Act of Contrition

"Act of Contrition" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
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Overview

When several Viper pilots are killed in a freak accident, Adama turns to Starbuck for help - but her involvement in the aftermath of the accident and in training new pilots causes the truth surrounding Zak Adama's death to finally surface.

Summary

• It is Dwight “Flat Top” Saunder’s 1,000th deck landing, which brings Galactica’s pilots down to the hangar deck to celebrate
• As the celebrations continue, a communication drone stowed on the hangar deck breaks loose from its restraints, falling to the deck and igniting its motor. The drone flies across the hangar, smashing into the celebrating pilots where it explodes, killing Flat Top and twelve others and putting seven more in sickbay.
• As the surviving pilots prepare for a memorial service for their fallen comrades, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace has flashbacks to her first meeting with William Adama, following the death of his son, Zak.
• During the memorial service itself, she, Lee Adama and Bill Adama all have flashbacks – to Zak Adama’s funeral and (in Thrace's case) to her telling Zak he has qualified as a Viper pilot.
• Following the service, Commander Adama asks Thrace to oversee the training of any new pilots they can find in the fleet.
• Thrace is initially hesitant, and the Commander guesses the cause is Zak's accident. He reassures her that his son’s death was not her fault – which causes Thrace to remember her admission to Lee Adama: that she passed Zak through his basic training when he had in fact failed (Miniseries).
• She reluctantly accepts the duty, but memories of Zak continue to haunt her as she plays cards with Gaius Baltar, oblivious to a conversation that takes place between Crashdown and Felix Gaeta concerning Baltar’s Cylon detector – a conversation that leaves Boomer very uncomfortable.
• Elsewhere on Galactica, President Laura Roslin is examined by the ship’s medical officer, Doctor Cottle. His diagnosis is not good: her cancer is inoperable. Roslin decides that she wants to try alternative therapy using Chamalla extract – something with entirely unproven effectiveness.
• Later, Thrace meets her first batch of recruits. They are all pilots – but none have ever flown a Viper. With no simulators aboard Galactica, the newbies – Nuggets – are thrown straight into the cockpit of the real thing.
• Their performance during their first training flight is hardly stellar, and Thrace is uncompromisingly hard on the first batch of recruits, washing them all out.
• Captain Adama confronts her on her decision, and realises it is caused more by guilt about Zak than on the ability of the trainees. When she refuses to reinstate the trainees, he takes the matter up with Commander Adama.
• Commander Adama initially supports Thrace's decision, but a misunderstanding between him and Lee causes him to meet with Thrace to discuss Zak’s death.
• When Starbuck tries to dodge the issue, Adama pins her down, and she admits the truth: Zak botched his final training flights, but she passed him because she was in love with him and they were engaged – but Zak really wasn’t the right material for flying Vipers.
• Angered and hurt, Adama orders her to reinstate the trainees and to get out of his cabin.
• Starbuck leads a handful of the trainees on a training flight, only to have a group of Cylon Raiders show up.
• In the ensuing dogfight, Starbuck takes care of the Raiders (with Hot Dog's aid), but her Viper is damaged, forcing her to eject inside the atmosphere of an inhospitable moon.

On Caprica

• Karl Agathon and Sharon Valerii are tracking the source of the signal they previously picked up out in the woods (“Water”).
• The signal leads them to a restaurant in the city, which has a radiation shelter under it, stocked with everything they need to survive - water, food, blankets - even anti-radiation medication.
• Their arrival at the restaurant is observed by a copy of Six.

Summary from scifi.com

After a flight deck accident kills 13 pilots and wounds many others, Kara is thrust into service as a flight instructor and ordered to turn a group of civilian pilots and academy washouts into full-fledged Viper pilots. The assignment brings back painful memories for Kara. She can't forget how she let Zak — Commander Adama's son and her lover — pass Basic Flight when he wasn't ready, and how it ultimately cost him his life. Determined never to repeat the mistake, she flunks out the would-be pilots on their first day. She is immediately confronted, first by Lee, then by Adama, and forced to admit to the Commander her role in Zak's death. Adama orders her to continue training the "nuggets." Meanwhile, Sgt. Hadrian continues her investigation into the detonators found in Sharon's spacecraft, and President Roslin consults the ship's doctor about her cancer. Far away on Cylon-occupied Caprica, Sharon and Helo find a secret cache of food. --This section ©2005, SCI FI. All rights reserved.

Questions

• Did the scene with the Viper burning and Starbuck's ejection at the end actually happen then? The problem is that it was also shown earlier in the episode, in two parts, apparently as flashforwards for Starbuck. (This is the case in the Australian version, at least.)
  • This happened at the end of the episode. It was not a flashforward from Starbuck's POV, but for the audience.

Analysis

An interesting episode that reveals a lot of the back story around the late Zak Adama, hampered by a weak start.

The bonhomie between Starbuck, Lee and Adama as seen in the teaser doesn’t entirely work. Coming on top of the clear division between Adama and Lee following the latter’s activities on the Astral Queen just 48 hours before, it is hard to accept the camaraderie that they share here.

Also, while hijinks are to be expected, even in the most dire situations – the crew are going to have to let off steam at times – the whole “1,000th” landing idea smacked too much of a contrivance to get Galactica’s pilots together so that a bunch of them can be knocked off.

Moving on, there is Adama's cosy tête-à-tête with Starbuck regarding the role of instructor, the cosy little cuddle at the end just doesn't sit right. Until now, Adama has been portrayed as approachable but aloof. Personnel of all ranks have been comfortable in talking to him openly, and have clearly regarded him with respect. However, there has always been a degree of separation between him and those around him. So it's a little hard to accept Adama as a man given to heartfelt hugs with junior officers - no matter what their past.

The hug serves a single purpose: a means to give Adama's relationship with Starbuck a little extra depth ready for his fall when her revelation concerning Zak is finally made.

However, once the story gets past these little wobbles, it turns into a finely-crafted piece, weaving the past, present and - in Starbuck's case - the future into a picture of love, guilt, betrayal, need, and hurt. The acting throughout is outstanding, and the framing superb throughout. The interweaving of Starbuck's and Adama's recollections of Zak's funeral with the Service for the Dead on Galactica is particularly potent, while Starbuck's flashbacks in particular serve to reveal her angst far more effectively than any amount of dialogue. To quote an old cliché: a picture is worth a thousand words.

Alongside the main story arc, other elements are moved forward, either directly, or through dialogue. It is through the latter that we learn that the water situation in the fleet is still not resolved, and that operations are continuing on the ice moon discovered by Boomer and Crashdown in "Water"; we also learn – via the card game – that secrets on Galactica are proving hard to keep: rumours are already spreading that Gaeta is assisting Baltar in the development of his Cylon detector.

Given a more direct reference is Roslin's illness. In a nice follow-on from "Bastille Day" she meets the Galactica's medical officer. Something of a cliché himself - a healer killing himself through smoking - but even so, he is a useful foil for opening a new mini-arc to Roslin's character: her determination to fight the cancer through orthodox and possibly unorthodox means.

Finally, on Caprica, it is now clear that the Cylons want Helo to remain with Valerii. The receipt of the "military signal" and the discovery of the cosy little "radiation shelter" are together too much of a coincidence. The shelter is a honey-trap, and Valerii is the bait.

An essential element to any story is the performance of the actors, and "Acts" presents some of the strongest performances just seen in BSG. In this, Edward James Olmos clearly silences any critics of his acting abilities. With barely a turn of the lips, an opening or narrowing of the eyes, he conveys everything we need to know about Adama's reaction to Thrace's admission in his cabin: confusion, hurt, betrayal, loss, anger and finally – fury. It's been a while since such a range of emotional reactions have been so powerfully portrayed, and full kudos to Mr. Olmos and to the episode's director and director of photography for the manner in which the scene is crafted.

Equally deserving of praise is Katee Sackhoff for her handling of Thrace's memories and dilemma. Here, for the first time, we get to see what goes on behind the “Starbuck” mask; and the flashback scenes to her time with Zak are handled with extraordinary poise, and add the required depth needed to reinforce her guilt at his loss, and her fear of what might happen should she ever be put in a similar position again – or that Adama should ever discover the truth.

Overall, a vastly different episode from all that has gone before and one that is, as stated before, saved from mediocrity only in the interweaving of the various story elements – future, present and past – and the outstanding performances from both Sackhoff and Olmos, well-supported by Jamie Bamber and James Callis.

Notes

• It is 48 hours since the prisoner uprising on the Astral Queen
• Water replenishment ops are still underway
• Galactica has a remaining contingent of 40 Vipers on top of her 5 Raptors (revealed in "Water"), but now only has 21 combat-ready pilots and a further 8 newbie “nuggets”
• Cylon Raiders have guns of an apparently similar nature to those mounted on Vipers
• Zak and Starbuck were engaged, and that led to her passing him for flight duty
• Adama's relationship with Starbuck is not as long-standing as the mini appeared to suggest: they have only served together for 2 years
• Word is leaking out about Baltar's “Cylon detector”
• Helo and Valerii still appear to be the only “people” left alive on Caprica. Neither seem in any hurry to get off the planet. (More humans are discovered in the second season episode, "Resistance".
• The Colonial military use what appear to be HumVees and Deuce-and-a-half trucks!
• While the Viper is burning on entry into the atmosphere, the Viper's altimeter is going in reverse, indicating altitude gain.
• The "R&D TV Animation" skit during the credits consists of David Eick pushing Ron Moore out the office window and Moore being run over by a mini van.

Noteworthy Dialogue

In Adama's Cabin, with Thrace and Adama, discussing comments made earlier by Lee Adama:

Adama: He said something else. That you might have been feeling guilty about something you did for Zak. What did you do for him?
Thrace: I don't know. You'd have to ask Lee.
Adama: I'm asking you.
Thrace: Well I don't kn- I, ah...I don't really know what he was talking about, so...
Adama: Don't fence with me, Kara. I love you like a daughter. I don't deserve that.
Thrace: Ummm...Zak...failed...basic flight. He wasn't a bad pilot, he just had no feel for flying...and, um, when it came to his final check ride he...busted...three of the test manoeuvres, and I should have flunked him, but I didn't. The bottom line is your...son...didn't have the chops to fly a Viper...and it killed him.
Adama: (following a flashback): You did it because you were engaged.
Thrace (breaking down): Because I made a mistake...because I was just...I was so in love with him...and I let that get in the way of doing my job...and um, and he um, he just wanted it so much, and I...I didn't want to be the one who crushed him...
Adama: Reinstate the trainees to flight status.
Thrace: I will...but I just want you to understand...that I...
Adama: Do your job.
Thrace: Yes sir...
Adama: And walk out of this cabin...while you still can...

Guest stars

• Michael Hogan as Colonel Saul Tigh
• Tahmoh Penikett as Lt. Karl "Helo" Agathon
• Aaron Douglas as Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol
• Jill Teed as Sergeant Hadrian
• Donnelly Rhodes as Dr. Cottle
• Lorena Gale as Elosha
• Tobias Mehler as Zak Adama
• Colby Johannson as Lt. Dwight "Flat Top" Saunders
• Bodie Olmos as Brendan "Hot Dog" Constanza
• Lucianna Carro as Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Terry Chen as "Chuckles" Perry
• Bill Meilen as Caprica Cleric

External Links

• "Act of Contrition" at scifi.com.
• Contrition defined on Wikipedia.

Original Series definition: a term for a robot, such as Muffit II ^{(TOS: "Saga of a Star World")}

Re-imagined Series definition: initial skills training; can refer to basic military indoctrination, and arms and ground training ^{(TRS: "Fragged")}; and basic flight training ^{(TRS: "Miniseries")}

Re-imagined Series definition: battlestar landing bay mechanism that arrests a landing Viper, Raptor or other small craft ^{(TRS: "Final Cut")}

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group ^{(TRS: "Water")}. It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.