Battlestar Galactica season 2 episode 3 review: Fragged
Tigh continues to flounder in command and the crash survivors struggle on Kobol...
2.3 Fragged
Well, I was wrong. I was expecting Adama to be awake by this episode, but in Fragged, it’s still Tigh who is in command of Galactica. And you figure that he’d happily be anywhere else.
Most of the episode’s action, though, takes place on the surface of Kobol, as we join up with the survivors of the crashed Raptor. This is a group flung together by circumstance, and hardly the military’s best of the best. In fact, as we discover later in the episode, it’s hard to think of a group less prepared for what faces them, as they discover that the Cylons are up to something on the surface. They soon deduce that this is an anti-aircraft battery, designed to be used on the team heading to Kobol to rescue the survivors. They need to take action, they’re outnumbered, and they don’t have much of a plan.
After observing the Cylons, by-the-book Crashdown tries to put a plan in place, but he doesn’t have the confidence of those around him. Baltar is off on his usual flights of fancy – albeit having been forewarned by Number 6 that one of the group will turn on the others – while Cally just looks petrified. When she’s ordered to flank the Cylons, she eventually freezes, leaving Crashdown to threaten to kill her if she doesn’t follow orders. The Chief isn’t having any of that, and consequently threatens Crashdown with the same fate. But it’s Baltar, eventually, who proves himself a man to Number 6 by pulling the trigger.
Eventually, and thanks to some heroics from The Chief, the group manage to destroy the installation, just as the rescue team arrive, and they are taken off the planet.
The main action, is taking place on Galactica, though, when politics comes to the fore once more. Deprived of her medication, President Roslin is becoming more and more incoherent and unfocused, and when the Quorum Of Twelve arrive on Galactica demanding to see the President, Tigh takes his wife’s advice in the end and grants them access. Ellen Tigh is continuing to weave her tentacles here, and I remain convinced that she’s Cylon. I’m seeing nothing to prove me wrong yet.
Just before the Quorum Of Twelve – including Tom Zarek, once more – get access to Roslin, her guard manages to get some medication to her. Tigh’s hopes that the Quorum would see her at her worst backfire when she delivers a coherent, sensible statement denouncing the military coup, and tying in her belief of the scriptures. The Quorum are more strongly backing her than ever before, and the increasingly under pressure Tigh isn’t impressed. That’s even after having another quick drink of pop.
With Adama out of the picture for the time being, although he must still be due back soon, it’s been a wise move to put Tigh in the middle of Galactica’s actions, as he tries to guide the ship in the style of the Old Man. Tigh’s flaws have been magnified, and his big Achilles heel is clearly his wife, who proves instrumental in his directive at the end of the episode to declare martial law. Once more, the fit is hitting the shan, and the consequences here will surely be dramatic.
I can’t quite work out if I want Adama to wake up and see the shitstorm now, or for Tigh to struggle to hold things together – clearly without the unanimous support and respect of those around him. Roll on the next episode, Resistance…
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