For months, we’ve been pondering on this blog about what state Earth would be in when the fleet finally found it. But my own personal light bulb didn’t go on until about halfway through this episode – which was called “Revelations” – when I thought about the apocalyptic nature of that part of the Bible, and I said to myself, Earth is probably going to be a nuclear wasteland.
You could just feel the weight of this looming unknown as the fleet made its final jump to Earth and its descent to the planet. (On a side note, it was a big surprise that they jumped to Earth at the end of this set of episodes. I thought for sure that the remaining 10 episodes would be dedicated to the final journey to Earth, as the fleet tried to hold together an alliance with the Cylons.) The truce with the Cylons happened about two-thirds the way through the episode, so with that much time remaining, it was clear that the creators had a big revelation in store for us. Given all the positive vibes when the fleet found Earth, there was no way that the final revelation would be a good one. This show is too dark for that.
“It has all happened before and it will happen again.”
So are we to believe that this cycle continues over and over? The human race started elsewhere (or Earth, I guess), developed enough technology to colonize other planets (or Earth, I guess), then created Cylons, which eventually turned on the humans and chased them back to Earth, which has already been destroyed by the humans living there? Now the human fleet will (possibly) colonize Earth again, build everything back up, and the cycle will continue, over and over? Is this what the hybrid meant when it told Cara that she would lead the humans to their doom? To make things even more interesting, there’s a photo on the show’s homepage that is clearly meant to resemble Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper.
All right, as for the rest of the episode… I thought it was great. The final four revealed themselves pretty quickly, which was a little surprising, but it was interesting to see each relationship change. Adama had a breakdown trying to deal with the truth about Tigh and there was a huge shift in power between Roslin and Torry. It was especially compelling to watch Tigh struggle with his conscience and ultimately make the decision to reveal his true identity. Then Baltar had to step in on the basestar and negotiate with D’Anna on the behalf of what was left of humanity.
So where do we go from here? We have a planet that looks pretty fracking unlivable and we still don’t know the identity of the final Cylon. Will the fleet still colonize Earth? Will we find out what happened there? Will the final Cylon take the fleet to some other Promised Land?
This show is slated for another 10 episodes and I have no idea where it’s headed.
