Season 2, Episode 17

Battlestar Galactica: The Captain’s Hand

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Synopsis

Captain Garner is in command of the Pegasus and Lee has been promoted to major. A cargo container containing a young woman is found aboard Galactica. Meanwhile, a raptor is lost in a nebula.

Still assigned to the Pegasus, Starbuck is angry that the flight crew hasn’t told her about the lost raptor - there are integration issues between the Galactica and Pegasus crews. Garner tells Lee that he’s a technical engineer and values order and steady operations.

Zarek feels he can’t win against Roslin in the upcoming presidential election, and pushes Baltar to run instead.

The woman who came aboard Galactica in the shipping container requests an abortion - it turns out Dr. Cottle has been performing them in secret. Roslin is told of the situation and fears the sticky issue of abortion will influence the upcoming election.

Starbuck believes the lost raptor was responding to a distress call. She tells Garner but is met with hostility. Lee confronts her but things aren’t comfortable between them since he was accidentally shot by her. Starbuck tells Lee her theory.

Adama floats the possibility that the call is a Cylon trap. Garner disagrees and wants to save his men. Lee thinks it may be a distress call as well. Commander Adama tells Garner to send five raptors. Garner is angry that Lee disagreed with him.

Roslin asks Baltar for a population projection. He says at the current rate, the human race will be extinct in 18 years. Roslin decides to ban abortion - that the survival of humanity takes precedence over individual rights.

Garner defies Adama’s orders and jumps to the raptor’s location. Three basestars appear and attack the Pegasus with nukes. With the ship severely damaged and the FTL drive offline, Garner runs down to engineering, leaving Lee in command.

On the lower deck, Garner uses a wrench to tighten a key valve while the oxygen vents into space. With one hand pulling the wrench he dies and his dead body weight turns the FTL drive back on. Lee jumps the Pegasus back to the fleet.

Adama asks Lee if Garner had a flaw. Lee says Garner preferred working with machines, while command is about people. Adama tells Lee to remember this, promotes Lee to commander, and gives him command of the Pegasus. Starbuck will return to Galactica and be its CAG.

Meanwhile, Roslin’s ban on abortion has cost her dearly in the polls. Baltar declares his candidacy, much to the annoyance of Roslin who considers this a betrayal. Head Six claps in the background.

Thoughts

This is one of my favorite episodes of Season 2. Captain Garner, who accuses Starbuck of being paranoid and disloyal, does that exact thing when he defies Adama’s orders and jumps right into a Cylon trap. Then we get an awesome space battle where three basestars attack the Pegasus and disable it. Garner then makes a decision to sacrifice himself to save the Pegasus. Lee rises to the occasion, and is promoted to commander.

This episode recalled the best episodes of Star Trek, more specifically the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. I loved the contrast between the high tech bridge and the heavy wrenches and steaming valves of engineering. It’s awesome to see the fate of a huge military spaceship comes down to one guy with a hammer.

Abortion rights are given a new angle as the humans in BSG are in danger of extinction. Does a woman’s right to choice supersede the extinction of the human race?

Tori makes her debut as Billy’s replacement - she becomes a more prominent character near the end of season three. We also have Baltar betraying Roslin during a moment of weakness, in an ultimate jockeying for political power, and true to his opportunistic, self-serving nature.

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