Razor

"Razor" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Special Episode
Writer(s)	Michael Taylor
Story by
Director	Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	401/402
Nielsen Rating	1.21 (total; all demographics) 0.8 (adults 18 to 49 demographic)
US airdate	24 November 2007
CAN airdate	24 November 2007
UK airdate	18 December 2007
DVD release	USA 4 December 2007  UK 26 December 2007
Population	49,579 survivors
Additional Info	USA 12 November 2007 (theater screening in select U.S. cities)
Full Credits
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Battlestar Galactica: Razor Flashbacks (Chronological: The Captain's Hand)	Razor	He That Believeth in Me (Chronological: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I)
Related Information
IMDb entry
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: USA | Canada | UK

A tale centered around the new Pegasus officer Kendra Shaw, following her entire tenure on the battlestar from the Fall of the Twelve Colonies under Admiral Cain, to Lee Adama's command and a frightful rescue mission to save crew members who have been captured by the Cylons.

Summary

Four separate, but related stories are documented:

• William Adama's mission at the end of the first Cylon War.
• Helena Cain's loss of her family at the same time.
• The events on Pegasus during and shortly after the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.
• The events surrounding the Battle of the Guardian basestar, set in the time period between "The Captain's Hand" and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I".

In the episode these stories are largely told in parallel, flashing between the different time periods. Below the different story lines are listed chronologically.

First Cylon War

William Adama

See also: Razor Flashbacks

• As Adama enters what appears to be a Cylon laboratory, he finds evidence of human experimentation and human mutilations. He eventually finds a vat filled with a gelatin-like substance which is reminiscent of the resurrection tanks or Hybrid tanks that the later humanoid Cylons would use.
• He kneels down and touches the substance, and immediately begins to hear the screams of torture victims. As he looks back at the tank, a hand abruptly grabs his arm. The hand disappears just as quickly as it appeared, and Adama falls back to the ground. A voice is heard, quoting from the Pythian prophecies: "All this has happened before and will happen again."
• A banging sound is heard from a locked chamber nearby. As Adama approaches the window of the chamber, an unidentified man presses his face against the window and begs Adama to release him and the other captives. Adama finds a piece of metal nearby, and attempts to break open the door to the chamber.
• As Adama attempts to free the door, the man tells him that they are civilians from the Gemenese ship Diana, whose convoy was attacked by the Cylons, and that there were initially 50 of them who were taken away one by one.
• Suddenly the ground begins to tremble. Adama manages to open the door a little bit, but not enough to allow the captives to escape. The man urges Adama to leave them and save himself. He asks Adama to tell others of what has happened to them. Adama finally complies after he realizes that he cannot free the prisoners, and runs out of the laboratory.
• Emerging from the laboratory warehouse, Adama sees the Guardian basestar lifting off into the clouds. He radios his findings about the Cylon experimentation on humans to Galactica, but the young pilot is shocked to learn that an armistice has just been signed, and the war is over.

Helena Cain

This entire story segment is contained exclusively on the unrated, extended DVD version of "Razor".

• At the same time Tauron is under attack by Cylon basestars and Centurion ground forces. A young Helena Cain, her sister Lucy and her father are pinned down in a building under heavy fire. The three attempt to escape after the last remaining marines in the building are gunned down. When her father is injured by mortar fire, he tells Helena to get Lucy to a shelter before dying.
• The sisters make it out of the building, but Lucy trips over concrete rubble and injures herself, unable to go on. Helena panics, yelling at Lucy to get up and run. She eventually leaves Lucy in the field of rubble and runs away to hide in a container. A group of Centurions appears and surrounds Lucy, who continues to cry out Helena's name.
• A Centurion discovers Helena inside the container. She finds a knife on the floor and nervously approaches the Centurion, preparing to attack it.
• The Centurion stops approaching the girl and retreats from the container, apparently having received instructions and information that the Cylon War is over and an armistice was signed. When Helena comes out, she finds only her sister's doll on the ground, and watches the Raiders leave the planet.
• Helena Cain lost her entire family on that day.

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies

Fall of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards

Main article: Fall of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards

• The battlestar Pegasus is docked at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards over Scorpia for a three-month overhaul. As Kendra Shaw approaches the ship from Raptor 179, she gazes in awe at the size of the Mercury class battlestar.
• Admiral Helena Cain is in her quarters, reviewing a crew status report as her XO, Colonel Jurgen Belzen enters. He lightly encourages her to take her shore leave, but she insists that she could never leave Pegasus in the hands of the civilian contractors assigned to oversee her overhaul.
• In the port hangar bay, Raptor 179 has recently arrived. With orders to report directly to CIC, Shaw steps down and asks a pair of passing crewman to help her locate it. The crewman, however, are too busy to notice her.
• Shaw wanders through the port flight pod, past groups of busy civilians, until she finds Gina Inviere, a civilian network administrator assigned to Pegasus's overhaul. Inviere shows Shaw a map of Pegasus, with a route to the CIC, and the two discuss the origins of Gina's last name.
• Shaw eventually reaches the CIC, where she finds Cain and Belzen at the Command and Control station. Shaw drops her gear and salutes the admiral. Cain is harsh on her new aide. She grills Shaw for being late to the CIC, concluding that she either stopped for a cup of coffee, or got lost. After Shaw leaves, Cain breaks out in laughter with Belzen, revealing that she only had a joke at the lieutenant's expense.
• Louis Hoshi escorts her to her quarters. As they are walking down the hallway, a large blast shakes Pegasus, and the noise ripples through the hallway. Shaw and Hoshi are immediately thrown to the floor. As Shaw awakens, she is in a daze. She looks around to find Hoshi unconscious on the floor. The hallway has suddenly become a disaster area.
• Admiral Cain, who was on her way to her quarters at the time, finds Shaw and Hoshi in the corridor. She asks Shaw if she is alright, but when she doesn’t respond, Cain slaps her in the face. Shaw immediately awakens. The hallway echoes with screams of horror, and the Condition One sirens blare. After an aborted attempt to wake Hoshi, the two head to the CIC.
• Pegasus is on fire in space. Cylon Raiders flood the shipyard; missiles strike two helpless Valkyrie-type battlestars nearby.
• In the CIC, Colonel Fisk and many of the CIC personnel are unconscious. Belzen is coordinating the response effort, but there have been multiple nuclear detonations. Luckily however, the battlestar still has main power and propulsion, but that’s about it. DRADIS and weapons have both been knocked out.
• The Cylon attack is taking its toll on the shipyards. The two Valkyrie-type battlestars lose their moorings and one crashes into the shipyards, instantly destroying it.
• Cain orders the ship to seal all hatches and release all moorings in preparation for an immediate departure. As the ship evacuates the shipyards, Cain orders the FTL drive spun up for an immediate jump.
• A Cylon Raider fires two nuclear missiles at Pegasus from across the shipyards. The missiles fly past a Galactica type battlestar as its moorings are destroyed, and past the wreckage of several other battlestars and support vessels.
• Cain orders an immediate jump, but Shaw says that with the navigational computer off-line, she would have to enter a random set of coordinates, which could take the battlestar anywhere, possibly within a star or other larger astral body. Cain yells back at her to do it anyway, and the battlestar jumps away.

So Say We All

• Two days since the attack on the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards, Pegasus is four to five jumps away from the Colonies. Belzen reports that many of Pegasus's Vipers and Raptors are either destroyed or beyond repair, over a quarter of the crew is dead, and rumors are circulating about the destruction of the Twelve Colonies and the Colonial Fleet.
• Shaw has been working without sleep to restore the navigational and defense computer systems, and she has finally done it. Additionally, she has discovered lines of hidden Cylon computer code inside the Command Navigation Program, which was fortunately down during the attack. Shaw suggests that the entire program be purged from the system.
• After ordering two Raptors on a reconnaissance mission back to the Colonies, the time has finally come for Cain to reveal the extent of the devastation at home to her crew. She tells them that their colonies have been destroyed, their cities nuked, their fleet obliterated. While the victory of one ship may seem unattainable when even their very survival is at stake, she tells them that they have revenge to reach for instead.
• In an expression of determination and conviction, the crew resoundingly shouts, “So say we all!” over and over, after hearing Cain’s words.
• Cain, Shaw, Fisk and Belzen are in the admiral’s quarters, looking over recently gathered intelligence for a low-risk attack on a Cylon outpost. They are discussing a somewhat isolated communications relay when Gina Inviere enters. She greets the admiral with a kiss and a flirtatious shoulder pinch, and the five sit down to enjoy some wine and conversation.
• Cain assures her senior staff that while she does want to engage in guerrilla warfare tactics against the Cylons, she is not willing to put the ship and crew in any amount of excessive danger.
• Shaw and Inviere are working on firewalling all of Pegasus's computer networks to prevent them from being infiltrated by the Cylons, but constantly having to find a senior officer to input their command codes for system access is making the process take exceedingly long. Inviere discreetly complains about it, and Shaw says that under the circumstances, she would speak to Cain about raising her clearance. In the meantime, she gives Inviere her own command code to use. Inviere then discusses her relationship with Cain in greater detail.

Battle of the Communications Relay

Main article: Battle of the Communications Relay

• Pegasus prepares for a hit-and-run attack on what appears to be a somewhat neglected Cylon communications relay. However, when Pegasus arrives, there are twelve Cylon Raiders guarding the relay. Despite the increased enemy presence, Cain orders Blue Squadron to advance.
• Almost the second after the Vipers are launched, fifteen enemy squadrons of fighters jump into DRADIS range. Cain orders Pegasus's defensive fire concentrated on the incoming attack squadrons, but Shaw reports that the weapons grid won't respond to commands.
• In spite of the odds, Cain orders Belzen to launch the reserve Vipers, but he insists that taking such an action would cost too many lives and resources. She persists in her orders, but Belzen refuses to carry them out. Cain orders Belzen to hand her his sidearm, which she uses to shoot him in the forehead, in front of the entire bridge crew.
• Cain turns to a stunned Fisk, tells him that he is now the XO and orders him to launch the reserve Vipers. Fisk, nearly petrified by what he just saw, is more than compelled to follow the order. As the last of Pegasus’s remaining squadrons launch, Cylon batteries pound the hull.
• With the weapons grid down, Cylon Heavy Raiders easily breach Pegasus’s defensive perimeter. Centurions begin pouring into the ship through breached airlocks. Cain orders fast-response teams of Marines to engage the Centurions, and orders Shaw to Secondary Damage Control, as she fears that the Cylons will use this junction to vent all of Pegasus’s air into space.
• As Shaw heads to Secondary Damage Control, she finds Gina Inviere trying to escape the Centurions, and orders her to the CIC. As she peers around the corner, she is almost seen by a Centurion. She waits for it to leave, and as she turns the corner to go down the hallway, she sees a Number Six Cylon, following the Centurion. At first, Shaw doesn’t understand what she sees, but then it comes together – the Cylons can mimic human form, and Gina Inviere is one of them. Shaw shoots and kills the Six, leaving it dead right in front of a security camera.
• Shaw immediately heads to the CIC to take Inviere, now also in CIC, into custody before she can do any more harm. In the CIC, she directs her weapon at Inviere, and orders the Marines to take her into custody. When Cain belays the order, Shaw states that Gina is a Cylon infiltrator and that "they can look like us". When Cain scoffs, Shaw asks Hoshi to display the security feed from Airlock 4.
• Cain balks at the image of the dead humanoid Cylon in the form of her lover. Feeling betrayed and without any other options, she orders the guards to remove Inviere ("this thing") from the bridge. As a Cylon missile strikes Pegasus, Gina uses the moment to flip her captor around by the jaw, and gains control of his weapon, which she uses to shoot his comrade. She then snaps the Marine's neck, and trains her weapon on Cain. In a moment of hesitation, Inviere cannot bring herself to shoot Cain, and Shaw sneaks up behind her, clubbing the Cylon over the head with the butt of her rifle.

Massacre aboard the Scylla

• The victory at the communications relay is bittersweet. Over eight hundred of Pegasus’s original crew are now dead , over 90 Vipers are either destroyed or out of commission, and the deck crew doesn't have the resources to repair all remaining ones.
• As Cain and Shaw discuss the battle, Gina Inviere looks on from her cell. Shaw blames herself for the high cost of the battle, for giving Inviere her access codes, which she used to take down the weapons grid.
• The hatch opens, and Lieutenant Alastair Thorne salutes Admiral Cain. Cain orders him to use whatever means he can conjure to retrieve information from Inviere, including torture and rape. As Thorne enters Inviere’s cell, Cain is called to the CIC.
• As Cain enters the CIC, Fisk is elated to inform the admiral that a convoy of 15 civilian ships has been detected. Fisk and Shaw are thrilled at the discovery, but the mood quickly turns sour when they realize Cain has other things on her mind. Cain orders Fisk to prepare teams of Marines and engineers to board each ship. They will take what they need, including spare parts and people, and leave the ships without FTL drives to fend for themselves.
• Fisk and Shaw come aboard the Scylla, where they find a relieved welcoming party. Peter Laird is the first to welcome them aboard. Excitement quickly turns to confusion however, when they hand Laird a list of Admiral Cain’s orders. Laird is shocked to learn that Cain wants to take their FTL drives. Laird informs the welcoming party, and they suddenly become an angry mob. Shaw informs them that they will use force if necessary, but Laird persistently refuses.
• As the mob inches closer to the boarding party, Fisk reports to Cain of the escalating situation. In an act that surprises even him, she orders him to shoot the families of any selectee that doesn’t comply with the orders.
• Fisk and the Marines are wary of the order, but they line up a couple of the families despite their reservations, hoping that showing the mob their resolve will force them to comply. The angry mob suddenly becomes violent – they throw whatever they can at the boarding party.
• At that very moment, Shaw pulls out her sidearm, and shoots a woman in the front in the head. The Marines follow suit, and before very long, the deck of the Scylla is painted with the blood of the dead. Shaw’s gaze drifts to her sidearm, still smoking from the shot, and then up to Laird, who is too stunned to move.
• In the aftermath, Shaw cannot bring her eyes to look upon the dead. Fisk comforts her by telling her that the entire fleet heard about what happened and there should be no more resistance. As her party leaves the Scylla, she can’t help but look back.
• For her actions aboard the Scylla, Cain promotes Shaw to captain. It is small comfort to Shaw, who is still anguished by what she has done. Seeing her vulnerability, Cain tells Shaw that the war is forcing them all to do things that they may not like, even hate, because if they don’t, then they may not live to simply become human again. By putting aside her fear, her reservations, even her revulsion to complete the mission, Shaw has become Cain’s "razor".

Present events

• Newly-promoted Commander Lee Adama is formally appointed commander of Pegasus by Laura Roslin in front of the ship's crew. In his speech he promises to change things on the battlestar and announces Kara Thrace's appointment as acting CAG.
• Shaw follows the speech on the wireless set, but eventually switches it off. She walks to a jar, takes out a syringe and injects herself with a drug. She is still troubled about what happened on the Scylla.
• Next, she is summoned to Adama's office, who reads her service file and points out that she received glowing reports from Cain, but increasingly negatives ones from Fisk and Garner, who eventually assigned her to kitchen duty because of "persistent insubordinate behavior". After listening to Shaw's candid opinions about him and his predecessors, Adama offers her the job of executive officer; he intends to give the crew back its pride, and as an outsider he needs someone to uphold Cain's legacy.
• During a firearms drill, she shows competence but also how hard she is on the crew. William Adama comments that his son found an XO meaner than Saul Tigh.
• The Admiral gives Commander Adama his first mission: a search and rescue for two pilots and a civilian science team in an overdue Raptor.
• At their destination, Starbuck and Showboat conduct a Viper patrol and suddenly encounter enemy fighters of an unfamiliar configuration. Although able to identify them as Cylons, Starbuck doesn't realize that they are in fact Raiders like the ones used in the first Cylon War.
• Pegasus establishes a defensive perimeter and orders the Vipers to return prior to an FTL jump. When the navigational computer malfunctions and the Raiders close, Shaw orders to the vessel's offensive flight pod batteries turned on the incoming targets, placing Starbuck and Showboat inside the battlestar's close-in firing solution. Struggling their way through the barrage, a Raider follows them into the flight pod, which Starbuck shoots down once inside the landing bay. On the hangar deck, she angrily confronts Shaw over her decision to open fire, but Adama defends his XO.
• Pegasus returns to the Fleet, and Admiral Adama, Roslin and Tigh inspect the downed Raider on the hangar deck. Sharon Valerii recalls the "Guardians," a group of original Centurion models that escaped being scrapped by the humanoid Cylons. The Guardians guard the first Hybrid, created by the Cylons as a first attempt at an organic model and eventually abandoned as an evolutionary dead end. This causes Adama to remember the events on the ice planet on the last day of the Cylon War, finally realizing the significance of what he saw over 40 years ago.
• After examining the Raider's navigational data, Admiral Adama believes that the Raptor crew was captured by the Guardians and orders his son to jump to a possible base of theirs. For the duration of the operation, he transfers his flag to Pegasus, but assures Lee that it will be his mission.
• Shaw drafts an attack plan for Pegasus to draw Cylon forces away while a Raptor, piloted by Thrace and carrying a strike team, jumps to the Cylon base. Before signing off on the plan, Lee Adama confronts Shaw over the incident on the Scylla. She just replies that she is Cain's legacy - a razor - and that Cain wouldn't have hesitated to execute the plan.
• Before the battle Shaw is about to take another shot of the drug and when she is caught by Thrace, who is looking for a bottle of ambrosia. The two stalemate and agree to keep each other's secrets, and realize that they are more alike than they thought.
• The mission doesn't go as planned when the strike team's Raptor is pursued by two Raiders. They simulate an engine malfunction, emergency blow the side hatch and sling themselves out of the flat-spinning Raptor before it is destroyed by the Cylons, escaping undetected. Using EVA thrusters, they make their way to the Guardian basestar.
• Thrace, Shaw, Mathias, Dasilva and Hudson find the missing Raptor crew, whom the Cylons mutilate in a manner similar to what William Adama saw in the first Cylon War. As they free the survivors, two Centurions attack, wound Dasilva and begin to drag him away. Unwilling to let him suffer same treatment as the Raptor crew, Shaw shoots Dasilva, but in turn is shot in the abdomen.
• While under cover from the firefight, Mathias reports to Pegasus that the detonator for the nuclear warhead, which they plan to use to destroy the basestar, is damaged.
• Pegasus loses wireless contact with the boarding team and Lee Adama orders a nuclear ship to ship missile to be armed and readied. Thrace herself considers the "mission outcome doubtful". Assuming that the team is dead, Commander Adama orders the launch of the missile, but is overridden by his father, who wants to give the team a chance.
• After reestablishing contact and learning that an evacuation Raptor is on the way, Shaw orders Mathias to rig a manual detonator for the nuke, determined to complete the mission. While Lee is reluctant to sacrifice someone to detonate the warhead, his father believes that the Cylons would easily shoot down a missile, but leaves the final decision to Lee. He orders Thrace to get the team to safety, but to stay behind and detonate the nuke manually.
• The team prepares to suit up and leave, when Shaw forces Thrace to hand over the warhead at gunpoint and remains on the baseship. Walking through the hallways, she finds the Cylon Hybrid, who knows her name, saying that he has been waiting for her for a long time. He tells her that the Centurions worship him as god, and observes Shaw's desire to be forgiven for what she has become. The Hybrid also delivers a warning about Thrace: she will lead the human race to its end, she is the herald of the apocalypse and the harbinger of death, and she must not be followed.
• Shaw tries to relay this to Pegasus, but her transmission is blocked by Cylon jamming shortly after the start, and the warning is not heard. She then detonates the nuke, killing herself and destroying the basestar.
• Later, the Adamas discuss the battle and its outcome, the admiral noting Thrace's recommendation of Shaw for a posthumous commendation. Reviewing the logs, Admiral Adama doesn't find fault in either Cain's or Shaw's decisions, but Commander Adama vehemently disagrees, citing the Scylla. The admiral replies that he never had to face similar circumstances, and that he had people like Lee, Roslin and Tigh to counsel and challenge him and keep him from making extreme and questionable decisions. He comforts Lee, telling him that his decision to launch the nuclear missile and sacrifice the strike team wasn't wrong, just necessary from Lee's perspective at the time.
• Outside Adama's quarters, Lee meets Thrace, who now has Cain's knife given to her by Shaw. She is unsure if Shaw sacrificed herself as atonement or if she just "had it coming." Thrace tells him that she requested reassignment back to Galactica because she thinks Lee would keep trying to get her killed. When asked if she might deserve that, she jokingly replies that she has a destiny and plans to live to keep it.

Notes

General

• The episode was nominated for a Hugo and a Saturn award.
• One of the ships in Pegasus's civilian fleet was clearly inspired by the Original Series' Rising Star.
• Despite being credited, Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol), Tahmoh Penikett (Karl Agathon), Alessandro Juliani (Felix Gaeta), Michael Trucco (Samuel Anders), Kandyse McClure (Anastasia Dualla) and Matthew Bennett (Number Five/Aaron Doral) do not appear in either the aired version of "Razor" or the one on DVD.
  • Bennett appears briefly in the Razor Flashback web-episodes as Aaron Doral, in a flashback two days before the Fall of the Twelve Colonies.
  • Tyrol is mentioned by Admiral Adama as having helped Gaius Baltar remove navigational information from the Cylon Raider, but is never seen otherwise.
• A four-part podcast of the original story meeting for "Razor" is available on the SciFi website.

Production

• Michael Taylor noted that the original opening for "Razor" was inspired by Apocalypse Now, but this was later cut .
• A scene with Alastair Thorne torturing Gina Inviere while Cain looks on was filmed but removed as "it played a little too much like an outtake from Spartacus." Part of it can still be seen in the recap at the beginning of the movie.
• According to composer Bear McCreary, no specific soundtrack release for "Razor" is currently planned. However, the best tracks will be included on the Season 4 soundtrack .
• According to Gary Hutzel, the Fall of the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards was written so that "we would see it in bits and pieces. For the most part, it centered on the fact that they had to jump out of there before two nuclear missiles hit them." As for the blind jump, the impetus for it was to be filmed only from the point-of-view of the CIC personnel, who saw the two incoming warheads on DRADIS, which prompted the jump. However, Felix Alcala wanted the scene to be something out of Pearl Harbor, thus the shots showing the destruction of the shipyards were added in.
• Universal Home Entertainment financed part of "Razor" for DVD-only effects and other material for the show which is proprietary, which is why such effects sequences are on the DVD or used in promotional material.
• Furthermore, the special effects shots were done in house without using a third-party source: over 184 shots were done, 120 of them being full CGI. Many new ships had to be developed specifically for "Razor," in addition to the Original Series-inspired Centurions.

Story

• As Kendra Shaw scrubs through the wireless bands, she happens upon a Talk Wireless broadcast where the wireless personality notes Laura Roslin's cancer remission, going on to infer that there was speculation on how the remission was brought about. Another snippet mentions Roslin's "recent" ban of abortion.
• The Guardian basestar appears to be an evolutionary gap in between the older Cylon War-era basestar and the newer starfish type basestar.
• The flashback of a young William Adama finding a Cylon lab during the war is part of the fifth, sixth, and seventh episodes of the "Razor" web-episodes.
• According to Caprica-Valerii, the Hybrids were created as a means to grow out of their mechanical roots and into biological ones. The Cylons considered the hybrids a failure and, after creating enough of them to control their baseships, the project was abandoned.
• At the end of "The Captain's Hand" Apollo jokes that he's glad Starbuck will not be his CAG, and Starbuck confirms that she has to be Galactica's CAG. Something must have changed by the time Apollo took command because "Razor" begins with him announcing Starbuck as his acting CAG. At the end of "Razor" Thrace asks to be re-assigned to Galactica.
• Despite being a major, Kendra Shaw wears a colonel's uniform with white/red trim when she becomes the XO of Pegasus. As shown on Doctor Cottle earlier, a major's uniform only has a grey trim.
• When Pegasus jumps away from the Scorpion Fleet Yards, the vacuum created from the jump appears to suck in the surrounding flames and smoke of battle. This effect has been seen before in "Exodus, Part II" following Galactica's intra-atmosphere jump.
• The events on the Scylla do not play out exactly as Colonel Fisk describes them to Colonel Tigh in "Resurrection Ship, Part I". In the earlier episode, he mentions two families being lined up against the wall and shot, which does not happen.

Unrated DVD

• In the DVD version, Virtual Six appears and reveals why the Cylons achieved human form, claiming that since their God created humanity in his image, the Cylons wanted to do the same, regardless of how much they themselves loathed humanity.
• Young William Adama says the word "cocksucker" in reference to the Cylon he pursues as he breaks away from Columbia (e.g. "This cocksucker's mine."). The dialogue is re-dubbed in the Razor Flashbacks to "This frakker's mine."
• Shootings are more graphically violent than Battlestar Galactica normally shows on television. When Cain shoots Belzen in the head, a large amount of blood splatters on the glass wall behind him. Usually only the entry wound is shown and the camera avoids the area behind the head, such as when Number Six is shot in "Precipice" and Three in "Hero". A similarly graphic scene where a Marine is wounded by Centurions on the guardian basestar is missing from the television version but included in the unrated DVD.
• The DVD version includes an additional monologue by the first Hybrid when the strike team arrives at the basestar. It is intercut with footage of the team making its way through the ship. This is a reference to the revelation of four of the Final Five Cylons during "Crossroads, Part II". The Hybrid also talks about the seven other Cylon models and demonstrates knowledge of Number Three's boxing, an event over a year in the future at the time of his speech. See Noteworthy Dialogue
• The main feature does not include all of the Razor Flashbacks, namely Episodes 1, 2 and and Galactica scenes of Episode 7. However, all seven flashbacks are included as separate special features on the DVD.
• Two deleted scenes are contained on the DVD. One with Lee Adama at the Caprica Transfer Station waiting for a flight to Galactica's decommissioning, in which he talks about his dissatisfaction with his father's expectations of him. The other is a flashback to the aftermath of the episode "33". Starbuck and Apollo review their Vipers' gun camera footage. While Adama is convinced that he sees someone in the windows of the Olympic Carrier, Starbuck tells him that sometimes people might need to be left behind to save others.

Analysis

Story

• According to Admiral Cain, a razor is someone who can set aside all fear, hesitation, revulsion and natural inhibition in battle (see noteworthy dialogue).
  • When Cain recruits Jack Fisk to assassinate Commander Adama, she tells him that he needs to pick Marines who are "completely reliable. Completely loyal. Razors." ^{(TRS: "Resurrection Ship, Part I")}.
  • This bears a passing semblance to a poem by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: "I am still the sword/Of my Emperor/I will not be sheathed/Until I die." Admiral Yamamoto knew about America, Americans and their potential from his time as a student at Harvard and as a naval attaché in Washington, DC. Despite misgivings about declaring war on America, he served his Emperor and planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • A razor is a physically present symbol throughout the episode in the form of a folding knife, which Cain found as a child when her home colony was attacked by the Cylons. She used it to overcome her fear of a Centurion and kept it over the decades. After Cain's death, the blade passes to Kendra Shaw and eventually to Kara Thrace. It appears several times in the episode, and is used by Cain to explain the concept of becoming a razor to Shaw.
• The woman shot by Shaw could have been Peter Laird's wife, given the pan shot from his expression as he looks at the bodies, to the dead woman's face. His evasiveness when asked about the rumors circulating about the Scylla in the episode "Pegasus" would support this. His reaction to the woman's execution, however, can be taken one of two ways. He was either a man in complete shock of witnessing his wife's death or a man who was horrified from what he didn't believe was possible of Colonial military. Laird never mentions a wife explicitly, but Fisk implies he had family aboard the Scylla ^{(TRS: "Pegasus")}.

Characters

• In stark contrast to her demeanor by the time of the rendezvous with Galactica, Helena Cain is visibly more relaxed with her crew: She is stern when necessary, but also enjoys several moments of levity with subordinates and cultivates personable relations with her staff. She regards Jurgen Belzen as a personal friend (as described later by Fisk to Tigh); she initiates Shaw to Pegasus by chewing her out in the CIC and shares a humored look with her XO afterwards; the atmosphere at the dinner is very informal. She briefly talks to and comforts crewmen in the corridors, and expresses strong emotions and sheds tears as she surveys the ship's casualties. All these point to the war and especially Gina's betrayal as reasons for her push over the edge to become a "razor" and the narrowing of her perspective to pure vengeance.
• Although she may have sacrificed herself in atonement, Kendra Shaw ended her life as a razor, casting aside fear and self-preservation to stay behind and die to complete her mission, echoing Admiral Cain's observation that "sometimes we have to leave people behind so that we can go on, so that we can continue to fight. Sometimes you have to do things that we never thought we were capable of ..." When she arrives on Pegasus, she is regarded as an opportunist, but in the end she is quite the opposite.
• Kendra Shaw's death marks the final transition from Cain's legacy to Admiral Adama's. Shaw was the last of Cain's inner circle. She was one of the officers who had Cain's utmost respect and trust. Her death signifies the complete replacement of Pegasus's original leadership and opens up the merging of the two battlestar crews.
• Admiral Cain suggests that Kendra Shaw used her mother's connections to secure an upwardly-mobile assignment on Pegasus — an ironic criticism, since then-Commander William Adama mentions to President Roslin how well-connected Cain is, helping her jump over half the commanders list for promotion to admiral ^{(TRS: "Pegasus")}.
• Both Shaw and Thrace have been noticed and mentored by Admiral Cain. In this respect, the friction between the two takes on aspects of sibling rivalry.
• Based on the restored scenes on the "Razor" DVD, Admiral Cain's past plays a huge role in how she approached the second Cylon War. As a child, Cain abandoned her little sister in order to hide from Centurions. Though this scene of a young Cain is mixed in Cain's speech of the need to leave some behind in order to go on fighting, it implies a sense of guilt on Cain's part for having abandoned her sister to the Cylons. Her entire rationale in actively fighting the Cylons and not running portrays a need for her to take a stand and fight. She had a need to stop running.
• Also in the DVD version, the knife that Cain carries is revealed to have a deeper meaning to Cain than simply a weapon. The knife was an impromptu weapon Cain discovered while she was attempting to hide from the Centurions. When she is finally discovered, she makes her last stand with this same knife. In the end, it becomes the only object that she still carried, and what she eventually became, a last resort weapon.
• The actions of the younger Cain and Adama during the final events of the first Cylon War both contrast and parallel. Adama continued to pursue and attack the Cylons; Cain was told to run and hide from the Cylons, but when she was cornered by a Centurion, she picked up the knife and made as best a last stand as she could. Adama witnessed the escape of the First Hybrid's ship, feeling the responsibility of the lost lives that he could not save; Cain witnessed the withdrawal of Centurion forces, anguished by her responsibility for leaving her little sister behind.
• This film casts Cain's death in "Resurrection Ship Part II" in a new light. In that episode, Gina shot her to avenge her treatment in custody. "Razor" adds several new dimensions to the scene. First, it parallels Cain's killing of her XO. Second, it reveals the relationship Cain had with Gina, which deepens Gina's personal motivations in shooting Cain. Gina's response to Cain's defiant "Frak you!" in that episode was "You're not my type." Considering their relationship, that line now takes on the possible meaning of a Cylon taunting Cain for having used her when Gina had no interest in her personally.
  • On the other hand, there is evidence that Gina's feelings for Cain may have been genuine: during the Battle of the Communications Relay, she hesitated when given a perfect opportunity to kill Cain.

Miscellaneous

• Given the overall survivor count and the tally of 49,579 during the credits, "Razor" takes place between "The Captain's Hand" and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". Captions also place the flashback portions 10 months prior to the present events. However this timespan is closer to 9 months.
  • This is also the only time during Lee Adama's command of Pegasus that the episode can fit, since Starbuck leaves for Caprica in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I". See also Timeline - Season 2 (RDM)
  • Adama's selection of Shaw as his XO likely takes place very shortly after him taking command of Pegasus, but other parts of the episode might take place slightly later.
  • Sharon "Athena" Agathon's appearance may indicate that this episode takes place before "Downloaded," however this cannot be confirmed by any visual evidence as her appearance is brief and all camera shots are seemingly aimed to avoid shooting her belly. However, it can be reasonably surmised that because she is still cooperating with the Colonials that Hera's birth and her subsequent faked death haven't occurred yet.
  • The survivor count of 49,579 is the same as the episodes "Downloaded" and the beginning of "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I," which means the death of Shaw, the Raptor crew and the SAR marine are never counted.
  • "Razor" establishes the destruction of the colonies happening 10 months earlier, although "Downloaded," which presumably takes place shortly after, places the destruction at 9 months prior. "The Plan" establishes the beginning of "Lay Down Your Burdens" as 280 days after the fall.
• Regarding the casualties suffered by Pegasus during the Battle of the Communications Relay, Shaw's report that Pegasus suffered over 800 dead likely refers to the total casualty rate since the Cylon attack. Since Pegasus already suffered over 700 losses fleeing the Scorpion shipyards, adding 800 to this figure would mean that almost half the crew were killed. Considering that Pegasus's crew is approximately 1,750 when she encounters Galactica, such a high death rate seems unlikely.
  • The numbers are consistent, however, with casualty figures reported during "Pegasus," which established that 700 were killed during the attack on the shipyard, and 800 were killed during the attempt to board the ship.
• Given that an evac Raptor successfully retrieves the assault team by docking or at least flying close to the Guardian basestar without incident, it seems that the Guardian basestar itself appears to be unarmed and totally reliant on its Raiders for defense, unlike the standard Cylon basestar.
• A curious technical gaffe appears to occur as the smoke from the various fires in the shipyard travel upward. Unless the flames (which would appear as a globular "blossom" shape without gravity) jet upward, the smoke, with the lack of convection (heat rising upward as lighter gases against gravity), would expand in all directions opposite the flames or venting, not "up" relative to the battlestar or flames.
• The Galactica-type battlestar at the shipyard appears to be the same size, if not larger than Pegasus. This is a contradiction of Admiral Cain's statement, that Pegasus is twice the size of Galactica. While she does not refer to the ship's length, this seems to be a scaling error in the visual effects.
• The destroyed Viper piloted by Adama during the last day of the Cylon War was not the same Viper that Galen Tyrol presented to him near the beginning of the Miniseries. The restored craft was Viper N7242C, whereas Adama crashed Viper 1104NC.

Questions

• How does the Hybrid know Kendra Shaw?
• Is the Hybrid's warning that Kara Thrace is the harbinger of death true? (Possible answer) Does it say this to ensure that the eternal cycle continues per Pythian prophecy? (Possible answer)
• What does the First Hybrid mean when he says that Kara Thrace will lead the human race to their end (Answer)
• Who becomes Pegasus's CAG after Thrace steps down?
• Whose decision was it to scrap the old Centurions? (Answer) Did they resist?
• When the first Hybrid says "My children believe I am a god," to whom is he referring? The old model Cylons? The organic models?
• What does the first Hybrid mean when he says his existence will "begin again in ways uncertain"?
  • Does this statement imply that the first Hybrid is capable of downloading, or does it refer to an unending cycle or the afterlife?
• Are all of the Guardians on the basestar when it is destroyed, or did they build other bases in the decades before?
• Is the first Hybrid one of the humans captured on the Diana?
• Is the first Hybrid as it originally appeared, or has it physically aged? Was it created in that stage of adult maturity?
• If the Hybrid experiment was abandoned after others were created to control the basestars, do the Cylons only have a limited number of them?
• Did the Cylons abduct humans, such as Lucy Cain on Tauron, for further experimentation after abandoning their facilities on the ice planet?
• If Saul Tigh fought in the first Cylon War, how was he created, since the Cylons had yet to create humanoid Cylons by the time of the armistice? (Answer)
• Were the captives from the ice planet rescued? How much did the Colonials know about the experiments which took place there?
• Why did the Centurions withdraw from the First War? (Answer)

Official Statements

See: Razor/Official Statements

Noteworthy Dialogue

See: Razor/Noteworthy Dialogue

Guest Stars

• Michael Hogan as Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Galen Tyrol (credit only)
• Tahmoh Penikett as Karl "Helo" Agathon (credit only)
• Alessandro Juliani as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta (credit only)
• Michael Trucco as Samuel Anders (credit only)
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla (credit only)
• Michelle Forbes as Admiral Helena Cain
• Graham Beckel as Colonel Jack Fisk
• Stephanie Jacobsen as Lieutenant/Captain/Major Kendra Shaw
• Nico Cortez as Young William Adama
• Matthew Bennett as Number Five
• Steve Bacic as Colonel Jurgen Belzen
• Brad Dryborough as Lieutenant Louis Hoshi
• Eileen Pedde as Sergeant Erin Mathias
• Fulvio Cecere as Lieutenant Alastair Thorne
• Vincent Gale as Peter Laird
• Campbell Lane as Hybrid
• Kyra Scott as Young Helena Cain
• Chandra Berg as Little Lucy Cain
• Peter Flemming as Helena's Father
• Shaker Paleja as Medic Hudson
• Andrew Dunbar as Marine Dasilva
• Jacob Blair as Squad Leader Banzai
• Peter Bryant as Frank Bruno
• Chris Bradford as Ops Officer
• Tyson Stanley as Young Marine
• Trevor Roberts as Scylla Protestor #1
• Cameron Macleod as Scylla Protestor #2
• Ingrid Tesch as Mother
• Joey Pierce as Marine Riggs
• Matt Drake as Son #1
• Dustin Eriksen as Son #2
• John Hainsworth as Man in Cage #1
• Victor Ayala as Man in Cage #2
• Stefan Arngrim as Male Captive
• Deni Dolory as Woman in Cage
• Emily Hirst as Child in Cage
• Ben Cotton as Terrified Man
• Stefanie von Pfetten as Captain Marcia "Showboat" Case
• Alyssa Minniss as Flower Girl
• Allison Warnyca as Lt. Jaycie McGavin (credited only on the DVD's Flashback credits)
• Uncredited as Gus

External Links

• Composer Bear McCreary on the score for "Razor"
• "Razor" concept art: [1], [2], [3]