Battlestar Galactica

Episode #220 - "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

49,550 survivors in search of a home called Earth.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

Ron Moore's Commentary

1/4/2006 -- We throw some real curveballs. There are some pretty major changes in how we do business. It's really going to catch people off guard. (source: Chicago Tribune)

2/1/2006 -- Question: With the US State of the Union [last] night, I was wondering whether or not Madame President gives anything similar on the state of the Colonies -- are we getting more politics a la "Colonial Day"? Maybe some elections soon? Your podcasts have seemed to indicate that we might.

I don't know if there's an equivalent to the State of the Union or not, it's something to think about for the future. However, there will definitely be more political intrigue this season, leading up to the presidential election itself -- which is going to be a doozy.

3/10/2006 -- I'm very proud of the show. I like it because ultimately where it goes at the end. It's a risky show. It's pushing the boundaries of what the show is, what your preconceptions of the show should be. By the end of the episode, once we make the giant leap forward, you start feeling like "Oh my God, anything's possible. What are these maniacs doing?" They've really dynamited the entire Galactica universe and started over. That's a really refreshing, fun thing to do in a television series because typically, you're making the same show week in week out, to a large extent. You're not varying the format so much that you're really challenging people, by and large... It's great to be able to really be true to what the premise of the show is, and take it into these sort of different directions periodically. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- For international consumption we actually had to do a one hour version and it's almost incomprehensible. And all the joy of this episode is just completely gone. It's just races you through little pieces... So for those of you in Spain, I'm really really sorry. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I like this little thing with Ellen and Tigh and the deal that they make in their marriage, because there was something important to me about saying that really it's a completely screwed up, dysfunctional marriage but it works for them. And they come to this place where Ellen says "How long?" and he says, "A year." OK, whatever, a year! And she actually stands by him. Ironically, fine at the other side of the job. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I wrote this in the script that this is Kara having to introduce the new boyfriend to her father. And I like the fact that he says "I'm more of a Picon Panthers fan, myself." (laughs) He couldn't resist! (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- This scene is one of my favorite Kara-slash-Katee scenes. This makes me love her. It's as hateful as she's ever been and yet there's something so pure about it and I get why you would fall in love with her and she's such a kid on some level. She's just this kid who's drunk. This is the happiest she's ever been. She's very human. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I've done a lot of scenes like this, where you have two characters in a split -- we did this all the time at Trek. There'd be the duplicates and they would have to act in the scene together. And I've seen that convention many, many times. I swear to God, this is the best I've ever seen it because Dean Stockwell, if you watch him, he is reacting in what seems like real time to himself and Dean had just planned every little beat of this sequence. Harvey and Michael Rymer were both telling me "God, I cannot believe Dean. He just seemed to have it all wired." Everything from his eyeline, looking around the guy, the looks, and the pauses. He knew exactly what the timing was on this kind of thing and I just think it's a great piece of work. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I saw a PBS documentary on the American Experience about Lyndon Johnson, and there was a thing of when he was running for the Senate or Congress or something. I think it was when he first ran to be senator from Texas, and there was some shenanigan that happened that he kind of skated through. There was a shot they had of a bunch of guys in Texas. It was a black and white still photo of a bunch of guys in Texas standing outside -- it's an exterior shot -- standing with a ballot box. They're all kind of leaning on the ballot box and grinning at the camera like the cat that ate the canary. And there's been rampant speculation that things happen in Texas that you probably shouldn't think about too much. But there was this great photo that they had of all these guys grinning, standing around a ballot box. So that was really informing me as I was writing these scenes that somehow it would center around a ballot box, about just slipping the ballots one way or the other. So it was really an anti-democratic thing! (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- Look at Tigh's face. He's just like the angriest dog in the universe. He's just like "Frak! This little pissant is now calling me on my stealing of the election and I gotta deal with this shit." (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- This is an interesting beat in the life of the show. Because you can certainly make the argument that no matter what they should just not let Baltar win. That they should just steal the election anyway. And it seemed really important that these two characters at the heart of a dysfunctional show that's about dark things happen and about how frakked up people are in many ways and how ofttimes they'll do petty stuff and they'll do the wrong thing in the right circumstances. And it seemed important that these two characters when you really got down to it, there was a line they wouldn't cross. They wouldn't steal a democratic election. They just wouldn't do it. No matter what the cost, they would not sell their souls that dear. Or they would sell their souls dearer than that, rather. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- It's pulling [Gina] out of thin air, to an extent, because she's not mentioned in the episode at all up until this point. And she wasn't in nineteen either. So she was in "Downloaded". In the original cut of "Downloaded" there were sequences with Baltar and Gina that we dropped in editing, so actually now we haven't seen Gina in several episodes. But it was important. It was part of the story. It was really part of all the events that were gonna propel us into the "great leap forward" as Mao might say and we had to do it. But we couldn't afford time to do other sequences with Gina in this particular episode. And we just went for it. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I was always intrigued by really subverting [the] audience expectation, and this idea of jumping a year forward was driven part by that, but also by the reality of the situation. Well, if you're going to get to a place where the settlement on New Caprica had any validity, where this move by Baltar down to the planet had any meaning, give it some time. Say that they got there, and they really tried to make it work. And a year. Give 'em a year on the planet... And do it not as an act break. Like, do it in the act. Just move a year forward and keep going and we just both became in love with it because the audience at this point is going, "It's a dream. They don't mean it. It's a Bobby steps out of the shower kind of sequence." (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- There's a great beat at the end of this, where after Tigh leaves and Adama's all by himself, Adama picks up the cigarettes, takes out a cigarette, and he breaks off the filter. I love that. It just says so much about the character. That the character used to smoke, and not only did he smoke, he was tough. "Frack this filter stick. I'm gonna smoke 'em pure." (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- This is what's called the union hall in the script. This speech of Tyrol's is a riff on the speech that Mario Savio gave in Berkeley, California in the 60's. In fact he gets a credit at the end. We contacted his widow and asked permission to use the speech, or to paraphrase the speech. And she was a lovely woman, and she gave us permission to do it, and then she kinda copped to the fact that actually because of that time, the way the law was, she didn't even have to give us permission. It was like, we could have done it anyway. But she embraced it. She appreciated the way we had done it. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- There's a little moment that flies by you there where Tigh and Kara embrace and they're friends, and how did they become friends? And it was all about giving little pointers and indicators to the thing that you'd missed. All this year had gone by and all these characters had moved on. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- You barely see it there but the cradle is the exact same one that Baltar saw in his visions... They called me about this. They said, "Can we use the same white cradle that he saw in the visions in 'Kobol'?" I was like, "Sure! Why not?" (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- This beat with Leoben and Anders and Leoben looking for Kara really plays pretty big into the first three episodes of next season. Why is he looking for Kara Thrace? Well, we'll find out next year. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I like the conflicted Baltar. He's not an outright villain. He's really, like, struggling, trying to do the best he can but he's a weak man. He's like a man driven by many, many flaws. And then in this moment he feels the need to act as the President. And this is all, essentially, a callback to the Nazis marching into Paris. People standing there watching the Nazi troops march by. And what can they do? They've surrendered and this is what it's gonna be. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/12/2006 -- We knew we were going to have to deliver an election, but elections tend to be boring things to watch on TV and they are usually sort of pat. I knew that I liked the idea of Baltar winning the election, but it seemed like if Laura really thought he was going to win it, she wouldn't just stand idly by. And I thought, there's an opportunity to do something about "What does it mean to live in a democratic society and how far are you willing to stand behind that idea?" and that Laura, given the character that she is, would do anything she could do to keep Baltar out of power, but when faced with it, she couldn't really break a fundamental idea about what it means to live in a democracy. (source: Pegasus Galaxy, at the Slam Scifi Summit in Pasadena)

3/26/2006 -- Question: The plot twist [of the finale] seems to share a lot in common with the DeSanto Galactica continuation story, where the humans think they are safe from the Cylons and revolt against the military by deciding to give up on Earth and to colonize another place called New Caprica. Were you at least partially inspired by this earlier concept?

No. I can honestly say that the idea for our finale was entirely home-grown. I had lunch with Tom DeSanto a few weeks back and we talked about the struggles we both went through trying to get our respective versions of the show off the ground. As he talked about his pilot concept, I shared many of the plot details from our finale and we both remarked on how some notions and ideas are simply either "in the ether" or have a certain inevitability to them. It's reminiscent of the "Babylon 5" vs. "Deep Space 9" questions I used to get. I was there when DS9 was being created and I knew for a fact that neither Michael Piller nor Rick Berman had any knowledge of the B-5 material, but when you're doing a series set on a space station, there were bound to be certain paths that writers found attractive (like having a female second officer, for instance). In terms of Galactica, the idea that the people of the rag-tag fleet might one day come across a planet and decide to settle down permanently, is an idea that would probably occur to anyone approaching the material, and it's really a question of how you execute that idea which is key.

3/27/2006 -- Question: What happened to Adama in the season finale to change him so much? Why would a man who spent decades of his adult life standing watch for the Cylon return suddenly give in and allow the military to stand down? How could he convince himself that the Cylons weren't coming back after 1 year when the last time they waited 40 years? He knew settlement was wrong so why didn't he offer any resistance?

I think people have a remarkable ability to convince themselves of just about anything. Adama, like everyone else in the fleet, had been constantly on the run, constantly under stress, and constantly in danger of losing his life for months on end, with virtually no break from the metal walls surrounding him day in and day out. When, finally, the people decided to end the long sojourn and settle on New Caprica, he had little choice but to comply with the results of a democratic election which hinged on that very question. And as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, people began to relax, to believe that maybe they had really turned a corner, had really found a place to lay down their burdens and start a new life. Adama was just as vulnerable to that attractive idea as anyone else, and as the men and women under him began to clamor for a new life, as the political leadership of New Caprica began to demand more and more military resources to support the civilian population, there came the point where Adama began to believe in the mirage too. He's not perfect. He never was. He couldn't bring himself to leave his ship, but as age and fatigue began to set in, he started to let down his guard just a little -- not all at once and never completely, but just enough.

There were also practical considerations. He was entirely alone out here. No Admiralty to call for reinforcements or intelligence, no Justice Ministry to prosecute soldiers who simply never came back from the surface of New Caprica, and no friendly ear in the office of the president to get needed resources for the military ships maintaining their lonely vigil up in orbit. He was alone and he was tired. It's almost as simple as that.

I remember one of my most vivid memories from the immediate post 9/11 period was opening up the newspaper and reading about a physical confrontation in the streets between members of the New York police department and the New York fire department. It was heartbreaking, it was infuriating and it was illuminating. People are people. Enormous events happen, history pivots around us and we tell ourselves that everything has changed, that we're irrevocably different from this day forward -- until the next time everything changes. Adama made a mistake. They all did. And as he is wont to say, they will all have to live with it.

3/27/2006 -- Question: What is up with the pudgified Apollo? Too much chunky munky B&J?

We're going to hint at some of the reasons for Lee's physical, er... changes in the first few episodes, then deal with it in more detail later. Overall, we're going to be hinting at a lot of things that happened in the intervening year over the first few episodes, then do more stuff with it later, as the season progresses.

3/27/2006 -- There are some permanent buildings in the settlement, but it seemed plausible that to start an entire city from scratch would be a massive undertaking to say the least. It also seemed that without a strong leader like Laura Roslin to helm this kind of effort, that the organizational problems would add up and that the project could easily get stalled or delayed. Now, add to that various unknowns like disease and unfamiliar weather patterns as well as the difficulties in exploiting the natural resources in a completely new environment, it didn't seem implausible that there'd still be a lot of people living in tents.

3/27/2006 -- Question: Why is the fleet so concerned [about] elections? They are running for their lives, so I would think holding elections would be the least of their problems.

I felt right from the beginning that question of who was in charge and how a democratic society would deal with this situation was one of the fundamental questions of the show. If democracy means anything, it means that people get to decide who their leaders are and what kind of life they choose to lead. And the operative word is "choose." Democracies are about choices, some made intelligently and thoughtfully, and some not so much. Adama and the Galactica were faced with an immediate question as to the role of the military in this surviving population: were they still the servants of the people, or were they the overseers? Adama's choice was to preserve the idea of their society, indeed of their entire civilization while still striving to protect them from their enemies both within and without. It was, and continues to be a difficult balancing act, but as he said in "Resurrection Ship": it's not enough to survive, you have to worthy of suriving.

If the military simply took choice away from the people of the fleet, if it simply decided that the senior commanders knew best and that was that, then the people out there in those ships become irrelevant. They're cargo. It's a military world and a military society and everything else is secondary. Down that road lies the cautionary tale of Admiral Cain and the battlestar Pegasus. One Adama and Galactica decided not to go down that road, then the entire panoply of democracy was in play -- representation by consent and elections to determine those representatives.

4/18/2006 -- [Cavil] was planning to reveal himself and deliver a message. Whether there was more to his plan than that is speculative at this point, and anything's possible, but our feeling is that was his primary function.

4/18/2006 -- I've talked about this before, but it's worth reiterating. Adama's deference to the democratic system is a fundamental idea in the series. These people have to make adult decisions for themselves and decide what kind of life they will have or not have as the case may be. Yes, they can be selfish and petty and make bad choices, but at least they will have done them through the democratic process and have no one to blame for their choices but themselves.

Who is Adama to take god-like control of the human race? Who appointed him to that position? And what makes him qualified to make those decisions? Consider the example of Admiral Cain -- she arrogated those kind of powers to herself and look at what happened. If they put themselves in the hands of the military and live under martial law, there's no check or balance in that system, no mechanism to rein in the officer who decides to go off the reservation and consider themselves above the law (at least in the Galactica scenario).

Laura Roslin is the legal president. Adama recognizes that as part of the covenant the professional military has always had with Colonial society: that they are the servants and protectors of the people, not their masters.

4/28/2006 -- The ending of season two was definitely influenced by [Vichy France]. Here's Baltar, the president, who is going to surrender and try to work with the Cylons under occupation. The Cylon march at the end is a direct reference to the Nazis marching into Paris. Stepping into the third season, we're going to take another time jump ahead a little bit. The occupation is full bloom, insurgencies are cropping up, there's a government that's trying to maintain order. You could make analogies to Vichy France and a lot of other places. (source: Seattle Times)

8/2006 -- We promised an election, and we already started moving pieces of the puzzle where it seemed clear that Baltar would be the one who would run against Laura. So, it wasn't so much about "Are we going to do an election?", but what it's going to be about. It had to be about something substantive, and we had this other idea kicking around from the first season about "What if they come across another planet that is a potential home? What if there are some people that want to stay and some people that want to go, so what would they do?" That's a natural place to center the election on, and then it became if we were going to have Baltar win, and we all wanted Baltar to win because it's more interesting and delicious as a story turn. Well, they move down to the planet, and then what? If the Cylons show up right away, then it was much ado about nothing. All the arguments never mean anything, because you never got a chance to see them colonize the planet.

So, we talked about how long it would take to get down there and settle, and we start talking weeks, months or a year. If you are going to do that, then what's the show? We didn't want to be completely planet-bound for a whole season, and it would take the Cylons out of it completely. It didn't seem like a practical alternative. We had discussions about doing a time jump, and it just seemed like the time to do it. The first discussions were about doing the jump in between seasons, where you see Baltar win and come back and have season three a year later. But that seemed pedestrian, and the more we talked about it, it came down to doing it in the show. It seemed like a great opportunity to surprise the audience and challenge their expectations of what the show is and where it's going. (source: Sci-Fi Magazine)

David Eick's Commentary

3/10/2006 -- This was the episode where I think we all agree that Tory was here to stay. She's a really interesting character. She's a very different energy than Billy was. I love the way Mary plays against her. She's a really nice foil in her own way for the Laura character, whereas Billy was sort of a professional sycophant. It was always impressive when he would stand up to her but it was a big shift for him. I think in a way we're playing the opposite rhythm with Tory. She's gonna be in Laura's face, maybe in some respects more than Laura wants her to be. I like that aspect of the character and she's capable of some nasty shit too. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- Michael Trucco who plays Anders is someone who's also going be back in season three and really has integrated himself in the cast in an interesting way. He's got a great scene coming up later with Kara and Lee. I think it's always interesting when you introduce a new actor into a dynamic that you're used to seeing a very certain way, it's hard for them not to stick out. Here you've got Helo and Kara and Anders here and I would say he sort of seemlessly weaves in. You don't really feel it. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- What's great about that scene is where he says "Go on, cat around." I love that because you're suddenly aware of the fact that Tigh knows. And it's great because you realize that they've got this unholy alliance where they sort of understand each other. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I like the look [Grace] has in her face when they're moving through the forest and you're not sure which side she's on, or if she's just terrified, is she worried because she might get taken out by one of her own people. And this glare right here she gives Helo is just so powerful. Grace is not someone who had done a lot of this before Battlestar Galactica... In a lot of ways, she gets the "Most Improved" award for the year. Not because she wasn't great in the miniseries and in season one, but she took it so seriously. She just dove into the training and really, really embraced the opportunity that she saw for herself and it's been great seeing her grow. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- She's definitely in an indulgent moment. She's not thinking about anything except her own thrilled happiness at having this guy back. And I think everyone's been in all three of these positions. We've all been the person thrilled to have our lover back with us. We've all been that guy or girl thrilled to be had back. And we've ALL been Lee, coveting and watching and wishing. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I was fighting the election episode tooth and nail every step of the way, until this became the issue... The thing I think was the breakthrough was the fact that there would be this attempt at stealing an election and suddenly that became the focus and that's where the drama was and it wouldn't be about the campaign, other than the fact that there's a televised debate in the previous episode which is great, great fun and great send up. I thought it was telling the percentage of the audience when we screened this at the director's guild the other night who got the "There you go again" reference. It was roughly twenty percent. Which was about right. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I've never heard any fan or seen any message board or gotten any email about a Rod Hardy episode versus a Michael Rymer episode versus a Jeff Woolnough episode. And Battlestar is unique in that we actually pay attention to that. Now I'm not saying other shows don't. But we imbue the director with a great deal of, I'll say, accountability. We have a lot of very specific things we want and we talk a lot about specifics but we also expect and demand that the director contribute and have the pride of ownership that I think comes with stronger episodes. So a lot of those details that we talk about and that we really like and that we sit and are surprised by are Rymer decisions because he sweats those things. Ron and I will sit up here in L.A. or even down at Vancouver, usually on the phone with each other back in L.A. worrying about the next one while Rymer's saying "I want that sticker [on the ballot box] to be like this, and not like that. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- I have to say this is probably my favorite Richard Hatch performance. That character's really had to evolve. The interesting thing about Richard is that for somebody who's got such a notorious association with the show, he was in the original, he was so vocal about our not doing the remake, to have very quietly and in an unassuming way emerge in the show as such a strong supporting character. We have him come up, I remember sitting on a plane with him once, we happened to be booked on the same flight, and he was flying up and he just comes and does it. He comes up for a couple days, he does his thing and goes home. Each time he's shown up he's been better, he's embraced the character more. He knows the lines cold, but there's this emerging subtlety to what he's doing and a confidence that I think he's built. That if you look at what he's doing in this episode against "Bastille Day," it's almost like two different actors. (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- This is a great transition, and again, a real testament to both James Callis and to Michael Rymer that the way he's lit, the way he's being shot, that dark shadow looming over his forehead. Baltar has become a threat. And it's sort of a callback to the miniseries when we viewed Baltar in that way where he was no, he's not afraid, he's not being funny, for sure. And there's nothing at all halting about his demeanor with this Admiral who he's been intimidated well by in previous episodes. He's now in command and it's everything Baltar's ever believed himself to be entitled to. And it's a great transitional moment to see him bitchslap Adama like this and walk away. At the same time there is that element of, you're standing up to the bully and you're a little worried of what he might do to you... Eddie didn't want to say this line. Did you know that? "Gods help us all." He felt that Adama wouldn't say that. He doesn't believe in God. Jack Levy said to Eddie, "Well, I don't believe in God and I say, "God damnit," all the time." And Eddie said, "OK." (source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- Bear in mind, you're watching a performance right here by a woman who two years ago was a supermodel who had not really done any acting before. And I would challenge you to find anybody else who looks like this, who can deliver a performance this layered, with this level of believability and texture and at the same time play a completely different character who's all about allure and forbidden fruit. She's really a remarkable discovery. And we're constantly pinching ourselves because, as some of you know if you've read up on it, she was the hardest one to get approved and, for good reason. The network was a bit reluctant because she'd never done anything before and she had to carry a lot of what made the miniseries work. And she's really quite somethin'.(source: Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II podcast)

3/10/2006 -- It's very scary watching this for the first time because, and still is in a lot of ways. How much is too much? Ron was very insistent and I was pretty resistant, actually, to how overt we needed to be with every character's little change... Everyone's got their little thing that's different and you'll see as we go on evidence of that and I felt that it would be enough. I just thought less was more. And I think Ron felt, and you'll see the biggest example of it coming up, that we needed to go for it and really make the audience understand that we're not kidding. It's not a dream. If you got up to go to the bathroom during the chiron that said "one year later", you still better be able to understand that something completely freaky has happened. And I have to say, in retrospect, this is an example where I'm glad I lost the argument because I do think you need to be overt here. You can't play it safe. You can't be to subtle about it. We might get some snickers when everbody sees Eddie's mustache, which is more to do with the actor's history than it has to do with the concept of it.

3/10/2006 -- There's a very naturalistic approach to the environment. "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" for you film buffs out there, served as a real visual template for how this was shot. Very long lens, so you're not obligated to build out a lot of the backgrounds. You're really focused on the people and it just looks like you're in this settlement.

3/10/2006 -- It's my favorite moment because honestly I've had this speech taped up on my wall at home, in my home office, for the last five years. I found it when I saw the documentary "Berkley in the Sixties" and this guy Mario Savio was just this kid in college who stirred up this hornet's nest about civil rights on the campus of Berkeley and when they got everything they wanted and they got the administration to step down and give the students their rights and everyone was just supposed to go home and smoke pot, Savio said, "Well, wait a minute. We still have a war to stop..." And this guy could have been President. He died a young man due to a weak heart, but really was a courageous guy and an inspirational guy... And I love that Aaron really studied Savio, too. All those little hand gesticulations he's doing are right out of the way he used to deliver speeches.

3/10/2006 -- I believe James stayed up all night and drank. He really damaged himself to do this. He really wanted to look horrible and there's only so much makeup and photography can do.

5/26/2006 -- There was a light from the nuclear blast that functioned as something of a signal to [the Cylons]. But what we're going to find is that they're not really going back on their word to the extent that their intent is -- technically, anyway -- peaceful coexistence with the human populace. There's a natural and inherent enmity between these two cultures, and we're going to see how that snowballs once again. It's not really about them violating any kind of truce, because their presence on the planet is merely a defensive position as far as they're concerned at the beginning. It's to ensure that they aren't attacked again. (source: TV Guide)

Commentary

"I don't think we've ever brought up the ovaries again [but] the way that we end this season with Starbuck, it's going to be a topic in season 3... You're going to look at the end of season 2 and go, what just happened? Apparently everybody did a double take when they saw the ending." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 1/3/2006 (source: LVRocks)

"By the end of season two, we're going to see Kara in a completely different light. She finally learns to trust someone and lets someone in completely. She's still feisty, but we'll see a completely different side of Starbuck." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 1/8/2006 (source: New York Metro)

"She definitely does [get more terrifying]. And then at the end of the season, you see her finally calm down, and she learns to love somebody. And she learns to be vulnerable, not only in private, but to somebody else. She finds somebody else with her feelings and her emotions. The outcome of their relationship will make her probably lose her mind. And she will probably be a goddamn renegade for quite a while. So you're not going to see the soft side of Starbuck for too long, but it will come out for the last couple of episodes." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 1/19/2006 (source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

"The tattoo thing [Kara and Anders have] was Michael Trucco's and my idea. The seed was planted by Ron Moore, but the actual artwork and the way it came together was done by Michael and I, and our friend, with a little bit of input from the makeup artist." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 10/5/2006 (source: IGN TV)