The Invisible Library

There is absolutely no way to talk about last Friday’s episode of Battlestar Galactica without giving away the ending. It was that good. So, if you don’t want to know what happened, stick your fingers in your ears. Otherwise…

Let’s get one thing straight: this was a season finale. It may technically be a mid-season hiatus, but whatever. We won’t be getting any new episodes until January ‘09[1] and the way this episode ended was finale-esque, so much so, that for a brief moment (maybe 10 seconds) after the screen went black, I was convinced that this was it. The End. We were done as in done: series finale. And this would have been an iconic ending, right up there with Planet of the Apes.[2] But no, thankfully. There’s more to come! Which is good, because we have questions. And we need answers. Or at least fair approximations.

While we still don’t know who the final Cylon is, we know they were not in the fleet. This means it’s either Cain or Kendra Shaw.[3] How that will be handled is just one of the remaining mysteries.

What they’ll do now that they’ve reached Earth and found it to be an irradiated, post apocalyptic wasteland is another. Elvira suggested this could lead to a creation of a new faction, possibly led by Tom Zarek, who is probably pretty fed up with being led around, mistrusted and lied to all so that the straggling remnants of the human race can be led to their doom. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and gang of followers decide to run off with a ship to find someplace not-Earth to try and start over. As for those who stay to try and make a place on Earth where humans and Cylons can coexist… well, good luck with that. I don’t see if going very well.

I expect that the survivors will learn the truth: that humanity started on Earth, which is where the first Cylons (the Five) were created. The five and their human supporters nuked Earth and then left to find a new home, which is how they got to Kobol. The 12 Lords of Kobol then were the first Cylons and human hybrids. This knowledge will very likely lead to a conflict or two, with two factions of Cylons (one for cooperating with the colonials, the others for killing them all and rebuilding Earth as a Cylon-only paradise). By then, Lara Rosalyn will be dead if not Adama as well.

Adama is not long for the world. He just barely got the fleet to Earth and has suffered so many disappointments at this point that he is irrevocably broken. After everything he’s been through, you don’t just settle down in the little nuclear house on the prairie and get past that.[4] Moses doesn’t get to go to the promised land, even if it does suck.

And then there are the babies. How the Hybrids fare in all this is a big question mark.

So many questions and seven months or more until we get answers!

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1. Or maybe March(!) The up side: the series finale has been extended to three hours and there will probably be another Razor-style TV movie happening sometime between now and then, so we won’t be left adrift to speculate for an entire year. Just most of one.

2. Some people are griping that the moment they landed on Earth and the great slow pan of the ruined cityscape is similar to the final scene of POTA. I see it, but this is in no way a bad thing. “This has all happened before and will happen again” is not just a plot device, it’s a thematic linchpin. The internal history of the world repeats itself, but so do the smaller moments, making dozens of little homages and allusions to the science fiction and cultural foundation on which BSG is built and without which, would not exist. This has all happened before. Every little bit of it. And that is no accident or artifact of lazy writing. It’s an important detail.

3. Or Cally but that’s unlikely and would be a real let down. Cally is best left floating in space. Besides, that would make Nicolas way too complicated a character for a baby.

4. Also, Edward James Olmos deserves an Emmy. Watch his break-down scene again and tell me I’m wrong.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Battlestar Galactica, Television, Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.