The Farm

This page covers the episode "The Farm". For the Farms themselves, see Farms.

"The Farm" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 2, Episode 5
Writer(s)	Carla Robinson
Story by
Director	Rod Hardy
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
Production No.	205
Nielsen Rating	2.0
US airdate	2005-08-12
CAN airdate	2006-02-11
UK airdate	2006-02-07
DVD release	20 December 2005 US 28 August 2006 UK
Population	47,857 survivors ( 4)
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Resistance	The Farm	Home, Part I
Related Information
Official Summary
R&D Skit – View
Podcast Transcript – View
[[IMDB:tt{{{imdb}}}|IMDb entry]]
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
Amazon: Standard Definition | High Definition
iTunes: USA

Overview

Kara Thrace is shot and wakes up in a remote hospital facility on Caprica, and learns that her friendly doctor has his own plans for her future.

Summary

On Caprica

• Starbuck, Helo, and two members of the Resistance (Anders and Sue-Shaun, who were introduced in the last episode) devise a plan to escape from Caprica by commandeering a Heavy Raider from a nearby airstrip. They will fit as many people as possible onto the craft, and will dispatch a rescue mission for the remainder upon return to Galactica.
• As the team is about to assault the airstrip, they are ambushed, and Thrace is hit by a bullet that grazes off her head and gets lodged in her abdomen. She loses consciousness.
• Thrace wakes up in a hospital. She is being attended to by a doctor named Simon, who tells her that she was brought into the hospital by Anders, and that Anders died from a shrapnel wound. Thrace is devastated.
• Thrace spends the next few days conversing with Simon, who muses that women capable of bearing children are a rare "commodity" now that the Cylons have nuked the Colonies, and suggests that Thrace should consider giving birth to a child.
• Simon speculates that Thrace's reluctance to have children stems from her mother having abused her when she was young, as evidenced by a pattern of fractures in her fingers. This topic upsets her.
• Thrace wakes to discover a new scar on her abdomen. Simon tells her it's from an operation he did to stop some bleeding, but Thrace doesn't believe him, particularly after he calls her "Starbuck"--her pilot call sign, which she has never told him.
• Thrace fakes sleep after crimping her intravenous drip filled with sedative. When Simon leaves, she follows him into the hallway, where she overhears him having a conversation with a copy of Number Six about the "complete removal" of her ovaries scheduled for the next day.
• A short time later, Thrace stabs Simon with a broken mirror shard and escapes the room. Lurching around the deserted hospital, she stumbles upon a room full of semi-conscious women wired horrifically to machines. Among them is Sue-Shaun, who begs Thrace to destroy the "baby machines" and end their misery. She obliges with a prayer, a pair of medical tongs, and a primal scream.
• Thrace staggers outside, braining a Six model with a fire extinguisher in the process, only to find a another Simon standing there to greet her. At that moment, Helo and the rest of the resistance emerge from the woods. They pepper Simon with bullets, but soon get bogged down in a firefight with a squad of Centurions. A second rescue occurs in as many minutes: Caprica-Valerii swoops down in a stolen Heavy Raider and blows the Centurions away.
• Thrace relates her experiences in the hospital to the others. Valerii explains that the humanoid Cylons have a flaw which renders them unable to reproduce biologically. The Cylons have been holding human women in "farms" to try to implant them with human/Cylon embryos. This effort has failed, however, leading the Cylons to believe that conception requires "love." Based on this theory, Valerii was able to conceive with Helo because of their love for each other.
• Helo, Sharon, and Starbuck leave Caprica on the Heavy Raider. Starbuck promises Anders to return someday to rescue the Resistance. In the meantime, Anders says he will try to destroy as many farms as he can.

On Galactica and in the Fleet

• Commander Adama returns to duty, and is greated by applause in CIC. He tells the crew that he loves them all.
• To try to rally support to the president, Zarek wants Lee Adama to make a recording denouncing his father. Adama stops in the middle of it and says he can't go through with it. It's left to Laura Roslin to win over the Fleet.
• Roslin plays the "religious card." She transfers to the Astral Queen from where she transmits a message imploring the Fleet to follow her and the path the Lords of Kobol have set out for her. An infuriated and staunchly secular Adama doesn't board the Astral Queen because he thinks only three or four ships would seriously listen to her "religious nonsense." Instead, 24 ships ("almost a third of the Fleet") leave with her.
• Cally is thrown in the brig for killing Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, now known as a Humanoid Cylon and traitor. Chief Tyrol implores Commander Adama to release her, due to her trauma by events on Kobol. Adama gives her a light sentence of charging her with discharging a firearm without permission: Cally will spend only one month in the brig.
• Adama asks Tyrol if he could love Boomer despite the fact that she was a machine. Tyrol isn't quite sure, but it becomes apparent that Adama is asking himself the question as much as he is Tyrol; Adama loved all of his pilots like his children.
• Adama visits Boomer's body in the morgue. He asks "Why?" then breaks down crying over her body.

Notes

General

• This episode's opening credits marks the return of the "blipvert" effect used in the first season episodes, which Ron D. Moore uses as an homage to Space: 1999.
• As of the opening credits, the Fleet population is now 47,857, a net loss of 4 since "Resistance". This reflects the deaths of four civilians on board the Gideon in that episode, but apparently not that of Valerii, which may be the result of her being removed from the count after the assassination attempt on William Adama.
• According to Felix Gaeta, this episode takes place "a week" after Lee Adama docked at Cloud 9 in the last episode, although apparently William Adama hasn't been well enough to resume command until very recently. Furthermore, according to a deleted scene, this episode takes place a week after "Fragged".
• 24 ships, almost a third of the Fleet, have left with Roslin for Kobol.
  • This would mean the total Fleet consists of over 72 ships. In the Miniseries, there are only about 40 FTL-capable ships able to rendezvous with Galactica at Ragnar Anchorage. This retcon is similar to the 500-1500 prisoner error from the Miniseries to "Bastille Day".
• This episode introduces the fifth confirmed humanoid Cylon, Simon.
• The concept of women connected to machines for the purposes of controlled reproduction is a venerable one in science fiction; the Dune universe showcases a classic example where a specific political and religious faction (the Bene Tleilax) uses the technology to produce clones.
• Thrace has the last line in this episode: "Let's go home!"

Characters

• Boomer's body is now in the morgue. The "Y" shape scar suggests that she has undergone an autopsy.
• According to Simon's information, derived from either a Cylon dossier or from medical exams, Thrace was the victim of frequent physical abuse as a child; she's suffered many bone fractures in childhood, and all of her fingers have been broken. This is consistent with the comments made by Leoben Conoy to Thrace during their interrogation scenes in "Flesh and Bone". The reasons and events for such abuse are later revealed in the episode "Maelstrom" as the result of abusive rearing by Thrace's mother, Socrata Thrace.
• Karl Agathon and Caprica-Valerii's child is the first Human/Cylon hybrid conceived in love, and as a result is the first successful hybrid; no other embryo survived nearly as long, since the embryo is approximately five weeks old (Six Degrees of Separation).
• Sharon "Boomer" Valerii served aboard Galactica for two years prior to the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, which implies that the Cylons' infiltration began around or before that time. This matches the length of time of Caprica Six's affair with Gaius Baltar while on Caprica.

Behind the scenes

• David Eick's Video Blog, "Episode 5 - Day 2", covers the shooting of this episode, including various production issues.
• After the end of the third act, as Simon enters Thrace's room (right before she stabs him), her room number is "254". Interestingly, Thrace's stabbing Simon takes place in the second season (2), of episode five (5) and this is the start of the fourth act (4).
• The hospital room is on a "swing set", an extra set that's kept open so that it can be used for special, one-time interior sets.

Analysis

• The scenes in the meat locker with Roslin, Zarek and co. were not shot in a real freezer according to the episode's podcast. This is also noticeable as a viewer. For example the characters' breath isn't visible. Ron Moore notes that the setting isn't entirely convincing.
• What exactly did the Cylons do to Thrace's ovaries? Simon tells Six: "...pending lab test results on sample for ovaries, complete removal will proceed tomorrow". Starbuck escapes right after this, which means that the opportunity to "completely remove" her ovaries did not occur. This suggests at the very least that Starbuck can still have children. However, female humans only have two ovaries: how can you have a "sample" one? The sample could just mean that Simon took several eggs from one of Starbuck's ovaries to see if they were viable for conceiving children.
• It would seem that the Cylons at least obtained several sample egg cells from Starbuck. Will this lead to developments later on?
• In Ron D. Moore's blog entry for October 14, 2005, after finishing the last scripts for season two he jokingly says he has "the reward of time spent thinking about something besides Kara's missing ovaries ("Now, where did I leave those ovaries? They were right here a minute ago...") ". What is meant by this?
• Love serves as a theme in this episode. First, we find out how important love is for the Cylons: it is considered essential for Cylon procreation. In the first episode, Number Six asked Dr. Baltar several times if he loved her. Number Six also said that "God is love". That was after she tried to conceive from him. Love is also the reason Sharon aids Helo and the reason Helo accepts her help. Also we hear that Starbuck was abused as a child. In the last episode she said that everyone seems to fight to get their old life back and she fights because it's all she knows how to do. In this episode she seems to develop affections to Anders. Will Starbuck find 'reason' in love? Commander Adama tells his subordinates that he loves them. He asks Chief Tyrol if one could love a machine. Ultimately, Commander Adama weeps over Galactica-Sharon's body because he loved her.
• Number Six mentioned that "procreation is one of God's commandments" in the first episode, "33". This could mean that the Cylons are trying to procreate out of a feeling that they are sinning by not being able to have children on their own.
• Caprica-Valerii is aware of Leoben Conoy #2's interrogation by Starbuck in "Flesh and Bone", even of specific things he said during it, suggesting that humanoid Cylons sometimes have a collective knowledgebase (not a collective consciousness; see "Downloaded" for this confirmation) to occasionally draw from. This is supported by Boomer's information to Gaius Baltar of the number of humanoid Cylons remaining in the Fleet in "Resistance", as only such a knowledgebase would allow Boomer to know of this data.

Questions

• Caprica-Valerii says that she knows that Leoben Conoy told Kara Thrace she was special during his interrogation aboard Galactica. How could she know this? How do the humanoid Cylons communicate to each other? (See Analysis)
• Will Simon be seen again? (Answer) Is he one of the eight humanoid Cylons hiding in the Fleet?
• How does Simon know Anders's name?
• What does Kara whisper to Sue-Shaun before she "pulls the plug" on the Farm machinery?
• Why does the Caprica resistance seem more concerned about Thrace's disappearance than Sue-Shaun's? Does Thrace's love interest generate the greater concern?
• Would any viable embryos harvested by the Cylons be accelerated into mature adults or placed in vitro into a host? Would the host be Cylon or human?

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Cylons discussing the surgical testing they are performing on Starbuck:

Simon: ...pending lab test results on ovaries, complete removal will proceed tomorrow. They've lab tested positive and subject will be removed to processing facility for final disposition.

Number Six: Is that regret I hear in your voice, Simon?

Simon: If it is, it certainly is none of your concern.

• Explanation of the Human/Cylon hybrid project:

Valerii: They were conducting research, into Human/Cylon breeding programs.

Starbuck: Human/Cylon?

Helo: 'Call them "Farms"...your gunshot wound looks fine...

Starbuck: So "Farms", that's great...what were they going to do, 'knock me up with some Cylon kid?

Valerii: They were going to try to. We haven't been very successful so far.

Anders: Supposedly they can't reproduce...you know, biologically, so they've been trying every which-way to produce offspring.

Starbuck: Why?

Valerii: Procreation. It's one of God's commandments; "be fruitful". We can't fulfill it, we've tried. So we decided--

Starbuck: To rape human women?!

Valerii: You know, if you agreed to bear children it would be voluntary, maybe even set you up with someone you like.

Starbuck: Like you two kids? (looking at Helo and Caprica-Sharon)

Valerii: We're different.

Starbuck: What the frak is that supposed to mean?

Helo: They have this theory; maybe the one thing they were missing was love. So Sharon and I...were set up...

Starbuck: To fall in love?! They didn't ask Sue-Shaun if she wanted to fall in love, alright! They put a tube in her, and they hooked her up to a machine!

Valerii: They know who you are, Kara. You're special. Leoben told you that. You have a destiny.

Helo: (pointing out the other scar on Starbuck's lower abdomen) Starbuck what's the second scar?

Starbuck: I don't know. I don't think I want to know now. You know?

Valerii: No.

Anders: Alright, how many women do they have in these "Farms"?

Valerii: Hundreds, maybe thousands. I don't know, I haven't accessed that data.

• Adama wonders aloud about the nature of Cylons and humans

Tyrol: I don't believe she [Cally] was in her right mind when she shot Boomer--

Adama: Did you love her, Chief?

Tyrol: 'Scuse me?

Adama: Boomer. Did you love her?

Tyrol: Thought I did.

Adama: Well, when you think you love somebody, you love them. That's what love is. Thoughts... She was a Cylon. A machine! Is that what Boomer was, a machine? A thing?

Tyrol: That's what she turned out to be.

Adama: She was more than that to us. She was more than that to me. She was a vital, living person aboard my ship for almost two years! She couldn't have been just a machine. Could you love a machine?

Tyrol: No, sir. Guess I couldn't have.

Adama: Cally discharged a firearm without permission, endangering life of her fellow shipmate. 30 days in the brig. Dismissed.

Tyrol: Thank you, sir.

Adama: You'll see her again, Chief.

Tyrol: Excuse me?

Adama: There are many copies. You'll see her again.

• Simon, talking about Starbuck's reluctance to have children but also perhaps talking about the Cylons' view of themselves (and maybe the "human" Cylons).

Simon: Children of abusive parents often fear passing along that abuse to their own children.

Guest stars

• Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Chief Galen Tyrol
• Tahmoh Penikett as Lt. Karl "Helo" Agathon
• Nicki Clyne as Specialist Cally Henderson
• Alessandro Juliani as Lt. Felix Gaeta
• Kandyse McClure as Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla
• Michael Trucco as Samuel Anders
• Rick Worthy as Simon
• Lorena Gale as Elosha
• Tamara Lashley as Sue-Shaun