Battlestar Galactica "Flesh and Bone" TV episode Written by Toni Graphia Directed by Brad Turner Original air date: February 25, 2005

Starbuck interrogates a captured Cylon.

Read the story summary at the Battlestar Wiki Clone site

Notes from the BSG chronology

This episode opens one day after the events of "Six Degrees of Separation", 25 days after the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies.

Didja Know?

The later episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming" Part 1 has a snippet of a scene that was shot for this episode but cut for time, revealing that a Cylon device identical to the one found mounted in a hidden spot in CIC in "Flight" was found in the possession of the "Leoben model" Cylon (a Number Two) captured by fleet security here.

Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

President Roslin

Number Two

Billy Keikeya

Gemenon Traveler Captain (unnamed)

Leoben Conoy (the Number Two Cylon from "Enemies Among Us", mentioned only, deceased)

Colonel Tigh

Commander Adama

Apollo

Dualla

Kat (mentioned only, the flight leader guarding the Gemenon Traveler)

Starbuck

Boomer

Chief Tyrol

Baltar

Head Six

Helo

Caprica-Valerii

Caprica Six

Number Five

Didja Notice?

Laura's dream at the beginning of the episode foreshadows her encounter with the captured Number Two Cylon in warning her of Cylons in her midst and in his death by evacuation from an airlock. This is the first example in the series of Roslin's prescient dreams caused by her use of chamalla extract.

A Number Two Cylon is found on board the Gemenon Traveller.

As Boomer caresses the captured Cylon Raider, she is humming a tune. According to the Battlestar Wiki Clone Site, it is an old Korean children's song, "The Spring Pool on the Mountain". The other Number Eight Cylon who becomes known by the call sign Athena and marries Helo (currently referred to in these studies as Caprica-Valerii) hums the same tune to her daughter Hera in the fourth season episode "Sine Qua Non".

The rifles carried by the guards posted on the Number Two aboard Gemenon Traveller are the real world FN P90 (made by FN Herstal).

The Number Two model Cylon introduces himself to Starbuck as Leoben, the same name used by the Number Two Adama encountered at Ragnar Anchorage in "Flight". That previous Leoben died in "Enemies Among Us".

Number Two seems pleased that his interrogator is Starbuck, even guessing her call sign. In "Line of Communication", Leoben Conoy takes an interest in Starbuck when he sees her as a member of Byron Dane's security personnel. He is seen to be infatuated with her in later episodes of BSG2000. The Plan presents a different version of his obsession with her, but the two versions are not entirely irreconcilable; in The Plan, he is shown to have hacked into military communications while hiding in the fleet and heard her chatter while piloting her Viper and became fascinated by what he considers her ability to unconsciously tap into the stream.

This episode seems to be the moment when Caprica-Valerii decides to betray her Cylon heritage and side with Helo.

Caprica-Valerii seems to have some of Boomer's memories, at least up until the time Boomer left Caprica to rendezvous with the fleet. How is this possible? Do the Cylons upload memories to their identical models at certain intervals?

The water bucket torture used on Number Two is intended as a parallel to the water board torture used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on terrorist suspects in the years immediately after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Baltar agrees to let Boomer be the first test of his Cylon detector. After drawing her blood, it takes his equipment only a couple of minutes to determine that she is a Cylon. Yet, in the following episode ("Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"), he says each test will take 11 hours.

During the water bucket torture, the water quickly becomes tinted red from the blood on the Cylon's face. But when we get a glimpse of his head held underwater at 31:10 on the Blu-ray, the water is completely clear.

At 34:14 on the Blu-ray, the population count of the fleet on the President's whiteboard shows 47,954. This is down 4 from the count last seen in "You Can't Go Home Again".

The Cylon detector tells Baltar that Boomer is a Cylon, but he fears she'll kill him for knowing, so he tells her it shows her as human.

This episode implies that Starbuck prays to the goddesses Artemis and Aphrodite. These are both goddesses in ancient Greek mythology as well.

Unanswered Questions

Did this Number Two resurrect and give the Cylons the coordinates of the fleet? Like with the Number Five in "Litmus" and Shelly Godfrey in "Six Degrees of Separation", it seems the Cylons never received information about the human fleet's location. It might be argued that the average citizen of the fleet never knows the location, let alone exact coordinates; it would make some sense to keep that information priveleged only to the command staffs of each ship.