shindotv

I’ve more or less cleared the spoiler zone here. This will be the last time we see a new episode until Winter ‘o9.

Ah, what a mind frak! We don’t get the Final Cylon in this episode. Tory gets aboard the Cylon Bastar without initially giving herself way, but once she’s there, she defects. She’s frakked up on the job before, but this is the first time Tory shows outright insubordination towards Roslin. The other three Cylons are outed, not by Number Three, but Saul Tigh, who more or less accomplishes this task with a great deal pressure from Three.

Number Three wastes no time in making her fellow Cylons and the Fleet her bitches for a great part of the episode. She is also a great source of tension for the Fleet, first for being in a position to out the Final Four, and then using a variety of coercion tactics to bring them out into the open.

Saul would have never volunteered his Cylon nature he didn’t feel compelled to save the Fleet. Adama, like most recipients of a coming out story, doesn’t take it too well. Once in a Viper launch tube, Tigh outs Sam Anders and Tyrol on Presidential orders from Lee Adama.

Ironically, Baltar saves humanity from within the Basestar by talking sense to Number Three. Unknowing collusion with the Cylons led to the destruction of the Colonies, but active discussion helps save them. Kara Thrace helps avert the spacing of the Tigh, Anders, and Tyrol (and also the destruction of humanity again) by showing Lee that those Cylons helped pinpoint the way to Earth. They’ve been hearing the same same signal that Kara picks up on her Viper’s instument panel.

Unlike Galactica 1980, there is no humanity there to greet them, no flying motorcycles, and no revelations that Colonials don’t have fingerprints. No boy genius is around to provide anthropological data on Earth and do miracle farming. Howevver, the androids have already been introduced and a portion of them lands with the Colonials. One has had a baby with a human father, another sired a baby with a human mother, and two of them have conceived a child together.

All we see so far is the nuked remains of a temple and a city skyline. The sci-fi cliché is to show a devastated New York City with the ruins of something iconic, like the Statue of Liberty. Nothing quite identifiable here. Where on Earth this scene takes place is yet to be revealed.
Roslin, Adama, Three, Athena, Caprica Six, and Tigh are seen on the surface. Caprica lightly touches Saul, which gives some support to the idea that she loves him. Now we just need to find out who the Final Cylon is.

Hopefully all will be revealed in January or February next year. It would be nice if there wasn’t such a huge gap between episodes. There’ll probably soo be a DVD set of the first half of the fourth season just to keep us all from mobbing NBC/Sci-Fi Channel.