Battlestar Galactica: "Revelations"

Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica comes to a close until 2009, but on the bright side, Season 4b will get an extra two hours for the series finale. Also on the bright side: Season 4a's finale maintains the quality built to it from the rest of the season. Spoilers abound:

What a frightening episode. I spent so much time worrying that one or many of my favorites were going to die that I am kind of relieved about the disheartening future for them all. But the deathly tone overshadowed much of the opening acts: Kara telling Lee that Bill must die in order for Lee to become his own person, Laura telling Bill to blow up the basestar, Tigh talking about airlocking himself, the list goes on. But at the end of the day, nobody died except the dream of Earth.

The Final Four plot was beautiful. Seeing each of them present at D'Anna's arrival immediately gave me shivers, and the way D'Anna gracefully handled her ultimatum, practically winking at Tigh, was perfect. The paranoia was palpable, really augmenting the Cold War-ishness of the episode (and latter half of the season, on second thought). I don't know what to make of Tory any more, probably due to Rekha Sharma's overshadowed performance, but I can't believe she wouldn't care about humanity being destroyed. On the other hand, her cold tension with Roslin implies that perhaps Tory is indicting humanity for their blind hatred of cylons.

Somewhere along the way, Saul Tigh became the noblest character on this show (with the possible exception of annoyingly righteous Helo). Stewing in his contribution to Laura's potential death, confessing to Bill, and waiting in an airlock, Michael Hogan continues to be one of the best players on Battlestar. Tyrol and Anders, though, were essentially stand-ins this episode. I guess without Anders, Starbuck wouldn't have gotten involved in the Mystery of the Resurrected Raptor, but other than playing Hardy Boys, Anders and Tyrol were non-characters, lumped together and acted upon by others. They didn't even get to out themselves, although that only would have led to Starbuck causing an international incident, so to speak.

Speaking of which, the Galactica Missile Crisis was thrilling. I loved that Tory knew Lee was spineless, but interestingly, D'Anna started to look nervous about the possible consequences of the standoff while Lee didn't look back. The intercutting with Starbuck in the raptor and Gaius trying to talk D'Anna down ratcheted up the tension and called back to Gaius' relationship with Three during his time on the basestar post-New Caprica. Gods, I miss the weird cylon threesome days.

But the can't-we-all-get-along resolution, with Lee's about-face (however consistent with his character) and cylon amnesty was a bit weird, like the Obama hope campaign actually being put in effect in a real life situation. It was like that time when the Pegasus showed up, and everyone was weirded out even though they knew they were supposed to be happy. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be more pleased that nobody died and the cylons aren't the blind enemies of the humans now. It's just that I know by now to be distrustful of happy endings, and we got happy endings in spades.

I realize Earth ain't all it's cracked up to be--by the way, that Geiger counter was picking up a lot of radioactivity, yet another Cold War reference--but they got there nonetheless. And there's some sort of human-cylon alliance, and Laura and Bill are openly affectionate, and Laura's become the mother of humanity (I mean this regarding both her encouragement of Lee and her scenes with Tory and Baltar), and Kara didn't throttle Sam's neck, so we've been dealt a mostly happy hand. Plus we got that extended montage of the human civilization celebrating their victory--I was so excited to see Tyrol's miner's union again, I overlooked the frustrating lack of serious making out between Bill and Laura. They got to Earth, and they hug again? Come on! (Sidenote: At first, during the final scene between Lee and Bill, when Laura came striding out, I thought she was his Head Laura, which would have been even more romantic than his "I can't live without her" from "Sine Qua Non"). I know I'm not the only one itching for some middle-aged loving on Battlestar.

Musically the show is as exciting as ever. Bear McCreary has long been dependable to bring an Eastern element to the series, with Indian and Middle Eastern themes recurring, notably in the reworked "All Along the Watchtower," now with sitar. But tonight, when we reached Earth, the music was decidedly more Christian, a bit medieval in fact. Maybe that's why at first I thought the crew landed at Tintern Abbey. Instead, they landed in The Waste Land.

More than anything else, I'm elated that we finally got an episode that not only included everyone, but gave everyone at least a momentary spotlight. Scenes like Dee picking up the water bottle for Gaeta elevate the rest of this crazy series by fleshing out the realities of the universe. In fact, more than anything else, that scene reminded me how much they've all been through, with Gaeta and Tigh visibly damaged and Dee trying to keep everyone together. Even Kat made an appearance via her picture on the wall. And that scene at the end, with every one of our main characters on Earth, a bit disappointed and wondering what's next, was powerfully moving.

What's next is a very good question at this point. Thankfully, and a little surprisingly, even the die-hards like Bill and Laura are accepting of the cylons in the fleet now, and I wonder if there's a future for Starbuck and Anders (although it seems like they're pushing Kara and Lee back together and using Tory as an out for Anders). Obviously the final cylon is the major loose thread--I can't tell you how many times I feared someone I loved would die and then be revealed as the final cylon. But now that we're on Earth, both humans and cylons, I hope they don't go with the "everyone's a cylon" theory. Of course, I'm far more interested in the characters than the plot. Did you notice in the final tracking shot how Anders rejected Tory's advances? Also, Tigh and Six are going to have a baby at some point, and we can all be thankful that Lucy Lawless is here to stay. Which reminds me that the rest of the cylons--there are others, right?--will likely show up at some point.

Overall, I felt "Revelations" was an exciting conclusion to this season (I'm tired of this midseason/season nonsense--this has been a season, and next year we'll get another), if not quite the best episode (I prefer "The Hub"). It represents the most serious game-changer yet, although I still feel "Lay Down Your Burdens" was more interesting, if only because then we knew we'd eventually get off the planet and be back on our way to finding Earth. After "Revelations," what's to come feels like it won't be the Battlestar Galactica we've come to love. While writing the series finale, Ronald D. Moore wrote "It's the characters, stupid" on his whiteboard to keep himself focused. He's absolutely right; next season will not be about the search for earth, but rather it will follow up with our characters now that we're there. And now that we know Laura, Baltar, Tigh, and all the rest are going to be in the final season, I can't frakkin' wait.