- Scouting the planet reveals that there is no life except plants. The destruction occurred about 2,000 years earlier. Among the ruins, skeletons and wrecks of a different kind of Centurions are found. But closer examination of the skeletons reveals they are Cylon! Could the 13th Tribe really have been all Cylons? Chief Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, Sam Anders and Tory remember living on the planet and dying there. How did they get to the colonies? Starbuck finds a piece of her Viper, and despite Leoben's warnings, starts to look for the cockpit... Roslin loses her faith in the Scrolls of Pythia. Apollo and Dualla seem to get back together, but he needs to figure out what to tell to the people of the Fleet... A tragedy prompts Adama to confront Saul.—Toni Tapola, Finland
- Extensive testing reveals what Adama and the entire fleet had feared since their arrival at Earth - the planet is uninhabitable with lingering radiation still evident in the soil and water from a battle that took place some 2000 years before. Testing of bones they've found also reveal that the inhabitants were not human. Colonel Tigh, Sam Anders, Galen Tyrol and Tory Foster all have flashbacks to when they lived on the planet. Meanwhile, Starbuck and Leoben Conoy set off to find the signal that guided them to the planet. She finds a crashed Viper but neither she nor Leoben are prepared for what they find inside. A pall descends over the Colonial fleet when they learn the planet is uninhabitable. Fights are breaking out everywhere with divisions and old hatreds - especially against the Cylons - coming out yet again. President Roslin is nearly catatonic blaming herself for leading the fleet on a failed mission. For one of the Cylons and one member of the crew it's all too much.—garykmcd
- "Battlestar Galactica" - "Sometimes a Great Notion" - Jan. 16, 2009
We pick up where we left off with the expedition party surveying the nuked out Earth. Tigh stares out at the water, Baltar examines the inside of a structure. Anders and Apollo stare about and Dualla shoves her hand into the water at the shoreline as President Roslin plucks a small green plant from the irradiated soil.
Helo reports to Roslin, Adama, and D'Anna that the reports are the same from all over: no answers to their hails, no signs of human life. D'Anna says she's getting the same report from the Cylons.
Starbuck is searching for the source of the Colonial locator beacon signal with Leoben at her side. They set off to find it as the signal weakens.
Baltar tells a group of people at the water's edge that the food and water are all irradiated and to spread the word that no one is to eat or drink anything.
We hear Helo say Baltar confirmed the planet was nuked about 2000 years ago. Roslin notes they traded one nuked planet for another. Adama wants to roll.
Dualla uncovers a pocket watch in the sand and then digs out a ball and some jacks. She cries on her knees and we cut to inside the raptor and Dualla whispering to herself, "Just don't give up, don't fall apart." Helo reaches over a hand to steady her saying, "Easy, Dee."
The raptor door opens on the flight deck to a large group of fighter pilots, engineers, and civilians awaiting word. Roslin looks around as if she's going to say something, looks stricken, and says to Adama, "Get me out of here." All at once, the group closes in around her shouting questions & wanting to know what the situ is. Adama and Apollo shield her and whisk her away as Apollo yells to the crowd that the president will make a statement soon and that everyone will find out everything in due time.
Back on Earth, Starbuck and Leoben are making their way toward the colonial emergency locator beacon. Kara stops as she finds some debris: a piece from the NAV system of a Colonial ship. Leoben walks a little further and picks up a larger piece reading "757 NC." This stops Kara dead. She begins to breathe heavily and walks around. Leoben asks what it means. She says, "The number on my ship is 8757 NC."
We cut to Athena and Helo playing with Hera in their quarters. Dee comes in and and they hand her over as she's apparently babysitting for the night. Helo thanks her. Dee says she looks forward to it. As they leave Dee sits down with Hera and starts to feed her & whispers to the little girl, "You have no idea what's happened, do you? Today is just another day."
Back on Earth, a group of Six's and Eight's dig up some bones and uncover a metal helmet head. Cut to the Galactica where a Six explains that they found a couple of these at several dig sites around the planet. An Eight says they may be Centurions, but they're not the Centurions that "We've come to know and love." Roslin surmises the 13th tribe settled here and created their own Cylons. And then, says Apollo, the machines rose up and killed their masters. The only problem with this theory, however, is that all of the bones found on Earth are Cylon bones. The 13th tribe was made up apparently entirely of Cylons, Centurions, and skin jobs. Roslin freaks quietly at this news.
Apollo says she needs to tell the Quorum something, that it should come from the president. She walks away without saying anything. Adama turns to Apollo and says, "Carry the ball." Tigh confronts Adama, saying they need to talk, that he has some things to explain.
Back on Earth, Tyrol approaches a ruined hunk of wall with the shadow of a vaporized figure on it. He touches it and is immediately seized by a vision: the spot by the water is transformed into an open air fruit and vegetable market and he himself is shopping in it among a bustling crowd. He buys an avocado and then a noise catches his attention. He looks to the outside and there is the blinding white light of a nuclear blast. That shocks him back into the present and knocks him to the ground.
Kara is trying to figure out a conundrum: if her viper is splattered all over Earth, who flew it here and what did she fly back to Galactica? Leoben says maybe she's better off not knowing. This, notes Kara, flies in the face of his normal advice to embrace the truth. Leoben thinks it might not be so nice. "For her or for him?" she wonders.
Dualla finds Apollo in the flight room telling him that the raptor is ready to fly him back to Colonial One. He says he was just thinking about all the pilots who sat in those seats, who fought for this dream, and perhaps gave their lives in vain. She says he has the same look he did when Adama went back to New Caprica and he stayed on Pegasus and fretted he'd never see him again. Apollo wonders if he's that easy to read. "Just to her," says Dee. He says there were some good times on Pegasus for them. She agrees saying she remembers what he told her, that they had to keep the human race going and he did. He said he couldn't have done it without her. She assures him he'll do it this time, too. He says he doesn't know how or what the frak he's going to tell the Quorum and jokes that at least real estate prices are low. He says there's no good spin on that. Dee say that's fine, what people need to hear is the truth and he's the one they need to hear it from. "If anybody can give them a reason to go on, it's you," she says. He smiles at her confidence in him and as he goes to leave, he asks her to meet him for a drink later. His estranged wife agrees to the date.
Kara and Leoben come across the burnt-out remains of a viper. They flip it over and the skeleton of a pilot is still inside. It has blonde hair. A visibly upset Kara reaches into the suit around the neck and pulls something off: her own dog tags and ring. She asks Leoben to explain that. He looks legitimately upset and backs away. He says he doesn't have an explanation and says he was wrong about Earth. Kara says the hybrid told her she was the harbinger of death and that she would lead them all to their end. She asks Leoben if that's true. He continues to back off and then walk away. Kara asks "if that's me lying there, then what am I?!"
Anders wanders through the remains and comes upon a fretboard of guitar. He picks it up and instinctively strums out a tune, the same one, "All Along the Watchtower," that switched the four Cylons on on Galactica. He drops it and runs away. He encounters Tyrol sitting against the burnt-out wall and asks if he remembers something. Tyrol says he used to live here. "Me too," says Anders. The song that switched them on? He played it for a woman he loved. "I remember," says Tory as she joins them. "You played it for all of us." Tyrol points to the vapor shadow saying that was him and that they died in a nuclear holocaust. Anders wonders why they're still alive, how they got to the colonies, and forgot they were machines. Tory and Tyrol don't answer.
Roslin is burning her Pythian prophecy scriptures one page at a time as Adama enters saying they have to do something since morale is going down the toilet. He wants to know why she skipped her Doloxin treatment. She says she didn't feel like it and no longer needs it. He asks what she's doing. Is she just going to lie down and quit? He says she's the one who made him believe. She says he shouldn't have listened to her. That when the Cylons first attacked, he should've held his ground because she was wrong about everything and now all those people who trusted and believed in her are dead. She continues to burn the book. Adama reaches for her and she begins to cry saying not to touch her and to just go. He gets up and leaves. Roslin watches the pages burn.
On Earth, Kara wraps up her dead body and throws it on a funeral pyre she built to do some burning of her own.
Dualla and Apollo walk the halls and a tipsy-sounding Dee asks Apollo to repeat something. He acquiesces and launches into the speech he gave the Quorum. "Ladies and gentleman, we now have a choice. We can either view this as a catastrophe or an opportunity. I, Lee Adama, ex-acting president, former commander of the obliterated Battlestar Pegasus, Apollo to my friends, I choose the latter. We are no longer enslaved by the ramblings of Pythia, no longer pecking at bread crumbs of the 13th tribe. We are now free to go where we want to go, be who we want to be." Dee says this last part with him. She says she's proud of him. He says he may have stalled a full scale panic, but he has no idea what to do next. Dee says this was the most fun she's had in a long time and thanks him. They kiss. She smiles and walks into the officers quarters. He smiles after her with tears in his eyes.
Dee walks inside humming a tune to herself as Gaeta prepares to put on his prosthetic leg. He observes that she's glowing. He says all he can think of is that waste of a planet. She begs him to be silen, saying she just wants to hold on to this feeling as long as possible. He stands behind her and comments on a childhood picture inside her locker. Dee says she sometimes can't remember that's her since it was so long ago and that that girl has no frakkin' idea what's coming next. Gaeta says none of them do and walks out. Dee hangs up a locket. She continues to hum. She watches Gaeta leave in her locker mirror. She hangs up her ring, pulls out her weapon, and shoots herself in the head.
Gaeta and Seelix run in and surround her body upset, crying, and calling for a medic.
Adama and Apollo visit Dee's body in the morgue. Apollo observes that he kissed her goodnight 45 minutes ago and there was joy in her eyes. He asks why she would do this. Adama, drunk, says, "I don't frakkin' know" and pulls out a flask. He offers it to Apollo who declines and leaves, bustling past Gaeta. Inside, Adama asks Dee's body, "What did you do?" and cries over her saying, "I let you down. I let everybody down."
Adama walks through the halls where chaos is beginning to reign as people cry and fight. He demands a sidearm from a nearby soldier. He enters Tigh's quarters. Tigh, no surprise, is drinking. Adama goes to his locker and pulls out Tigh's weapon and hands it to him saying it's time for that heart-to-heart talk Tigh's been pining for. He calls him a Cylon and tells him to sit down. Tigh apologizes for not having the guts to tell him when he first found out. "Frak you!" says Adama, pointing out that as a machine, he has no guts. He wonders if Tigh was programmed to be his friend, laughing. Tigh says he was his friend because he wanted to be. Adama pounds the table and picks up a picture of Tigh and Ellen. He says Ellen was smarter than he gave her credit for. Tigh warns him. Adama says Ellen realized early on that something was wrong with Tigh which is why she went around frakkin' the entire fleet. He says she came on to him once. Tigh tells him to shut his frakking mouth. Adama says she was like a dog in heat and smelled so good. Tigh grabs his gun and pushes it up against Adama's forehead. Adama tells him to do it or he will, holding his own gun to his head. Tigh realizes that's what Adama wants, that's why he came here, but Tigh won't give it to him. Adama looks bummed. Tigh apologizes saying this is one time he can't help. Adama lowers his gun and begins to reach for the bottle. Tigh grabs it saying he thinks they've both had enough. Adama gulps from his glass and moans.
He tells Tigh about his summers with his uncle when he was a kid. The foxes would attack the henhouse and the uncle would retaliate by hunting the foxes at night with his dogs. The dogs would force the foxes toward the river, but half the foxes would turn and fight while the other half would try to swim across. But his uncle told him about a few that would swim halfway out and then turn with the current and be swept out to sea. "Because they wanted to drown? asks Tigh. "Maybe," says Adama. Or maybe they were just tired. "Gods damn-it, Bill! We can't swim out to sea. I'm the XO, you are the commanding officer," snarls Tigh. He says it won't help Dee to off himself and that the people need the "old man" to lead them. "Lead them where, Saul?" Adama asks.
On Colonial One, Apollo changes the survivor number by one. Kara enters and says she's needs to talk, then notices he looks like hell. He tells her about Dee. "My gods, I don't understand," says Kara. Lee says he doesn't either.
Adama walks through the halls past graffiti that reads, "Frak Earth!" He meets Tigh outside CIC and they enter. Adama tells Mr. Hoshi to take over for Dualla. He instructs Gaeta to find the closest G, F, or K-class star system nearby. He tells Hoshi to get the Cylons on line to see if their new allies want to come along for the ride.
Adama gets on the horn and addresses the fleet. (Flyboys, Roslin, Kara - we see listening to in different spots). He says the discoveries of the past few days have been painful for all of them. He says they can't stay on Earth, but this isn't a new challenge. The 13 tribes of Kobol stood on this same spot. They experienced deep casualties, but that they then set out looking for a new home. And they succeeded even though they weren't superheroes. He says they will find a new home just like the 13 did. He says this is a promise he intends to keep.
Back on earth, Tigh tells them to pack it up and that they're getting off this rock. He approaches D'Anna saying she should get back to her ship. She declines saying that she'd rather die here in the home of her ancestors then out in space at the hands of Cavil and the other Cylons. She says this will just happen again and again. Tigh tells her not to count the old man out, that he'll find them a home. D'Anna asks if he doesn't ever just wants to stop fighting. He recalls the stranded foxes at sea.
We see waves lapping the beach and Tigh walk into the water. He is not wading. He puts his hands in the water, hearing voices. He comes up with a piece of debris and is thrust into a vision. We see him dressed in a suit and tie running through the chaotic aftermath of the nuclear attack. He hears someone call his name, sees Ellen lying below a pile of rubble, and says he will get her out. Outside the vision, the present Tigh is pawing at the water as if looking for Ellen. He tries to extract her from the debris in the vision, but she tells him it's okay, everything's in place, they will be reborn again, together. The wall explodes and the visionend . Tigh in the water saying, "Ellen, Ellen, you're the fifth." He smiles.
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