Pluribus/Unum. "I myself am hell"/"Hell is other people." Milton/Sartre. I am one/I am many: Human/Cylon. The political is personal/The personal is political: Laura/Lee. Laura/Bill. Lee/Bill. I am hell, says Milton's too-early existentialism/You are hell, says Sartre's too-late responsibility. Neither one the whole truth; playing black and white on a table without color or feature or quality, fighting always for prominence, Gaius and Laura as its pawns. We create war in the mistaken idea that these are two differing statements; Kara Thrace has been torn apart in the vacuum between these two differing statements, again and again. But where the place for love?

Here. "We'd been to that beach too," Sam smiles. She was like their mother, their folk singer mother, the artist that touched their dreams into life; the intuition that sparks life into machines and machines into life: "Yes, we'd been to that beach. Sometimes Ellen would be there too," he smiles, Kara watching confused, "Because she loved the water." Kara turns away, crying, but he continues to remember, the machine of his body sparked into memory: "She loved the water."

Eighteen months ago. [That Kobol Stonehenge, champagne supernova, Laura's Hybrid humping, Kara's Maelstrom, Sam drunk and mourning, the Opera House, the Rebel Basestar jumping, Ellen and the Maelstrom at once telling truths we can't know yet. I can't shake the feeling that this episode is intended to help me shut the fuck up and enjoy the show.] John pulls up a chair and watches her come back to life, down in the goo; Ellen greets him without opening her eyes. She calls him John, he hates it, she reminds him he was named for her father, he reminds her in turn he doesn't care for that name: One, or if not, Cavil.

"And you made me in his image," Cavil bitches. "Thanks a million for that." Because he's the only person in the universe ever to mourn his genetic betrayal. (I got three words for you: man-boobs and insulin resistance, bitch.) It's weird to be born looking like the Boy with Green Hair 120 Years Later, yes, but on the other hand, you get more and better tail than anybody on this show besides Bill Adama, so grow up. Ellen immediately asks him for a drink, because the only constant in this show besides iterable return is that Ellen and Saul are fucking alcoholics.

The first thing she does is ask for a drink, which is the smartest thing this show ever did, because it answers and ignores the central Buffy question upfront: vampires come back they're a variable percentage, the whole point of Dollhouse is that they should come back zero percentage and don't, but here: if Cavil didn't block it, it remains. Which I love because it fits the story, and also makes sense in the overall. Two things remain about Ellen: girlfriend loves Tigh longer and harder and brighter and hotter than five stars and vice versa, and girlfriend loves a drink. (Neither of which spell happy nights to happy days for Bill, if he's going to play Mercutio in their little drama.) Ellen and her son John talk about how Saul just murdered her but she gets it, because she betrayed the Resistance.