Please be aware that this post contains detailed spoilers for episode 20 (4.22) (”Daybreak Part 2”) of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica so do not read on if you have not seen the episode and do not want to be spoiled

One Sentence Review

A fairly satisfying ending to the series though it rivals LOTR Return of the King in terms of long endings

Plot Summary

The episode opens with another flashback with Adama and Tigh in a lap dancing club, and we find out that the 1 hour is something to do with a new job. We then cut to a Lee/Starbuck flashback and the dinner where they first meet with Zach present and talking politics with Zach calling Lee a cynic. We then cut to Roslin and find the link with Shaun is (thankfully) that he used to be her student. Back with Adama, he asks Tigh if he would do it and Tigh refuses to answer. Back with Lee/Starbuck, Zach has passed out from drink so Starbuck continues the “drinking contest with Lee” with shots. Back with Adama he is very drunk outside the club and laughs as he looks up at the sky.

Back in the present Inner 6 tells Baltar to follow Gods plan for him and guide humanity to its end. In sickbay Cottle and Roslin have a tearful goodbye and she is given 2 days worth of meds. We then cut to the final pre mission briefings with all the teams. The final five then come up with a plan to link Anders in with the Galactica systems were he will then be able to slow down the colonies systems by interfering with it’s hybrid. Adama is then seen giving command of the cylon baseship and the fleet to Hoshi and watching the cylons plug Anders into the CIC. In the Hanger bay we see that Romo Lampkin is acting president and gets ready to leave on the final raptor with Hoshi. Baltar then climbs onto the final raptor hands his things over to Paula and gets back onto Galactica giving Paula leadership of his followers. Lee then throws Baltar a gun as ranks of red slashed centurions appear. As Adama gets every department to check in we see Baltar and Caprica 6 together with the reserve force. After everyone has checked in and Adama has given a rousing speech Galactica jumps to the colony.

After it jumps Galacrica is immediately comes under heavy fire, Anders is then plugged in and managed to block the colonies hybrid stopping the assault. Galactica then launches its vipers, and then its Raptors do a short jump from inside the unused hangar deck ripping it to shreds. Galactica then rams into the colony causing heavy damage to itself and the colony and leaves the front of Galactica lodged inside of it. The assault team then leaves Galactica and enters the colony, initially encountering no resistance. The raptors are inside the debris field. Skulls Raptor goes weapons hot, but is then disabled due to debris. The surviving raptors then dock with the colony and encounter Cavils forces made up of a mix of new and old centurions. Boomer is watching a Simon operate on Hera and finally has enough killing him and taking Hera with her. The colonial forces in the colony are now encountering heavy resistance as they proceed through it. Due to Boomers betrayal, Cavil decides to go on the offensive.

Back with Baltar and Caprica 6, Caprica tells him that she is pround of him and that she always wanted to be, they then kiss but are interupted by inner Baltar and 6 who they both can see and hear. Back on the bridge we find out that Cavils forces have infiltrated galactica and we see them advancing. On the colony Starbuck, Helo and Athena encounter Boomer who hands Hera over, after a brief conversation where Boomer asks Athena to tell Adama she owed him one, Athena then kills Boomer who is expecting her fate. We then see a flashback to Galactica where Adama and Tigh are chewing Boomer out, and give her one more chance at being a pilot, and says she owes him one to which he responds many do but very few pay him back. A little later Starbuck and Lee’s forces meet up and then start back to Galactica.

Back with Caprica and Baltar they are encountering cylon forces and 6 forces Baltar to stop when she hears Lee, Lee then responds to Baltars apologies over not stopping by saying he did good. We then see Roslin have a vision of Hera and she starts out after her. On Galactica a Doral attack Starbucks group which includes Hera, leading to Hera run away and Athena chases after her while projecting the Opera House. Roslin and Athena chasing Hera is intercut with Cavils forces advancing through Galactica. Roslin finds and shields Hera, but she runs off again. We then cut to Caprica 6 and Baltar who are almost out of Ammo they turn around and see Hera in front of them. We then see the Opera House vision inter cut with events on Galactica and Baltar and 6 realise that Galactica is the Opera House, and they then arrive at the CIC. Cavil then arrives and takes Hera hostage.

Baltar somehow manages to convince Cavil of destiny and prophecy and to release Hera after Tigh promises Cavil Resurrection in return for an end to the war for all time to which Cavil agrees. Both sides then stand down. A little later the final five prepare to transfer resurrection technology to the Cavil forces, however Tory is nervous as the process will mean they will know everything about each other, to which Tyrol eyes her suspiciously. We then see flashes of memory including Tory killing Cally, this causes Tyrol to stop the process and attack Tory. Doral thinks they are betraying him leading to the battle to begin afresh and cavil kills himself.

A moment later a stray rock hits Skulls disabled Raptor leading to a bodies hand hitting the nuke launch button which then launches a strike on the colony. Adama then orders Starbuck to jump Galactica away but as she doesn’t have the rendezvous co-ordinates  she enters co=ordinates based on the notes of Hera’s song. After the jump Galactica suffers severe structural damage meaning it can never jump again, they then find that they have arrived at our Earth. A short time later the rest of the colonial fleet arrives thanks to a Galactica Raptor jumping to the rendezvous co-ordinates and letting them know where they are.

On Earth we find that it is sometime in out prehistory, before modern society emerged. We find that the colonial humans and native humans have compatable DNA and can interbreed. Adama then decides to stay on our Earth and later on Lee suggests that they go back to basics and dont bother with any technology to try to break the cycle which surprisingly the fleet agrees to. The humanoid cylons decide to stay with them, the centurions however are given the baseship and are left to decide their own destiny. The rest of the fleet including Galactica once everyone has been offloaded will then be destroyed by being piloted into the sun by Anders.

As Adama leaves on the last Viper off Galactica we get a flashback to Caprica and see the hour long thing was a lie detector test (which a Simon helps oversee), that he walks out of in disgust to remain on Galactica. We then see the fleet head into the Sun. Back on Earth Galen says goodbye to Tigh and Ellen and we find he is going off to be by himself, and Tigh says to Tyrol in his place he would have done the same thing. After a flashback where we see Ellen tell Tigh all she wanted was to be with him, we cut to Adama and Roslin.

It is clear that Roslin is near death, and after a talk where Adama says they are on Earth and that Earth was a dream. Adama then carries Roslin to a raptor and says goodbye to Lee and Starbuck before he leaves. Roslin waves goodbye to them as the Raptor takes off. Lee tells Starbuck that Adama is not coming back to which Starbuck says neither is she. We then get a flashback to their first meeting at which something nearly happens between them until Zach talks in his stuper. Back in the present Starbuck asks Lee what he is going to do to which he says he is going to explore as he turns away from her she disappears and is no where to be seen.

We then go to Roslins flashback and find out she has slept with Shaun and asks him to leave, after he leaves she then calls Adars office to say she will be part of his campaign. We then cut to the Raptor flying over a lake covered in flamingoes. As Adama speaks she dies, when he realises what has happened he kisses her hand then places his wedding ring on her finger. He then finds a place to build his cabin and lands the raptor.

We then cut to a group of colonists which includes. Ellen, Tigh, Athena, Helo, Hera, Caprica 6 and Baltar. Caprica 6 and Baltar watch Hera and as he asks Caprica will Hera be alright, the Head beings appear and say she was fine thanks to them and there lives will be less eventful. We then cut to a flashback on Caprica where Baltar says he loves her and agrees to give her access to the Defense Mainframe. They then walk off together to a place where Baltar thinks looks good to farm, which causes him to break down briefly. We then cut to Adama talking to Roslins grave about building the cabin. We then cut to Hera and have a segue to 150000 years later and modern day New York and National Geographical magazines report of the discovery of mitochondrial “Eve”.

We see Inner 6 and Baltar talking about how the cycle may still be ongoing, 6 thinks that it will not while Baltar is not so certain. The series ends with a series of clips of modern day robotics and Inner 6 and Baltar walking away with backgound music of Bob Dylans “All along the Watchtower”

My Thoughts and Speculation

I have mixed feelings about this episode, while on the positive side it was on the whole well made and wrapped several things up, though leaving a few plot holes and things unexplained. The main problem I had is not with the episode itself but the build up to it, as I felt the past half season was not used well to lead up to this conclusion, I will talk about that later though.

On the positive side I felt that the conclusion on Earth and the modern day denouement was an effective conclusion to the series, and while I think the Earth settlement scenes did go on for a bit too long and were reminiscent of the seemingly infinite endingd of the film version of Return of the King, it was nice to have a series finale that has this detail as many series would have ended after they decided to settle on Earth and then cut to the modern day deneument.

The final battle itself was good, though I felt that the last part of it was a little contrived and it would have been nice if instead of Cavil being so easily talked around the Head Baltar and 6 made themselves visible to everyone to convince him to stand down. The Skulls raptor nuke thing was also contrived.

On the flashbacks in the episode, while they did add detail to how the characters background and how they got to where they were, I felt were largely unnecessary, though they did not interupt the flow of the episode too much.

Now onto the problems with the episode, the first one is what happened to Cavils forces post Hera rescue, it was not clear what happened to the colony and while it was damaged, it was possible that it was not destroyed and is still out there. Regardless of the status of the colony Cavil should still have several baseships out there, which will presumambly have skinjobs aboard. Skinjobs who are angry and out for revenge and within a jumps distance of the now defensless human race. Given the length of the ending you would have thoughy they could spare a few lines to deal with this.

The second problem is that it is still unclear what the head beings are, and why they look like Baltar and 6, do they somehow become them at some point in the future, and also what was with the Starbuck dissapearing on Earth, did she become a head being. Linked to Starbuck there is the question of why was Leoben only present for one scene and given his obsession with Starbuck why was he not involved with her story more.

There is also the question of what happened to the centurions after they left with the baseship and I also felt the centurian vs skinjob angle was underdeveloped. I also felt that alot of backstory regarding the final five, Cavil, Cylon Earth and the like was not developed and I doubt that will be covered in Caprica.

Despite my moans I still enjoyed the finale and it is one of the better series endings that I have seen for a Science Fiction series, I just wish that their had been a better lead up to it.

Episode Rating

8/10