Wowsers. With Sam doing his little I’ve-got-a-lot-to-tell-you bit, this had to be one of the most informative episodes of the entire series. Let me run down what I think we know at this point…

– Those that are still holding out hope that Ellen wasn’t the fifth Cylon can stop – she is. She was resurrected 18 months ago and is considered to be the “mother” of all the skinjobs. The Ones (or one one in particular) seem to have a major problem with the fact that she made them (somewhat) human. By the end of the episode, the Ones were ready to open up her brain to find the secret of resurrection, but Boomer snuck her off to parts unknown. I’m not clear on when this escape coincides with current events, so if anyone has a clue, be sure to comment.

– Ellen still likes to drink, even after resurrection.

– The final five were living on Earth and they reinvented resurrection. Tyrol was credited for having done a ton of work towards this end, but Ellen was the one that made the final leap to make resurrection possible again. For whatever reason, they had a ship in orbit, waiting for Earth to be destroyed. (And, as far as I know, we still don’t know why Earth was destroyed.) The Cylons living on Earth were able to procreate, which is why they did away with resurrection in the first place. I believe that the implication is that all Earthlings are actually Cylons. That’s good to know.

– Once Earth was destroyed, the final five started off to the 12 colonies to warn them about creating Cylons (and/or treating them badly). They were not able to make jumps, so the travel was very slow, which is what accounts for the 2,000-year difference between Earth’s destruction and when the fleet fled the colonies.

– The final five found that the centurions had a belief in one true God, and that they were experimenting with making hybrids, but nothing would live yet. The cylons were at war with the colonies, so the final five made a deal with them that if they ended the war, they would show them how to make skinjobs. This is why the Cylons went away for a while.

– They made eight models, but the Sevens (Daniel) were apparently killed by the Ones, due to jealousy over Ellen’s favoritism towards the Sevens. Cavil was also the one that took Tigh’s eye.

– Cavil also banished the final five, stripping them of their memories and sending them off to live with the humans not knowing that they were in fact Cylons until a certain point in time. (We do not know why he did this. It would seem to work against his goals to place the five within the human fleet where they could eventually help the humans find a new home.)

A few other notes about this episode…

– The ship is falling apart and Bill had to make the tough decision to use Cylon technology to fix the hidden fractures throughout the ship. Between this and the Cylon FTL upgrades, if the fleet does in fact find a new home, they’ll have the Cylons to thank.

– Tigh had a great line – “Yeah, you point a finger back far enough and some germ gets blamed for splitting in two. No!”

– Cavil said to Ellen, “They destroyed the hub but they don’t know about the colony.” He’s referring to Earth, right? For that to be the case, this conversation had to take place after the hub was destroyed but before the fleet found Earth.

– Roslin passed the torch to Lee. Now he could become the “dying leader” that takes the fleet to find a new home.

– He did a great job as the “brain guy,” but it was a little distracting to see The Daily Show’s John Hodgman (a.k.a. “PC” from the Mac commercials). That guy is soooooooo funny.

– Even though the operation was a success, Sam is apparently brain dead. Hey, if he stays that way, at least he went out with a bang.

Awesome episode.