Flesh and Bone

"Flesh and Bone" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 1, Episode 8
Writer(s)	Toni Graphia
Story by
Director	Brad Turner
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	108
Nielsen Rating	2.5
US airdate	2005-02-25
CAN airdate	2005-03-05
UK airdate	2004-12-06
DVD release	20 September 2005 US 28 March 2005 UK
Population	47,954 survivors ()
Additional Info
Full Credits
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Six Degrees of Separation	Flesh and Bone	Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down
Related Information
Official Summary
R&D Skit – View
Deleted Scenes
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
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Photo Gallery			@ BW Media
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When a copy of Leoben Conoy is captured aboard a civilian ship, President Roslin orders his interrogation, and Lieutenant Thrace is assigned the job. She finds herself facing the possibility that the Cylon may have planted a bomb somewhere in the Fleet.

Summary

• Laura Roslin has a chamalla-induced dream in which she sees Leoben Conoy. She is awakened by Billy, who informs her that a Cylon agent has been captured aboard Gemenon Traveler.
• The Cylon turns out to be Leoben Conoy, and while Adama wants him destroyed, Roslin insists he be interrogated.
• Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is assigned the interrogation task. Meeting with her, Adama warns her that Conoy cannot be trusted. Not that he lies, but rather he twists everything into half-truths and masks fiction with the veneer of truth.
• They briefly discuss the Cylon Raider Thrace is still working on ("You Can't Go Home Again," "Six Degrees of Separation"), and Thrace informs him good progress is being made: the avionics are now understood, and they are focusing on the FTL systems.
• Later, Sharon Valerii visits the Raider for a second time (the first being in "Six Degrees of Separation"), and appears to comfort it by humming.
• Tyrol arrives, and she asks if her previous comments helped. He confirms they did, and asks how she came up with the idea. She claims it's because she's a Cylon—something Tyrol doesn't find remotely funny.
• Elsewhere, Thrace travels by Raptor to Gemenon Traveler. Once there, she observes Conoy, noting that he is sweating, before she enters the room in which he is being held, wanting to know what he is doing with his head on the table.
• Conoy claims to have been praying. Their religious differences are immediately outlined as she refers to "gods", he to "God".
• When he starts playing games with her over names, she tries to walk out – and Conoy reveals he knows who she is, which stops her. He then claims to have hidden a nuclear warhead somewhere in the fleet, which will go off in just under nine hours.
• Shaken by the fact he knows her name, Thrace reports the news on the bomb to Adama and Roslin. Adama orders radiological searches to be made aboard all ships and tries to reassure Thrace that Conoy could have learned her name from anywhere.
• When she returns to the holding area, Conoy continues to question her about her beliefs, outlining the key difference between humans and their religion and Cylons. A meal arrives for Thrace and she eats, allowing Conoy to finish what is left.
• As he finishes the food, a systematic beating commences, Thrace convinced that because he is programmed to act completely like a human, Conoy will be forced to react like a human, take the beating until the pain forces him to start talking.
• As this starts, Valerii visits Gaius Baltar in his lab and demands that he run a test on her to determine whether or not she is human. Baltar is reluctant to do so, but Head Six prompts him into doing it.
• Conoy's beating fails to get him to talk about the bomb, only to talk more about God. As the subject of water has formed a lot of his analogies, Thrace opts to up the torture by using it, and sends the guards from the room.
• When they are gone, Conoy demonstrates his supernatural strength, breaking the chains that bind his wrists and pins Thrace to the wall. He could kill her, but he doesn't – he has something to tell her, soon. A surprise.
• On Galactica, Adama visits the cadaver of the Conoy he encountered at Ragnar Anchorage ^{(TRS: "Miniseries")}, his rage almost causing him to beat the body with a telephone handset.
• On Traveler, Thrace commences sessions that involve holding Conoy's head underwater for increasingly lengthy periods to try and get him to talk – convinced that he is too far from Cylon influence to transfer his consciousness to another body, should this one die.
• Conoy talks about Thrace's childhood and upbringing, demonstrating he somehow knows a lot about her. The dunkings continue.
• Baltar finishes a scan on a blood sample from Valerii, confirming that she is a Cylon. Terrified of what will happen if he tells her, he fakes the result to look human.
• In her private quarters on Colonial One, Roslin has another vision of Conoy, prompting her to order a shuttle to take her to Gemenon Traveler.
• On Traveler, Thrace halts the water torture and Conoy reveals his surprise to her: the humans will find Kobol, and Kobol will lead them to Earth. What's more, Thrace's specific role is to deliver his soul to God.
• At that moment, Roslin arrives and puts a stop to the torture, as it has failed to reveal the location of the bomb.
• When Conoy has been cleaned up and dried off, she tries to reason with him, and he confesses there is no bomb; grabbing her, he whispers that Adama is a Cylon. See spoiler for possible analysis.
• Shocked by this, but her mind made up, Roslin has him ejected into space – fulfilling the sequence of events in her dream.
• Later, on Galactica, Thrace prays for Conoy's soul, while Roslin meets with Adama, Conoy's words clearly having cast doubts deep in her mind.

On Caprica

• After sleeping with Karl "Helo" Agathon, "Caprica" Valerii meets with Doral and Six to inform them of developments.
• Doral informs her that a little love nest is being set-up nearby. Six adds that she must lead Agathon to it and keep him there – or kill him.
• Reacting to the instructions, Valerii returns to Agathon – and goes on the run with him, leading him away from her Cylon colleagues.

Notes

• This episode takes place within 24 hours of the events portrayed in "Six Degrees of Separation".
• Doctor Cottle has apparently been successful in his quest for chamalla, given that Roslin is now using it in her fight against cancer.
• There are 47,954 survivors in the Fleet, presumably including Galactica's crew, as the figure has fluctuated between 45,000 and 50,000 over the past few weeks in rounded figures. This represents a net loss of 18 since "33," with doubtlessly uncertain census counts throughout the interim.
• Laura Roslin may have precognition, and / or Cylons may be psychic.
• Boomer believes her family were all killed—together with almost her entire past—in a "tragedy" that destroyed the colony of Troy.
• Baltar's Cylon detector works. It takes "a couple of minutes" to process Boomer's sample.
• Baltar now knows Boomer is a Cylon.
• Leoben Conoy's execution via ejection from an airlock is relatively "unspectacular" compared to similar sequences in many science fiction films, such as Outland in which people explode. Whether the decision not to show his death in a more gruesome fashion owes as much to Standards & Practices as it does to scientific accuracy, it is at least more in line with what is known about human physiology and hard vacuum. The later episode "A Day in the Life" indicated that survival in vacuum is possible for up to a minute; see that article for additional scientific discussion of the effects of hard vacuum on a person.
• At the beginning of this episode, Boomer is humming a melody when she touches the captured Cylon Raider. The melody is from a Korean children's song, "The spring pool on the mountain." It reappears in the episode "Sine Qua Non," being hummed by Sharon "Athena" Agathon to her daughter Hera.
• Some of what Conoy revealed may be from psychic abilities on his part. In his later episodes he displays almost psychic abilities at times and in "The Plan" its shown that when he grabbed Kara by the throat for a moment, he had a vision of a few of their future encounters although one is with the Virtual Leoben.
• "The Plan" reveals that Conoy's discovery during a search by marines following the public revelation that Cylons looked like humans in "Litmus." Further defined is Conoy's focus on Kara Thrace: when he hacked into the military communications, he repeatedly listened to her while she was training pilots in her Viper, and later upon learning she was able to fly a captured Cylon Raider on her own. Leoben explained to Cavil that Thrace "plucked the knowledge from the stream" and that that meant she had a greater destiny.

Analysis

• Originally, many might have labeled Galactica-Sharon the "Good" Sharon and Caprica-Sharon the "Bad" Sharon. However, actress Grace Park has repeatedly said she never viewed one or the other as good or bad, and in this episode Caprica-Sharon switches from helping the Cylons, to actually aiding Agathon and switching to the Colonials' side. Meanwhile, by the end of Season 1 Galactica-Sharon becomes an increasingly darker character.
• Boomer's memory of leaving Agathon behind on Caprica (in the Miniseries) appears amongst other of Sharon's flashbacks in this episode, indicating that she possesses Boomer's memories up to that point. She later states that to be the case in "Scattered," "Home, Part II," "Resurrection Ship, Part II," and "Scar".
• Leoben's comment that Kara Thrace's role is to "send his soul to God" cannot refer to her actions in this episode. Roslin orders his death over Thrace's objection. He is most likely referring to her later role in the Cylon/human alliance that resulted in the destruction of the Resurrection Hub ^{(TRS: "The Hub")} or the Hybrid's more vague prophecy that she is the "harbinger of death" and will "lead them all to their end" ^{(TRS: "Razor", "Faith", "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" and "Daybreak, Part II")}.

Questions

Answered Questions

For answers to the questions in this section, click here.

• Is Leoben Conoy's comment to Kara "Starbuck" Thrace concerning Kobol meant personally (as in she herself will find Kobol) or in a general sense?
• How will Roslin react to Conoy's claim about Adama? Considering that she has already demonstrated a willingness to readily accept the worst about a person without proof, as was the case with Baltar in "Six Degrees of Separation."
• Why is love so vital to the Cylons?
• Other than silica pathways and the substance discovered by Gaius Baltar in the cremation process of the genetic material of a humanoid Cylon, are there any other major differences between them and humans?
• Do Conoy and the Cylons truly possess powers of prophesy?
• To which Adama does Conoy refer in his final statement to Roslin?

Unanswered Questions

• Why is Thrace given the job of interrogating Conoy? Why not another officer?
• Was Troy destroyed in an genuine accident, making it a convenient "cover" for the Cylons to create Sharon Valerii's "history," or were they responsible for the destruction of the colony?
• Why does Roslin run towards Leoben Conoy and away from the Marines in her dream?
• What did Baltar use as his control sample when testing Boomer's in the Cylon Detector? More of Doral's hair? A tissue sample from "the Leoben from Ragnar Anchorage"?
• Was airlocking an execution method used before the Fall, or did Roslin come up with it on her own?

Official Statements

Cast

• Katee Sackhoff discusses working with Callum Keith Rennie and the episode's challenges:

Katee Sackhoff: "I loved doing that whole episode. It was great to work with Callum Keith Rennie. He is one of the most talented actors I've ever met. I also loved working with Mary McDonnell. She and I have such fun together."

• Mary McDonnell on Roslin's decision to execute Leoben:

Mary McDonnell: "When I first read that, I was shocked. I actually baulked at it a bit. Fortunately, Ron and David are both very, very bright and articulate, and between the two of them they have a way of showing you the whole picture if you have trouble accepting it. So by the time I played the scene, I was very clear as to why and how Laura got there, and it didn't have any ambivalence for me. That scene provided an interesting insight into who Laura could be, because you cannot lead in this situation without being able to be ruthless at times. So it was an interesting peek into her potential in that way. It was exciting to shoot, even though afterwards I did still go, 'Oh God, I wish I didn't have to do that!'"

• McDonnell on shooting the dream sequence:

McDonnell: "That was really fun for me because I got to get out of my little plane! On the day we shot the dream scene, I felt like I was a kid who had been let out into the school yard for the first time in weeks. I couldn't believe I was outdoors! And it was fun for me to experience Laura in that situation — in a white nightgown. I thought it was an interesting place to go."

Crew

• Toni Graphia on the episode's original concept:

Toni Graphia: "The concept I originally pitched for 'Flesh and Bone' was a death penalty episode. We talked about doing an episode in which a guy commits a murder on one of the ships, and wanted to look at how he would be punished for his crime. But then we thought, 'Why don't we make it the ultimate criminal — a Cylon? The Cylons didn't just murder one human being, they murdered our entire civilization!' And it really evolved from there."

• Graphia on the episode's themes:

Graphia: "The episode ultimately explored how people dehumanize their enemy. That has happened in every war since the beginning of time. If people see the Cylons as just machines, they can do anything to them. But we also wanted to explore the Cylons' claim that they do have souls. We wanted to create some doubts in Kara's mind about this guy's nature."

• Graphia on toning down the torture scenes:

Graphia: "In some of the early drafts, we went a little further with the torture scenes, but we toned that down for various reasons. In one draft Leoben had electrodes hooked up to him like they do in so many other TV torture shows, but Ron decided we weren't going to do any fancy torture techniques, because the show doesn't do a lot of high-tech stuff. And the heart of the episode wasn't really about the method of torture, it was about one of the show's most tough-ass characters developing a little empathy towards the enemy. Through that, we could kind of say something about how you shouldn't dehumanize the enemy if you don't know them."

• Ronald D. Moore on the episode's influences and approach:

Moore: "The episode was obviously influenced by the Abu Ghraib incident, and all the other examples of prisoners being tortured that were going on in the world. But we wanted to do an episode about the torture of prisoners that wasn't just a, 'Hey, torture is bad!' kind of show. We wanted to really make viewers think about the issue, without preaching to anyone about it. We wanted to do an episode that was complicated and also touched upon the larger sort of thematic and theological issues of the show."

• Moore on Laura Roslin's character development:

Moore: "I think that scene was perfect for Laura. It really tells you that Laura isn't someone to be taken for granted — you don't know what she's going to do all the time, and she's perfectly capable of doing some unpleasant things."

• Moore on the show's approach to contemporary issues:

Moore: "It was the most controversial episode of the season. It was easily the most challenging script of the year. On top of that, the network had its concerns. That took a while to work out, but ultimately I think it worked out to everyone's satisfaction."

• Bradley Thompson on choosing Leoben as the antagonist:

Thompson: "We want to use Leoben, just because — as Ron puts it — he's the guy you want to punch the most! Pitting him against Starbuck was good because she was the person who wouldn't be confused by complexities or all the smoke and mirrors that he's so fond of bringing up."

• Thompson on Baltar's motivations:

Thompson: "If Baltar outs her as a Cylon, he doesn't know if the Cylons share any kind of collective intelligence or can transfer information between each other, so he might put himself at risk. Baltar figures he'll leave things alone until he can safely take care of them. Baltar tends to be most interested in self-preservation, after all."

• David Eick discusses the issues that Sci Fi Channel had with the episode:

[This] episode remains somewhat notorious in that it probably represented the most extreme period of tension and disagreement between ourselves and the network. I know those stories are legion, and show people like to talk about how they weathered the storms, and put up a good fight, and saved the show from the cretins who've gotten their fingers. That has not been the case with this show at all. We've actually enjoyed a great deal of support and a lot of courageous spiritedness and boldness from this network.

However, in that particular case, there were drafts of the script that were pretty extreme in terms of what Kara [Thrace] was going to do to Leoben [Conoy], and they were emblematic of what was going on at Guantanomo and places like that, and the connection to our own culture was probably a bit more literal and precise and less metaphorical than it had been [in other episodes of the show]. But as a microcosm, in and of itself, it serves as an example of what Ron was just talking about—which is that we would find ourselves saying things like, "But it's not a person, why are you telling us to cut the scene where she gouges his eyeballs out?!"

No, there wasn't that scene, but "why are you giving us grief about this?" In a way, it became our argument because we were trying to take something real and force the audience to have the same trouble with it that the network was having. Anyway, it was just an interesting microcosm of everything [Ron Moore was] saying.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Conoy to Starbuck, towards the end of his interrogation, just before Roslin's arrival:

Conoy: Each of us plays a role; each time a different role. Maybe the last time I was the interrogator and you were the prisoner. The players change, the story remains the same. And this time – this time – your role is to deliver my soul unto God. Do it for me. It's your destiny. And mine. (He pauses) And I told you I had a surprise for you. Are you ready? You are going to find Kobol, birthplace of us all. Kobol will lead you to Earth. This is my gift to you, Kara.

Guest stars

• Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Chief Galen Tyrol
• Tahmoh Penikett as Lieutenant Karl "Helo" Agathon
• Kandyse McClure as Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla
• Paul Campbell as Billy Keikeya
• Callum Keith Rennie as Leoben Conoy
• Matthew Bennett as Aaron Doral
• Christina Schild as Playa Kohn
• Eric Breker as Gemenon Traveler Captain
• Biski Gugushe as Sekou Hamilton
• Sandra Guerard as Reporter