(Warning: This woman is crazy!)

SkyHD - 13th May 2008 - 9.00pm

At last! A decent episode that moves the plot along. We jump straight back into the tense face-off to last week's conclusion. Helo tries to arrest Kara (and if his square jaw juts out any further he'll have someone's eye out)and Anders shoots Gaeta in the leg to stop him from jumping back to the fleet. Poor old Gaeta. He's become the Galactica punch bag of late. He doesn't look in particularly good shape and I'll beastonished if he gets back to Galactica alive and even if he does that leg's coming off! Perhaps it's a sign that the writers had run out of things to do with him and then decided he should lose a limb!

After the storm, a bit of calm. Kara, Athena, Anders and some woman we haven't seen very much of (thus indicating her impending demise) toddle off in a Raptor to find the base star as indicated by Leoben. Helo gets a bit teary eyed, bless him, as he stays behind with Demetrius to await their return and waves Athena off. Some superb effects of demolished base stars greet us as Kara and Co. end their search. There's a creepy scene where Athena is greeted by multiple Sharon models who then ask her to mutiny against the Sixes. I love the fact that she basically tells them to grow up and make a choice - to stick with the Cylon rebels or to piss off back to Cavill. I bet that'll come back and bite her in the bum.

Before long, the Cylons and the Raptor crew are bitching at each other tooth and nail. It's a superb scene that demonstrates the fragile trust between them now that they find that they're actually on the same side. One of the Sixes goes for our woman crew member (Barolay I think she's called) and kills her in a fit of revenge for killing an earlier model on Caprica. These Cylons have got bloody good memories because I can't recall if we even saw that on screen. Anders holds a gun to the Six model and her duplicate, Natalie knows that she can't allow revenge to jeopardise the fragile alliance and basically forces Anders to shoot. It's a very tense scene, brilliantly played and superbly shot and edited. And the big woman-on-woman snog between Six and Natalie will no doubt keep the male fans happy (and probably some female fans too, I should think) and inspire much slash fiction.

Kara has in the meantime had a little orgasm over the fact that one of her paintings has come true (and there's a quick dissolve between the painting and the view outside the Raptor just to remind us. Pay attention at the back!) and honestly believes that she's on the right track. She eventually meets the Hybrid but can't get any sense out of the babbling bathing beauty and petulantly orders her disconnection much to the chagrin of a Cylon Centurion. However, as the Hybrid powers down, she does spill the beans about opera houses, the missing three who will identify the Final Five and bitch-slap Kara with the whole 'you're going to lead them to their end' stuff that's been rattling around in the series since 'Razor'.

So, with the 'missing three' getting a mention will we get some more lovely cameos from Lucy Lawless as D'Anna? I hope so. She's a great character. Whilst all this is going on there are some subtle little moments from Anders who tries to test his Cylon abilities by dipping into the organic computer interfaces on the ship. Poor old Anders - he doesn't know how to feel about being aboard the Cylon ship. And then there's that later bit, after one of the Sharon models gets shot by the Centurion, where he sympathetically holds her hand as she dies. It moves the character along subtly and one wonders how he will react when all is finally revealed. Will he react as harshly as some of the Final Five or will he go into denial?

And just in the cliched nick of time the Raptor makes the rendezvous with the Demetrius. It was a bit of a foregone conclusion that, wasn't it? Nice homage to that similar visual effects triumph of the Klingon battleship decloaking in 'Wrath Of Khan' with the base star jumping right on top of the Demetrius.

Back on Galactica, Roslin, undergoing treatment for her cancer and wearing, first a fetching bald cap, and then a swish line in head scarves, meets a dying cancer patient in the same ward. It is good that they contrasted the 'sturm and drang' of the events on the base star with this quieter, more reflective sub-plot. Essentially, it's all about Roslin confronting her mortality, her impending death and realising she isn't quite ready to succumb to it just yet. Mary McDonnell and Nana Visitor play out these scenes superbly and McDonnell wrings every last acting ounce out of the recollections of Roslin's mother. The coda to these scenes, with the death of Visitor's character, indicated that Roslin was beginning to understand the Baltar radio broadcasts and had a new understanding of the afterlife. Her last scene with Adama confirmed this and his own belief that because of her they'll find Earth. A heart-warming note to finish on.

Previous reviews:
The Road Less Traveled
Escape Velocity
The Ties That Bind
He That Believeth In Me & Six Of One