More than any episode this season on Battlestar: Galactica, “The Road Less Travelled” felt like a stop-gap, a place-holder, a way to get people into psychological frameworks for the actions yet to come. This is all fine and well, but considering the second episode of the season also sought to do this, it’s all a bit too much talky talky and enough enough bangy bangy. (That type of analysis is why I make the big bucks, people.)

The theme of this episode? “Making peace with your past,” or rather, just how hard it is for just about everyone to live with the choices they’ve made that have led them to this particular moment in history. Tyrol and Starbucks especially suffer from this problem, weighed down not only by their current situation but their actions, once a seeming random series of occurrences, now seen as the potential work of invisible hands.

There’s a great contrast in those who struggle against the removal of personal accountability in the show. Baltar’s cult thrives on being relieved of both responsibility and imperfection, with chief acolyte Tori at the head of the “everything’s allowed” school of thought. Ironically, those whom destined for greatness shun such major responsibilities. The cult can’t wait to be told they are perfect and the apple of God’s eye. Tyrol and Kara are focused on the Eye of Jupiter. Which eye truly exists? Both? Neither?

Into this mess comes Leoben, Ultimate Mindfrakker extraordinaire, coming with a message of alliance with the humans in the civil war between the Cylons. He also wants Kara to talk to the hybrid in order to locate Earth. But let’s remember the final scene of the tele-movie Razor, in which the hybrid talked to Kendra Shaw and said the following:

Hybrid: Then come closer. There’s something I have to tell you. Come. [She stumbles forward, and he grabs her hand] Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. She…

Shaw: What?

Hybrid: …She is the herald of the Apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.

So, why is Leoben so keen on her speaking with the hybrid? Is Earth the ultimate Cylon end-game? Or is there a hidden meaning in the hybrid’s word? I don’t analyze the minutiae of the show quite as much as I do that of Lost, but then again, I think the Boob Tube Babe believes I spend less time analyzing the minutiae of our relationship as much as I analyze Lost. So don’t feel too bad, Battlestar. I still love ya.

And I’ll love ya even more when you get to the second part of this cliffhanger-laden episode. Given the previews for next episode, it looks like this hour will not have been ill-spent. Still, with the show in its last season, they can’t take too many more time-outs such as this week along the way. Earth should be getting closer each week; right now, it feels like we’re in a bit of a holding pattern.