'Battlestar Galactica' Recap: The Rising

Share this article

• Tweet

All About

Battlestar Galactica

Get the latest photos, news, and more

And just because Adama's been beaten into submission by the fate of Earth, soothed into docility by Laura, doesn't mean that he no longer has the teeth when backed into a corner. A sleeping wolf is still a wolf. There was something so satisfying watching Adama shout down the mutineers in the CIC, and even more so when he and Tigh took out the wayward soldiers escorting them to the brig. Just when I despair for the future of Cylon-human relations, these two manage to put aside their differences and remember that it's experience that bonds, not genetics. We can't choose our family, but we can decide whom we want at our backs when the piper needs paying.

Even Baltar is back to the Self-Preservation is Job One mindset. Trapped in his boudoir with his cult loonies — and Tyrol, who seems to be the only sane person in the flock — Baltar has a way off of Galactica, and as a parting gesture, he grants Roslin one final use of his wireless broadcast rig, allowing her serene, logical voice a chance to work on the divided fleet.

As for Laura Roslin — mama just put her fighting hair on.

From there...well, you know what happened: Bill and Laura had a smoochy goodbye before she got into the escape raptor and took off for the Cylon baseship. Lee, Kara, and Tyrol disappeared into Galactica to fight another day. Adama and Tigh got ready for their Alamo.

To be continued. Frak.

Conflict of the soul is one thing, but conflict of the moment is something else entirely. The Season 4.5 premiere, ''Sometimes a Great Notion,'' was all about conflict of the soul. And while I may have been a bit harsh on the episode when I first TV Watched it, I stick by my statement that while it was powerful, it wasn't dramatic. Conflict of the moment, though, is what made me fall in love with this show in the first place. It was the first episode of the series, ''33.'' Sure, all of these people were reeling from the very immediate destruction of everything that they knew and held dear, but they had to deal with the matter at hand — in that case, the Cylon strike force that jumped into weapons range every 33 minutes. And that's why this is my favorite episode of all of Season 4: Because it brings back these characters that we love, as they were when we first fell in love with them.

I know; you can't go home again. But you can visit.

What did you think? What's Gaeta's plan for his Cylon prisoners? Use them as bargaining chips, as Athena suggested? Or does he have something else in mind? (And is Anders really the pick of that litter, or is it Hera?) Couldn't the Admiral have bid the President a quicker farewell and been able to join Lee and Kara, instead of having to make what looks like a doomed last stand? And where the heck is Cavil?