Razor

For the relatively spoiler-free overview, see: Razor.

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"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
US airdate	24 November 2007
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate	5 December 2007
DVD release	4 December 2007 US 26 December 2007 UK
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	Razor	He That Believeth In Me
Related Information
IMDb entry
Listing of props for this episode
Related Media
			@ BW Media
Promotional Materials
Online Purchasing
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iTunes: [ USA]

Overview

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

The Fall of the Twelve Colonies

• 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 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 wonders through the port flight pod, past groups of busy civilians, until she finds Gina, a civilian network administrator assigned to the Pegasus’s overhaul. Gina shows Shaw a map of the 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’s roast with Cain, Hoshi escorts her to her quarters. As they are walking down the hallway, a large blast shakes the 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.
• The battlestar Pegasus is on fire in space. Cylon Raiders flood the shipyard; Cylon missiles strike two helpless Valkyrie-type battlestars nearby.
• In the CIC, Colonel Jack Fisk and many of the CIC personel 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 the Pegasus from across the shipyards. The missiles fly past a Galactica type battlestar as it’s 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 down for upgrade, she would have to enter a random set of coordinates, which could take the battlestar anywhere, and in all probability, inside a star or other larger astral body. Cain yells back at her to do it anyway, and the battlestar jumps away.

Present events

• Newly promoted Commander Lee Adama is formally instated as Pegasus's CO 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 instatement as CAG.
• Kendra Shaw follows the speech on the wireless, but eventually switches 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 listen to Shaw's candid opinions about him and his predecessors, Adama promotes her to be his executive officer, noting that he intents to give the crew back its pride, but that he also needs someone to uphold Cain's legacy.
• During a firearms drill, she show shows competence but also how hard she is on the crew. William Adama thinks that his son found an XO meaner than Saul Tigh.
• The Admiral gives Commander Adama his first mission: a search and rescue for a civilian science team on a Raptor that is overdue.
• At their destination Starbuck and Showboat conduct a Viper patrol and suddenly encounter enemy fighters of an unknown configuration. Although knowing that they must be 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 the Vipers are ordered to return in preparation for an FTL jump. When the navigational computer malfunctions and the Raiders still close, Shaw orders to the vessel's offensive flight pod batteries turned on the incoming targets. This puts Starbuck and Showboat inside the battlestar's firing solution. Shooting their way through the barrage, they are pursued by one of the Raiders which Starbuck shoots down inside the landing bay. On the hangar deck, she angrily confronts Shaw over her decision to open fire, but Adama defends his XO.
• Back with the Fleet, Admiral Adama, Roslin and Tigh inspect the downed Raider on the hangar deck. Sharon Valerii relates a tale of group of original original Centurions that escaped being scrapped by the humanoid Cylons and are called "Guardians". The Guardians guard the first Hybrid created by the Cylons, an experiment in evolution that was eventually abandoned. This causes Adama to remember the events on the ice planet on the last day of the Cylon War, finally realizing what he saw over 40 years ago.
• After examining the Raider's navigational data, 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 that uses Pegasus to draw away the Cylon forces while a strike team jumps in in a Raptor piloted by Thrace. Before signing off on the plan, Lee Adama confronts her over the incident on the Scylla. Shaw just replies that she is Cain's legacy - a razor - and that Cain wouldn't have hesitated to execute the plan.
• Before the battle takes another shot of the drug and is caught by Thrace, who is looking for a bottle of ambrosia. The two realize that they are more alike than thought.
• The plan doesn't work as quite as predicated and the strike team's Raptor is pursued by two Raiders. Simulating an engine malfunction, they jump out of the Raptor from the side hatch before it is destroyed by the Cylons, thus escaping detection. Using EVA thrusters, they make their way to the basestar.
• Thrace, Shaw, Mathias, Dasilva and Hudson find the missing Raptor crew who has been mutilated by the Cylons in a similar way to what William Adama saw during the first Cylon War. They free the survivors, but are attack by Centurions, who wound Dasilva and begin to drag him away. Not wanting to let him fall into enemy hands and suffer, Shaw kills Dasilva herself, but is shot in the gut.
• After escaping for the moment, Mathias reports that the detonator on the nuclear bomb intended to destroy the basestar was 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 the team to leave, but to detonate the nuke manually.
• The team prepares to suit up and leave, when Shaw forces Thrace to hand of the warhead at gunpoint and stays back. 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 somehow deduces Shaw's desire to be forgiven for what she has become. The Hybrids also delivers a warning about Thrace: that she "will lead the human race to its end", that she is "the herald of the apocalypse [and] the harbinger of death." and that she must not be followed.
• Shaw tries to contact Pegasus and relay the warning, but is hindered by Cylon jamming. Failing, she detonates the nuke, killing herself and destroying the basestar.
• Later, the Adamas discuss the outcome for the battle. Thrace has recommended Shaw for a posthumous commendation. Looking back, Admiral Adama says that he can't find any flaws in Cain's tactical decisions, with which his son disagrees vehemently, citing the Scylla. His father replies that he never had to face similar circumstances and also had other people like Lee, Roslin and Tigh to balance him, which kept from doing some things. He tells Lee that his decision to launch the nuclear missile, killing the strike team, wasn't wrong, but necessary in his eyes at the time.
• Outside Adama's quarters, Lee meets Starbuck, who now has Cain's knife, passed onto her by Shaw. She is unsure if Shaw sacrificed herself to atone for her actions or if she just "had it coming." Thrace tells him that she filed for a re-assignment to Galactica because Adama would keep trying to get her killed. When being asked if she might deserve that, she replies that she has a destiny and plans to live.

Notes

• Despite being credited, Alessandro Juliani (Felix Gaeta), Kandyse McClure (Anastasia Dualla) and Matthew Bennett (Number Five/Aaron Doral) do not appear in "Razor".
  • Bennett appears briefly in the Razor Flashback web-episodes.
• Scenes involving a young Helena Cain and her father, as well as Kendra Shaw on Caprica were cut from the TV version, but will be in the extended cut on DVD. These scenes, which reveal the loss of her entire family to the Cylons, will also explain the significance of Cain's knife, the episode's literal "razor" .
• 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 episode of the "Razor" web-episodes.
• According to Sharon Agathon, 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 Thrace asks to be re-assigned to Galactica, currently holding the position of Pegasus's CAG, which she assumes in "The Captain's Hand".
• Despite being a major, Kendra Shaw wears a colonel's uniform with white/red trim. As shown on Doctor Cottle earlier, a major's uniform only has a white trim.
• Michael Taylor noted that the original opening for "Razor" was inspired by Apocalypse Now, but this was later cut.
• Scenes with Alastair Thorne torturing Gina were filmed but removed as "it played a little too much like an outtake from Spartacus."
• 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.

Analysis

• 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 even 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 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.
• 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." (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 also physically present in the episode in the form of a folding knife. It is passed from Cain to Shaw and eventually to Kara Thrace. The knife is used by Cain to explain how a person becomes a razor.
• Peter Laird's reaction to the dead civilians heavily implies that the woman killed by Shaw is his wife. Especially the shot at the end when he looks at the bodies and the camera pans from him to the woman.
• 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.

Questions

• How does the Hybrid know Kendra Shaw?
• Is what the Hybrid says about Kara Thrace being the harbinger of death true?
• Who is Pegasus's CAG after Thrace steps down?

Official Statements

• Michael Taylor on the scene with the three Guardians in the Cylon War-era Raider:

Actually, early references to talking Centurions were cut from early versions of the script, only to be resurrected by one of our VFX guys, Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz, who ended up giving them very similar dialogue to what I once had. We all mulled the issue and then concluded: What the [heck]; how can we revisit that era and not hear one of the signature lines? And yes, we’re a serious show, but sometimes it’s also not so terrible to acknowledge that this is a show, with a debt to another show, no matter how thoroughly we’ve tried to re-imagine it.

• Taylor discusses the limited appearance of Alastair Thorne in "Razor":

There’s only so many characters and storylines that we could explore in a movie of even nearly two hours, and frankly this was Cain’s and Kendra’s story. As far as the character of the torturer, Lt. Thorne, goes, I think it was scary enough to introduce him and imagine what poor Gina had in store.

• Taylor discusses the narrative of the story:

The script itself is somewhat less flashbacky, telling the story in a more chronological, linear way. Ultimately, we found it more effective to ground the story by relating it through a more present-day frame in which our regular characters, including Lee and Kara, are more front-and-center. But whether intended in the same way or not, what I like about both "Unfinished Business" and "Razor" is the way they fracture time, and show how the past affects and informs the present. I suppose that’s probably one of the themes that interests me most as a writer.

• Taylor discusses the relationship between Gina and Helena Cain:

I think part of the point about Cain’s and Gina’s relationship is that the fact that they had a same-sex relationship was no big deal. I think we started from the idea of wanting to explore whether Cain’s anger and revulsion at Gina, so evident in her first appearance in Season Two’s “Pegasus,” had a personal component. And the idea that Cain had had an intimate relationship with Gina quickly came to mind. It made Gina’s betrayal that much more devastating for her.

That being said, we did not want to make much about the idea of Cain being “gay,” if indeed she is gay, or if indeed Colonial society makes much of the distinction between hetero- and homosexual preferences. I tend to think that in this respect, at least, they’re a bit more enlightened than we are. That being said, we honestly have not done much exploring of the sexual orientations of other characters so far in Season 4. If it were to serve a dramatic purpose—as it does in "Razor" —other than to underscore that homosexuality is as much a part of the Battlestar world as it is of ours, we may well. We still have a season of scripts to write, so who knows: Look out, “The L Word,” we’re coming for your Nielsen ratings.

• Taylor discusses how this story originated:

A number of ideas were tossed around, but they all centered on using the movie as an opportunity to revisit the series’ past. I believe an early notion of mine may even have touched on a Terminator-like time-travel scenario that put some of our characters back on Caprica before the attack, but with foreknowledge of what was about to happen. I remember pitching the idea that [William] Adama would have to convince Cain to trust him and then join forces to try to stop the attack.

All the writers were on a conference call with the show’s creators and executive producers, Ron Moore and David Eick, and I recall David in particular perking up at the mention of Cain and Pegasus. It quickly became clear that our story would center around Cain’s ship and its own, very different journey in the aftermath of the Cylon attacks, and with that idea firmly in place the time travel and other kooky stuff quickly fell by the wayside and we began constructing a much more realistic story where our characters’ choices in the face of calamity, rather than through time-travel-enabled hindsight, became the key. But then that’s what Battlestar has always been about: the pressure of making genuine choices in real, and often horrific situations.

• Michelle Forbes (Admiral Helena Cain) discusses Gina's betrayal:

It was a massive betrayal. This woman is rarely vulnerable with anyone. She doesn’t allow herself that. For her to have taken that step [and become Gina’s lover] and been so ultimately betrayed, it did her head in, it did her heart in.

She became very misguided at that time. I feel the actions that she took in that misguided place still were along the lines of what she felt she needed to do. And there’s nothing that she did that some world leader has not done.

It’s very painful, what she did to Gina. There was such a deep sadness, but [for her] duty overrides that sadness, otherwise things don’t get done. There’s a lot of sorrow [in Cain]. It was not a punishment as much of a means to an end.

• Forbes on the questions raised in the series:

These heightened situations [in Battlestar Galactica bring up] these heightened questions we have to ask. As [Adama] says in a speech [earlier in the series], ‘Are we worthy of survival? Who are we? Who have we become? Have we just become animals and it’s survival at any cost?’ These are important questions to raise.

I love the fact that they ask these questions but never in a preachy manner. These are painful questions to ask. It’s so relevant it gives me goosebumps sometimes.

This and The Wire are just the two best written TV shows out there. You can’t just tune in and tune out. It’s not mindless entertainment. Occasionally with The Wire too I also feel like I need a notebook next to me [laughs]. They’re just fantastic stories with such complexity.

It’s a very exciting time to be part of television. I feel so fortunate that I’ve been involved in some pretty interesting, odd shows. There are many more cropping up out there.

[As for Battlestar Galactica] I’ve never guested on a show and walked away a bigger fan. I was so thrilled to see everyone again, I am so fond of this company. They’re lovely people and the crew is fantastic. And this is not just an actor blowing smoke [laughs].

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Admiral Cain talks to Kendra Shaw about her conduct during the crisis:

Sometimes we have to do things that we thought we were never capable of, if only to show the enemy our will. Yesterday you showed me that you're capable of setting aside your fear, setting aside your hesitation - and even your revulsion, every natural inhibition that during battle can make the difference between life and death. (opens folding knife.) When you can be this, for as long as you have to be, then you're a razor. (closes knife.) This war is forcing us all to become razors. Because if we don't, we don't survive. And then we don't have the luxury of becoming simply human again. Do you understand me?

• Opening narration by Kendra Shaw:

You're born, you live and you die. There are no do-overs, no second chances to make things right if you frak 'em up the first time. Not in this life anyway.

• Gina about Helena Cain and their relationship:

She has needs, just like the rest of us. No one can survive entirely on their own. Trust me lieutenant, in the end, we're all just human.

• Admiral Cain gives a speech to her crew after the Cylon attack:

This is your admiral. I know there've been a lot of rumors going around...about the destruction that's been visited on our homeworlds by the Cylons. I would like to tell you that they're exaggerations, but in fact it can not even come close to convey the horror that's been unleashed upon us. The facts are...that our colonies have been destroyed, our cities have been nuked, and our fleet's gone too. So far there have been no indications of any other survivors. I imagine you're all asking yourselves the same question I am: What do we do now? Do we run? Do we hide? I think those are the easy choices. A philosopher once said "When faced with untenable alternatives you should consider your imperative." Look around you. Our imperative is right here, in our bulkheads, in our planes, in our guns and in ourselves. War is our imperative. And if right now victory seems like an impossibility, then we have something else to reach for: revenge, payback. So we will fight. Because in the end it's the only alternative our enemies have left us. I say let's make these murdering things understand that as long as this crew and this ship survive, that this war, that they started, will not be over. Thank you.

• William and Lee Adama discuss Cain's actions:

William Adama: I've been going through Cain's log and from a tactical perspective it's hard to find fault in anything she did. Or that Kendra Shaw did.

Lee Adama: They butchered innocent civilians, Dad. Come on. How can you ignore that?

William Adama: I know that I didn't have to face any of the situations that she did. I had the President in my face, arguing for the survival of the civilian fleet. I've Colonel Tigh keeping me honest, balancing my morality and my tactics. And I had you. Now...you don't have any children, so you might not understand this, but you see yourself reflected in their eyes. And there are some things that I've thought of doing with this fleet, but I've stopped myself, because I knew I'd have to face you the following day.

Guest Stars

• Alessandro Juliani as Lieutenant Felix Gaeta
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla
• 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 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
• 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
• Uncredited as Gus

External Links

• Official SCIFI.com Site for "Razor"