“Lay Down Your Burdens: Part 2” is episode twenty of season two of the new Battlestar Galactica and the season finale.
At the end of the previous episode, “Lay Down Your Burdens: Part 1”, those on Caprica were under fire by the Cylons. They retreat to a fallback position when it suddenly goes quiet. The Centurions are not attacking.
President Roslin is complaining about being down in the polls and whether people are really that stupid or short-sighted. Tory tells her that the only issue people want to talk about is the planet. The president knows that settling on the planet will be a disaster for humanity and will not say otherwise to win an election. She guesses she’d better start packing up her office unless Tory has got a super-secret backup plan to win. Tory says there’s always a backup plan. The president is told a priest is arriving.
After 18 hours of waiting, Anders asks if Starbuck has any brilliant ideas. Fight the Cylons until they can’t. She wants to recon the area to figure out what’s going on. The Cylons have gone. One of the Capricans says to thank the gods. It’s Brother Cavill. Or at least another humaniform Cylon of his number. It looks like when Cavill told Tyrol he’d never seen the chief at the Cylon meetings he may have been quite literal. Cavill himself is with Roslin.
Tigh and Ellen are arguing about going down to the planet when he gets a call. Starbuck’s back. On the hangar deck, Starbuck asks if she’s good or what. She says there’s good news; the Cylon occupation of Caprica is over. They’ve left. The Cavill from Caprica says the Cylons are heading to greener pastures. Tyrol recognises him and goes for him, saying he’s a Cylon. Caprica Cavill says it’s true; he is a Cylon. He has a message. Take him to their leader. Adama orders he be taken to the bridge. Along with Boomer.
In the brig, Caprica Cavill tells Roslin he has a message; after that, she can do what she wants. The other Cavill is brought in, protesting he isn’t a Cylon. Until he sees the other. Caprica Cavill says the Cylons have changed their plans. The occupation of the Colonies was an error. The war heroes, a 6 and an 8, swung opinion on their side, as Number 6 and Boomer decided to do in “Downloaded”. Cylon and man will go their separate ways. No harm done. Adama points out the harm done. The Cavills don’t believe in God, a superstition, they claim. Roslin wants them thrown out the airlock to see if there really is a Cylon god.
On election day, Roslin is trailing when Tory whispers in her ear. Tory then goes and calls Tigh, who nods to Dee, who goes and intercepts the votes from the Zephyr. And suddenly Roslin is over the top and has won. Zarek and Gaius are listening. Zarek says he’s seen a lot of elections, most honest, a few fakes. You can always tell the fakes because they don’t make sense. And this doesn’t make sense. Gaius says Roslin isn’t corrupt or dishonest. It’s over.
Adama is congratulating the president as Gaeta is looking over the Zephyr votes. He calls Colonel Tigh over. The ballots are wrong. There was a mistake on the Zephyr ballots; they’d misspelled Gaius’s first name. There was no time to print new ones so they used the misprinted ballots. These ballots lack the error. Someone has altered the votes. Tigh says he will deal with it and dismisses Gaeta. Don’t tell the press or the observers. Gaeta calls the admiral, though, and says he believes Tigh is involved in a conspiracy to rig the election.
Adama didn’t know but Roslin admits it’s true. And says that, when she was dying in “Epiphanies”, she remembered seeing Gaius with the tall blonde Cylon model. Gaius is working for the Cylons. Neither Adama nor Roslin think having Gaius in charge is a good idea, but the fraud has been discovered and Adama wants an honest election.
Many things go wrong in the episode; Gaius winning the election is just the start of their problems. And there’s a big time skip too. No cliff-hanger, but massive changes for season three.