo. The hybrid grabs his arm and rattles off gibberish. He decodes the riddle and discovers the hybrid has given them a clue to Earth.

Sharon’s nicely nuked raptor lands on Galactica and she looks pretty sick. She found a way through the star cluster to the planet. But her radiation badge is completely black, certain death for any human. The top colonial officers have to figure out how to get the fleet through without killing everyone. Galactica could make the jump, but the civilian ships would get lost in the blinding light. The solution is five round trip jumps through the cloud. In each jump, a raptor leads a civilian ship with a skeleton crew. The majority of the fleet though has to be moved to Galactica for safety. Each raptor pilot has to carry a radiation badge, so they can know when their exposure is too much to handle. Apollo authorizes the use of stimulants to keep the pilots alert, much to Kat’s chagrin.

One civilian calls out the name “Sasha”, stopping Kat in her tracks. They knew each other in another life that Kat doesn’t want to revisit. Sasha’s old friend is all levels of sleaze and thinks he can blackmail her for food. Colonel Tigh returns to the CIC to a round of applause and a death glare from Gaeta. I suppose almost being airlocked would be hard to forgive. The ships begin their jumps through the star cluster. Hot Dog can’t find his ship but the raptors can’t wait. They all jump away, losing one civilian ship. In the another jump, Kat lost her ship and her badge is seriously black. All the pilots come out of the detox feeling sick from radiation poisoning.

Tigh gives Adama an update on the fleet’s starvation. Adama asks if they are still eating paper and Tigh says no, there’s a paper shortage. And then they laugh like giddy kids for a while. Starbuck sees Kat and her old friend fighting and decides to find out more. Starbuck confronts her mini-me. Kat confesses that she used a false name to join the Colonial Fleet. She used to be a drug runner and her friend was the supplier. Starbuck reminds Kat that the Cylons used criminals to get into the colonies. Kat pleads to tell Adama herself about her past.

Kat’s hair falls out in massive chunks. Her badge is solid black. She’s too sick to make the last jump, but hears Starbuck’s words “Accept who you are.” She swaps her badge with Helo’s, says goodbye to her raptor and has her last evening alone with her old friend.

Jump Five. Adama tells them to jump, but Kat misplaced her ship again. She refuses to lose another ship and stays behind to find them. She’s successful but now Helo’s badge is solid black too. She waves victorious to the pilots and then falls out of her raptor. In sick bay, she’s dying and Starbuck can’t bare to watch. Adama promotes Kat back to CAG and sits by her bed like the loving father. Starbuck hangs Kat’s photo in the hall of departed loved ones.

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.