Well, it’s too bad Eli Stone already snagged George Michael’s musical ouevre this season, since Battlestar: Galactica could have used “Faith” as its theme song for Season 4. Think about the structure of the episode: moving from a massive space battle towards a tense, two-person scene just demonstrates how this show knows how to give us the huge, FX-laden moments while never forgetting we only care about those if we care about the people involved in those moments.

The subject of miracles was in the forefront this week, with Derrick’s healing and Kara’s reappearance studies in contrasting reactions to the impossible. Adama and Roslin have a hard time accepting Kara-as-Kara, while those in the Cult of Gaius are in fact emboldened by Derrick’s recover. The word “miracle” is stated at various times in both storylines, and points to another conflict on the horizon this season, one always below the surface but soon to be explicit: the conflict between the Cylons’ monotheistic beliefs and the humans’ polytheistic beliefs.

And here’s where the show mindfraks us as much as it does the last remaining humans: we as viewers largely subscribe to the Cylons’ viewpoint in this regard. So on one hand you have a series of robots attacking the humans, but we’ll be damned if they tend to have a more evolved view of religion than the humans, who have a more Ancient Rome/Greek approach to theology. So it’s with conflicted response that we greet the knowledge that Gaius’ savior in the bathroom from those who would kill them did so thanks to feeling the spirit of God fill her s that she might smite her enemies. That’s straight-up Biblical talk, apparently inspired by Six’s intervention.

One can look at Starbuck with similarly conflicted viewpoints. Starbuck has always been at the center of the mythology of the show, a status that more than a few of the Cylon models were aware of previous to her seemingly suicidal trip into the ionic cloud. She returns after two months, but she only registers it as six hours. (I guess to went to and from the Island in Lost.) And while the crew fears she’s a Cylon, downloaded into a new body, her frakkin’ ship looks likewise rebooted as well, right down to the empty logs on her nav computer.

These are all things that can’t be explained rationally, which may in fact be the entire point of Season 4. I think the show will finally deal with the questions laid out by Adams in his decommissioning speech from the mini-series:

The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high, but…sometimes it’s too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question: why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder, because of greed, spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play god, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God, then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.

The show’s taken the last remaining humans to the breaking point of actually being human. There’s still greed, distrust, murder, but more has been lost than gained in the time since the Cylon attack. Things like hope, happiness, belief in something more than oneself. Everyone on the show is at a point where they literally don’t know what to believe anymore. Kara questions her identity. The newly discovered four Cylons question their allegiances. Roslin questions her faith. Bill and Lee Adama question their loyalty to their daughter/sister/lover. And above all, people seem to question just how thin the line between themselves and Cylons truly is.

Which is why all this talk of miracles in this episode intrigues me. Sure, the show could go incredibly heavy-handed with this, but the genre of sci-fi actually llows them to directly deal with religious issues without having to directly deal with existing religions as we know them today. By speaking metaphorically about religion within the context of this show, they can work to rebuild the lost faith of the people onboard, both in terms of a higher power, but in terms of each other, as well. And given the vacuous nature of so much television these days, that’s a story worth watching.