Battlestar Galactica
Fridays on SciFi, 10PM
“He That Believeth in Me”
Written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Directed by Michael Rymer
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the story is going to involve, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
After a hiatus of more than a year, Battlestar Galactica returned for the debut of its fourth, and final, season, picking up the story where it stopped, with the revelation that four of our heroes are Cylons and didn’t know it, and with Starbuck’s return from the dead. As with most of the series, the potential threat (the four new Cylons) is not suspected, but the apparent good news (Starbuck claims to have found Earth) is. Indeed, the suspicion is that Starbuck is a Cylon (and with that elusive twelfth model still unknown, she just may be), and that her apparent revelation—that she somehow found herself in Earth orbit, took pictures, and returned to the G in about six hours—is nothing more than an elaborate trap. After all, she’s been gone for two months, and the Viper in which she returned is factory-new, not the falling-apart rust-bucket in which she left (though the tail number matches).
Humaniform Cylon models 8-11, as revealed in “Crossroads” (Tigh, Tyrol, Anders, and Tory), have trouble accepting their new reality, but the follow Tigh’s lead: “My name is Saul Tigh. I’m an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that’s the man I want to be.” Can his strength of will be enough to override his programming? Can he be true to the man he’s been (and to Adama, the man who’s believed in him through everything)? Can he follow in Athena’s footsteps, and remain loyal to the humans in spite of his new-found heritage? Obviously, that’s going to be his struggle in the coming weeks. And props for a major-league fake-out befitting of The Princess Bride, when Tigh seemingly echoes Boomer’s first-season antics in the CIC. (Aside: I certainly hope the show can explain how a humaniform Cylon model has been known by a human since before the Cylon wars, before the humaniforms were invented. Unless it’s some sort of hypnotism, from Tigh’s time in the dungeon on New Caprica.) Of course, the three others in his situation elicit the same questions (and Tyrol’s baby with Cally, assuming he is a Cylon, means there are already two hybrids).
It’s hard to accept that these four characters, who we’ve come to know and trust as flawed humans, may really be Cylons. But when the Cylons attack, en masse, every hand is thrown into Vipers to repel the attack (since when have they had more fighters than pilots?). Anders has been training, but he doubts not only his skills, but his loyalties. A whispering Tyrol shoves him into his ship, echoing Tigh’s words at him, and gets him into the battle. Anders finds himself face-to-face with a Raider…a Raider that pauses before firing to scan his face. The Raider apparently recognizes a fellow Cylon, and turns away. But more importantly for the fleet (and more confusingly), the entire force stops their attack and flees. Collective brow-wipe of relief and confusion.
Starbuck’s welcome-back is short-lived, as the battle is upon them, and she flies to the attack with her usual reckless skill, actually spattering Cylon blood on her ship before the retreat signal is sent. Landing on the flight deck, her return from the dead is greeted with a mixture of unabashed relief (more of it from Lee than from her husband, although he can be excused, having just discovered he’s a Cylon) and fear (Adama’s disbelief that this can truly be the woman he thought of as a daughter). Doc Cottle’s examination notwithstanding, Adama just doesn’t trust her. But somewhere in here, he seems to have ceded some control to President Roslin, as he tells Starbuck, “the president has set the course, and I’m going to follow it.” Starbuck’s migraine-type pain with each jump, taking them farther from her chosen path to Earth, obviously hints that there’s something more going on than simply her friends ignoring her good news.
Gaius Baltar was finally acquitted of war crimes, having been the only person not covered by the reinstated President Roslin’s mass amnesty. It took Lee’s speech to make the tribunal realize they were operating on a double standard, trying to make Baltar a scapegoat. But he quickly realizes that he’ll need far more than just an acquittal to find his way in such a small society. He’ll need friends, or at least the sufferance of those who don’t wish him dead, to survive. So it’s lucky for him when he runs into a cult that has apparently decided to worship him as a god. After his initial confusion, he immediately begins proselytizing his cult members, inculcating them to the monotheism he’s adopted from the Cylons. And when his prayers to save the life of a child, even at the cost of his own, are answered, we seen the true beginnings of a schism in the religious life of humanity.
And finally, Lee’s recognition that he’s meant for something more than the life of a fighter pilot comes during a calm, emotional moment with his father in the ready room. Of course, for a young fighter pilot, he’s already known command of the unit (as CAG), and command of a battlestar (as the last commander of the Pegasus), but he tells Adama “the government” has offered him a position, and it’s not much of a leap to imagine that that position will be the vice presidency (though we’ll find out next week).
This episode was far more about cementing the answers revealed in season 3’s finale, and setting up the themes we’ll be following throughout season 4, then it was about telling a complete story. Even the opening credits have changed, pointing the way, if not to Earth, then at least to the finale. No longer do we read that “the Cylons have a plan.” Instead, we now read that there are “Twelve Cylon Models. Seven are known. Four live in secret. One will be revealed.” Hopefully, the words are not to be taken literally; that the twelfth will simply be “revealed” rather than “discovered.” Three seasons of BSG have focused on people surviving through their actions, not through sitting back and letting things come to them. To have the ultimate answer simply dropped in their laps (as the revelations of numbers 8-11 were), rather than ferreted out or discovered, will do a disservice to the characters we’ve come to know and respect. But the producers are keeping us guessing: there is no guarantee that the refugees will find Earth, or that they’ll even survive. And in the end, not knowing if they’ll survive is probably what will keep us tuning in until the very end.