Battlestar Galatica - the Final Episodes - Sometimes a Great Notion

The gut wrenching space opera Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end this year on the SciFi channel. "Sometimes a Great Notion" is the first episode of the second half of season four and it aired originally on January 16, 2009. This is a recap of this powerful episode of television.

The last time we saw the Colonial fleet they were standing on the surface of a planet that seemed to be obliterated by a global nuclear war. There was desolation, darkness, and very little hope. The theme of hopelessness runs through this episode as we see several key characters engage in self destructive behavior. President Roslin burned her copy of the holy texts, and the most shocking moment of the show occurred when Dee shot herself in the head. I was certainly not expecting that. Finally, Admiral Adama attempted to enrage Tigh into killing him. All of these climatic events happen with a background of sulking soldiers on Galactica. As Roslin says, "we traded one nuked civilization for another". The show has always done a good job of setting the mood, but this episode really lays the depression on thick and heavy.

Amidst this darkness, we get quite a few revelations. First, all of the bones they found on Earth were not human. Instead, the whole planet was Cylon. The four Cylons that were revealed in the last half started to remember things that happened over 2000 years ago on Earth indicating that they have resurrected. The problem is that they have no idea how they ended up so far away with the Colonies. Starbuck also finds her mangled body on Earth and burns it out of fear that she may be a Cylon. Finally Tigh remembers that his wife Ellen was with him when Earth was obliterated which indicates that Ellen is the fifth Cylon.

All of the answers revealed by this episode just brings up more questions. For example, what is Starbuck? Who made the original humanoid Cylons? Where will the fleet go now? With nine episodes to go, I think this episode did a good job of setting up the rest of the show, but I am also afraid that we will not get all the answers we are looking for. I am also quite amazed that they managed to pack so much information into this one episode. Hopefully everything will be revealed in a logical manner in future episode.