Black Market By Luke Hung
Scene opens, Lee is holding a gun on a black man. Yea, a man of African descent with some lines of dialogue, that great, but he’s going to get shot though, that’s bad. Can’t we all just get along? I know that actor, Bill Duke, from a number of smaller roles including Predator. “He was skinned alive!!” I loved that movie. We don’t get his name so he’ll be Duke until we do. Back 48 hours to set up why Lee is holding a gun on him. Another flashback, but since the flashbacks are brief, there is no talking, and my view on them have been stated in prior reviews I won’t go into it too much, but I’m tired of the temporal distortions. We see a woman is slipping out of a bed with Apollo, naughty, naughty. We get left there and jump to Roslin, who has decided to declare war on the titular Black Market.
Fisk and Adama both initially say no biggie, but Fisk flips and decides to jump on board at least superficially when Roslin won’t let go. He has a rendezvous with Baltar after the meeting and talks about the cigars he sent to him. Vice Presidency has its privileges, but personally I think Fisk is backing the wrong horse. Back to Lee who is having a few pangs of regret about the girl he left behind. I don’t know how worked up I would get about those regrets, she’s a pile of dust by now and he would be too if it had “worked out.” Also we find out that the woman in bed with him is a prostitute with a child. The child catches him dressing, which was delayed by him looking at a bottle of some sort of “medicine” and Apollo tries to make nice. Me, I would be running. I don’t need that kind of stress, when I’m relieving stress… if you know what I mean.
Fisk returns to his chambers and gets garroted, while Duke watches. I guess he won’t live to regret backing Baltar. Fisk clearly knew Duke before his execution. Two dead commanders in three episodes, note to the next Pegasus CO, do not move in to the commander’s quarters. Lee has another angst filled flashback and on to Dr. Cottle who states, “looks like he was garroted.” Thank you, Captain Obvious. If that’s all it takes to be a doctor, I could do it. He also extracts a gold cubit from Fisk’s mouth. Both Adama and Tigh debate over the murder and Adama assigns Lee to the investigation. Given how quickly he solved the sabotage mystery, I guess he’d be my man too. They have a father-son moment, ahh sweet.
Lee starts by examining the command quarters, I would have said Fisk’s quarters, but he wasn’t there long enough to stake a claim. However, his blood still is and I know that can stain. Not from personal experience, by the way. Lee immediately finds some cigars, cash, and a bracelet mark E.T. Soon afterwards Baltar bursts in. 1 + 1 = 2. Thanks, Baltar your timing is perfect. Holo-Six tries to prop up Baltar’s confidence with “You are the Vice President” and a snide comment about the solid version of herself and he does fairly well, but stammers as is his norm. You need to get that stuttering thing checked out doc.
Apollo informs Tigh and Adama of the cache of material and some interesting logs and they ascertain that Fisk was working the black market. Another flashback, we can tell it’s a flashback by the extra lights, which is nice because I like to see my past clearly. The prostitute is talking about how her daughter is sick and they can’t get any meds. Back to the present, and Lee busts Tigh for a little black market activity. E.T., Ellen Tigh, it honestly didn’t occur to me. That is pretty sad I’m embarrassed. Actually it was a pretty crappy looking bracelet to have engraved, but Ellen isn’t exactly a prize herself. Tigh looks a little sweaty and probably a little drunk. Lee gives him a little grief, but Tigh blocks his “moral superiority” attack with the “I’m rubber and you’re glue defense.” He also mentions that Lee hasn’t been the most innocent of officers of late. Ouch, the truth hurts.
More hooker flashbacks with a quickly worsening daughter, and Lee decides to punch the speed bag. Now that’s the moral way to relieve tension. Uh, oh, spoke too soon, in comes Dualla in a sports bra asking if Lee wants to “spar with her.” Dualla you can do better. Hmm, lets see, Tigh and Helo are taken, so there’s Billy, Lee, Adama, Gaeta, the Chief, Doc Cottle and Baltar, …okay maybe you can’t. I think I’m going to move to the Galactica, I think I could do pretty well. Well, Lee takes the cowards way out and doesn’t say anything, that’s a surprise.
Lee gets a panicked call from Cloud Nine, he runs to his little temptress and she makes some B.S. story about how they, meaning the black marketers, wanting to know what is going on. I guess running the black market doesn’t require 8th grade biology. Anyway it’s a set-up and Lee gets beat up and a little garroting for good measure. Duke offers a deal, he whacks the man who killed Fisk and gives him to Lee to wrap up his investigation, but that’s it. No further investigation of the black market. If I were on the receiving end of a choking, I would say that is very fair. Lee passes out. Commercials.
We return to more flashbacks about the girl he left behind, I would go further into it, but they don’t mean all that much aside from what I said before. Roslin meets with Baltar they make nice for a few seconds before she hits him right between the eyes with the secret Fisk meeting. He backpedals a little and she tries to finish him off, resign. “Consider it a second chance like the one you gave me.” Baltar scoffs, and she indicates it’s a one-time offer. Instead of slinking away, Baltar sacks up and say “I never wanted political office, until now.” Sometimes I could almost like Baltar then I remember he “unintentionally” destroyed the Colonies, killed billions of people, and still on some level is secretly in league with the Cylons. So that quickly passes.
The nameless doctor that checks on Lee quickly ascertains that the dead man in the prostitute’s room killed Fisk, which is a neat little bow on the mystery, just like Duke wanted. We get the prostitute’s name Shevon. They probably mentioned it earlier, but I guess I didn’t care that much. Zarek makes his entrance and give some minor plot details, primarily that he isn’t significantly involved in the black market, Duke’s name is Phalen, but drops the most important detail, that the freighter Prometheus is the heart of the corruption.
More flashbacks when we come back from commercials, and Apollo is on the Prometheus. He serendipitously walks past the cell Paya (prostitute’s daughter) is held in and tells her everything will be all right. I’m not sure about that. She’s already seen and been through enough to have her on a psychologist’s couch for years. He enters a bar and finds Phalen. A bunch of thugs eyeball Apollo and Phalen does a lot of talking to wrap up all the remaining loose ends of the episode. His father was a military man and for all his “honor” he is just as dead as those without, Shevon is one of his girls and she called Lee to set him up, which was a surprise to Lee but not to anyone else in the universe, and Fisk was an active member of the Black Market (although Zarek already told us this). Phalen goes one step too far though and mentions that he also sells children. Lee takes a step towards Phalen and everyone draws their guns.
Lee makes a counter offer, he wants Shevon, Paya, and Phalen out of the black market. Well, that doesn’t sound so great to me. Apollo got a better offer when Duke was having him choked to death and he says as much. Lee then takes a page out of Lethal Weapon and dares a baddie to shoot him. No? He kicks his butt and takes his gun. Phalen says he can’t kill him because he’s not like him. Apollo has a brief flashback, and puts one into his chest. Well that’s frontier justice. Nobody else moves. Apollo basically gives the remainder the carte blanche to keep running the black market, but no kids, no essential drugs. He tries to take his girl and ride into the sunset, but she denies him. Good for her, I wouldn’t ride off with Lee either, but that’s got to hurt. I’d rather be a prostitute than be your girlfriend. She also clears up some of the flashbacks, Lee’s girlfriend, who looks a lot like Elisa Cuthbert, either was pregnant or wanted to get pregnant and Lee said no.
Lee later is seen giving a half assed report to Roslin. She is displeased with his results, but Adama backs Lee and Roslin gives in. Well a whole lot of nothing got done. Zarek is seen in the black market, perhaps filling the void left by Phalen and Fisk. Dualla is working out with Billy. Billy you’re second choice, man have some pride, you don’t have to take that. Lee has another moment with his father later over drinks and Adama mentions he knew about the prostitute.
Overall the episode was a C-
