Talking about 'Battlestar Galactica's' 'Blood on the Scales' with writer Michael Angeli
Below is an interview with Michael Angeli, who wrote "Blood on the Scales," Friday's episode of "Battlestar Galactica." The interview is followed by some thoughts from me on this episode, which continues the intense events that began in "The Oath."
Please don't proceed unless you've seen the episode.
There's lots more info on this site about the three proceeding episodes of "Battlestar Galactica": Look here for more on "The Oath," here for "A Disquiet Follows My Soul" and here for "Sometimes a Great Notion."
By the way, there's a bit of information here about someone who will have a cameo role in the Feb. 13 episode. I don't think it's spoilery, but you can judge for yourself whether you want to be aware of this person's presence in the episode (the post has a picture of this individual in his or her "Battletar" costume).
And a few recent "Battlestar" links are here.
The interview with Angeli is below.
In the interview below, questions are in bold type, answers are in regular type.
Why did Gaeta insist on a "trial" of Adama? Was it because he wanted to hang on to the idea that this coup was a legitimate transfer of power? Was it because he needed to hear Adama to say that Adama was wrong? What was that about?
For whatever else he was (or might’ve been) Gaeta was an idealist and despite his near occasions of peevishness, he was a romantic. He believed in the idea of government, laws, leadership, service, etc. and if you look at his behavior away back on New Caprica, there was a certain nobleness to his intentions. He wanted to do things right, he was an advocate of justice, fairness.
So, it’s not surprising that even with a coup snowballing, he’d want some form of a trial. But more importantly, Gaeta was conflicted. He loved Adama and just couldn’t get around to killing him. Gaeta was the romantic; Zarek was the realist. For Gaeta, the “trial,†was a stall. And having Adama admit that he was wrong was really about Gaeta convincing his own intellect that Adama should die â€" because he, himself admits he’s wrong.
Why did Zarek let Gaeta have that "trial"? Was it the cost of Gaeta's participation, which Zarek still needed?
Zarek knew Gaeta had the greater support of the mutineers. They were behind Gaeta, not so much Tom Zarek. What Zarek underestimated was Gaeta’s lack of resolve. Remember, it was Gaeta who freed Zarek and actually seduced Zarek with the offer of power in the previous episode. When Gaeta impulsively demanded a trial, Zarek knew he had to humor him for the moment.
Zarek had experience in these sorts of things. He understood that time was of the essence. Coups succeed or fall apart in the first few hours (something Laura also understood, by the way, re: her rallying cry on the base ship), and going toe-to-toe with Gaeta at this early stage could queer the whole deal.
I'm a little unclear on what the Quorum knew and when they knew it. Had they heard Laura's broadcast from Baltar's headquarters? Did they know that Gaeta and Zarek had seized control -- or were attempting to seize control -- of the fleet? Did they know that Adama and Tigh and others were in the custody of the rebels? Did they assemble to hear out Zarek because they thought the coup was non-violent?
Yes, The Quorum was able to hear enough of Laura’s partial transmission as she was escaping and they also heard some of Gaeta’s orders. Originally, there was a brief scene on Colonial One where Zarek and the Quorom are monitoring the transmissions but there was so much to cover in the episode that it just had to go.
Zarek brought the Quorum with him to Galactica where they would be “safe†and he could keep an eye on them, keep them close. He gives them one last chance to support his presidency by making this “from-the-heart†plea to them; he thinks he can flatter them with praise and, as we know, it doesn’t quite work,does it?
Even if the Quorum had gone along with Zarek, would he have killed them anyway?
Don’t know. We could ask him, but he’s dead.
Why did the Quorum resist Zarek's coup, given that their relations with Laura Roslin and William Adama had not been very smooth?
The Zarek/Quorum scene had to be edited for time. What got cut was Zarek informing the Quorom that President Roslin has defected, he’s assumed the presidency and appointed Gaeta to replace Admiral Adama, who is to be tried for treason. The quorum vocally objects to Zarek making all of these decisions without including them. But even with this material excised, I think the scene works well. It’s a little more of a shock when they rebuff Zarek, gives them some cojones before they’re wiped out.
Were you channeling Winston Churchill when you wrote Laura's "I'm coming for all of you" speech? What did you draw on for that dialogue?
[Executive producer] Ronnie [Moore]. He told me to bring Laura to a breaking point. So I had Zarek just becoming this terrible liar/bearer of bad news, pulling out all the stops, telling Adama that Tigh’s been shot dead escaping when Tigh was very alive and at large, telling Laura that Adama had been executed (and Zarek assumed that he actually was), all of it building to a point where Laura’s either gonna collapse in a pile or come out swinging.
What worked in our favor was the fact that, because of scheduling problems, we had to shoot this scene after a long day and everyone was exhausted. Mary had been traveling all day, flying back from Europe. We thought she’d be wasted, but she was still on London Time or something and she just rocked everybody’s headsets off. Everyone was clapping after the take, going wild.
This is a very eventful episode -- a lot happens in 44 minutes. Was there anything that had to be cut?
Oh
my God, you could assemble another episode from all the stuff we had to lose. At one point before we shot we had, like 90 special effects shots, a lot of it having to do with Gaeta’s leg. The original scuffle in the teaser was longer and involved more space porn. And, unfortunately, Romo Lampkin’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!†scene had to be truncated. Almost all of Racetrack’s story is pretty much gone, as well as material on the base ship. But I’m, like, the worst about material being cut and I have to say I was really happy with the aired cut.
What's the significance of the big crack in the wall in the big room that houses Galactica's FTL drive?
Well, it’s a big… crack. In the hull. Of Galactica. Right?
Was Tyrol disabling the FTL drive to help Adama or so that he would not be separated from his fellow Cylons -- or did he do that for both reasons?
Nah, Tyrol wanted to help Adama and his peeps â€" especially after Kelly (they were close friends before Kelly was jailed and Tyrol realized he was a Cylon) spares his life.
In this episode and "The Oath," there seems to be an implication that a certain amount of Gaeta's leg pain is caused by things that are going on with him psychologically. Is that accurate? Is that why his leg pain stopped once he was facing death?
No and yes. I mean, the pain and discomfort of that kind of surgery is certainly real but there’s no doubt that it can be intensified by the subject’s state of mind. And, yeah, that was the idea â€" that Gaeta was at peace with himself and hey, wow, it doesn’t itch anymore â€" blam!
That scene near the end between Baltar and Gaeta -- why put those two characters together? What were your reasons for including that scene?
Oh, I think Gaeta and Baltar were so close and had so much history together, it just seemed so right. The scene serves a couple of purposes. First and foremost, it humanizes Gaeta once again. We see the Gaeta we always loved and enjoyed. And it gives Baltar some emotional honesty. It’s obvious that his heart is breaking for Gaeta. And it’s obvious because both James [Callis, who plays Baltar] and AJ [Alessandro Juliani, who plays Gaeta] just killed on that scene, they’re both so frakking good.
I watched the show at Mark Sheppard’s house with some people and Liz Nankin ([director] Michael Nankin’s wife) brought up a really good point, which was that we’re killing off one of our oldest, and to some, one of our most revered characters, and it gives the audience a chance to legitimately say good-bye.
The scene is kind of wicked, too. We’re supposed to believe that Gaeta’s been spared. It takes place in Gaeta’s quarters (Ron’s idea). And Gaeta speaks of himself in the present tense, how he wants people to know who he is, or something to that effect.
Do you think the coup failed because Gaeta lacked the nerve to see it through? Or because Gaeta and Zarek never had enough support in the fleet?
I think it failed because Gaeta had too much heart and Laura too much love for Adama to give up.
Does the title "Blood on the Scales" come from a work of literature? Or was it a title you came up with? Either way, can you talk a little about that title?
I’m sure I was influenced by the title of Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks†album and the whole “Watchtower†tie-in. But thematically, it was an oblique signature of Gaeta’s fate and his conundrum. He starts out as the good soldier/idealist, becomes disillusioned (even stabs his hero, Baltar, with a pen), then the loss of his leg colors his perception of Kara and the Cylons. His embitterment eventually grows its own limb â€" the mutiny. He wants to do the right thing but the, er, scales of justice are tipped not only by the bloodshed of innocent people, but by Gaeta unable to silence his own humanity (his love for Adama), the blood running through his veins, etc.
Why did Baltar have a vision of Adama's execution -- was he psychic or just having a bad dream based on what had been happening?
As I mentioned, a lot of Baltar’s story on the base ship didn’t make the cut. Baltar has some deep, underlying guilt for running away -- from his congregation (in the previous episode), from danger, etc. He meets another beautiful Six (Lida) who mistakes his moodiness for injury. She wants to help him feel better and all of it plays on his psyche, which causes the nightmare â€" which compels him to want to go back to Galactica and face everything.
You've said that you can't write without listening to music. I know it's been a while since you wrote "Blood on the Scales," but do you recall what you were listening to when you wrote it?
Sure. Keith Jarrett’s Vienna Concert, the soundtrack for "In the Name of the Father," Death Cab for Cutie, Neil Young’s "Cortez the Killer," and I played Radiohead’s "All I Need" from the "In Rainbows" album over and over.
Do you have any stories from the set from the filming of this episode? Did anything go differently on-set than you imagined it would? Any difficulties in shooting the episodes? Anything cool or unexpected happen?
Well, we had a ton of fun with Aaron [Douglas, who plays Tyrol], who spends most of his time in the episode crawling through these air ducts the crew created. As they were being built, we had the crew make the ducts like, really tight. Then I wrote in a scene where Tyrol passes the latrine and has to hold his nose. In rehearsals, we had one of our grips, Ross Newcomb â€" who wears kilties to work -- sitting on the toilet. Shameless toilet humor.
As for problems, I had it easy. But Wayne Rose, our director was forced to revise his shooting schedule on a daily basis because Grace and Tahmoh were both working on shows in LA at this point. AJ was doing a play on Victoria Island five nights a week and had to be flown to the set while Mary, Tricia, and Jamie were all flying back and forth from Europe for a convention they had all committed to many months before the episode was even written so it was a challenge to get everybody working at the same time. But Wayne pulled it off and the show is just beautiful from a visual standpoint.
It was cool to see Michael Trucco do his own stunts when just a few months earlier, I visited him in the hospital after he broke his back in a car accident.
Was this your last episode for the show? And as such, was it important to get both Romo Lampkin and his iconic shades, both of which you introduced in "The Son Also Rises," into the story somehow?
It was supposed to be, but I wound up going up to Vancouver and supervising “Island in a Stream of Stars†as a favor to ["Battlestar" writer] Mike Taylor, who was writing the "Virtuality" pilot and Ron, who was busy with Mike on "Virtuality" and shooting the pilot for "Caprica." As it turned out, I got to stay for the last table read with Ron and the cast, reading the finale. It was really moving. Everyone laughing, Aaron brought scotch, everyone reading their parts, then everyone crying, I mean, everyone, and signing each other’s scripts when it was over.
I wasn’t particularly concerned about getting Romo back into the show again. I knew it would happen because he’s just too good and too interesting to leave out, thanks to Mark. I did lobby to have Mark in the finale but really didn’t have to because Ron was already considering it. And for better or worse, it was great to see Romo retrieve his glasses from the mook he took out.
What aspects of this episode are you particularly fond of?
It was great to get to work with Wayne Rose again. He directed “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?†He was skedded to direct another episode and I really wanted him for “Blood on the Scales.†Ron and David Eick were gracious enough to let me have him. I was glad I got to bring Kelly back, since he went to jail in “The Son Also Rises.†The actor, Ty Ollson, is a presence, man, he just nails it in this episode.
All of the actors were especially great and it was a privilege to watch them: Mary [McDonnell], Eddie [Olmos], Trish [Tricia Helfer], James [Callis], AJ [Alessandro Juliani], [Mark] Sheppard, [Michael] Trucco, Katee [Sackhoff], Jamie [Bamber], [Michael] Hogan, [Richard] Hatch, everyone.
What was the hardest thing about writing or shooting "Blood on the Scales"?
It was hardest to watch Richard Hatch. He knew it was his last show and he struggled with the idea of being perceived as a villain â€" which he wasn’t, in my opinion. And he was so emotional and there, regardless of how he felt, personally. And I think he gave his best performance of the series, I really do.
Adama has said that there will be no mercy on those who took part in the uprising. Obviously Gaeta and Zarek died for what they'd done. But what does Adama's statement mean for people like Narcho and Racetrack?
Don’t know. We haven’t gotten there yet.
Mo here: Here are some thoughts from me on the episode.
How could "Battlestar Galactica" top "The Oath," which I found to be an incredibly taut, suspenseful and emotional hour?
With an even more intense episode, one that made me feel all the emotions "The Oath" made me feel, times two: Nausea, fear, the inability to breath, shock. Not to mention the major goosebumps I got when Laura Roslin transformed herself into Madame Airlock for Felix Gaeta's benefit.
Ye gods.
To me, "Blood on the Scales" was a particularly dense episode of the show: There wasn't a wasted moment, action or word. It was absolutely jammed with incidents and developments, yet it was really also just one story: The tragedy of Felix Gaeta.
Sometimes fans rip on this show's writers for making stuff up as it goes along. Well, yes, of course they do!
I don't know how much of this show's endgame was planned out in advance, and over the course of the four seasons, we each may have our own personal nitpicks -- I know I do -- about the way certain story points have been handled.
But as Alan Sepinwall points out in his review of "Lost's" "The Little Prince," sometimes spontaneous decisions made along the way -- or left turns made out of sheer necessity -- result in great storytelling.
"For all we talk about whether or not there's a master plan at work on 'Lost,' we have to keep in mind that a TV show, unlike a novel, or even a series of novels, is a living, breathing organism, one that changes and grows in ways that even its creators couldn't anticipate. Characters and events that seemed so important in the early days have turned out not to be for all sorts of reasons... By the same token, a plot device that was cooked up on a whim to fix a specific episode ... might inadvertently lead to one of the series' greatest episodes ('The Constant') and its most beloved couple..."
I'm sure that the writers had no real idea where Gaeta's character would go, if anywhere, when the series began. Who could have predicted that this loyal, dutiful officer would one day walk into the Quorum chamber and see what he had helped bring about -- the slaughter of the entire elected body.
"I never agreed to this," Gaeta finally said.
"This is what happens," said Zarek, the latest in a long line of people who've tried to get Gaeta to face up to reality.
It's one thing to read about coups and revolutions in history books. Gaeta learns that it's quite another to stand inside a blood-soaked room and be OK with that result.
Seizing power isn't easy, but it can be done, as Zarek and Gaeta showed last week, when their precise plan to grab control of the fleet moved forward with a great deal of success.
Keeping power? That's not so easy.
Zarek knows this. Gaeta does not. As "Blood on the Scales" opens, he seems to think that he and his fellow coup plotters are over the worst of it. They just need to deal with Adama and Roslin and they can turn the corner on this whole thing.
Zarek knows that Gaeta is naive and doesn't really get it. And the fact that Gaeta doesn't get it --the fact that a big part of him is still a well-intentioned, decent man -- well, that is the source of the tragedy.
We don't weep for the likes of Zarek. But Gaeta? I wept for him.
Because for all Gaeta's newfound "I am in control here now" assertiveness, he's still the same Gaeta who got played by an Eight/Sharon model on New Caprica. In the "Face of the Enemy" Webisodes, which are essential viewing if you want to understand Gaeta's mindset during the coup, the Eight ends up berating Gaeta for his willful blindness, his unwillingness to see the bigger picture, his strenuous avoidance of the implications of his actions.
And what "The Oath" and "Blood on the Scales" prove is that Gaeta hasn't changed. He still believes what he wants to be true, not what's in front of his eyes. He has to know, on some level, that Zarek will stop at nothing to seize power. Zarek is willing to do the things that Gaeta can't face. That's the whole reason Gaeta got into bed, so to speak, with Zarek: Zarek has the will to get things done.
And getting things done, in these kinds of situations, involves blood. Lots of it.
Gaeta thinks he knows what kind of violence is coming, and he thinks it can be contained, controlled. He thinks he can stomach an acceptable level of violence.
Revolutions don't work like that. And the dawning realization that, once again, he failed to see the bigger picture is what gives this episode its weight, its pathos. He's a good man who has gotten it wrong. Again.
Because, despite everything, Gaeta is not a bad man. He's mistaken and misguided but not bad in the way that Zarek is bad (in that sense, he's the Shane to Zarek's Vic Mackey from "The Shield." Both are culpable, but not in the same ways).
And at the end, at least Gaeta sees clearly what Zarek does not: That it's over. The coup has failed and they're going to die. He accepts the "reckoning" calmly. He's made his choices and he's going to live with them -- actually, die with them. And that's OK with him.
That scene near the end with Gaeta and Baltar seems like the kind of thing that might have been a candidate for the cutting-room floor, but it's one of the most moving moments in the episode.
Maybe it's because Baltar, the most self-serving character on the show, feels real compassion for Gaeta. James Callis has shown before that Baltar is capable of deep feelings -- witness his performance in the Gina scenes in Season 2's "Pegasus" trilogy. And here again, he shows us that this wily operator, this selfish fraud, this ferociously intelligent charlatan, is human. Baltar pities Gaeta, and his pity is moving.
The fact that Gaeta doesn't want his pity is even more moving.
We can talk all day about Gaeta's delusions about what it would take to seize power, how he fooled himself about the good he could do by working for Baltar on New Caprica, how he instigated this rebellion partly out of revenge, how he's turned on every oath he swore as an officer. He's angry about losing his leg, he's angry that Earth was wrecked, he's angry that Adama is not the Adama he used to know.
So many things about this guy and his motivations are flawed. But in the end, there was a kind of nobility to Gaeta. Part of me doesn't want to say that about a guy who ordered the killings of both Roslin and Adama. But what the writing on the show and Alessandro Juliani's performance reinforced for me was that Gaeta's actions were, when all was said and done, motivated more by conscience than by less noble motives. (It's worth noting that Adama and Roslin's actions regarding the Cylon alliance left those who objected to it with very few options, and I think the anti-alliance faction made many good points; there's more discussion of all that in this post on "The Oath.")
As for Zarek, he really just wanted power, and he had no illusions about how he'd get it or what he'd do with it once he had it. That's what motivated him -- the Cylon alliance just provided the opportunity he'd been waiting for.
But it cost Gaeta a lot to do what he did, and in the main, he did it out of principle (even as Adama warned him he'd "die with nothing"). That devotion to principles made him, years ago, a diligent, dutiful officer. His intelligence, his sardonic humor, his devotion to what he felt was right, his desire to do the right thing -- to see all that go to waste caused me to shed some tears.
I cried more for Gaeta than I did when Roslin and Adama reunited, but it was close. The way that Mary McDonnell held herself back when Roslin saw Adama again was brilliant. The "lovers running to each other" thing would have been a cliche. The silence of the scene underscored its intensity.
That's to say nothing of Roslin's "I'm coming for all of you" speech. Chills. My hair literally stood on end. Every time I watched this episode.
Some fans call this woman Madame Airlock for a reason. In every single base star scene, you knew that Laura Roslin was desperate, afraid, devastated -- but she was still, at the same time, the most formidable enemy Gaeta and Zarek could possibly face. I could see her taking control of that base star and hunting Gaeta down until she'd killed him and his cohorts several times over.
That was part of the suspense of this two-parter; the writers have trained us to expect the unexpected on this show, and Roslin as the head of a very angry Cylon army is just the kind of "what the frak" move they might just have tried to pull off. As it is, I'll settle for Roslin living our her days -- however many she has left -- with the man she loves, thank you.
As for Edward James Olmos, Gaeta must have innards of steel to face that man's Glare of Total Hatred so many times. If looks could kill, Gaeta's leg would have been the least of his problems.
Even when he didn't look like like he'd like to disembowel Gaeta, Olmos, as usual, held center stage in all his scenes. Like Kyle Chandler of "Friday Night Lights" and like Michael Chiklis, especially toward the end of "The Shield's" run, Olmos knows how to work silent moments masterfully. In this episode, Olmos had his ship taken from him, he had to to face down a firing squad, he learned that his best friend was dead and he was finally reunited with the woman he loves more than anything.
None of those moments had many words attached to them. Yet were you in any doubt as to the depth of Adama's emotions?
I have no good segue into this last thought (the hour's getting late), so I'll just put it out there: So much of this episode, like so much of this amazing, enthralling, grab-you-in-your-guts show, is about choice.
Gaeta had the choice to, in that final call to Narcho, rescind the order to execute Adama (which Narcho wasn't going carry out, given that he had Tigh's gun in his face, but still).
Kelly made the choice to get off the bus that Zarek was driving. He left the guards marching Adama to the airlock and ended up in the hallway of memories, which is festooned with pictures of those who died in the Cylon attacks. I can only imagine what was going through his head -- why did they die? Why did Adama have to die? Why did the Quorum have to die?
And of course, he was probably contemplating the question that every character has asked himself or herself on this show: How did I get here?
Well, however he got there, he had choices along the way. And even choices made at the last minute can make a difference.
These people, these Cylons, have had many choices, and then they have to live with them.
And as usual on "Battlestar, the choices are only getting harder. They're playing for all the marbles. There's no going back.
"Not now," as Roslin said. "Not ever."
A few more thoughts (or as James Poniewozik says on his site, here comes the "hail of bullets"):
I liked finally getting a glimpse of the ship's FTL drive. Speaking of visuals, I thought the image of Colonial One landing aboard the Galactica was cool. Although I didn't realize Colonial One is small enough to do that. Given how dark this episode was (and gods, it was dark), it also had some incredibly funny lines: Anders wondered what Gaeta was going to do. "In your case, cutting off one of your frakking legs," Tigh cracked. Oh Tigh. You're a sketch. Or how about Romo Lampkin, having been dragged into Adama's quarters by Gaeta's goons, being told that the penalty for the crimes Adama had been charged with was death by firing squad. Romo: "Well, I'm not a very good shot." For some reason, the sight of Racetrack sharing a joke with Zarek really bothered me. Racetrack! I thought she'd know better. The first time I watched this episode I had trouble with the fact that Gage and Kelly look alike, and to be honest, I wasn't all that clear on who Kelly was. Even though I recently re-watched the first two seasons and the first half of Season 3, I had to go back to the Battlestar Wiki to get a refresher on the guy. So Gaeta took the opportunity to promote himself to Commander. Sheesh. After Romo garroted his guard, he took a second to retrieve his sunglasses. A man cannot be expected to live without his shades.
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Here are a few "Battlestar Galactica" and "Caprica" notes for you before we head into the weekend. 
Rosenberg and three other board members filed a lawsuit this week seeking to overturn a recent vote by a majority of board members that ousted the union's chief negotiator and disbanded the union's negotiating committee. They maintained the vote, taken by means of a "written assent," violated the state's business laws and the union's own bylaws.
