Spoilers within. You know the drill.

People who should have a GIANT SHELF OF EMMY AWARDS:

Grace Park. Holeee Frack, was I scared at the look on her face when Adama confirmed for Sharon that her child was alive. She’s gonna go Pegasus on some people. Or not, which would almost be worse: the thing most people hate is to be forgiven their sins. Can you imagine if she DIDN’T set the whole world on fire? What that would mean?

Edward James Olmos. Yeah. Generally, all the time, anyway, but the scene with Laura just about put me away, the disappointment not just with her but with himself for trusting her, the knowledge that she had caused him to betray one of his pilots, one of his children, Cylon or no, and the love there nonetheless.

Katee Sackhoff. Dear God. You know, I’d forgotten, going all the way back to the miniseries, that Starbuck, hard-partying casual-sexing frack-up that she is, is one of the most religious of the pilots. That said, I don’t think for a second her refusal to divorce is about fear of sinning, and ordering a hit on her husband, basically? HARSH. Then again, she’s already killed one man she loves, I suppose one more does look like less of a cosmic frack-up than dissolving a marriage. I’m curious now, though, as to what the Colonial marriage customs actually say about infidelity and divorce, because I think the show was relying on us to make that leap from our own experiences and I don’t like that. I love, however, that we’re being trusted to know that loving Starbuck and approving of her are different things. Because if they weren’t, she’d be on my second list (see below.)

Jamie Bamber. Apollo. Jesus. Brother, if you don’t want to be married to Dee, that’s a whole other thing from whether Starbuck wants to be married to Anders. And if you’re too dumb about girls to realize that the forbidden aspect of your raptor-fracking makes it hotter, and also too dumb to realize she’s too broken to ever do domesticity again especially with you, her safe place, the only one whose love she never questions, then you are a bigger box of hair than I thought you were.

People who should be hit with croquet mallets:

Sci-Fi promo monkeys. MAN, way to take all the suspense out of a very suspenseful cliffhanger. Nice job. Also, what was that stupid alterna-rock crapola playing over the preview? NO. Do NOT bring fan-vid music into my celtic-enya-military-drums-soundtracked show. Kill it with fire.

Gaius Baltar, or, That Guy Who Looks Like A Bee Gee Now. Listen, crackhead, either hang with the Cylons or don’t, but quit looking to Laura to love you either way. He has some kind of crazy thing with the president, doesn’t he? He really wants her to absolve him, and it’s that very weakness that got him into all the trouble that led to her despising his squirrelly ass in the first place. I’m beginning to hope he finally turns out to be vigorously and happily evil, just because I don’t know how much longer I can take his whining.

Jacob, on him last week:

And get a load of this shit right here: “I could be a Cylon. I would stop being a traitor to one set of people, and be a hero to another. And have a place to belong.” And that’s why I can’t fully hate Gaius Baltar, and why I can’t stop hating him either: if this episode’s about anything, it’s that you are the only fucking one in charge of whether or not you’re a hero. The mass hallucination that New Caprica was a good idea was really just his smoke-and-mirrors way of trying to get everybody else to tell him he was okay. Even the Presidency was emotionally equal to finally bedding Gina, which was in turn a fracked-up plan to find the most damaged girl in the universe and “save” her, and now you’re going to add “Hero Of The Cylon” to that futile list?

Which is actually why I CAN fully hate Gaius Baltar, because talk about selfish. Your need to feel good about yourself does not permit you to fuck with other people. God, he’s like the worst amalgamation of every wanker of every day.

Other stuff:

Dee and Anders should run away together. I feel sorrier for Dee than for Anders somehow, because I think Anders knows his wife’s a mess and loves her anyway, whereas Dee’s just pissed right now, and understandably, because Apollo is the worst liar I’ve ever seen. Ever.

LOVE that Chief was the one figuring out the Temple. And the whole “dancing around naked with porno magazines” just cracked me the hell up.

Lucy Lawless. Teh yum.

January 21. So unfair.

A.