Recap / Battlestar Galactica 2003 S 02 E 10 Pegasus

Season 2, Episode 10:

Pegasus

The Galactica crew are running their standard routines when they are surprised by an unidentified ship that appears on DRADIS. As they work to confirm the ship's identity, they are shocked to discover that the ship is transmitting a Colonial signal. The crew are then astonished to learn what the ship is — the Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Helena Cain and presumed destroyed during the initial Cylon attack on the Colonies.

A welcoming ceremony is held on Galactica's flight deck, where Cain introduces herself to the overjoyed crew. Cain tells Bill and Roslin that she found Galactica while trailing a large Cylon fleet, which has an unknown type of craft traveling with it. Cain also relates the story of the crew's survival — the Pegasus was in drydock when the Cylons attacked the Colonies, and executed a blind jump to escape the attacking Basestars. The Pegasus crew subsequently engaged in hit-and-run attacks against the Cylons over the course of several months.

Cain assumes control of the fleet as ranking officer, and transfers Lee and Kara, among other crew members, to the Pegasus, citing a lack of discipline and structure among the fleet. Bill and Roslin are both taken aback at the move, with Roslin becoming increasingly frustrated at Cain's refusal to answer her calls for needed supplies in the fleet.

At the same time, the crew of Galactica meet their counterparts on Pegasus. Tyrol meets the Pegasus's deck chief, Peter Laird, and they discuss the creation of the Blackbird. Tigh meets with the other XO, Jack Fisk, and both share a round of drinks, though not before Fisk tells a worried Tigh that Cain shot her previous XO in the head after he refused a direct order.

Cain also asks Baltar to interrogate a female Cylon prisoner who was captured after the initial attack. Baltar is shocked to discover that the prisoner is a copy of Six, named Gina, who has been lying in her cell in a catatonic state. Baltar orders Cain to give Gina food, and later tells the Cylon in private that he will do whatever he can to help her.

Lee and Kara try to make the life of the Pegasus's CAG, Cole Taylor, miserable by being insubordinate around him, leading the latter to pull Lee from Viper duty and make him a Raptor pilot, while canning Kara outright from flying. After a pilot's briefing, Lee orders Kara to take the Blackbird on an unsanctioned mission to get recon photos of the Cylon fleet.

On Galactica, several crew members are trading stories with the Pegasus flight crew. However, Helo, Tyrol, Cally and the other Galactica engineers are horrified to learn that the Pegasus crew repeatedly raped Gina as a means of torture and humiliation. Learning that the man who instigated the interrogation in the first place, Lieutenant Thorne, is planning to do the same thing to Sharon, Helo and Tyrol rush to her holding cell, where she is being beaten and held over her bed by Thorne and other Pegasus crew. Helo and Tyrol stop Thorne's attempted rape, though they inadvertently shove him into a bulkhead and kill him in the process. Both men are subsequently apprehended by the Pegasus's crew.

Soon after, Bill is furious to learn about what happened to Sharon, and discovers from Cain that she has brought the two men back to the Pegasus and court-martialed them. When Bill protests, Cain briskly informs him that he doesn't have a good record with tribunals, and promises to inform him of the final verdict.

Hours later, Cain radios Bill to tell him that both men have been found guilty and will be executed. Bill orders her to stand down, and subsequently orders an armed group of Marines to board the ship and take the prisoners by force, backed by a contingent of Galactica's Vipers. Cain replies that Bill is making a big mistake, and orders her own Vipers to be launched to hold off the Galactica fighters.

As the episode ends, both squadrons of Vipers fly towards each other, ready to fire at will…

Tropes

• Angst Coma: Gina, as a result of her rape at the hands of the Pegasus crew.
• Attempted Rape: Thorne tries to do this against Sharon, but is stopped by Helo and Tyrol. In the extended cut, he actually goes through with the act for a few moments before Helo and Tyrol reach him.
• Blind Jump: This is how the Pegasus escaped the attck on the Colonies, they activated their FTL drives without inputting co-ordinates and hoped for the best. Adama notes that they could have ended up anywhere and calls it a "gutsy move". Cain replies that it was an act of desperation on her part.
• The Cavalry: Helo and Tyrol put aside their differences to rescue Sharon, and save her from being assaulted in the nick of time.
• The Chain of Command: Admiral Cain outranks Commander Adama, meaning she's now in charge of the fleet and he has to defer to her orders. President Roslin struggles to hide her discomfort with this change in leadership, noting that she and Adama have forged a good rapport after working together through recent crises. Cain initially claims she won't interfere with operations aboard Galactica, but it isn't long before she's assigning her crew to the ship and issuing universal orders.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with both Adama and Cain's respective fleets of Vipers moving to engage in combat after Adama orders an armed rescue of Helo and Tyrol.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Cain notes that the last time Adama held a tribunal, he ended up dissolving it when he didn't like the verdict.
  • Bill mentions the destruction of the Olympic Carrier as an example of a past action he hopes Cain will see in context.
• Cool Ship: The Pegasus itself, which is not only much larger than Galactica, but boasts the ability to take out Basestars if it has a tactical advantage, and has the supplies necessary to build Mark VII Vipers.
• Darker and Edgier: The Admiral Cain of the reboot is far more militaristic and morally grey than her predecessor, via enacting fleet-wide decisions on her own, having her lieutenant try to rape Sharon and stripping civilian fleets of their supplies.
• Defcon 5: Surprisingly, Adama commits this error after Pegasus is identified as a Colonial ship. He orders the fleet to step down to Condition One. However, Condition One is the highest level of alert readiness. He should have said "Step down to Condition Two," or "Step down from Condition One."
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Baltar is particularly repulsed when he sees the Pegasus's treatment of their Cylon prisoner because it's a copy of Six.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe.
  • Even Cally, who shot Boomer in cold blood, is horrified when the Pegasus crew begin bragging about what they did to Gina, and hearing about it prompts Helo and Tyrol to rush to intervene as Thorne tries to do the same thing to Sharon.
  • Fisk tells Tigh the story of what happened to his predecessor as XO on the Pegasus (shot in the head by Cain for refusing an order to basically mount a suicide attack), and tries to laugh it off as a joke. Tigh is not fooled, and subsequently reports the story to Bill.
• Everyone Has Standards: With the exceptions of Tyrol and Helo, no one on Galactica really likes Sharon. Everyone is still sickened by the fact that Thorne tried to rape her; and are likewise sickened by the fact that the Pegasus crew have been gang-raping their Cylon prisoner.
• Foreshadowing: Cain's arrival on the Galactica is full of this. Her soldiers come out of the Raptor first, armed and looking around suspiciously, and Cain herself stops short at the sight of Roslin, a civilian authority, being at the gathering, all of which point towards her plans for Galactica and the Fleet.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Dee authenticates the Colonial authentication codes sent by the Pegasus in the opening sequence, the radar screen behind her switches from an "Unknown Signal" to "Battlestar Pegasus" just as she announces the codes are confirmed.
• Gender Flip: Cain was originally a man (played by Lloyd Bridges) in the original series.
• General Ripper: Cain herself, who is obsessed with taking the fight to the Cylons.
• Infinite Supplies: Played straight—the Pegasus can produce Mark VII Vipers on its own, and generally is a self-sufficient Battlestar.
• Mile-Long Ship: The Pegasus.
• Military Maverick:
  • Cain, who appears to define the fleet as being in the general proximity of wherever she is, and has no qualms about executing orders without anyone else's input, to the point of court-martialing Helo and Tyrol and planning to execute them without any input from Bill or the others.
  • Cole Taylor, Cain's Commander, Air Group, who tries to exert his authority over Lee and Kara.
• Mobile Factory: Pegasus, which can produce Mark VII Vipers.
• Mythology Gag: The design of the Pegasus clearly seems to be a reference to Galactica's design from the original series.
• Name of Cain: Admiral Helena Cain.
• Nose Art: Some of the Pegasus crew have taken to marking their Kill Tally of Cylon Raiders on their Vipers. Starbuck isn't impressed and Apollo rejects the Pegasus CAG's suggestion they start doing the same.
• Poor Communication Kills: After seeing the state Gina was in, Baltar really should have made a high-priority call to Galactica to warn Adama not to let Thorne interrogate Sharon.
• Porn Stash: When the Pegasus crew present Gaeta with copies of their complete documentation archives he quietly asks if there's any porn included. Judging by the way the crewmen smile there may in fact be some in there.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Adama sends in a Marine strike team to rescue Tyrol and Helo, Cain threatens him, and this is his response:
  Adama: I'm. Getting. My. Men.
• Rape as Backstory: Gina, who was raped by the Pegasus crew prior to encountering Galactica.
• Rape as Drama: Both Gina (prior to Pegasus encountering Galactica) and Sharon (near-rape; actual rape in the extended cut) suffer this at the hands of Alistair Thorne, one of Cain's loyal lieutenants.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The fact that Pegasus crew members have been raping Gina, and tried to rape Sharon, is used to show their lack of morality, in addition to the revelations that Cain murdered her original XO and cannibalized a civilian fleet, as established next episode.
• Re-Cut: The episode overran by several minutes, but didn't have enough material to justify an extended timeslot. The episode was aired as a standard 45 minutes and an extended cut which restored the additional 11 minutes was released on DVD. The most noticeable changes are the addition of a scene at the beginning that shows why Roslin is aboard Galactica when Pegasus appears (she's there to discuss Starbuck's desired mission to return to Caprica and rescue Anders's rebel group) and the full version of Thorne's interrogation of Sharon, which makes clear that he did begin raping her before Helo and Tyrol arrived.
• Sensor Suspense: The Pegasus initially appears as an unidentified contact on DRADIS. After a tense moment of worry that it's the Cylons it starts sending Colonial codes which, once verified, confirm it's an ally.
• Similar Squad: The Pegasus crew are very similar to Galactica's (right down to many of them being the same gender as their counterparts), but have been changed as a result of Cain's militaristic actions:
  • Cain and Adama
  • Tyrol and Laird
  • Tigh and Fisk
  • Lee and Cole Taylor
  • According to Word of God from the episode podcast, the writers considered having there also be someone who was higher up in the line of presidential succession than Roslin, but decided it would be a bridge too far.invoked
• There Is Another: Galactica finally meets the Pegasus, who was trailing a Cylon fleet and discovered them accidentally instead.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Cain assumes control of both ships, and tries to enact military decisions on her own, to the point of causing a standoff between the Pegasus and Galactica crews.
• Villain Has a Point: None of the criticisms Cain levels at the unorthodox way the Galactica is run are off the mark, as the writers admit in the episode podcast. The trick, of course, is that she's completely blind to how her own behavior since the homeworld attack would in different circumstances get her, at best, put on desk duty for the rest of her career (and at worst, a formal bullet in the head for committing mass murder).
• Wham Episode: The discovery of the Pegasus causes a whole new set of problems for the fleet, and the episode ends with both sides seemingly going to war with each other.

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