BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Season 4 Episode 10
“Revelations”
Written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle
Directed by Michael Rymer
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Twelve Cylon models
Seven are known
Four live in secret
One will be revealed

So, not only was the mid-season finale a tense little motherfraker, but it also reduced me to a blubbering idiot, before pole-axing me with that punch-in-the-stomach coda.
Man, if this is what it feels like halfway through the last hurrah, the series finale will be brutal…


So D’Anna takes the lead and announces that she’ll be holding the humans hostage, till she gets the Cylons from the Fleet. Adama and Helo aren’t thrilled by that and there’s a Mexican standoff, till Roslin asks Bill to trust her.
D’Anna then says that Adama will accompany her to the Galactica, but when he says he won’t leave, Laura whispers in his ear that D’Anna cannot be allowed to take the Five, so if things should go sour, that the base ship be destroyed, regardless of who’s on board.


The base ship and Raptor jump back to the Fleet, and when D’Anna and Adama get to the Galactica, D’Anna says she’ll wait for the four Cylons in the Fleet to join them, and only then will she release the hostages.
Toaster Tory, canny little minx, says she should return with D’Anna to the base ship, purportedly so she can bring President Roslin her meds.
Which she does, but when Laura asks her to speak with D’Anna to stand down (after Tory is revealed to indeed be a Cylon), Tory says, I don’t take orders from you anymore. (B!tch.)

Suddenly changing the game plan, D’Anna jettisons a hostage out the airlock, and she threatens to execute a hostage every 15 minutes till the still Secret Cylons turn themselves over.
There’s a hurried idea to draft a rescue plan, during which the four Fleet Cylons again have a “Watchtower” moment, that leads Tigh, Sam, and the Chief, to that apparently brand new Viper Starbuck flew back to Galactica in.
Sam and the Chief are convinced there’s something different about the Viper, something important, so when Sam says Starbuck knows this ship inside and out, Tigh tells him to get her down there, then goes off to do what he knows he has to do (something he admits he should have done from the moment it happened, if only he’d been braver).
What follows is a really great scene where Tigh admits to Adama that he’s a Cylon, and that the only way to get D’Anna to stand down, is to threaten to blow him out the airlock.

But the revelation first leads to one of those scary, volcanic moments when Adama loses his cool and rages. It’s like witnessing some volatile force that makes you terrified to even breathe, lest you trigger any more outbursts that could be directed at you.
Adama then drinks himself blind and is himself a blubbering mess, as Lee lovingly tries to get him to pull himself together.
It’s an emotionally devastating scene, where we see just how important Tigh’s friendship is to Adama. The scene is then made all the more powerful by the genuine caring that Lee shows for his father.
Brokenly, Adama admits that—should it come down to it—he just can’t kill Tigh, so Lee says he’ll take care of it.


What follows is a fraktastic stand-off sequence as D’Anna threatens to execute more hostages, while Baltar tries to talk sense to her.
On board Galactica, Tigh is placed in an airlock, with Lee ready at the button that will suck the poor one-eyed skinjob into outer space.
Lee then asks Tigh who the others are.

Meanwhile, Starbuck can’t understand why Sam and the Chief think there’s something about the Viper, but Sam says, When you had a feeling you knew how to get to Earth, I trusted you, so trust our feeling on this.
The grunts then arrive to arrest Sam and the Chief, who are brought to the airlock to keep Tigh company.
Despite Baltar trying to talk sense to D’Anna, things escalate to the point where the base ship’s weaponry is targeted at the Fleet, and Tigh is alone in the airlock, Lee ready to consign his Toaster a$ into space. Even as we see Starbuck find some reading on a gauge of the Viper (probably one that points to Earth) and start running all the way to the airlock, Tigh demands of Lee, “Well, what are you waiting for?! Do it!”


Starbuck of course arrives before first blood on either side is drawn.
She shows the readings to Lee, who takes a little convincing, before he accepts that Starbuck’s probably right.
And, in a pivotal moment, Lee decides to share the information with the Cylons. There’s another great moment in the episode, as Lee and D’Anna shake on this truce, as they both agree that human and Cylon will journey to Earth, together.

Lee than has a quiet moment with Adama, who we see is clearly broken by the Tigh-is-a-Toaster revelation. When Lee asks if he’s ready to take command again, Adama says, I don’t know.
Laura arrives, asking, What don’t you know?
Laura and Adama then have a nice, tender moment, during which Laura says, I want to see you with that first fistful of Earth.
Rockface then stands to face his immense responsibilities, leaving Laura and Lee to have that Moment I’ve been waiting for.
Lee says, Well, this is the end of the shortest Presidential term in Colonial history.
And Laura responds, You made the right choices in a very difficult situation, and this Fleet will still need that sort of strong leadership in the days to come.
So the rift between the two is on its way to healing (yahoo!), and Adama emerges in his uniform, ready to roll the hard six.


What follows is a tremendously moving sequence as the Fleet and the damaged base ship make that final jump to the coordinates they believe are going to take them to Earth.
The sequence is brilliant, capturing all the hope and bittersweet emotions of this jump to what they have held out will be their salvation.
After poor Felix confirms the stellar coordinates, Adama makes a moving speech over the wireless, and we see faces across Galactica and the Fleet, even the faces of some of the Not-So-Secret-Anymore Cylons, particularly Tigh (who’s alone, getting sloshed) and the Chief, who’s with Nicky, and of course, Cally’s absence is overwhelming.
It’s a sequence both joyous and melancholy, bringing home the point that this is what the Fleet has been striving for since that horrible day the Cylons attacked, while reminding us of what this apparent victory has cost.

Then, as some ships make that Earth entry, and they’re flying through the clouds, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, thinking, Okay, we’re here. But when?
Will it be pre-history, and will the Fleet end up being the first humans to populate the planet?
Will it be 2008, and will we suddenly attack the ships, thinking it’s some kind of alien invasion, thus opening up hostilities between Earth and the Fleet, and a new, perhaps even more tragic war, begins?

But when we see Adama pick up that first fistful of earth, and we hear that Geiger counter making that terrible noise, and we see the devastated reactions of all these people we’ve come to love and hate over the course of five years, and we see what at first looks like ancient ruins around them, before it becomes apparent that what we’re looking at are the remains of a bridge, and a city in the distance, we know that the other shoe has most definitely dropped, and we are so not yet at the end of this particular road.

Gods, Moore and Eick (and Thompson and Weddle) are evil.


So, has the Fleet arrived after the planet has already been ruined by humanity’s own raging stupidity?
Or did some other Cylons somehow get to Earth before the Fleet and a war broke out?
Ooooh, where’s that second half?

Getting back to the here and now though, aside from that “jump to Earth” sequence, I think the most potent bits of this episode were those moments when we see the reactions people have to the Secret Cylon reveals.
There’s Adama, of course, but Starbuck’s reaction to Sam’s being a Cylon was also a great Moment that worked without the sturm und drang of the Tigh-is-a-Toaster plot development.
As is sometimes too often the case with BSG, it killed me that we didn’t have enough time in this episode to get a better sense of how characters were reacting to events, particularly the Cylon revelations.
Well, just some more bits to look forward to in the next half of the season. (I’m particularly looking forward to seeing how Adama and Tigh work through this curveball in their friendship.)

Onward to January 16, 2009, eh?


Parting shot: It seems, at the moment, that the series’ final episode has grown to a 2-hour finale, so I’m hereby re-calibrating the countdown.

COUNTDOWN: 11.

(Images courtesy of twitchfilm.net and ew.com.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Season 4 Episode 5
“The Road Less Traveled” (1)
Written by Mark Verheiden
Directed by Michael Rymer
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Twelve Cylon models
Seven are known
Four live in secret
One will be revealed

Is it possible to love a show and yet despair of its characters, to fear and feel anxiety over the very dark places its characters find themselves in? To enjoy and not enjoy a show simultaneously?
I guess it is, ‘cause that’s the way I feel right now, after having seen this episode.
Bad enough to witness the changes in President Roslin, but now we get Skinhead Chief and Loony Kara.


First stop, the Demetrius.
The two-month window Adama gave Kara is almost up, and the grumblings on board the creaky tub are being heard, long and loud. It’s really probably only Helo who’s still covering Kara’s a$$, while everyone else, including Athena, are voting for chucking all this insanity in and heading back to the Fleet.
Things get even hairier when they come across a Leoben in a damaged Raider, a Leoben who Kara ends up consulting, to try and make sense of how she can find Earth again.
Needless to say, this consultation pisses everyone off, particularly Sam. And after finding out that Kara was housing Leoben in her quarters, Sam has the Toaster thrown out and locked up.
Leoben eventually tells Sam that Cylon civil war has broken out, and that the others he left on the damaged base star (presumably Natalie and her crew of dissenters) need Kara’s help, but not as much as she needs theirs. Leoben claims that the Hybrid can help Kara find Earth.
Everyone except Kara is, understandably, leery of Leoben’s claims, and even Kara whales on him when Sgt. Mathias gets killed in what could (or could not have been) an accident involving Leoben’s damaged Raider.
After a hasty memorial for Mathias though, everyone thinks Kara will realize they should at least rendezvous with the fleet first, before pursuing the coordinates on Leoben’s Raider which will take them to the purportedly damaged base star, but Kara insists they need to make the jump now.
Helo tries his level best to continue to follow orders, but after a final push from Athena, he opts to join everyone else (except Sam, perhaps) in a mutiny against Kara…
Hoo-boy!


Next stop, the fleet, and three of the four Secret Cylons.
Though we do get to see Tigh once, and a little more of Toaster Tory, who’s still frakking the hell outta Baltar, and trying to convert Tyrol to Baltar’s monotheistic creed, it’s Skinhead Chief we see the most of in this installment.
Aaron Douglas is having a hell of a time acting up a scary, unsettling storm as he continues to weather the immense amount of grief he’s feeling in the wake of Cally’s “suicide.” (Damn you, Toaster Tory!!!)
And while Tigh calls Skinhead Chief on his duty-slacking (as per the previous episode, where was he re-assigned to, anyway?), Skinhead Chief calls Tigh on his visits to Caprica Six.
Then Baltar gets on the “let’s convert the heathen” train and starts to make religious advances on Skinhead Chief. When his first attempt—underscored by an annoyingly presumptious “this is what Cally would have wanted” plea—is greeted by Skinhead Chief with an angry neck-throttle and a strangled roar of “You didn’t know her!”, Baltar makes a house call to Skinhead Chief’s quarters, and proceeds to have a heart-to-heart that succeeds in at least getting Skinhead Chief to take Baltar’s hand.
In friendship? In common religious belief?
Who knows at this point?


I, for one though, am still dubious about Baltar the Holy.
I still honestly don’t completely buy his conversion, his self-professed attempt to redeem himself of all his past sins.
Somehow, I still see the smarmy little sh!t he’s always been, and it still feels like he’s stringing all these people along, with his pirate broadcasts and his services and his frak sessions with Toaster Tory.
And as I stated last episode, his preaching has basically given Toaster Tory license to be the superior being she believes herself to be, without apology or remorse.
And if that handclasp means Skinhead Chief is going along for the Baltar the Holy ride, yeeesh!
I appreciate the stress Skinhead Chief’s psyche is undergoing, what with the “Watchtower” epiphany, and then Cally’s “suicide,” but I don’t, at the moment, see what he apparently saw in Baltar’s demeanour that would make him take that sniveling, would-be evangelist’s hand.
Or is it just me and I can’t see past Baltar’s sins?

COUNTDOWN: 15.

(Images courtesy of SCIFI Channel and twitchfilm.net.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Season 4 Episode 1
“He That Believeth in Me”
Written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Directed by Michael Rymer
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

Twelve Cylon models
Seven are known
Four live in secret
One will be revealed

It’s been just over a year since that shocking use of “All Along The Watchtower” and the shattering reveal that the Chief, Tigh, Sam, and (to a far lesser degree of “shattering”; “vaguely surprising”?) Tory, were four of the Final Five.
Oh, and Starbuck’s return from the (apparent) dead and her claim that she’d just found Earth…
After that year-long wait, we’re rewarded with the Season 4 opener, which is basically broken down into three main subplots: how the four newly revealed Cylons are reacting to their epiphany; the repercussions of Starbuck’s return; and Baltar’s finding himself at the centre of some loony cult.
It’s that last one that I’m still kind of iffy about, but let’s cover the first two first.

The Secret Cylons.
That scene where the four are assembled and make an unspoken pact that should any of them sense any of the others (or themselves) about to turn bad, that the solution would be the gun was both very potent—reinforcing Tigh’s climactic Season 3 pronouncement that he is the man he has always believed himself to be and not some damn toaster—and vaguely amusing (in a very nice way, mind you), as they didn’t seem to be anything so much as a Cylon support group, Toasters Anonymous, if you will.
There were some powerful scenes in this subplot: Tigh’s vision/delusion/anxiety of shooting Adama while “Watchtower” played maddeningly in the background; Sam’s reluctance to get into his Viper and the Chief’s impromptu pep talk for him.
And then there were all the little looks, the tiny asides, and of course that Raider scanning Sam, and subsequently bugging out, taking the entire Cylon fleet with it…
(Did it just scan Sam, or could it have downloaded some secret message or code through Sam’s retina, right into his toaster brain? Or am I falling for the same paranoia that may—or may not—be plaguing our Secret Cylons?)
I love this subplot!

Starbuck’s Resurrection.
The polarization caused by Kara’s return is amazing. Most, of course, think it’s all some sort of dirty toaster trick.
Kara’s back after two months (she believes it’s only been about 6 hours) with some muddled story about finding Earth (she can’t remember how she got to Earth, nor how she got back to the fleet, but she does have some pretty pictures to corroborate her story), in a ship that looks impossibly pristine, as if it just rolled off the assembly line, with a totally blank nav comp (so we conveniently can’t determine where the ship has just been).
This subplot is particularly potent when we witness the different reactions the characters have towards Kara’s return: father and son Adamas want to believe it really is Kara (and Lee is more inclined to accept this), President Roslin thinks it’s all a Cylon deception and insists on keeping Kara under watchful guard, while continuing to follow the course apparently dictated by the Eye of Jupiter.
The thing is though, they seem to be jumping farther away from Earth, and Kara warns that if they keep on getting farther from Earth, that she’ll never be able to “feel” her way back to it.
Which all leads to the episode’s truly evil cliffhanger, as Kara determines she needs to talk to the President, so she overpowers her guards and cold cocks Sam, makes her way to Adama’s quarters (where the President is staying while she’s getting her cancer treatments), and points a gun at the groggy (and we can assume, weak and medicated) Roslin…
We also get some great moments in this subplot, with Kara putting forward the theory that she’s some sort of Starbuck clone created by the Cylons (they did steal her eggs, right?), and Sam trying to convince her that, Hey, if you were, I’d still love you, and Kara going, Well, you’re better than me, ‘cause you know, if I ever found out you were a Cylon, I’d shoot you in the head.
There’s also a great Adama family moment as Bill offers Lee’s wings back, but Lee says he thinks he can do some more good in the government as opposed to the cockpit. I just so wanted Adama to say he was proud of his son right at that moment (yes, despite all my trash talk about Apollo last season, I’m a proven sucker for good father and son moments), whatever he chose to do, but of course, ol’ StoneFace doesn’t give any indication of that at all…
Oh, and Roslin visits Caprica Six, wanting to know if she thinks Kara is one of the Final Five; Caprica Six tells her, The Five are near. I can sense them.
Ohhh, yeah!
(I do have one gripe though about this subplot: if we’re really in serious doubt about Starbuck and we don’t want to endanger the fleet without any substantive proof that the Earth she’s ready to lead us to isn’t some sort of Cylon trap, then why don’t we just let her go off alone on her merry way, then get in touch with us once she’s found Earth again? Once that happens, when she’s actually on a very real world that could or could not be Earth, then we can decide whether we risk the “it could be a trap” scenario.)

Baltar the Holy.
So he’s spirited off by some loony (and conveniently enough, predominantly female) cult, being kept in some unused compartment on Galactica, and though I think I can scent where this plot thread could eventually lead (Baltar the Martyr, anyone? Dude does need to redeem himself, after all), what troubles me in this episode is that initial moment of selflessness as he prays for God to take his life instead of the boy dying of viral encephalitis.
That instance of self-sacrifice honestly seemed to come out of the blue for me.
Of course, once that takes place, it seems pretty clear that the boy will recover, and, lo and behold, a miracle! Granted though that this opens the way for Baltar to begin to preach the Cylon’s brand of monotheism to this cult seemingly disenchanted with the Colonies’ gods, so I’m willing to cut this one some slack, to see how this works itself out.
There is also one particularly potent scene, as Baltar is given a much-needed shave in the head, where he and his cultist helper, Paulla (Lara Gilchrist, who voiced Sue Storm on the animated Fantastic Four!) are accosted by a man whose little boy died on New Caprica.
The bereaved father is about to slit Baltar’s throat while his friend is choking Paulla to death, when the woman breaks free and goes totally postal on the two attackers, clubbing both of them bloody with a pipe. Messy.
Like I said though, I need to see some more of where this is going for me to truly say whether I’m crazy about it or not.

At any rate, fantastic episode, and it’s just brilliant to see the show again.
It truly is one of the bigger crimes that BSG’s cast has not been recognized by the award-giving bodies. I mean, people. This is one of the best ensembles working on TV at the moment (and, ever, for that matter), in one of the best shows on TV at the moment (and, ever, for that matter).
And I know that isn’t hyperbole.

The fact that this is the final season has also made each and every remaining moment rarefied, so, as with Lost, I’ll be instituting this here as well…

COUNTDOWN: 19.

(Images courtesy of SCIFI Channel and twitchfilm.net.)