Season 2, Episode 05:
The Farm
Helo and Kara have started helping the Resistance plot an escape from Caprica, and try to help them steal a Heavy Raider from a Cylon airfield. As they make their approach to the airfield, however, they are ambushed by Centurions. In the confusion, Kara is grazed by a bullet and falls unconscious.
When she wakes up, she is in a hospital bed. She looks around confused, only to be surprised by the arrival of a doctor named Simon. As she tries to get her bearings, Simon tells her that Anders brought her in, but died from wounds suffered during the attack. Kara is devastated by the news.
Onboard Galactica, Bill has finally returned to active duty after recovering from his surgery, and receives applause from the crew when he walks into the CIC. He asks for a update, and is told that Lee and Roslin are still hiding somewhere amidst the fleet.
Elsewhere, Lee and Roslin are hiding in a meat locker on one of Zarek's loyal ships, and discuss their plans. Zarek tries to rally support to Roslin by having Lee make a voice recording denouncing his father and giving his support to her, but Lee can't go through with it.
Roslin takes matters into her own hands, heading to the Astral Queen and recording a message that asks the fleet to follow her because it's what the Lords of Kobol have asked her to do. Bill, listening in Galactica's CIC, is asked whether he wants to board the Astral Queen and arrest, but doesn't bother, citing that no one will listen to her. Soon after, though, at a predetermined time, one-third of the fleet jumps away with the Astral Queen, leaving Bill stunned.
On Caprica, Kara is still recovering from her bullet wound, and spends time talking with Simon, who indicates that the bullet ricocheted into her abdomen. Simon states that fertile women are now very rare, and asks her to consider bearing a child. Kara is reluctant to consider the thought, leading Simon to point out that a pattern of fractures on her fingers indicates she was abused by her mother when she was young.
Some time later, Kara wakes up to discover a scar on her abdomen. Although she later finds out from Simon that it was from a surgery to stem abdominal bleeding, she realizes that something is wrong when he calls her "Starbuck", her callsign, without her having said it to him.
At the site of the ambush, the rest of the Buccaneers are planning a rescue operation. Anders is alive and well, and he, Helo and the rest of the team try to figure out what happened to Kara and another resistance member who went missing, Sue-Shaun. As they plan, Sharon appears and says she's been tracking Helo and knows where Kara is being held. Helo says he will listen to her.
After another checkup, Kara realizes that Simon is sedating her through her intravenous line, and stops the line and pretends to sleep as Simon leaves. When he's gone, she unhooks the equipment and staggers out to the hallway, where she sees him and a copy of Six talking about Kara's ovaries, which they plan to remove the next day. Kara goes back to her room and tries to formulate a plan to escape.
Back on Galactica, Cally is put in the brig for shooting Boomer, but is given a light sentence of one month after Tyrol implores Bill to release her. Later that day, Bill goes to the morgue and looks at Boomer's corpse, asking himself why she would shoot him before breaking down in grief.
Back in the hospital, Simon goes to Kara's room again, only to be stabbed by her with a piece of a broken mirror. Kara staggers out of the room and begins walking through the hospital, only to discover a room filled with women hooked up to complex machines. Kara stares in horror when she realizes that one of the trapped women is Sue-Shaun, the Resistance member who was captured with her. Sue-Shaun begs Kara to destroy the "baby machines", and she regretfully does so, killing the trapped women in the process.
Kara staggers back out of the room, and ambushes a copy of Six by smashing her head in with a fire extinguisher. As Kara walks outside, she is greeted by a copy of Simon, who moves to detain her again. Suddenly, he is shot down by the Resistance members, who have come out of the forest to rescue Kara. As she moves to their position, the group is besieged by Centurions, only to be rescued by a Heavy Raider coming down and destroying all the attackers. As the Heavy Raider touches down, the cargo bay door opens to reveal Sharon, who tells all the resistance members to get inside.
Later that day, Kara recounts her experiences to the rest of the group, while Sharon explains that the Cylons wanted to use human females to reproduce because they could not do so naturally. Sharon then indicates that the reason that the Cylons couldn't procreate is because they couldn't replicate true love, which is what she was able to do with Helo.
Helo, Kara and Sharon prepare to return to Galactica and the fleet with the Arrow of Apollo and the Heavy Raider, but before they leave, Kara promises to Anders that she will return one day to rescue him and the Resistance, while he pledges to keep finding and destroying the Cylon farms…
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Simon's tests reveal that Kara was abused repeatedly in her childhood, to the extent that she has scars from many bone fractures, including all of her fingers.
- Baby Factory: The Cylons are using the captured human women to try and create Cylon-Human hybrids.
- Blatant Lies: Simon tells Kara when she asks that he is most definitely not a Cylon.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Helo, Anders and the rest of the Buccaneers show up to save Kara after it looks like she'll be apprehended again by Simon.
- And again a few minutes later, when Sharon shows up to save the group after they're pinned down by Centurion gunfire.
- Blipvert: The credits-ending blipvert, which was dropped at the beginning of this season, returns after fan outcry at its removal.
- Closest Thing We Got: Simon claims to Starbuck that the hospital staff includes only two doctors and "five teachers masquerading as nurses".
- Faked Rip Van Winkle: Although not a strict version of this trope (as little time has passed), the episode is definitely in the same spirit. This was acknowledged in the podcast; the writers therefore played along with the audience's suspicions by making Starbuck equally skeptical, but too weak from her injuries to do much about it.
- Get Out!: Kara screams this at the "doctor" when he starts commenting on her abusive childhood.
- Gunship Rescue: Sharon shows up in a Cylon Heavy Raider to save the Resistance members.
- Heroic BSoD: Bill gets one after viewing Boomer's corpse in the morgue.
- Hollywood Healing: Bill is back on duty just over a week after his near-fatal shooting without much in the way of ill effects, which (in real life) is impossible.
- Hollywood Tactics: In-universe; Anders admits to Starbuck that as none of them were career military before the Cylon Attack, a lot of the Caprican Resistance's tactics are just things they saw in films and they could use her professional advice.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Sue-Shaun, who is strapped to a table and hooked up to a breeding machine, begs Kara to shut down the machinery. Kara regretfully obliges, destroying the equipment and mercy killing Sue-Shaun and the other imprisoned women.
- I Never Told You My Name: Kara gets suspicious when Simon calls her "Starbuck", as she never mentioned her callsign in front of him.
- La Résistance: The Caprica Buccaneers, who continue their hit-and-run tactics. Subverted, in that they either fail or are at a stalemate in every battle they try to fight against the Cylons.
- Loophole Abuse: While Cally should arguably have been charged with murdering Boomer, Adama decrees that Boomer was an enemy combatant and non-human, thus a murder charge wouldn't be appropriate, instead just charging Cally with unsafe discharge of a firearm and giving her a month in the brig.
- Mars Needs Women: The entire "farm" concept was created by the Cylons to capture women and use them for breeding purposes. According to Word of God in the episode podcast, there are farms for men, too.
- Mauve Shirt: Sue-Shaun, who is captured along with Kara, and is later killed when Kara destroys the farm machinery.
- Medical Rape and Impregnate: The titular Farm was set up to do this to female captives. It hasn't produced any viable pregnancies so far, as apparently Cylon babies need to be conceived by parents who love each other.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bill refuses to go and apprehend Roslin onboard the Astral Queen, believing that none of the other ships in the Fleet take her seriously. Then 1/3'rd of the Fleet jumps away with Roslin…
- The Power of Love: Discussed. Sharon explains that her and Helo's love for each other allowed them to procreate.
- The Reveal: Kara's discovery of "the farm", a room with women hooked up to breeding machines.
- Spotting the Thread: Kara realizes that Simon is not who he says he is after he calls her "Starbuck", because she never revealed her callsign to him.
