The most interesting thing, to me, about Reins of a Waterfall, is that we started, finally, to see the Joseph Adama who was hinted at in Battlestar Galactica.

Up to this point, the Joseph Adams/Adama we’ve seen in Caprica is a family man. Sure, he’s related to a major crime family, but he’s the legit one. Sure, he works long hours, but he loves his family and is trying to do right by his son.

We saw snatches of a more domestic Joseph before the bombing, talking with his daughter and wife on the cell. We see it in his attempts to bond with Willie. We see it in his tears for his daughter, whom he now believes to be gone forever.

But the Joseph Adama we heard about on Battlestar was different. He was badass enough to have produced Bill Adama, who joined the military – about as big a rebellion as he could find, it appeared.

The Joseph Adama we heard about seemed mythical, almost. Larger than life.

And in the final moments of “Waterfall,” we saw that man begin to emerge.

His admonition to his brother to “balance things out,” was downright chilling.

For the Graystones, the hurt is only just beginning.

For the viewer, things are really starting to get good.

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Before I share my thoughts about the telemovie, I have to say this: If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, click away NOW. Consider yourself warned.

So the idea behind “The Plan,” ostensibly, was to tell the untold story of the Cylons. The plan they had when they attacked the Colonies in the miniseries.

Problem is, The Plan itself boiled down to, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the humans.” (With apologies to Shakespeare.)

We knew that already. What this telemovie did – and did quite well – was to explain what happened with many little plot points, such as:
• Who did Caprica Six turn and speak to, turning over a metal case, when Baltar left her on that fateful day on Caprica in the miniseries (Cavil).
• How did Boomer’s programming work? How was she “activated”? (A statue of an elephant. Yes, really. An elephant. Why? Beats the hell outta me.)
• What really happened with the water supply being blown out. What really happened with Boomer shooting Adama (she obviously overcame her programming out of love for Adama, or else she would have just shot him in the head, killing him instantly).
• What really happened with that copy of Caprica Six (meaning, her hair was as platinum blonde as CS) with the glasses in Season 1 who accused Baltar of almost exactly what he had done down on the planet, but with poorly photoshopped images (one of her doppelgangers, a prostitute, walked a lot faster than she did and managed to elude the Marines after her, then took off her wig and the actual Six was ordered to airlock herself by Cavil).
• What was Simon’s deal? (One of his copies was married to a human and airlocked himself out of resurrection range in order to not blow up his ship, and his family. Another version was with Anders on the planet.

Other things I liked about the movie were that it showed how at least one of most models, even Cavil, ended up caring deeply for the humans. Leoben couldn’t get Starbuck and her special destiny out of his head. Boomer didn’t kill Adama when she had the chance because she truly loved him as a father (plus, she and Caprica Six were truly devastated when the humans they were leading to safety were slaughtered by Centurions). Simon killed himself rather than his wife and stepdaughter. Even the Brother Cavil with Anders grew to care about the motley crew of survivors he led. We still got very little sense of Doral and unfortunately we saw none of D’Anna.

And I liked that Simon was such a large part of the telemovie, because we hardly saw any of him for the entire run of the series and he always seemed so interesting to me.

I also liked the little moments where there was contact between the Final Five and the Significant Seven, which ranged from extremely significant (Cavil with Ellen on Picon in the strip joint) to minor (when the Five came to the airlocking of the two Cavils.

The things we didn’t find out, that I very much would have liked to have seen, were still vast:
• How, exactly, did Caprica Six’s body manage to shield Baltar from the nuclear explosion when she herself was destroyed?
• Who were each of the Significant Seven modeled after? We know Cavil was a copy of Ellen Tigh’s dad. What about all the others? I’m sure they all were based on someone from the Final Five’s lives.
• What about Daniel, the boxed No. 7 that was but a footnote in the original series, yet drove all the fans bat-guano crazy?
• Why did Leoben FREAK OUT when he saw Kara was dead on Earth? I mean, c’mon, the man FLIPPED THE HELL OUT. He couldn’t have run away any faster if Cylon-eating Dobermans had been on his tail.
• More about the Centurions. They came first, they had self-awareness first, they created the Significant Seven with the Final Five’s help. And how, exactly, did Cavil manage to erase the memories of the Final Five AND the memories of all the other models? It seems that would be connected to his control over the Centurions and Raiders.
• The backstories of the Final Five, how they were planted on the Colonies. They couldn’t age (or could they?), so how did their hanging around for 40 years work out?

I knew the whole issue of how the Final Five ended up leaving Earth and coming to the Colonies wouldn’t be addressed here, but that’s a miniseries/telemovie I’d LOVE to see.

In all, I felt the movie was a wonderful character study, especially of Cavil. When he knifed that boy after giving him a piece of apple, it became obvious we had never misjudged his character. The Cavil on the Galactica was obviously the Cavil who ended up in charge of things back at the Colony. He was irredeemable and it didn’t much matter what happened, he hated the humans and being modeled after them. That’s a story, I admit, that I’d like to see, as well.

Perhaps some of these issues will be addressed by Caprica (not the whole Earth/Kobol connection, though). Either way, that series looks to be very promising. I just have to watch it one more time before I write up my thoughts on that.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on The Plan, so please let me know what was good, bad or indifferent about it.

Oh, and here’s a couple of cool BSG-related posts:
• From i09: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About BSG Season 4
• From the Hairballs blog on HoustonPress.com: Why Battlestar Galactica Kicks Star Wars‘ Ass

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A friend of mine finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, thanks to his Netflix membership and wrote me to tell me how much he and his wife loved the ending – and asking me a couple of questions about the finale.

I think about the finale often, I’ll admit, and I haven’t erased it off my DVR yet, though I haven’t watched it more than twice. I’ve gone back and forth from loving it to being disappointed in the last few minutes of it.

But as I wrote back to my friend, whom I’ll call S., I realized it really was the perfect ending. It is what the show was about all along. Fate. Destiny. Faith. Whatever the personal belief of the viewers, this is what the show was about.

The belief in the one true god was a dividing line between human and cylon from the miniseries itself. Not the only thing that separated them, but it wouldn’t be the first time religion exacerbated a rift between two cultures.

As I wrote, I realized I was putting an awful lot of thought into my answers, so  I thought I’d share his questions and my answers here, too. I’d love to hear what others think.

• First, S. wondered why Cavil killed himself. His wife thought it was because he believed he’d be resurrected on the base ship, but he disagreed. “I thought there was no further opportunity for resurrection. That’s why he agreed to let Hera go, after he was promised that the Cylons would re-create resurrection.”

He’s right, in fact. There was no further opportunity for resurrection, at least not until the Cylons figured it out again, and that seemed highly unlikely.

Cavil killed himself, I believe, because he saw that his time was at an end. I think he killed himself almost BECAUSE there was no resurrection, rather than it spite of there being no resurrection.

Why? Because no matter what he said about the Final Five, he wanted to be one of them. They were his creators. When he saw the whole group of them together and then Tori was gone and there no longer was any hope for his resurrection, what did he have to live for anymore?

He certainly did not want to reproduce the “human” way, nor did he want to reproduce WITH humans. His back was against a wall and he did what all bullies/cowards do: He took the easy way out and ended his life so he didn’t have to figure out where to go from there.

The other question S. had was about the very final scene. It was obvious to him how Caprica Six could be there. She was, after all, a Cylon. But how could Baltar be there? S’s wife suggested they were the “angel” versions and S. thought that made perfect sense.

I completely agreed with his wife on this one, and I think that’s been pretty well established now (hey, he just finished watching, he hasn’t read anything about it to this point so he wouldn’t be spoiled!).

I reminded him of the visions both Baltar and Caprica Six had of the “Head Baltar.”

But then I wondered: Were the “earthly” versions of them actually angels as well? Forced to take human and Cylon form in order to push their races on the path they needed to go.

It kind of makes sense. After all, how in the world did Baltar survive the nuclear blast in the miniseries? It never really made any sense. How could Caprica Six truly have shielded him from that blast, which destroyed his home? She was destroyed and resurrected. And we never saw how Baltar got there.

Was Baltar truly an angel the whole time and Caprica Six an angel the whole time – not all the Sixes, just Caprica Six – in order to blend in and put humanity on a course to finally be at peace with the Cylons?

I’m starting to wonder. Of course, in some ways it doesn’t matter any more, it’s a moot point. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to know.

S’s final thought on the finale was a comment/observation, about Kara. He wasn’t so sure how he felt about her being an angel/ghost. But, he remarked, everything in the series had kind of made sense and had been explained. But Kara’s return never really did make any logical sense. Which was, of course, the point.

I realized in writing my response that it did make perfect sense for Kara to be an angel. She gave her life to her destiny. Her destiny was to find Earth and lead both races to it. And then to find the next Earth and lead both races to it to start over.

But it made me realize that one thing truly was never explained: How did her mother know she had a destiny? Did her mother have any idea what this destiny was? I’d have loved to have understood her mother more.

And her father – well, Kara being an angel/ghost makes me believe that perhaps she really was playing piano with her father on Galactica. Her father could have been an angel/ghost, and guiding her along to give her the clues she needed to fulfill her destiny. The only difference is that everyone in the fleet could see Starbuck. But they had to see her in order to trust her at all. Only Kara needed to see her dad.

That’s all I’ve got for now. However, we do have The Plan telemovie airing this fall, and an article on i09 promised we’d actually learn why Boomer stuck by Cavil, which has been a rather baffling point as well.

And, it appears that yet ANOTHER treatment of BSG, this time with Glen A. Larson’s blessing, could be coming to the big screen, according to HitFix.com, helmed by Bryan Singer.

I have to say, I’m good with that. Even though it would be a different take on it, I’ve never been able to get enough of BSG, even the cheesy Galactica: 1980.

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Can’t wait! Here’s the trailer for the Battlestar Galactica telemovie airing this fall, “The Plan.”

Looks fraktacularly awesome, naturally:

(Hat tip to i09, where I originally saw it posted.)

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Everyone, it seems, felt as if they were in a holding pattern this week, with a really good ep of Battlestar Galactica that was totally just the first hour of the end, and answered really nothing at all.

The biggest question seemed to be what the point of the flashbacks was, though the consensus was that they were quite good, whether or not they were necessary.

I would like to make this comment about the Baltar flashbacks – I think that Caprica Six was so solicitus toward Julius Baltar for more than one reason. I think she saw solving that problem as a way to get on Gaius’ good side, and that was vital. But she was, indeed, taken with Julius, despite his crudeness. Was it a matter of having a respect for one’s parents, parents whom Six did not know but, somehow, deep down, knew she had and had respect for?

Or, and this is TOTALLY speculative and I have no reason to think it other than I’m trying to figure it all out, is Julius some frakked up version of Daniel and Six knows on some level that he’s important and should be taken care of? There’s been some speculation in the blogosphere that Kara and Gaius could be brother and sister, both children of Daniel. I find it hard to believe that Julius could actually be Daniel, but don’t forget that Daniel disappeared from Kara’s life when she was quite young, and there were multiple copies of all the “new” skinjobs.

There are a zillion reasons none of this makes sense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the broader scope of BSG.

Oh, and just one more thing: way back when, Ron Moore told Mo Ryan that the ruined Earth WAS indeed our Earth. Not some other Earth. It’s Earth. There’s no Earth they’re suddenly going to discover.

They have found Earth. This is the Earth that the 13th Colony discovered, they christened it Earth. They found Earth.

And with that, I give you the penultimate So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival.

First off, we have two posts from Kenneth Hynek‘s blog. First, he submitted a post dissecting online spoilers about the upcoming finale, in Could this be the way BSG ends? – I am desperately trying to remain spoiler-free, so I stopped reading a few paragraphs in. And then there’s his recap of the first hour of the last three hours of our beloved show, in I’d almost call it “Twilight” myself… He looks at the flashbacks and what we learned about our characters from watching them.

Tru presents BSG – 9 down, 1 this-frakkin-better-be-good series finale to go posted at True Science Fiction. She felt as many of us did – that giving us this one hour without the other two right behind it left us all hanging. I don’t blame the writers, though. I blame the Sci Fi Channel (or SyFy, as they’ve renamed themselves – whatever) for splitting it up.

Norman Doering presents Battlestar Galactica: “Daybreak” – Part 1 posted at A Blog from Hell. Like many, Norman can’t help but wonder what, exactly, these micro-stories have to do with the finale. He fears he’s going to be quite disappointed. He’s hoping he’s not.

Ms. SP presents The Dark Before The Dawn posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. You know what? Ms. Smarty Pants is gonna be OK with however it goes, so long as the two-hour finale is kick-ass. It’s been one helluva ride, and she appreciates it.

Lisa Paitz Spindler presents Slip the surly bonds of Earth posted at Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal. She poses this question: What if this all takes place in an alternate universe? Not a Star Trek-type alternate universe where Baltar’s a selfless leader and Adama’s an evil megalomaniac, but just another universe where things are very similar, yet quite different. Where everything just happened slightly differently.

And last, but not least, Nina presents Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 19: Daybreak, Part I posted at Blog it out, Bitch. She loved the episode, has no idea what the scene with Lee and the pigeon was about and suggests that Hoshi buy a Shamwow – it’ll be a lot easier to clean up spilled coffee that way. Be sure to read her captions – you’ll LOL.

And that’s it for this week.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m going to be away from Friday through the following weekend. When I get to review the two-hour finale and when I get to post the blog carnival depends entirely upon when NBC Universal decides to post the finale on Hulu. They’ve been waiting eight days for the past few episodes, so I might be a week late.

Even so, submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our
carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

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I was a bit torn on how I felt about last night’s episode of BSG.

There wasn’t much action, and we didn’t get many answers.

But the more I thought about it, the better it seemed.

Though it seemed the episode would be All About Starbuck, Boomer was really the focus and the key.

Honestly, until amost the very last, I found the entire storyline somewhat of a puzzle.

Why would she beat up Athena? Why wouldn’t Adama and Roslin take into consideration that Boomer risked her own neck to bring back Ellen Tigh? Why did she want Hera?

See, I’d been thinking the past couple of weeks that the reason Boomer sided with Cavil lay solely with the fact that Ellen was there, and she wanted to ensure nothing would happen to one of the Final Five. She didn’t really break with her line; she did it to save a Final Fiver from the insane Cavil.

Wow, was I wrong.

It all sort of clicked when Tyrol went back to the “home” he shared with Boomer and their child and found it utterly empty, abandoned. Now, there still is the question as to whether it truly was abandoned, or if he just wasn’t able to project his wife and daughter in the same was as Boomer. And she did, after all, tell him that no matter what happened or what anyone said, she did truly love him.

I believe she did love him at one point; maybe still even does, in some sort of way.

But her abandonment by Tyrol after she had shot Adama and he thought he was still human and her subsequent “murder” by Callie (whom, let’s face it, we’d always known loved Tyrol) scarred her deeply.

We saw that way back in Season 2, when we saw her and Caprica Six back on post-apocalyptic Caprica, and the pair basically decided they needed to come to peace with the humans, rather than kill them all. Boomer felt more human than Cylon.

Then when she helped rule over the humans and saw the resistance and the complete inability for either side to accept the other – and saw Tyrol seemingly happily married to Callie, with a baby – on New Caprica, it seems something broke.

We’ve gotten so used, over the past couple years, to seeing Sharon as Athena, and forgot about Boomer, for the most part.

Yes, Boomer told Athena that Hera was still alive, and we saw Boomer when there was that fateful vote between the Cylon models and she split with her line, but we haven’t really thought about her much, no?

So Boomer was being honest with Ellen when she told her that Cavil was teaching her how to be a better Cylon and less human. It seems she wanted it that way; she believed she would feel less emotional pain if she were more in touch with her Cylonicity, perhaps?

The irony in all this is that by making the Final Five believe they were human for all these years, they made them, well, feel human. Except for Tori, they all are extremely in touch with what it means to be human, and the Tighs in particular don’t seem to want that to change. Anders is so excited to have gotten all his memory back that he’s a bit hard to read, even though he truly believes the mission they were on – to warn the humans not to exploit the Cylons and for the two races to live in harmony – was right and just and the only way to stop the cycle.

I realized today that unless this effort succeeds, the next cycle has already begun  – a people wandering the stars, looking for a new home. Instead of being split into 13 tribes, one of which heads off in a completely different direction, they are one tribe – for the moment. However, the Cavil faction of Cylons is still out there, and could still end up being the spoiler and settling somewhere and starting the cycle all over again a few thousand years from now.

And so that brings us to Starbuck.

I believe the mysterious, non-existent piano player was actually Starbuck’s father and/or Daniel. Starbuck has some deep connection to the Cylons, that much is obvious. But what does that song have to do with everything? It connects Starbuck, her father, the Final Five and Hera.

Once again, a piece of music is key. (Bear McCreary must be pleased.)

And whatever connects Hera to the Final Five and Starbuck also connects them somehow to Roslin. Don’t forget, she had the Opera House visions. And she knew immediately when Hera was taken.

Is it possible that there are more hybrids than we realized? Is it possible there is this One True God who is connecting these people in an effort to stop them from killing one another?

Three more episodes. Next week: “Islanded in a Stream of Stars.” (Link to preview.)

As Galactica continues to deteriorate, Adama resists the need to abandon the ship and Baltar emerges as an unlikely voice of hope.

Is it just me, or is that supposed to sound not only as if they are an island in a stream of stars, but also as if someone (I) landed in a stream of stars? Obviously some significance, but what, exactly, I will have to wait six more days to determine.

So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival hosted here on Tuesday. Come to read some of rather interesting articles about BSG. Submit links here.

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In blogging last week about BSG, I ignored a huge part of the episode, as I got rather wrapped up in the whole “Ellen Tigh really is as crazy as she seemed, but I love it” part of things.

Don’t worry, lots of Baltar goodness to go around in this week’s carnival, but I thought I’d share some things I’ve been musing on:

Baltar is crazy. Like a fox. He quickly sees that control of his cult has been all but wrested from him. But the ladies still have an eye for our brilliant, possibly insane, doctor, and he has a last chance to get it back.

All he needs to do is appeal to their inner sense of strength. And if that doesn’t work, their desire to have bigger guns than the bad guys. That should do the trick.

Head Six is still totally in on the game. What does that mean? We know that some of the Final Five had visions that preceded the blowing up of Earth, etc., so what does that mean for Baltar? We know that he has some sort of strange connection to the Cylons, but what is it? Is he perhaps a hybrid? And why does Caprica Six hallucinate Baltar?

And, is Baltar and his merry band of insane women going to become the new militia? Sort of the National Guard, if you will? And I simply must ask this (as did, I think, EVERYone else watching the show): WTF did he say to Adama/Roslin/Lee to convince them to give him the big guns? I mean, really?

Anyway, there’s a lot to get to here, lots of entries, so let me get started:

First off, Jayson Peters presents ‘Battlestar Galactica’ finale will be a two-parter posted at Nerdvana: Sci-fi, comics, games & more. Jayson reports that the finale will be three hours, split in two segments. FRAK!

Lisa Paitz Spindler, a first-timer here, presents Among Bright Stars I’m Lost posted at Lisa Paitz Spindler. It’s a recap of No Exit, actually, but has some really excellent points. She caught a few things I heard at the time, but never really registered with me – such as when Ellen asks Boomer about “the swirl,” which I take to be the image that Starbuck painted/sketched/drew her entire life. Connection to Daniel?

Kenneth Hynek, another newbie to our carnival, presents A potential inspiration for BSG? posted at Kenneth Hynek. It’s a fascinating look at a book I’ve never read, “On the Beach,” and the similiarities it has with our beloved BSG. If the show were to continue to echo the book, that could mean things end poorly. Which we expect already, given the show and everything Edward James Olmos has said. I want to read this book now.

Norman Doering presents All My Cylons … these are the days of our fives … As The Galaxy Turns posted at A Blog from Hell. In it, he coins my favorite word of the year: Balcubines, to describe Baltar’s female minions.

Nina presents Battlestar Galactica – Season 4.5 Epi 16: Deadlock posted at Blog It Out Bitch. It’s long, but it’s funny. And she quotes Adama’s best line of the entire series, when he declares he has to go to the head. And like most of us, she can’t figure out what the frak Adama’s doing arming Baltar and his balcubines.

Tru presents BSG – 6 down, 4 to go posted at True Science Fiction. He was a bit disappointed that not more was resolved or moved forward. I’ve heard that from several folks, though I don’t necessarily agree.

Roberta presents BSG So Say We All Blog Carnival – Ellen, Baltar & his blanket and possible BSG movie posted at CouchSlobs – A Monument To Human Idleness. She reconciles the thought that this crazy lady could have been responsible for the skinjob Cylons with the recognition that Baltar is also bat-guano crazy and yet was considered the most brilliant man in the Colonies before, well, he helped get them all ‘sploded. And she also links to an article about Universal considering a BSG movie – based on the original series, because only Glen A. Larson has movie rights.

Ms. SP presents If I Go There Will Be Trouble, If I Stay There Will Be Double posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. She posits some very interesting thoughts about the idea that one has to be in love in order to procreate, and what kind of person would follow a God who enforced that. It made me wonder if that is the reason the “new” Cylons could never procreate. They tried to procreate to make new Cylons, not out of love. Hera was born out of love between Helo and Sharon. Hmm?

Phew! That’s it for this week. “Someone to Watch Over Me” comes this Friday, and then there just three more episodes. I’m not clear, however, if three episodes counts the two-part finale as one, in which case there are really five hours left. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

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I don’t think I need to repeat how fantastic I thought Friday’s ep was, so I’m not gonna say much here. Let’s just get into the week’s

submissions, no? (I can’t believe there are only five episodes left!!!!!) By the way, if after reading all this, you still want more, head over to Mo Ryan’s blog at the Chicago Tribune and check out her Q&A with the writers. We will find out what Starbuck is and we’ll get more Boomer. Oh, and the devastation on Earth was, indeed, the result of a Cylon Civil War.

Nina presents Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 15: No Exit posted at Blog It Out Bitch. She has a very interesting theory about Starbuck that actually makes more sense than mine. Be sure to check out the pre- and post-episode questions. Amazing how many questions the ep actually did answer.

Tru presents BSG – 5 down, 5 to go posted at True Science Fiction. John/Cavil’s rebellion against the Final Five is very much the stuff of nightmares for every parent of a teenager, he notes.

Norman Doering presents A few Pieces of a Puzzle posted at A Blog from Hell. “In a way,” he says, “Ellen Tigh is our Doctor Frankenstein and Cavil is her monster. The others making up the final five are apparently just a collection of Igors.”

Jayson Peters presents “Battlestar Galactica: No Exit” — It’s all coming together posted at Nerdvana. He points out that Ellen Tigh wasn’t the Final Cylon after all, and that Moore & Eick were all tricky on us, hiding a No. 7.

Ms. Smarty Pants presents Hell is Clunky Exposition posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All. Not a fan of the exposition dump (as Norman, above, called the episode), Ms. SP still found there to be some interesting answers, not least of which is that the Final Five all had “head angels” like Baltar has. Hmmm. What the frak does that mean, though???

Roberta presents BSG So Say We All Blog Carnival – brainfry anyone? posted at CouchSlobs – A Monument To Human Idleness. She managed to pull her frazzled brain together enough to ponder Daniel (and express relief that my urgent cries of WHY IS SHARON NO. 8??? were finally answered) and express rather interesting thoughts about the Cylons’ desire to be more human.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our
carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

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I have to admit it – the blood shed was not exactly whose I’d expected.

Your only warning: Don’t read if you didn’t watch.

After watching Friday’s installment of BSG, I found myself in awe of the perfect show.

I had a lot of trouble writing this post, I must admit, so I’m going to take it character by character – or, at least, character group by character group.

Tom Zarek and Felix Gaeta:

I have to admit, I’m sad they’re gone.

Tom Zarek was right, I must admit, when he basically told Gaeta to man up and deal with the fact that this was a coup. Gaeta’s disbelief that Zarek had the Quorum killed reflected his inability to understand what he had started.

I don’t really blame Zarek for anything he did. He, at least, was honest with himself, with Felix, with everyone. Well, except when he lied about Tigh and Adama having been killed.

I felt sorry for Felix, in a way. He truly did believe in his cause. He felt strongly that wrong had been done, and not just to him, but to all the survivors of the Colonial Holocaust.

Zarek took advantage of that and tried to make his naked bid for power.

Does this mean, however, that now Roslin and Lee are the only two surviving members of the Colonial government? And with Roslin dying, does this mean Lee might become the president much in the same way that Roslin did? By virtue of being alive?

So that brings me to

Apollo and Starbuck:

How awesome was it to see the two of them together, kicking ass and taking names?

First off, totally laughed when Starbuck knocked out the guy at the urinal, took his weapons and Lee took them without comment.

The two of them need to work together more often. And Lee looks so much more at home with a weapon than in a suit.

If Anders were to die, will Starbuck and Apollo actually finally get together? Starbuck will never leave Anders, not even with him being a Cylon.

But I’m not convinced that he’s dead. He was still alive at episode’s end, and on the way to Doc Cottle. And he’s a Cylon, so might he still be able to resurrect?

Which brings me to

The Cylons in the Fleet:

I’d say the Final Four, but Athena Sharon, Hera and Caprica Six were in the mix, so…

They didn’t have much of a role in the episode, but I found a few things interesting.

First off, the Sharons are a really interesting line of Cylon. We have Athena, who broke from the Cylons in order to be with the man she loved. We have Boomer, who fought (with Caprica Six) to have the Cylons stop killing humans after she resurrected back on Caprica. We have the Eight model who broke from the rest of her line to vote with Cavil, Simon and Aaron. I just wonder how she has so much diversity in the one model; so many diverging opionions. It shouldn’t be possible. Or should it?

I couldn’t help but think that Tori might end up being the only Cylon left alive by episode’s end. When Tyrol was running through the Galactica, I thought he might be going to blow it up.

When they started spooling up the FTL drives, I realized what he was really after.

This episode showed the true integration of Cylons and humans into one group. While many humans stood by Adama, the Cylons in the fleet unflinchingly stood by him, even when they knew it could mean their deaths. They never tried to flee.

And by sheer force of will, Roslin got the Cylons on the Base Star to stick around – though Leoben appeared to have wanted it more than the other models.

SPOILER if you don’t watch previews:

And next week, we start seeing the truth about the Final Five, with the return of Ellen Tigh.

What I wonder: How long has she been resurrected? I’m assuming right after her death. So Cavil knows she’s alive, I’m assuming. And he’s been hiding her. Do the Simons and Aarons know?

Roslin and Adama:

If Mary McConnell and Edward James Olmos don’t get nominated for Emmys next time around, this is a travesty.

The two actors put so much into these characters in this episode, I was blown away.

Roslin’s anger when she believed Adama to be dead was truly a force to behold. And Adama’s quiet anger at those who betrayed him cut like a knife.

McConnell and Olmos weren’t acting; they WERE those characters. If the Academy chooses not to recognize that …

Watching last night, I felt better about the choices made in having Roslin retreat into nothingness and hid out on Galactica. If she hadn’t withdrawn so utterly and left a vacuum in which Tom Zarek could take hold of power, last night’s episode would not have been possible.

Baltar:

It’s impossible to hate Baltar.

Which is kind of the point, I guess.

He is such a characteriture of himself and, yet, every time you think he’s unredeemable, he finds a way to be just ever so slightly less reprehensible.

He followed his desire to flee, in large part to escape his insane followers. But even he recognized how wrong that was and sees he must return. Damn Gaius Baltar for being human!

The final six episodes:

SPOILER IF YOU DONT’ WATCH PREVIEWS:

We know that Ellen Tigh is returning next week. I’m assuming she resurrected above New Caprica after Saul killed her. I’m also assuming Cavil knew and has been keeping her in hiding.

That would explain his intense desire to keep D’Anna boxed and knowledge of the Final Five from everyone.

Ellen seems different.

Her connection to Saul was such a mystery and yet so intense. It goes back 2,000+ years; that explains it. But she also, in Saul’s flashback, had made preparations for their future. She knew they’d be resurrected; did the others? Were they even aware of their ability to be resurrected?

I think we now will start finding out some big-time answers to questions and I’m very excited. My only regret is that this also means we’re coming to a close. In six weeks, BSG will be but a memory.

Fortunately, the Caprica pilot will be available online or through iTunes in April. Unfortunately, that’s the only way it will be available until it premieres to kick off the Caprica series in 2010.

Guess I’ll be making an iTunes purchase.

Don’t forget: So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica blog carnival posts Tuesday. If you know anyone who writes about the show, please let him or her know and urge them to submit their post here. I’ve been loving reading all the divergent views of these final episodes.

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I still haven’t properly caught my breath since Friday’s magnificent episode of BSG.

When it ended, my husband turned to me and said, “There’s no way they’d kill Adama off, is there?”

Then he looked at me. We both knew that when it comes to this show, nothing’s off the table.

Unlike almost any other show, Battlestar is fearless in showing the faults of all involved. (OK, The Wire was pretty good at it, too.) No one’s truly 100 percent likable. And even the people you know you should hate, you find yourself … not hating entirely.

Remember back in Season 3 when we found ourselves back on Cylon-occupied Caprica with a resurrected Caprica Six and newly self-aware Boomer? For the first time, the Cylons were humanized and the pain Caprica Six felt over her separation from Baltar was heart-rending.

And Leoben’s creepy obsession with Starbuck was also tinged with love. He didn’t care how many times Starbuck killed him, he would come back for more, convinced he could, in the end, win her over.

Which he did, sort of, this season.

President Roslin has made us uncomfortable in the past – when she tried to steal the election from Baltar – and until Friday, had really been pissing me off lately with her complete inability to cope with the disappointment that was Earth.

When Roslin got off the Raptor upon returning to the Galactica from Earth, her decision not to answer anyone’s questions angered me. Then her withdrawal from everything and decision to allow Zarek to basically hijack the government really angered me. Roslin is fully responsible for the situation we found ourselves in on Friday. Her use of Baltar’s wireless was too little too late.

And Baltar – how often have we utterly hated him, only to be sucked back in, feeling, perhaps, sorry for him? His remaking of himself as a prophet with his flock, even, had him redeeming himself by praying to the One True God to save the life of a little boy. And when the boy recovered from his illness, who among the show’s fans didn’t wonder if maybe, just maybe, Baltar was on to something and actually did have a pipeline to the OTG?

As much as I’d hate to see Adama be killed, I can only imagine how intensely amazing the show would be if they went there. We know that nothing truly will end well. BSG isn’t a happy ending sort of show.

Watch the whole episode here:

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