This week on Battlestar: Galactica was all about the tectonic shifts in fundamental beliefs systems. (So you know it was just a laugh a minute, people.) Everyone all on fronts were forced to confront worlds that were radically different from those before the attack outside the ion cloud in last week’s episode. As such, this week didn’t push the plot forward very much, but did set clear the table and present a host of new directions in which the show will go between now and the end.

Let’s look at each instance and see where this might take us over the next few months.

Roslin/Adama

Let’s here it for Olmos and McDonnell for knocking their scene out of the park. Their interaction has always been a consistent high point of the series, and seeing true tension re-enter the equation once again should serve to invigorate the relationship. Starbuck’s “wet nurse” comment clearly rattled Adama, and Starbuck’s return in general clearly has Roslin worried as well. As Adama points out, Kara’s return might render Roslin’s life AND death rather mundane in the long run.

In some ways, the Roslin/Thrace stuff mirrors Season 5 of Angel, with the “vampire with a soul” prophecy called into question with both Angel and Spike as potential heirs to that divination. I wonder if BSG will go the Angel route and ultimately side with human action versus divine intervention when it comes down to the fulfillment of the prophecy.

In any case, Adama/Roslin are somewhat back as their were in Season 1: at loggerheads over the most crucial decisions affecting the survival of the human race. Sits fine by me.

Lee Adama

I’m sure this part rang false for a lot of people, in that Lee’s transferal from pilot to lawyer feels inorganic, and also because people seem to truly hate Lee Adama. I’m fine with him, with only that awful love quadrangle in Season 3 bringing him and the others involved down into a frakkin’ mudpool. His move from military to legal work may reflect something the show’s teased out all throughout the show: how can humanity retain its humanity in the face of genocide?

After all, simply surviving isn’t the goal. It’s surviving while maintaining a sense of order, law, morality, so forth and so on. And perhaps the show is tired of Lee saving the day in space and wants to move him into a space where he can lay the societal foundations for their eventual arrival on Earth. His sendoff scene worked for me, and I loved that Dee was forgiving without being weak in their goodbye scene.

Kara Thrace

Once an outcast, now at the center of everything. She used to paint the Eye of Jupiter, then flew through it, and now just might be the eyes, ears, and heart of humanity. Other that that, it’s all business as usual.

One thing I loved, and it’s happened before but never quite so meaningfully, was the exchange between her and Lee and as each wished the other luck on their new life paths. In doing so, they addressed each other not by their call signals, but by their actual names. It summed up what I love about long-form episodic television, in that the words had weight accumulated over YEARS of shared experience with these characters.

And now Kara, much like Lee, finds her place not only away from the fleet, from Galactica itself. And these fractured, yet related, storytelling is yet another way in which the show is returning to its roots as it edges closer to the end.

Gauis Baltar

Loved how he’s no longer spouting the “One True God” just to bag chicks. And while he’s still spouting the “God has chosen me” stuff, it’s less egotistical and more matter-of-fact, but with a certain air of humbleness to it. And hey, he has a new inner voice/vision thingie: a rico suave version of himself. Very slick, man. And he STILL bags chicks, if you consider Tory a chick. And me? I consider it so. Speaking of Tory…

The Final Four

Tory may have started out skeptical of her assignment (aka, “Shag Gauis To Learn the Identity of the Fifth”), but clearly his talk of a one true God made her programming go all aflutter. Her tears from essentially prostituting herself in order to get information turned to tears of joy as his words started to make a sort of sense to her. Again, Baltar is the man.

Not much else with these four this week, but given how seismic their shifts have been recently, I can’t fault a lack of radical resign this week.

The Cylons

But this? This was radical. Cylon on Cylon violence, people. They ARE just like us humans after all!

We had a rogue Boomer, lobotomized Raiders, enlightened Centurions, and that dude from Quantum Leap splattered everywhere. It’s hard to think of an episode that did more to explode the inner workings of the Cylons and leave us as the audience guessing as to what will happen next. Maybe humanity will find itself in the middle of a toaster war. Maybe humanity will ultimately escape because the toasters are too busy toasting each other. In any case, things are gonna get (wait for it) toasty round here, people.

***

Not bad for one hour of television, eh?