Sometimes a Great Notion

Battlestar Galactica - Episode 4.11

If I have one complaint about the first episode of the second half of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica (that's a mouthful), is that the "Previously..." section let us know up front that something was going down with Dee. Not that I saw her suicide coming, but up to that point I was wondering if she was going to be revealed as the Fifth or if she was going to die. Still, the event was both sad and shocking.

Dee's death and despair gives us a tangible example of how the entire fleet is affected by the fact that Earth, the so called Promise Land, is a wasteland. The tracking shot of Bill Adama walking through Galactica's corridors further displays the hopelessness. People have their heads hung silence or they're crying. At one point, the admiral walks past a fist fight on his way to get Saul Tigh to shoot him. Bill can't do it himself, but his drunken plan falls apart when his XO sees right through it.

Kara's life gets flipped on its head after finding the wreckage of her Viper as well as what appears to be her own burnt up body. This causes her to further question her identity and her purpose. The situation is such a mindbender that even Leoben, who is always confident about fate and destiny, is afraid about the uncertainty of the situation. Both actors play this scene perfectly and the fear and doubt is etched all over their faces.

Another shocker is the reveal that the people on Earth, the thirteenth colony, are all genetically Cylon. What does this all mean? Did the Earth Cylons create the humans that went to the stars and became the Twelve Colonies? Is there an endless cycle of creators being destroyed by the created over and over again? This has all happened before...

Coinciding with this, the four revealed members of the Final Five begin to have flashbacks of their lives on Earth, before the nuclear annihilation. This all comes to a head when Saul has his own flashback and sees his wife Ellen who tells him not to worry and that everything is in place.

Is Ellen Tigh the final cylon? I think that there is a possibility that she is a version of the Six model. There are some behavioral similarities and Saul has developed a connection with Caprica Six. Also, he had flashbacks of Ellen during one of his interrogations of Six.

This is a really bleak kick off to the final run of episodes, but still Battlestar Galactica maintains its usual level of excellence.

8 out of 10