2.18
“Downloaded”
“Downloaded” is a true breath of fresh air for BSG. An episode that is almost all from the point of the Cylons. For the first time we really get a glimpse into the Cylon culture. We see the two most famous Cylons, Caprica Six and the Sharon that shot Adama.
We see a lot of flashbacks, which is an important element to the story as we see what we say just before we verge off the known trail into the other side. The first example is the Six that was with Baltar when the nuke hit. She is reborn on the Resurrection ship amongst a grouping of Cylons, which really brings the quesiton to life — How did Baltar survive the nuke? Maybe the question should be…DID Baltar survive the nuke? I don’t personally think Baltar is a Cylon, but I think he is somehow connected (a Cylon created clone or something possibly?)
Six has a hard time re-assimilating because she is deeply in love with Baltar. Amazingly we find out that as Baltar has a Personal Six, Six has a Personal Baltar–although this Baltar seems to have his stuff together. He acts as Six’s conscience and advisor. He advises her not to admit her feelings less they “box her up”.
We next jump to the other “Hero of the Cylons”, Sharon Valerii who is downloaded after being shot by Cally. She has flashbacks of all the clues she gave herself about her true identity and when she sees another copy of herself, she screams.
She has an even harder time assimilating so she moves into Sharon Valerii’s apartment of Caprica and holes up despite protests from the other Cylons.
As the Cylons rebuild Caprica for themselves, Three begins to congratulate Six on her re-assimilation and then ask for her help to assist Sharon to do the same. Inner Baltar tells Six to help her after Three mentions there’s been talk of boxing her up.
Caprica Six and Sharon have an intriguing dialogue that none of the Cylons could ever empathize with. They discuss love with the humans. Caprica Six empathizes with Sharon and confides that she loved Baltar. Sharon shocks Caprica Six by informing her that Baltar is still alive and now Vice President of the Colonies.
Six realizes that Three set her up and was trying to drive her mad. They move to a cafe where Three joins them. Six tries to throw Three off by telling her that Sharon has agreed to move out. Sharon follows Six’s lead.
Meanwhile we see Anders with a partner planning on some terrorist acts on Caprica. They plan to blow up the cafe and kill as many as forty “skinjobs”. They understand that the Cylons resurrect, but they also realize that the Cylons remember every detail, including their death. The hope is that enough “deaths” and they’ll abandon Caprica as uninhabitable.
The bomb Anders has set up goes off and destroys a lot of the cafe and Caprica Six, Three, and Sharon are involved in the wreckage. Three uses it as an excuse, trying to get Six to kill herself to be reborn, when in reality she wants to box her up.
It is soon realized that their status as Heroes of the Cylons, are the very reason Three wants them boxed up. They mess with the status quo and as celebrities could actually change some Cylon’s minds.
The three Cylons find Anders and Three moves in for the kill but the other two stop her, weakly suggesting they need to interrogate him. It becomes an interesting sequence as we see the two Cylons most responsible for the slaughter of mankind, and they might be the ones responsible for convincing the Cylons that it is a mistake. And we see how quickly some Cylons can turn against their own for “the common good”.
When Anders goes for a gun that Three has dropped to tease him, Three gets the drop on him, but Six kills her. Anders doesn’t exactly know what to do, but he isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he gets out of there.
Six and Three realize that they have about 36 hours before Three is resurrected due to the high amount of deaths in the cafe. It leads to an interesting status quo for the Cylons.
Meanwhile, there is very little story from the Galactica in terms of screentime, but it is pretty important overall. Caprica-Sharon goes into labor and has to have the baby. It is premature, and is put in the incubator. Helo and Sharon name the baby, Hera.
Roslin now feels it is her right and duty to decide how to handle this. While she doesn’t intend to kill the child, she does agree with Adama that since the Cylons were trying to create a hybrid, that it can’t be good for humanity.
Adama also suggests that if there are Cylons still on the ship, they will go after Hera.
The decision is made to fake Hera’s death and to give the child to a woman named Maya, without anyone knowing.
Sharon calls Cottle out on Hera’s death, calling him a murderer, while Helo spreads what he thinks are Hera’s ashes into space.
In an interesting twist, Baltar himself doesn’t know, and his Inner Six also does not know — so she’s not omniscient, as she sometimes appears to be.
This episode does a great job of both setting up future stories and at the same time allow us an intriguing look behind the scenes of the Cylons. More episodes like this are needed now and again to change up things for the status quo.
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