Wow, there was a lot going on in this episode. For the last seven or eight episodes, the show has been mostly treading water. Apparently the writers decided to make up for that by having a whole hell of a lot happen this week. So much so it’s hard to know where to start.
My ‘Roslin is lying about her cancer’ theory sure didn’t last long. Given that she can always steal more Cylon baby juice, there doesn’t seem to be too much fear/hope (depending on your feelings on Roslin) of her dying this time around. The only question that remains is whether the dreams she is sharing with Caprica, Hera and Sharon are accessible because of the chamala extract or if some other force is in play.
I thought the courtroom proceedings unfolded really well this week. It was somewhat amusing that the only witness Lampkin didn’t have an easy counter for is the one who was just making shit up.
Of course, Gaeta’s testimony ended up as a moot point when Lampkin put Lee on the stand. One imagines Lee could have given quite a similar speech as part of their closing argument without really changing its impact all that much, but I guess Lampkin didn’t want it to seem rehearsed.
Ultimately, I was happy with the outcome of the trial. Pretty much ever since the whole trial storyline began, I harped on the trial for being a sham, so it was nice to see it pointed out.
It’s probably a good thing Baltar was ‘rescued’ by (presumably) religious fanatics. While the Admiral accepted Lee’s arguments about how it was wrong to make a scapegoat out of Baltar, I have the feeling that Roslin and/or Zarek would have seen to it that Baltar suffered a mysterious accident had he continued to roam around on his own for much longer. Roslin is one scary person when she’s angry.
I’m not quite ready to buy Tigh, Anders, Tori and the Cheif as Cylons just yet. Obviously they believe they are now, but it’s quite possible that something else is going on.
Assuming they really are Cylons, that means the ‘Final Five’ Cylons don’t follow the same rules as the other Cylons. For instance, way back in the mini-series, the Chief (and possibly Tigh as well, I don’t recall) was around all that radiation that killed Leoben, and it didn’t seem to bother him.
If memory serves, Ron Moore previously stated that none of the Cylon models were replacements of human counterparts. So if Colonel Tigh is really a Cylon, that means at least one model infiltrated the colonies at least forty years earlier than we’ve been lead to believe.
One also has to wonder at the agenda behind the ‘Final Five’. None of the Chief, Tigh, Anders or Tori knew about their Cylon status, but (once again assuming they actually are Cylons) it is possible their actions were influenced sub-consciously. Given how important a part the four of them played an important part in the resistance (and later the exodus) on New Caprica, if they were sub-consciously working towards the ‘Final Five’ agenda, that agenda seems to be at odds with what the rest of the Cylons were doing.
Speaking of unknown agendas, we also had the return of Starbuck this week. I know I’ve talked about how I was hoping she would stay dead because I couldn’t envision a way for her to return that wouldn’t be really lame (and honestly, I still don’t have a lot of hope for a good explanation next season), but it was still good to see her back. Of course as soon as Apollo went after the ‘unknown’ DRADIS contact, it was obvious that he was about to find Starbuck, but it was still a nice moment (minor nitpick, the whole zoom out on the fleet and then in on Earth moment was laughably cheesy, kind of hurt the mood).
We know Starbuck’s viper exploded so it’s hard to say where she got this one. If she was picked up by that Cylon raider after her viper exploded, Starbuck could have gotten (or stolen) a shiny new one from them. But if she has some other reason for being alive, it’s not so easy to figure out where she got her new viper. If she really did go to Earth she may have been able to recreate a viper like ship (which would explain why it was showing up as ‘unknown’ on DRADIS), I suppose. On a related note, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Starbuck sound so… peaceful. Too peaceful. I totally don’t trust her.
“Crossroads” was very much about raising new questions (and I didn’t even touch on the whole music thing and what that could mean). You can theorize about the answers to the questions, but pretty much any answer you come up with is going to raise more questions. That’s probably why, for the first time in 2007 I had people messaging me immediately after the episode ended, asking questions. And not ‘Can this show get any worse?’ style questions.
We have no guarantee that any of the answers to the new questions raised in the season finale will be any good. But, for now, people are actually excited about trying to figure out those answers. And that’s got to be a good thing. Unfortunately it’ll be early 2008 before we get any kind of pay-off.
