Early in tonight's episode, as Lt. Gaeta kicks off a revolution by secreting Vice-President Zarek out of the brig and off to an escape vessel, Zarek stops to lecture him. As he tells Gaeta, he knows a thing or two about revolutions. "Success doesn't hinge on some grand operatic idea or the will of the people. It hangs on the cumulative moments, each one building on the next, and it can be lost with the slightest hesitation."
That first part's important. There is no great idea behind the revolution tonight. Instead, we get an hour of chaos, betrayal, and petty score-settling. We hear several references to Pegasus, the evil twin of the Battlestar Galactica, which is fitting: this season, the two ships have a lot in common.
As we learned in Razor, the Pegasus escaped the Cylon attack thanks to a fluke and found itself aimless and alone. The Pegasus had no mission. That's why Admiral Cain had to invent one – telling her crew that they would wander through space, making guerilla attacks on the Cylons and surviving pretty much for the sake of it, and anyone who didn't like it would get a bullet in the head. Pegasus didn't have a mission, but it had discipline, and that was the one thing that kept them sane in the void.
Having discovered that Earth is a bust, the Galactica and its fleet have no mission, either. They've been arguing about tactics – should the humans accept Cylon technology on their ships? And they've argued about politics – can the humans and Cylons form a permanent alliance? That proposed alliance, which would take the Cylons who have cozied up to the humans and make them full-fledged citizens and partners for the future, is the cause of the war that starts in tonight's episode. But all of these arguments take place against the knowledge that Adama's only plan is to keep scratching lottery tickets until humanity wins a grand prize, or runs out of algae. They have nothing concrete to wish for, and without that, the only thing that could keep everyone in line is discipline.
We already know that Adama and Roslin, newly fluttering lovebirds who are chronically shirking their responsibilities, don't feel like leading the fleet. But there are subtler clues about their neglect. Early on, in the CIC, Adama notes that the civilian ships are resisting the decision to work with the Cylons. He remarks offhandedly that if they're going to have to send marines onto every single ship to get them to follow orders, "you can kiss this alliance goodbye." He may have encouraged a human-Cylon alliance, but it's not like he's going to shoot anybody to make it happen. Admiral Cain could tell him how well that's going to work out.
So while Adama and Roslin snooze, Gaeta and Zarek kick off their revolution, and this week's episode brilliantly captures the lawlessness and chaos – the lack of any "grand operatic idea." I take back what I said last week about Gaeta: he and Zarek are the perfect characters to set this in motion. And they're perfect because they're basically nobodies. They're both background players. They don't present an alternative to the Adama/Roslin administration; they just know how to tear it down. You don't really root for them, but you believe that they could succeed.