4.8 Sine Qua Non

As I learned during the episode the meaning of the title was about what people cannot live without. That is, what could be gone that would render life meaningless. This was a slightly subdued episode, dealing fundamentally in the fact that the base ship with Laura onboard, amongst others, had disappeared. Crucially we never found out here where it had gone to, which put us directly in Adama’s shoes.

There was much passing of roles and power in this episode. By the end of it Apollo had been sworn in as a stand-in President (ever since he became part of the quorum it seemed inevitable that would occur – though I thought it might have come after Laura’s death). Adama had gone solo flying on a hunt for the base ship, and Laura, and thus had left Tigh back in command of the Galactica.

Little did Adama realise he was putting a Cylon in charge! And Tigh is a Cylon with a lot to lose regarding Deanna exposing him for what he is, which may press him to make some hard choices later down the line. Mind you, he’s also been frakking Caprica Six too, with the revelation that she is pregnant coming out of the clear blue sky! Say what you like about the Cylons, they sure are a fertile bunch!

Lamkin once again made an appearance in this episode. Oh joy of joys, he remarked sarcastically. Fundamentally Lamkin was there to point out what was obvious – that Apollo in his quest for new leadership really was the only man for the job. Lamkin even postulated that Apollo had known this all along, in a repressed fashion, and made an interesting case about how Apollo always seemed to ‘fall in’ to roles of importance despite his apparent reluctance to do so.

One thing I totally didn’t get was the business with Lamkin’s cat. Maybe I missed something (I was slightly sleepy when I watched this episode, which evidently didn’t help). But one minute the cat was there, running around, and Lamkin was even talking to the thing. And then the next Apollo was shown the cat’s dead body; apparently it had been dead for weeks! What gives, man!? What was the deal with that frakking cat!? It felt like some kind of significant point was being made out of it but I'll be damned if I picked up on it.

And the Six that Athena shot wasn’t quite dead at the beginning of this episode, but died eventually without serving much purpose. But what she did see was the bright light of the apparent world after this world, so I suspect her role here in demonstrating that she was potentially going on to someplace else was the importance in keeping her around for this episode. Athena didn’t get much in the way of punishment for it though!

In effect this was a transitional, bridge of an episode – but given the importance of some of the changes – like Apollo’s presidency and Tigh’s command – it’s a massively pivotal set of changes. It was also good to see Tigh and Adama have a bit of a scrap, though I did half expect Tigh to flick out some Cylon strength like Tori has shown to possess. . . Adama has always perhaps been a little too tolerant of Tigh’s flaws, but then Adama appeared to be the first to recognise that his tolerance and closeness is his own key flaw, so it was a nice touch all round.

The real hook, of course, is what really happened to the base ship. That Raptor craft managed to jump back, but with a dead pilot and what looked like bullet holes in the hull suggests some form of battle took place. I don’t know if the ‘other side’ of the story is going to come in the next show, though that would definitely be my preferred kind of episode.