4.9 The Hub

What a wonderful episode. It was a pleasant turn up from the start when it went back to ‘two days ago’ and did what I had hoped, presenting the ‘other side’ of the base star story jumping away from Galactica. I never imagined it would produce an episode this damn good, though.

With the likes of Laura, Gaius and Helo around the Hybrid, the base star started jumping on the Hybrid’s command. It was doing this a lot, apparently in pursuit of an ever-jumping Resurrection Hub. This set up the main mission with the Cylons and the Viper pilots having to work together when the time was right to spring an assault – get Deanna off the Hub and then blow the thing to pieces. That, in itself, was worthy of a whole episode’s focus. In actuality it was just a piece of the busyness that this episode was packed with.

With each jump Laura was briefly transported to a bizarre fantasy, perhaps her own subconscious, perhaps something more. There she met that religious black woman who guided her around an empty Galactica and showed Laura her death bed. I got the impression this was more symbolic than any genuine future glimpse. And the meaning of it all, that Laura was eventually presented with, was that she had lost the ability to love at all, and thus as a leader of her people it meant her people would ultimately fail in their quest to save humanity.

Or something like that, anyway.

This would prove crucial to the fate of Gaius. Whilst he was busy talking to the Centurion (very interesting, and very Gaius, how he became aware to the awoken consciousness of the Centurions and so quickly sought to win their minds with his words) he was seriously injured. It came to the point where Laura was left alone nursing him, and there he confessed that he had given the passcodes that allowed for the Cylon attack to occur.

It was believable how Gaius had reconciled his guilt with a belief in God. The idea that God made everyone, and made everyone perfect, and thus Gaius absolved himself of the guilt by a belief that he had performed a necessary function of God’s will was convincing stuff. What he didn’t count on was Laura seizing the chance to coldly allow him to bleed to death. It was only for her re-connection with humanity, and love, through Adama in her visions, that made her realise the importance of behaving humanely and prompted her to rectify her actions and save Gaius’ life.

The actual mission to destroy the Hub was a success; a startling changing of the parameters for human and Cylon now that Cylons can be killed, permanently. Where the likes of Cavill and the hostile Cylons will move to next will be an interesting one – their trump card has been taken away from them. Surely they’ll have something up their sleeves. . .?

Deanna was taken into custody of Laura. The act of deceiving the Cylons by breaching the agreement was also a bad move; Laura reneged on the deal and denied the Cylons equal access to what Deanna knew. That moment when Deanna implicated Laura as the Final Cylon was priceless. I guess the creators of the show just could not help themselves kick in that little jaw-dropper as a joke, only to snatch it back. Just when you thought the mystery was revealed. . . Oh no. Not THAT easy. Deanna has self-preservation in mind now that she can die, and knows the only thing she has of value is what she knows – I doubt she’s going to give up that information easily.

Mind, I know that the next episode is the last before the show enters a break before its final run. This will actually bring me up to date with the real air dates of the show. For the first time ever I will experienced the frustration of regular BSG fans by having to WAIT for a new episode rather than having them all ready to watch. . . It would not surprise me if Deanna reveals at least one or two of the known (to us) Final Four right at the last moment of the next episode leaving the massive cliffhanger of what the likes of Adama, for example, will do about the knowledge that Tigh is a Cylon.

In the meantime this episode ended on an almost perfect note with Adama, on his solo mission, meeting the base ship and finding Laura. I was very happy the episode included this reunion. And it was well handled. They hugged and Laura admitted that she loved Adama. His response was priceless. “About time.” Almost a tragedy that time, for these two, is something they don’t appear to have too much of.