“Six of One” is episode two of season four of the new Battlestar Galactica.
At the end of the previous episode, “He That Believeth in Me”, Starbuck was holding a gun on the president. Tigh, Helo and marines are now heading there; Tigh tells the marines not to shoot the president. Helo wants to talk; Tigh says they can until the first bang. He then tells Adama in CIC.
Starbuck tells the president to move and that she wants to hate her. She went down to a planet for the president, which turned into a toaster party. She trusted the president on a vision. That was it. Starbuck has seen Earth with her own eyes and it’s calling her back. They’re going the wrong way. Why can’t the president trust Starbuck? She hands Roslin the gun. Shoot her if she thinks Starbuck is a Cylon. She’s no more a Cylon than Roslin. Roslin wishes she could believe it. Starbuck goes through what she’s done. These people are her family. Roslin should shoot her if she thinks Starbuck is a Cylon.
Roslin shoots, and misses at point blank range. Marines come in and Starbuck is hustled to the floor. She’s losing the way to Earth. It’s getting weaker, slipping away even without jumping. If they keep jumping, they’ll never find it again. Starbuck thought Roslin wanted to find Earth. If they want to stop Starbuck, they’ll have to kill her.
On a Cylon basestar, a Hybrid is babbling. Natalie Faust, a Leoben and an Eight speak to a Cavil. They think the Final Five are in the human fleet, based on what the Hybrid said and that the Raiders refused to fight. Cavil doesn’t believe them and says it’s forbidden to discuss the Final Five. He talks about their programming and that of the Raiders. Cavil believes the Raiders are malfunctioning and have to be dumbed down. They are tools, not pets. Faust says he has no authority without a majority vote. Cavil thinks he will win one. And is sure the Final Five are anywhere but with the humans. He’s certainly wrong about four of them.
Those four are now meeting. Tigh says Starbuck is crazy but more Starbuck than ever. They wonder who the missing Cylon is. Tyrol says that on the algae planet, Gaius Baltar was talking to D’anna in the temple. She saw something; if she talked, Gaius might know something. Maybe he knows who the fifth is. Maybe he knows what they are. Tigh wants to get to Baltar. He basically wants Tory to be a honey trap. She is not impressed with that suggestion. Tigh says she doesn’t have to go all the way.
Adama heads to see Starbuck in a cell. She manages to provoke him into going for her. She laughs as he leaves, saying they’re going the wrong way.
The Cylon vote seems to be deadlocked, as there are only six Cylon models, with the D’anna’s being boxed. Cavil says he’s machine enough to admit he’s wrong. Something extraordinary happened. He calls an 8. Boomer. She voted against the rest of her model, and for lobotomising the Raiders. Faust thinks this is wrong, but nothing actually forbids it. She’s annoyed at what Cavil wants to do to the Raiders. Cavil says he’s a mechanic. The Raiders are designed to do a specific job and he’s fixing them.
Apollo and Adama are in the pilots’ ready room, where a party is going on to celebrate Apollo leaving. Apollo makes various toasts, ending with one to absent friends.
Tory does start spying on Gaius Baltar. During the conversation, Gaius starts seeing another version of himself. In fact, it looks like the Gaius Baltar that Caprica Six sees. Which is more than a little peculiar and suggestive that perhaps both sets of visions are real, in their own way, and perhaps caused by external forces. Meanwhile, Faust is still very not happy about Cavil’s plans for the Raiders and this causes friction amongst the Cylons.