Review: 'Battlestar Galactica' - Faith

What a difference a week makes!

Take a Cylon base ship, throw in a counting down clock, a bunch of Cylons, a few shocking deaths, and this week's episode was firing on most, if not all, cylinders. Despite a few breakdowns in logic, this episode was a vast improvement over last week and raises a number of issues to be dealt with in the coming weeks.

We pick up with the mutiny of Starbuck's crew, a late development in the previous episode. Truth be told, this situation plays out a bit too quickly for what seemed to be a major development. It just goes to show was pointless filler last week's episode was. But enough about that.

The uneasy truce between the Cylons and humans plays out in a believable fashion, with tempers flaring and both sides unable to put aside their deep hatred. A Six kills Jean Barolay, only to be killed by Natalie Six. None of these deaths make a lot of sense given the task at hand, but it just goes to show how deep hatreds lie, and how difficult and desperate this truce is for both sides. Add to that the sudden death of an Eight, and this was an emotionally charged, violent episode.

These sudden, shocking deaths contrast sharply with the slow, agonizing death Laura Roslin is enduring. The interactions between the dying patient Emily and Roslin were the high point of the episode. Seeing Roslin with the totally bald head comforting a dying patient with her trademark smile was both heartwarming and unsettling. For the two, death becomes a shared experience despite the fact that both feel so alone.

The shared dream experience between Emily and Laura seems to cause a stark shift in Roslin's beliefs. Regarding Baltar, she seemingly begins the process of separating the message from the messenger, which could lead to some interesting developments in the weeks to come. The empty deathbed of the Emily, with Baltar's voice playing from the little radio on the table, seems to be an extension of the otherworldly message Roslin experienced in the dream.

This episode raised a ton of questions. How are they going to integrate that base star into the fleet? Will Gaeta lose his leg? What are we to make of Athena's rejection of the dying Eight's attempt to reach out to her? What about the prophecy of the hybrid, and the final five Cylons' link to Earth? Will D'Anna reveal Sam Ander's secret?

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