“Flesh and Bone” is episode eight of season one of the new Battlestar Galactica.
President Roslin is clearly asleep and having a strange dream about Leoben Conoy, the humanform Cylon encountered at Ragnar Station, being in a forest with him and some Colonial Marines, before her gets sucked away. She jolts awake and Billy asks if she’s okay. Fine; just side effects from the drugs. Billy says there’s been a call from the Gemenon Traveller; they have a Cylon onboard.
Roslin speaks to Adama; the captain of the Gemenon Traveller identified the man as another copy of Leoben using the photo they sent out. Apollo and Tigh are on the call and Apollo asks where Leoben is now. In a locked storeroom on the ship. Adama wants the Traveller isolated and escorted by the CAP and will send a team to destroy Leoben. The president wants Leoben interrogated first. Adama warns that Leoben will attempt to confuse whoever speaks to him. Roslin says to send someone not easy to confuse. She wants Leoben interrogated. That’s an order.
The commander heads to see Starbuck, who is working on the captured Cylon Raider. They’ve made a bit of progress on the Raider. Adama is sending her to speak to Leoben and gives her the after-action report of Leoben. He’s cunning and manipulative, mixing lies with truth. He’ll try to get into Starbuck’s head. Her mother always said there was nothing there. Adama warns Starbuck to be careful. Leoben has an agenda and a goal not understood until later. Her goal is to make sure he doesn’t achieve that goal.
Boomer is being creepy with the Raider again. Chief Tyrol is there; there’s awkwardness. Boomer wanted to know if what she told him about treating the Raider like an animal, not a machine, worked. it did. How did Boomer come up with the idea anyway? Boomer says she’s a Cylon. Tyrol says that isn’t funny. Maybe not, but it happens to be true. Boomer wonders if proving she wasn’t would make a difference.
On the Gemenon Traveller, Starbuck talks to the captain outside Leoben’s cell. They talk about the fact that Leoben is sweating. Starbuck finds the fact they do interesting and enters the room. Leoben says he was praying. He won’t tell her how many Cylons are in the fleet and wants to know her name. His mission? To conduct sabotage. Leoben says he will cooperate, if Starbuck tells him her name. She won’t and starts to leave. Then he asks her if she is Starbuck. Leoben claims he’s planted a nuclear bomb onboard one of the ships, set to go off at 18:30. He’s not ready to say where. And he knows she can’t risk this being a lie. Starbuck can’t and tells the commander, who orders radiological sweeps of all the ships. Adama also reassures Starbuck there are many ways Leoben could have found out her callsign.
Starbuck returns to Leoben, who talks about gods and god, and that he has a surprise for her, something to tell her about the future. But they have to see it through to the end. A meal is brought for Starbuck, which she says is even worse than Galactica food. Yes, Leoben can eat it. Why does he bother with hunger? Because it’s part of being human. Starbuck then has Leoben hit. Did that hurt? Machines shouldn’t feel pain, bleed, sweat. Leoben could turn off the pain. But that would make him a machine, not a person. The only way to avoid the pain is to tell Starbuck what she wants. Like a human would. That’s only the start of a pretty violent interrogation.
Meanwhile, Gaius is working when Boomer comes to see him. She asks if he’s working on a test to tell the difference between Cylons and humans. If he was, he couldn’t talk about it. Boomer wants to be in the first batch. She reminds Gaius she saved his life. He owes her. Gaius admits that’s true. Number Six tells him to do it; the results will be intriguing. Gaius says the test is not quite ready. But he could use a beta test subject. He gets one heck of a shock when he does that.
On Caprica, Caprica Boomer meets with Number Six and Doral. It seems they are trying to get Helo to love her, and a cabin has been set up nearby. Caprica Boomer is to convince Helo to stay, start a life. If that doesn’t work, kill him. Can she do that? Well, possibly not. For some reason, the humanform Cylons seem to be trying to get relationships between them and humans.