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Helo, Helo, Helo…when are you going to learn? You keep taking up these causes for the underdog and getting your butt kicked all over the ship. Marrying Sharon, saving the Cylon fleet from genocide, helping the Sagittarons… what’s next? Oh, accusing Colonel Tigh’s doctor buddy of killing off the most-discriminated-against group of humans in the fleet, huh?

Every time they start to focus on a supporting character now, I’m afraid they’re going to kill them off, and that’s what I saw coming here. And I like Helo—I don’t always agree with what he does, but I like him—and I didn’t want to see that happen. He’s probably the only guy on the ship with the guts to punch Tigh in the face, argue with Commander Adama, and physically menace the president of the colonies, after all. Who could ask for a more conflict-producing character than him?

Helo’s different from the rest of the crew in more ways than one. Karl Agathon spent the first season on Caprica, mostly alone with Athena-Sharon, so we didn’t see him interact with the rest of the crew. When he got back to Galactica, it took me a while to figure out that he wasn’t an ordinary crewmember. And then suddenly he was the new X-O when Tigh decided to live on New Caprica, a promotion which many people apparently didn’t believe he deserved. He married and had a child with a Cylon, and even committed treason, yet somehow he remains an important, yet outcast, member of Galactica’s team.

So when he starts believing Dr. Robert is not really trying to help the Sagittarons overcome the deadly disease that has broken out among them, but is instead killing them off, nobody believes him. Even Doc Cottle, who doesn’t give a damn about much, including rank and social norms, just thinks he’s being a pain in the ass again. This says a lot about not only the attitudes of crewmembers toward Helo, but about their prejudice when it comes to Sagittarons as well. It’s like watching a series about a family in the American South for a few years and getting to like them, then finding out they’re all racist.

But that only makes the characters more human. And at least at the end they all (including Tigh!) admitted they were wrong. Maybe now Helo will finally be accepted and won’t have to fight to be respected any more.

Then again, maybe he’ll get his head blown off next week.

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