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Written by: David Weddle and Bradley Thompson
Directed by: Michael Rymer
Starring: Lucy Lawless, Callum Keith Rennie, Dean Stockwell
Rating:
The One Where: D’Anna sees the faces of the Final Five.
Synopsis
Adama’s ready to fi re his nukes at the temple on the “algae planet”. The Cylons bottle it... except D’Anna, who gambles correctly that Adama won’t launch for just one ship (carrying Baltar, a D’Anna and a Cavil). The other Cylons are shocked by this display of individualism.
Sharon Agathon gets Karl to shoot her so she’s downloaded to the Cylon ship and reunited with baby Hera. She convinces Caprica Six that the child should see a human doctor, and Six shoots Boomer so they can escape...
On the planet: Apollo orders Dee to rescue Starbuck. D’Anna believes she’s “The Anointed One”, chosen to see the final five Cylon models (but Baltar’s “Inner Six” says he is). Ultimately Tyrol is ordered to blow up the temple. But the Cylons disconnect the detonators...
The planet’s sun goes nova. It looks like a design on the temple floor – this is the Eye of Jupiter. D’Anna stands on it, in a shaft of light from the nova (Baltar shooting Cavil when he tries to stop her). She has a vision of five glowing white figures. “You!”, she says, “Forgive me, I had no idea...” Afterwards, she dies, saying “You were right!” to Baltar... who’s then captured by the Colonials.
Starbuck and Dee return to Galactica; so do Sharon, Caprica Six and Hera (in a captured Raptor). Gaeta says another supernova would have been visible 4000 years ago, so the Eye is essentially a road sign to “the Ionian nebula” – it also looks like a design Starbuck’s been doodling and painting for years...
D’Anna is resurrected, but Brother Cavil pulls the plug, announcing that her model is being put into cold storage cos they’re unreliable.
Review
This episode looks substantial but isn’t actually all that filling. Once you get to the end you realise that you haven’t gained much in the way of concrete knowledge. We can’t help wishing the 13th Tribe had just left a map somewhere… While D’Anna’s vision of the final five is gripping, it’s immensely frustrating that she can’t croak out “It’s… it’s… all five of Girls Aloud!” or something. When Brother Cavil puts her on ice you want to throw a shoe at the screen. In short: it’s rather like watching Lost.
The plot strand where Apollo orders his wife to risk her life to save his lover has plenty of dramatic potential, but is underexploited. And the ease with which Caprica Six and Sharon take Hera home beggars belief: what, they can just waltz off without anyone noticing?
One final thing that’s bugging me about the “algae planet”. Er... where exactly is all this algae? Shouldn’t their base of operations be slap bang next to a river or lake? But I guess I can live with that...
Dialogue
Anders: “If Kara dies out there, I swear to gods I will kill you myself.”
Apollo: “If she dies out there I’ll let you.”
Ian Berriman
