Suspicious Minds

An Eight model tells Lt. Gaeta she's got a secret plan for getting home.

Note: This webisode review covers both Webisode 3 and 4.

So when we last left our intrepid heroes in Webisode 2, they were still drifting in space, still cruising with only about twenty hours of oxygen left, deliberately set at 68% percent levels in order to preserve as much of the precious air as possible. We are reminded at the beginning of this chapter of what our ECO (who I’ve since discovered thanks to Battlestar Wiki.org, goes by the name Esrin, call sign “Easy”) notes with some alarm that diminished oxygen leads to side effects like memory loss and irrational behavior. They’ve dropped this anvil of foreshadowing on us for two webisodes in a row now; when it’s going to pay off?

Well, not this chapter, apparently (unless you count the creepy intense looks our casually-dressed Crazy!Eight keeps shooting at Gaeta. I’m beginning to think she believes these looks are actually smoldering.

At any rate, our trusty Galactica deck hand Brooks decides be a mensch and try to fix the poorly functioning CO₂ scrubbers that aren’t allowing the Raptor to be as efficient as it could be with what air it does have. And that’s when all the trouble begins.

Meanwhile: Why is Crazy!Eight continuing to freak Felix Gaeta the hell out? Well, that’s what Felix decides he wants to know. You may remember in the last chapter, in the midst of all the chaos of everyone figuring out that they only had 20 hours of oxygen left, she beamed down at Felix and said, “Don’t you remember me, Felix?”

So in this Webisode 3, Felix approaches her head-on and surreptitiously says (or as surreptitiously as one can in a confined Raptor surrounded by five other people) “You’re her,” as if asking for confirmation. She gives him a small smile, but he sounds unhappy. And suddenly, it’s flashback time!

We’re in Felix’s tent on New Caprica. Felix is here with an Eight, presumably Crazy!Eight, reading a paper he’s holding in his hand. After a moment, he reluctantly hands the paper over to the Eight and watches her leave with it. Neither of them say a word, but it’s clear that whatever’s written on this paper is going to give Gaeta some sleepless nights.

Ok, back to the present: Brooks turns out to be incapable of actually fixing the scrubbers because he can’t seem to reach a wire with his pliers. With an air of do I have to do everything mechanical on this ship my Cylon self? the other Eight in this Raptor, whom I call Pilot!Eight, offers to take over. Esrin objects, but Brooks seems to figure a snarky Cylon machine has a better chance of repairing the problem than he does, and hands over the pliers. While all this is going on, Gaeta and Crazy!Eight keep shooting alternately intense and awkward glances at each other. If you could harness the creepy sparks between them, the Raptor might be able to generate enough oxygen for a decade.

Speaking of sparks, Pilot!Eight is generating lots of them as she sticks her metal pliers into the scrubber component. We see her jolt and collapse onto the floor, pliers still clutched in her hand. Surprising no one in the viewing audience who knows anything about the cost of CGI’ing two of actress Grace Park for ten webisodes, Gaeta sticks his hand on Pilot!Eight’s neck in search of a pulse and declares her dead. Her sister Cylon immediately calls attention to Pilot!Eight’s pliers. Gaeta takes one look at them and announces, “The insulating grip’s been stripped off.” And then to kick off the next seven webisodes with a big old dose of paranoia, Gaeta looks around at everyone else in the Raptor and asks, “Who did this?” Time for Gaeta to get sleuthy!

So naturally, in Webisode 4, people start to get paranoid. The only Eight left immediately starts accusing the humans on board of deliberately taking out Pilot!Eight because “somebody didn’t like the idea of a Cylon breathing their air.” Everybody starts arguing and it threatens to become chaos until Gaeta shouts them all down and declares it must have been an accident and that should focus on what to do with the body.

The remaining Eight’s solution is so hardcore, even Esrin is shocked: Jettison the body, before it starts emitting poisonous methane and hydrogen. But Gaeta agrees, so they distributing flight suits so they can open the Raptor long enough to airlock the body into space. In the midst of this planning, the Eight approaches Gaeta and whispers that she’s got a plan to get them home that she doesn’t want to share until everyone else is asleep. “Trust me,” she says

You know, I think the last time we heard a Cylon say that was when Tory shoved Cally Tyrol out the airlock. Just sayin’.

But mysteriously, Gaeta is choosing to say nothing about this for the moment. Instead, we are treated to another flashback in Gaeta’s tent that shows more of the scene we saw in Webisode 3, where he was giving the Eight a mysterious list of names. Well, it turns out that list was of missing people, presumably jailed by the occupying Cylons. We can also now see that the list is of the same names and identification numbers we saw Gaeta feverishly copying down in the forward flashes at the beginning of Webisode 1. The Eight seems to be plotting with Gaeta to locate these people, if they can be found, and liberate them. It’s a crazy plan, and Gaeta looks dubious that they can pull it off, but the Eight insists they can. “The Ones keep good records,” she tells him. “I can find them.”

Speaking of crazy plans, Webisode 4 ends with an uplifting shot of a Raptor in a launch tube preparing to take off, with Lt. Hoshi, who’s apparently taking lessons from Bill Adama in the Crazy Romantic Rescues department, and my favorite pilot – Lt. Margaret “Racetrack” Edmondson! She sounds kinda psyched to be on the Search and Rescue Mission of True Love, telling Hoshi, with a smile on her face, “Let’s go hunting.”

And then there are lots of poundy drums as the Raptor takes off into open space, and that’s it until Webisode 5.