NFB Re-Watches Battlestar Galactica Season Four: “The Hub”

Double dealing, it’s very human.

Air Date: 06/06/2008

Director: Paul Edwards

Writer: Jane Espenson

Synopsis: Jumped away from the Fleet, the joint force of rebel Cylons and Colonials press ahead with their operation to destroy the Resurrection Hub, with Helo at the heart of a conspiracy. Roslin is confronted by a ghost from the past who challenges her morality. Baltar faces a life-or-death emergency.

Review

“The Hub” is the other half of the coin from “Sine Qua Non”, where we follow those who were on the rebel basestar when it jumped away, and attempt to make sense of the many clues we were given in that last episode. In the process we get a singularly great exploration of one critical character, and a few other great explorations of others. It completes the circle of what is one of the show’s best two-parters, and has left me seriously questioning whether the memories of a sub-par Season Four were accurate.

Roslin makes this episode. Much like Starbuck in “Maelstrom”, she undergoes her own vision quest in “The Hub”, complete with a spirit guide in the form of someone she used to know. It’s interesting, and maybe somewhat appropriate, that the guide in question is Elosha, being as she was Roslin’s main spiritual advisor in years past. But I have wondered, upon first viewing and since, if it wouldn’t have been better is the production crew could have gotten Paul Campbell to make a return as Billy here, given that the two characters had a closer bond. Scheduling conflicts apparently prevented this, which is a shame. Elosha is more than good enough in the role, which is a little bit of Ghost of Christmas Future, and a little bit of revelation.

It’s she who gives Roslin a tantalising glimpse of what might be, as she essentially gets to view her own death in Galactica’s medical bay. One must always be looking for the point of such visions, and I feel like the point here is to remind Roslin of the people around her who care for her deeply. There’s Adama of course, whose reaction to the death of Roslin comes with an acknowledgement of the depth of their relationship, as he slips a ring on her finger. There’s Apollo, and even Starbuck, who are portrayed as figures lost without Roslin’s guidance. But there’s a feeling of warning, of something warped, in these glimpses: this is the future Roslin might have if she strays from the path, where an inevitable death ends up having meaning for those close, but less meaning on the cosmic level.

The deeper conversation is on just how moral a person that Roslin is, with the President suddenly taking up the mantle of being a representative for the entire human race in that regard. From the Miniseries a core theme of BSG has been whether humanity is worthy of the survival it is seeking, and Elosha here seems to boil down that question of worthiness to whether or not Roslin is capable of saving the life of her most hated foe when she has every opportunity, and arguably every motive, to let him die. On the road to Earth, it’s another hurdle that must be overcome, another test to pass.

Baltar, for his part, is in a few uncomfortable situations onboard the basestar. Moving from a position where he is being, quite literally, adored by the people around him to one where he is despised is already bad enough, but then the Hybrid decides to show him up by refusing to co-operate with his efforts to interact, having previously been successful with such things in episodes like “The Passage”. “The Hub” plays this up for laughs, and we do get a few good comedy Baltar moments out of it, not unlike “He That Believeth In Me” and “Six Of One”. But the more serious subtext is there too, namely that Baltar is not as powerful as he thinks he is. He’s perhaps gotten a bit too used to being the man in charge, the man with the link to God.

Maybe that’s why he decides to try his luck with the Centurion that he ends up preaching to. It’s another instance where the show attempts to draw a parallel between Baltar and Christ, with Baltar trying to get across his message with his very own parable of a dog having to wait for permission to eat. It’s only a few lines but the interaction – if we could call it that given only one person is speaking – is fascinating. The Centurions are a real wild card in all of this, and the model that we see here does give some indication that he is interested in what Baltar has to say about God and slavery. Baltar appears to be inciting the Centurions to a larger insurrection, which aside from tying into the cyclical nature of things in BSG, adds yet another layer to this Cylon Civil War. The entire conflict began when machines rose up against their biological masters: we saw in “The Ties That Bind” that the Centurions are now capable of sentience aren’t deadset on just following orders. Are they now going to be put in a position where they follow the Baltar cult as well?

The sermon gets cut off by an explosion, with Baltar wounded. High on morpha, he finally gets the opportunity to make his greatest confession: that he, albeit not consciously, aided the Cylon attack on the Colonies. His “soul-crushing guilt” for the act has been washed away by his belief in the One God, a being of such benevolence that it forgave him the moment he committed the act. There’s a selfishness in that ideology of course, that harks back to Tory Foster’s comments on “bad becomes good”, but an attractiveness too: if God created Baltar, then Baltar is an extension of God’s perfection, therefore his acts are a further extension of God’s perfection. Baltar’s heavy conscience luxuriates in the idea of being an anthropomorphic “Flood”, absent will or blame, that cleanses humanity as God requires. He’s not so far gone into the idea that he will admit it publicly of course, or without the influence of hard drugs. But this is Baltar now, a man who has fully embraced the power of the One since it wipes clean his slate, something that will naturally make one consider Lee Adama’s acceptance of the Presidency in “Sine Qua Non”.

Witnessing this confession/message, Roslin gets her chance to make Baltar go away for good, which for many people would represent a just act. But it isn’t enough for it to conform to a state-centric definition of treason. As Elosha, or whoever this avatar is representing, outlines, the argument is brutally simple: bad people feel their deaths as much as good people, and the human race cannot be neatly separated into good and bad anyway. Attempting to do so only reflects poorly on the people doing the separating. It is a very hard lesson for Roslin to learn, given that it comes after Baltar finally admits to someone else what his role in the Cylon attack was, something Roslin has been gunning for him about since “Epiphanies”, but it is a critical one. Roslin is the “dying leader” of Pythia, so her ability to value human life, to love, is especially important: Elosha gently guides Roslin to the point where even Baltar’s life has value and his murder is not something we can dub morally correct. In coming to that point Roslin demonstrates her own capacity to forgive, or at least not to settle into the poisonous role of solely determining who deserves to live or die. And in doing that, she demonstrates the capacity for love – which, in this context, can simply be seen as a general respect for the sanctity of human life – for the entire species. In this grand cosmic game, it’s a rare point in humanity’s favour, even as they battle to remove the power of resurrection from their enemies.

Roslin repents of her deed in time, and Baltar is saved. And it is a repentance: just look at her desperation to block up that wound, and the way in which she calls out for Baltar not die. She’s learned that, for now, she needs to put away the hard President who told Apollo how difficult it was to weigh the lives of so many people in “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner?” and become someone who values, and loves, life. Her reward is a reunion with Adama, where she gets to outline a more traditional form of love, one more focused, that has been a long time coming. The future where Roslin dies without having made that connection is banished: what she will get instead is very much up in the air, but will at least be a future that comes with a more open affection and less in the way of regrets. She, and the human race, are better off for it, even if “The Hub” essentially outlines that Baltar is never likely to face justice for what he was a part of on the Colonies way back when.

All of this stuff is good enough, but “The Hub” does also have glimpses of other really enjoyable plots, just without the same sticking power. Helo is presented with his very own unique Ship of Theseus problem, as he is presented with an Eight who is the exact same physically as his wife, and appears to have all of the same memories of their time together, and it is strongly indicated carries the same level of affection for him: but she isn’t his wife, as Roslin states to him. Or maybe she is. BSG isn’t going to give us an easy answer to that question, but it is fun watching Helo squirm a little bit with the implications, as he gets drawn unwillingly into a scheme to betray the Cylons and this Eight, which for her certainly constitutes a betrayal on a par with Helo doing the same to Athena.

Helo is very uncomfortable in “The Hub”, cast once again into the role of being the abused minority, just like he was in “The Woman King”, just like he was in “A Measure Of Salvation”, just like he was in “Flight Of The Phoenix”, just like he was in “Home (Part One)”. He just gets all the rough breaks, does Karl Agathon. I do think that Helo is perhaps the most fundamentally honest person in the show, or maybe we could say the most morally driven, so being put in a position where he has to lie, to subterfuge, is one that is never going to get on well with. The question can be asked as to why Helo goes along with it in this case, when he didn’t in previous episodes: I suspect it’s a mixture of knowing that he can’t go against the President’s orders again and expect to get away scot free, and an ingrained respect for a military mission with a clear goal. That, and we’re very close to his last bout of mutiny, from “The Road Less Traveled” and “Faith”, which ended up having near fatal consequences.

The problem with this sub-plot is in what was cut, which is extensive. When Helo sees the rows of Eight’s on the Hub, D’Anna is meant to taunt him with the idea that he can just get a new Athena whenever he wants, something that unnerves him. Later, in the scene where Helo reveals the duplicity, the Eight is meant to be shot by a Cavil who has boarded the rebel basestar, before he in turn is shot by Helo: Helo is then grief-stricken by the sight of the dead Eight. The latter material especially would have added greatly to the sub-plot, and explained why this particular Eight never shows up again, as well as tying into the episode’s general theme of death becoming permanent for the Cylon race. I would go so far as to say that the writers/editors/whoever really dropped the ball here in not finding time for this extra moment, which would have rounded out the episode nicely.

Over on the Cylon side of things – well, the Cavil faction anyway – we also get a few interesting titbits. Cavil seems to know that he has worked himself into a not especially great situation, and is looking for a way out. Hence why he goes back on his previous word from “Rapture”, and unboxes D’Anna. One wonders what he is really hoping to accomplish with such an act. Perhaps he really does think that he is in a position to get D’Anna and her larger model onto his side, and thus tip the scales in favour of his faction. But if so it is a dreadful mistake: Biers has seen the Final Five, and that makes her the biggest Cylon rebel of them all. Cavil is just, to borrow a phrase, too clever by half: so convinced of his own intelligence and correctness that he routinely does things that end up blowing up in his face, as he can’t relate at all to those who are not so convinced of his own intelligence and correctness. The arrogance masks a certain weakness then, and the cost to the Cylons in “The Hub” is huge.

On the other side of the Cylon divide, I have to give “The Hub” some kudos for the way that it is swilling to let the audience hang a bit with the conclusion. D’Anna knows who the Final Five are, but she isn’t telling anybody anything just yet, and while this kind of extension of the plot would probably annoy me usually, I think that “The Hub” is good enough to justify it. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I can appreciate “The Hub” a bit more than I might have done at the time, since the coming revelation is already well known to me. BSG isn’t stretching things out in other words, it’s teasing it out: the stage is set for a hell of a continuation.

Before we finish up, I do want to take a little bit of time to discuss the structure of “The Hub”, and the way in which it manages to fit a fairly significant action sequence within the larger character-driven plot. This has always ben a strength of BSG, and comes to the fore yet again here, as we witness the fight over the Hub to some of Bear McCreary’s best work, the snippets of dog fights intersected brilliantly with Roslin, Baltar, and Helo’s parts in the more specific sub-plots. There’s a poetry to it that is very palpable, and very well carried off. The show has never really been about big space battles, though it has had more than a few – there’s the second part of the Miniseries, “The Hand Of God”, “Resurrection Ship (Part Two)”, “Exodus (Part Two)” and of course “He That Believeth In Me” – but there is something especially entrancing about this one. Maybe it is that music, discussed more below, maybe it is the uniqueness of seeing Cylon battle Cylon. Whatever it is, it is something. “The Hub” show that BSG can still fire on all cylinders when it needs to, succeeding admirably from a story and visual level.

God doesn’t want any of his creations to be slaves.

Notes

-“Two days ago” is how “The Hub” opens, which means everything that happened in “Sine Qua Non”, like choosing a new President, took place over a remarkably short period of time.

-Lorena Gale returns as Elosha, only a year before her own death by throat cancer aged just 51.

-Roslin experiences visions every time the basestar jumps. What should we call this environment? “The space between spaces”? It’s interesting that such a state induces visions, can we take it as some kind of connection to the divine?

-The count is down one. Given the timeline changes it’s unclear who this is, but might reference Pike?

-I love how Roslin just ignores Baltar completely, talking to others like he’s not there. Given what is coming, it’s good to re-affirm that hostility.

-Baltar goes as far as gently trying to calm the Hybrid by going “Shuuuuu”. It doesn’t work, of course.

-The Hybrid is apparently capable of being upset, and of knowing when Cylons outside of the basestar have been killed. It gets deeper and deeper with these things.

-Helo and Eight’s plan is pretty good, in terms of fooling the enemy Cylons and gutting the Hub as quickly as possible. It also puts the Colonials and the rebel Cylons in an immediate position where trust is critical, which is important for this episode and what’s coming.

-The massage that this Eight offers is a very intimate gesture for Helo. It’s been a while since the show has tackled shared memories among the Cylons, maybe as far back as “Home (Part One)”? This indicates that such memories can induce feelings, maybe even of love.

-Roslin promises that she will “give it back to Lt Pike” in reference to the Raptor she has sequestered herself in, which is a clever way of reminding the audience just who was found dead in it during the events of “Sine Qua Non”.

-Cavil doesn’t have a great deal of time for D’Anna’s protestations that she never thought she would go through resurrection again: “I lied”. Amid all the deception going on he is forthright I’ll give him that, and in some ways this marks him out as his own man even more.

Case in point: he then refers to Boomer as “my pet Eight”. Given they are apparently meant to be in a relationship, this is fairly callous. She doesn’t seem to mind though.

-The Cylons apparently have pilot uniforms for the Heavy Raiders. I think this is the only time we see them though.

-A lot of trust is expected of the Colonial pilots it has to be said. One can understand their objections. They don’t all have Cylon spouses.

-It’s comical really, the way that Roslin and Baltar find themselves shouting at the Hybrid. What exactly is it that the two think is going to be accomplished with that?

-“D’Anna’s online, D’Anna’s online”. So the Hybrid is connected into the entire resurrection/boxing system? How does that work?

-Elosha suggests that “a body of people is only as strong as the body of its leader” which Roslin rejects. She’s a little stumped at the suggestion that “the soul and the spirit” of a populace reflects that of its leader though.

-Callis does as good a job as possible as he paces back and forth in front of the Centurion. It’s a rare example of a BSG cast member having to act purely in front of nothing.

-I like that Helo has the gumption to press Roslin a bit on the morality of her plan, and on her intentions for Earth, it’s important that we see that. But she has no time for his wavering when it comes to the Eight’s: “You’re not married to the whole production line”.

-The effect of the Vipers being towed by the Heavy Raiders to akin to military gliders, like those that swooped in on Normandy in 1944.

-“Permanent death? That makes this all the more meaningful”. Of course when D’Anna kills Cavil with these words, the Hub is still operational, so presumably he has the time to resurrect.

-The battle for the Hub is an under-noticed one in BSG I find, but really well put together. There’s a big effort to make it operatic in movement, and the end result is quite good.

-The music here is the entrancing “Resurrection Hub”, something a bit different from McCreary: it has the drums, but is more notable for this strangely moving violin piece that accompanies them, whose lack of military theme serves to make the larger battle seem stranger.

-The Hub set is pretty basic really, just a slightly re-tooled version of the basestar. They could maybe have tried a bit harder with that.

-Pike’s fate is a bit confusing to me. He jumps all the way back to Galactica after being told this is impossible?

-The CGI for the explosion that wounds Baltar is pretty bad. Presumably most of the budget was going on the battle outside.

-A doped Baltar immediately starts treating Roslin like a woman he is seducing. But of course. He’ll always revert to the mean.

-“I gave the access codes to the Cylons”. How long have we been waiting for this to become an incontrovertible part of Baltar’s existence, publicly?

-Pythia apparently wrote about a flood that destroyed much of humanity, only ever mentioned in this episode. The “Deluge” is a common trope among many mythical and religious traditions, so it makes some sense that it would be replicated here.

-Like the way the camera is allowed to settle on Baltar’s wound, drip, drip, dripping his life away.

-Love that shot of the bloodied Raider in the midst of this battle. Always good to be reminded of their biological nature.

-The Hub destruction is a well constructed image, and I liked that it briefly resembles a glowing sun, a vision of life compared to the death it represents.

-With that destruction, the entire line of Three’s, bar the one that escaped, has been lost. She’s a true individual among the Cylons now.

-“And with a whimper, every Cylon in the universe begins to die”. This is presumably a nod to the famous closing lines of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”: “This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper”.

-Eight suggests that with the parity of mortality, human and Cylon can now start “trusting each other”. If only.

-The variation of “Roslin And Adama” that we hear at this point is “Roslin And Adama Reunited”. It has a triumphant ring that I really like.

-In Roslin’s vision, she see’s Adama putting a ring on her bodies finger. The meaning really couldn’t be too much clearer.

-Roslin, having come to her senses, is almost pathetic when she says “Please don’t go Gaius”. Using his first name is notable.

-“Double dealing, it’s very human”. D’Anna is perhaps a bit too sure of herself in these scenes.

-As ridiculous as it is, I do enjoy D’Anna’s fake-out reveal that Roslin is a Cylon, and Roslin’s deadpan reaction. It even gets a musical sting before D’Anna laughs it off.

-“All of this deception, a complete waste of time”. If the last three episodes have done nothing else, they might have forced people like Roslin to fully consider an abandonment of the double-dealing that brought them here.

-“Elosha” tells Roslin that this game of gods and God is “not a vending machine” where the right action leads the way to Earth. It certainly seems like that isn’t far off as a description though.

-We’ve covered it before, but again in the view from Adama’s Raptor we can see several constellations that are viewable from Earth. They must be pretty close to Earth, unless it’s just another continuity error.

-“Galactica, my home”. Roslin is moving on from the Presidency with these words, and accepting something very different.

-Adama’s own brand of faith, and bravery, is rewarded in this deeply moving reunion scene. I’m not crying, you are.

–BSG touches on Empire Strikes Back with its brilliant final lines. “I love you” “…About time”.

Overall Verdict: BSG heads into the pivotal moment of Season Four thus far on the back of an extremely strong two-part split here, with “The Hub” ably complimenting “Sine Qua Non”. The central Roslin plotline is very strong, and is complimented nicely by its inclusion and use of Baltar. The Helo plot has promise, even if it is undercut by some of the editing choices. And it all comes on the back off one of the show’s best visual set-pieces. A lot of work has been done in this season, and now we head towards a fateful revelation.

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