Spoilers

“The Oath”

“Blood on the Scales”

“No Exit”

“Deadlock”

“Someone to Watch Over Me”

“Islanded in a Stream of Stars”

I watched six episodes in the final season of Battlestar Galactica today, completely enthralled by the experience. This has been such a journey, with some of the best characters on TV and an almost impossible storyline to predict.

Admiral Adama has been so up and down over this stretch of time. So much of his shakiness has been because of his drinking. I do not think the show has intended to dive into his drinking, but it is clear that the alcohol has been a problem. It turns Adama into someone that is so different, so angry. He is usually a balanced individual, but when he is drinking, he is anything but.

Of course, he had to survive the coup attempt by Tom Zarek and Gaeta. I gasped when Zarek ordered the assassination of the Council, and it being carried out. It seemed like an impossible situation, but Lee, Kara and the others fought brutally to stop the coup and prevent Gaeta from executing Adama. It was close, but they succeeded. The scene at the end of that episode with a firing squad executing Gaeta and Zarek was rough.

How many times over these episodes did Adama remove his Admiral medals? I do not think this was a strong season for Adama overall.

Galactica is falling apart, and the pain it is causing Adama is adding to his own stress. Adding some Cylon living goop to fix the cracks in the structures was not helping matters and only caused more strife among the people on the ship.

Ellen returned. After she had been poisoned by Sol on Caprica, she was reborn in a Cylon resurrection chamber. She was one of the Final Five, and we learned that they were the five that created the current Cylons. Her arrival became a huge point of contention for Sol. Sam was shot in the head during the battle and wound up hooked up to machines, much like the Hybrid was.

Sol and Caprica lost their baby. He was going to name him Liam. It was a real painful moment and only went to highlight how vital Hera was to the Cylons. Boomer wound up manipulating Tyrol into helping her escape from the brig and she ends up taking Hera and escaping Galactica upon a viper, pretending to be Athena. Not before fracking Helo (still pretending to be Athena) with Athena tied up in the very room watching it happen. The possible retrieval of Hera feels like a major part of the final three episodes.

Kara struggled with her discovery from earth of her own dead body. She had no idea how it happened or what was going on. She was not a Cylon as all the models had been revealed (I guess except for Daniel, the mysterious Number 7). She had some connection to a song that her father used to play on the piano for her as a girl, the same song that Hera had written the notes to and that played to trigger the Final Five. How this song works in this story is still a huge question.

Oh, and what a dick move by Baltar to reveal to everybody that Kara had found her own body on earth. He claimed it was proof of life after death. Kara slapped him for revealing the truth as he did, but that seemed out of character. I expected Kara to give him a full on right cross. I had been finding more positives about Baltar over this stretch of episodes, but this made me remember what a jerk he was.

I really liked the alliance formed with the Cylons and the humans, and I also liked how there were plenty of people who found this to be against what they believed.

Adama’s decision to finally abandon ship and give Galactica a goodbye was long overdue as the ship had been dying for much of this season. The moment of Adama and Tigh accepting the loss together was a powerful way to end episode 18.

The final three episodes of the series are a three-part run, and I plan on watching them all together at some time this week. It is entitled “Daybreak” and I can honestly say that I have no real idea how it will conclude, which is awesome. I assume there will be some variation of the vision with Hera playing out at the new Cylon colony, and I have to guess that Cavil will get his comeuppance. I do hope we discover exactly what is going on with Starbuck, and what it means when the Hybrid and Sam referred to her as the “Harbinger of Death.” I do not want Laura to die from her cancer and I would love a happy ending for her and Adama. I do not think that is going to happen, unfortunately.