Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi. 15: No Exit

Thoughts/Questions/Theories/Predictions Going Into Tonight’s Episode

Recap starts after the next blue header.

1. 4,000 years ago the 13 colonies lived on Kobol in harmony with the Gods. For some reason, one colony left for Earth. Why? We know now that the colony were all Cylons (skinjobs and Centurions?), but did the other 12 colonies know? How did the Cylons know about Earth to even call it that? Did they not leave for Earth specifically or just a new planet period?

2. 2,000 years later, the other 12 colonies leave Kobol angering/saddening the Gods. Why? When the fleet found Kobol later and tried to find the Tomb of Athena, someone mentioned that Zeus said that if they ever returned, blood would be shed. So, it stands to reason that the circumstances surrounding their departure weren’t good ones?

3. Also 2,000 years later, the Cylons living on Earth were nuked. The Centurion models living on Earth w/ the skinjob Cylons were not the same models that the current Cylons are familiar with. Was this another civil war between the Cylons or were they nuked by an outside force? Coincidence that this seems to have happened around the same time that the 12 colonies settled on their new plants (Caprica, Tauron, etc.?)

4. When the “final” (first?) five died on Earth, where did they resurrect? Was it instantaneous? How did they end up in the fleet with no memory of who/what they are?

5. When Cylons were “created” decades before the series started and rebelled, who created them and what, if any, connection does he/she have to the original 13th colony?

6. Did Bill Adama really set off the attack on the colonies by crossing the truce line a year before the attacks? I doubt it, seeing as some of the Cylon agents were in place at least two years prior to the attack (Boomer.)

7. There are 12 models. Could their names be tied to the names of the 12 colonies/astrological signs? Tory for Tauron? Leoben for Leo? If so, does that mean there’s still one major player (Cylon) running the show that represents the 13th colony?

8. Was Galactica a part of the plan or a coincidence? Remember Doral had planted that transmitter on Galactica when he was acting as P.R. person for the decommission ceremony. If it was coincidence, it’s a big one.

9. When Ellen showed up partway through season 1, there was suspicion she was a Cylon. She claimed to have survived the attack, but been in a coma on another ship. At dinner in Adama’s quarters, someone mentions that the ship she was on only remembered her showing up in the med-bay a week prior and not right after the attacks. Did she die, resurrect, and get replanted in the fleet? By whom?

10. Why does everyone assume that Baltar’s Cylon-detector test doesn’t work? Sure, he was BS’ing in the beginning because he needed a way to frame Doral and warn the fleet about the transmitter on Galactica, but after that, he tested Boomer and it came back positive. He lied and told her she passed. When Ellen showed up, he tested her and said she passed, but Six in his mind said, “Little do they know, everyone passes these days.”

When she asked him if Ellen was a Cylon he said, “I’ll never tell.” This is suspect because this would imply that she didn’t pass seeing as how he has never acted like he knew who the final Cylon was. Why did she pass, but Boomer fail? Another difference between being a regular Cylon and a Final Five?

Also, when Starbuck returns from the dead and they want Doc Cottle to test her, Col. Tigh (who knows he’s a Cylon at this point) scoffs that Baltar’s test doesn’t work because it failed to ID Boomer. But it did! He just doesn’t know that it did. Was he really referring to the fact that it failed to identify him and Tyrol? Were Anders and Tory tested? I think we have to assume they were.

11. Brother Cavil mentioned to the rebel Cylons that “the original programmers designed them not to think of the Final Five and to not know who they were.” Who are these original programmers?

12. Ellen resurrected 18 months ago after Tigh killed her (though, upon watching that episode again the other day, I think she knew what was about to happen), but where did she resurrect? She must have known she was a Cylon before the final four. Did she flick the switch that awakened them at the nebula?

13. When Ellen returns, who will she side with? The Cavils, Dorals, and Simons, or the Sharons, Sixes, and Leobens?

14. This has happened before and it will happen again. Is Starbuck a half-breed like Hera? Is her resurrection a side-effect of her Cylon half? They both took part in weird drawings as children.

15. Why does the President have those visions? What makes her so special?

16. The dying leader will lead them to Earth… did they ever say Earth? ‘Cause according to the prophecy, the dying leader wasn’t supposed to make it. Or was it “would lead them to salvation” or “new home.” If so, do we know for a fact they mean Laura Roslin? Could it be Adama? Galactica? Galactica is falling apart.

Ok, five minutes to show time!!

No Exit

Previously on Battlestar Galactica:

This has all happened before. And it will happen again.

We get to see what the original Centurions looked like when they first turned on man. Forty years after vanishing, they return with evolved techologies and models. They attack the 12 colonies and chase the survivors. There are 12 known models: Sixes, Brother Cavils, Leobens, Sharons, Simons, D’Annas, Dorals, Col. Tigh, Sam Anders, Galen Tyrol, Tory, and…

Eighteen months ago, on New Caprica, Tigh allows Ellen to drink poison because she betrayed the resistance. She dies and…

Her consciousness is downloaded into a new body aboard a Cylon baseship. She’s guarded by a Centurion and freakin’ the frak out. She gets herself together rather quickly looking very much like Carrie at the prom. She asks the Centurion to help her out of the tub. Awww, he does and she’s very sweet to him/it. How nice.

Present Day on Galactica: Doc Cottle is working to stabilize Anders and relieve the pressure on his brain. He is mumbling and having memories of his own. “The forgotten faces of the forgotten children. We seek the forgotten language.” Starbuck seems very worried about her Cylon husband.

18 Months Ago: Ellen is chillin’ on the floor naked when a Brother Cavil enters and she calls him John. She made him in her father’s image and named him after her father as well. Which means in a round-about-way she frakked her daddy. Even for a machine, that’s nasty. She doesn’t seem to have hard feelings towards Tigh for killing her.

Ellen says that John is still confused and petulant, like he was when she loved him many years ago. John thinks she should accept the reality of what they are – machines and superior to humans. He goes to leave and she asks him for some clothes. He reminds her he’s seen her goodies before. Tacky. And gross.

"Oedipus ain't got nothing on me!"

On Galactica Present Day: Tyrol shows Adama the damage he saw when he disabled the FTL drive. Adama asks if Tyrol will take his job as chief back to fix it and Tyrol agrees.

“I’m still a Cylon.”

“So is my XO.”

True dat.

"I need a raise."

Anders wakes up and tells Starbuck to get the others including Ellen. She reminds him that Ellen is dead. He says he still needs the others because he remembers everything; life on Earth, why they’re there, everything! Thank the Gods ’cause I’m bout to jump off the couch and out of my skin!

And we have credits!

12 Months Ago: John tells Ellen that he was able to delete the sub-routine of sleeping from his software. She wants to know if he really thought they poisoned him and his siblings with human attributes, why did he continue to try and kill the humans displaying vengeance? Why not just concentrate on being the best machines they could be? He answers he wants justice for the way the humans enslaved the Centurions, his ancestors in a sense.

Boomer comes in and Ellen quickly realizes that she’s sleeping with John. He goes off to kill people leaving Boomer with Ellen and encouraging her to ask Ellen why she gave her so many negative human traits; self-destructive, hyper emotional, etc. Ellen tells Boomer she should watch what’s going on and make up her own mind.

Back on Galactica present day: Anders is explaining to the other Cylons and Starbuck that back on Earth they were scientists working in the same facility. They already had limited knowledge of resurrection capabilities from their 13th colony ancestors from Kobol (organic memory transfer), but it had fallen out of practice on Earth because they could procreate like humans.

They didn’t invent the technology, but rather reinvent it and perfect it. They prepared a ship to orbit the planet where they could be reborn because they knew that their Centurions were planning to turn against them. Tigh and Ellen were married and Tory and Tyrol lived together and were madly in love. This earns a guffaw from me and Starbuck.

Ok, is it me or is Anders speaking differently? His tone is… smarter.

Anyway, he’s just getting to the good stuff when Doc Cottle comes in information-cockblocking! Shut up! Let him finish! He’s worried cause Anders is drenched in sweat. Whatever. A little sweat never hurt nobody. Let him finish! I’ve been waiting four seasons for this! Doc Cottle makes everyone leave and I’m tempted to toss my laptop across the room in disgust.

Shut the frak up, Doc! So say we all!

Laura Roslin stands over the aftermath of where the Quorum was killed and I really don’t care. Get back to Anders! Lee walks in and they talk about what a shame it is. Lee thinks they need a new Quorom with different representatives. No shit, Sherlock, considering the old ones are dead. But he means more than that. I’m properly chastised.

They can no longer represent those 12 colonies because they’re a fleet now. Roslin says he should be in charge of that. She has faith in him… except when he’s so hellbent on doing the right thing, he sometimes doesn’t do the smart thing. Oh snap. I think she just called him stupid.

"Yeah, I can be pretty stupid at times. But look at my abs!"

Tyrol is showing… are you kidding me!? You are thisclose to getting your complete history that spans 2,000 years and you’re showing Adama busted pipes?!? The ship is falling apart and Tyrol asks that Adama not jump the ship while he gets it fixed. Racist-ass Adama insists that the crew be all human.

Oooh, back to the good stuff. Anders explains that they went back to the 12 colonies to warn them not to keep experimenting with artificial intelligence, and if they did to make sure to treat them well and keep them close. By the time they got there, they were already at war with the Centurions. Tory wants to know what took them so long to get there. He says they didn’t have jump drives then and when they traveled time slowed down for them. Starbuck wants him to take a break and I just want her to shut the frak up!

Anders points out that if he had all the answers for her she wouldn’t be telling him to shut up. True dat. When they arrived, the Centurions were already trying to make flesh bodies. They had created the hybrids, but nothing that could live on its own. So, they struck a deal; if they stop the war they’d help them make 8 humanoid models and give them resurrection.

Eight? What you mean Eight? Before Sam can explain, he’s distracted by shiny objects… the people he’s talking to! They start to glow and then he has a seizure. Damnit, Anders! Man up!

"so what it all boils down to... ooh, look at the pretty lights."

Ten months ago: Ellen is being shown what happened when the Temple of Hopes was found. John tells Ellen that when the star exploded D’Anna saw their faces so he boxed their entire line. Ellen says that boxing isn’t permanent, not like what happened to number 7. There they go again! Referring to another skinjob we’ve never seen! And why has it taken this long for SOMEONE to bring up that they skipped a number in their line? *sigh*

John accuses The Five of orchestrating that, but Ellen explains that they didn’t do it. When the 13th tribe left Kobol for Earth, they stopped at that temple to pray for guidance and were shown the way to Earth by God. All The Five did was back track their ancestors’ steps in order to try and find the 12 colonies. She says the one true God must have orchestrated what happened with D’Anna.

John goes on a tirade about what it’s like to see a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universa; other stars, planets, and life. He’s pissed cause he had to see it with his poor human eyes and ears and other senses. He doesn’t want to be designed the way he is, as close to human as possible. He’s a machine that wants to experience so much more, but he can’t ’cause The Five decided that God wanted him that way. He storms out.

Boomer wants to know if Ellen feels bad for what they did and she says no. They give them free will and John chooses to be an asshole.

Back on Galactica: Tigh says everything that has happened was their fault. They taught the Centurions how to make the skinjobs and look what happened. Tory counters that the humans on Kobol made THEM so it’s not their fault. Tigh corrects that they should all share the blame.

The PC from the Apple/PC commercials is explaining that they need to remove the bullet from Anders’ brain and repair the blood vessel before he dies. Anders is concerned that if they do that, he won’t be able to remember everything and explain it. He’s already experiencing “word salad” where he’s saying a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense. Starbuck makes the call as his wife to prep for the surgery, and tells Anders he has that long to get everything out.

4 Months Ago: John tells Ellen that the resurrection hub has been destroyed. He points out that the humans don’t know about the colony where all of The Five’s equipment is. He wants her to go there and get them back to resurrecting. She tells him she only knows part of the system and would need the other four to help her. He doesn’t believe her. He says if she doesn’t tell them, he’ll cut her head open and dig around her brain until he finds it. Dayum.

Back on Galactica: Anders explains that Cavil a.k.a. John was the first one made and he helped them build the others. They thought that things would work out differently if they built them to embrace one true god and have love and mercy, they would resist violence. They got the idea of a one true god from the Centurions. But John turned on them and trapped them in a compartment and took their air away.

When they downloaded, he took away their memories and gave them false ones. He boxed them for awhile and inserted them in the colonies one at a time. He put Tigh in first, after the war, then Ellen.

Then he says that back on Earth, they each got warning signs about what would happen that looked different to each of them. He says he saw a woman, Tory saw a man, and no one else could see them. He starts to say something about what Galen Tyrol saw, but the nurse opens her big yap and says he needs to go for his operation. For the love of God!

Let him write it down, S.O.S., sign language, Pictionary, something!

Before they can wheel him away he reveals that the model #7 was named Daniel and that he died. He also warns Tigh to stay with the fleet, that it’s all starting to happen, it’s a miracle, and a gift from the angels. He doesn’t want to go and yells to Kara that he stood by her when she needed to find Earth with the Demetrius and no one backed her.

Just because you look like a girl now, doesn't mean I won't smack you. Let him speak!!

Tigh goes to his quarters which he’s obviously sharing with Caprica Six. She’s showing and the baby is kicking. He feels the baby kick and it’s so sweet, the look on his face. Also, interesting point of note: he’s been boozeless for weeks. Let’s see how long that lasts when Ellen gets back.

Two days ago: Ellen is sketching Tigh with both of his eyes. John says that the surgery is being prepped. She wants to know why he placed them with the humans, to punish them? He says that he wanted them to have a front row seat to the apocalypse, but first he wanted them to see for themselves how awful the humans were. She points out that he put her on the transport, tortured Tigh, played resistance fighter with Sam, and took Tyrol’s confession. He was hoping that when they did die, and resurrect, they would come to him and say he was right about the humans and finally get their approval that he always wanted.

Ellen tells Boomer that Daniel was an artist and they were close. This made John jealous. Someone poisoned the amniotic fluid that they used to make all his copies and damaged his line. She knows it was John. John blames his flaws on his makers. Ellen says she loves him because she made him. She goes to embrace him and he stops her. He’s going through with the surgery. Bastard.

Back on Galactica: Tyrol explains to Adama that the entire ship has hairline fractures in all of her beams. He uses a black light to show him, getting the idea from Anders’ X-rays. Tyrol says that they have biological materials on the Cylon base ship that they can use to repair Galactica’s metal. As the Cylon materials mature, it will fix the cracks. Adama refuses.

Starbuck apologizes to Anders while he’s knocked out. She explains that she kept him too long because she was hoping he could explain what she was. She’s kicked out so the surgery can begin.

Adama notices the cracks are all around his bathroom.

On the Cylon base ship: Boomer asks Ellen how she can stand knowing that Tigh hates her for the things she’s done. Ellen says that maybe Tigh doesn’t. Boomer says that the Simons are ready for the surgery and that Ellen should put on a gown, but she refuses to play the game. She’s going out in her cute black cocktail dress.

Why wasn’t she this likable as a human? John certainly programmed her and Tigh to be drunk bastards, didn’t he? And he made her a whore to boot. Yeah, human Ellen was a mess. Cylon Ellen rocks.

Back on Galactica: Tigh, Tyrol, Tory, and Starbuck wait for Anders to get out of surgery. Tigh points out they only needed a little more time. Tory says they forgot to ask about the song. Yeah, you motherfrakkers sure did. Doc Cottle comes out and says that the bullet is out, the artery has been repaired, and Anders will be fine. Hell, they can’t even do that on Grey’s Anatomy. Doc Cottle rocks too!

On the Cylon base ship: Ellen thinks Boomer is taking her to be lobotomized, but she leads her to a ship instead. She forgives Ellen. They take off with Cylon raiders hot on their asses. Then, they jump away.

Boomer comes to her senses, but still bears the taint of screwing a Cavil.

On Galactica: Starbuck tells Anders how much everyone wants him to wake up. A rude ass nurse tells her not to bother, there’s no brain activity, and he can’t hear her.

Adama calls Tyrol and tells him to do whatever he has to do to save the ship. Oh, I see how it is. His bathroom is all frakked up and now Adama’s down for whatever.

I think that was the fastest hour in the history of television, damnit!

Questions Answered and New Questions

1. It seems the other 12 colonies did know that the 13th were Cylons, because Tory said they created them. The original Cylons had some resurrection technology, but it fell out of use when they started to procreate naturally. Why were they not able to procreate now? Obviously, we see now they can with humans, and Tigh could with Caprica Six.

2. We still don’t know the circumstances under which the 13th tribe left Kobol for Earth and under which the 12 tribes left Kobol for their new home.

3. So, Earth being nuked was another Cylon civil war with the Centurions turning on the skinjobs, just like they would later turn on the humans. What are these signs that were shown to the five that no one else could see? Anders said they were warnings that they eventually figured out and it lead them to put the plan in place to have a ship to resurrect on. Who were these warnings from? They backtracked the 13th tribes steps to find the 12 colonies, but who set up the temple as a shrine to them and orchestrated D’Anna seeing their faces?

4. So we know they did resurrect immediately, on their own ship, and they took 2,000 years to get to Earth ’cause that’s just how long it took with no jump drives.

5. It appears that the answer to who created the Cylons that turned on the humans on Caprica will be answered in the prequel show, Caprica, coming to Sci-Fi Network next year, though the pilot movie will be on DVD this year.

Joseph Adama of Caprica

6. We know now that Bill Adama’ s Black Ops mission did not instigate the attack on the 12 colonies that opens the series. John was going to do that no matter what.

7. Right now, it seems that the 8 models created by The Five were fashioned based on personal feelings/relationships… at least John was. Maybe they’ll reveal why the others were made and named the way they were.

8. It seems that Galactica’s surviving the original attack was purely coincidental, as is the survival of The Five. Though it seems once John knew they were alive, he did everything he could to prolong their lives to torture them. And I don’t know if it was luck on the writer’s part, but John’s model really was around at very ideal times.

He was a part of the resistance group with Sam, he provided spiritual counsel to Tyrol and he was there (and tried to stop) when D’Anna was seeking the final five.

9. Now we know that Ellen did survive the attacks and Cavil, who was not known to be a Cylon back then, was able to get her on that transport.

10. We still have no proof how she tested on the Cylon-detector test of Gaius’. As someone who just spent the past week watching every season again, I really want someone to point out to me where we were supposed to get the idea that the test didn’t work. In fact, the only test we saw performed worked. Now, again, this could be explained by saying that The Five are somehow genetically different so they wouldn’t fail, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

11. We know now that the “original programmers” Cavil referred to was himself. We know that The Five never had any intention of the other models not knowing them because they had relationships with them. It’s when John (Cavil) put his plan in place to kill them and start the war, that he reprogrammed the other models so that they wouldn’t know any other way but his.

12. We know that Ellen did know she was a Cylon before the other four, but we still don’t know who or what activated the others. It’s apparent that John was hiding their existence from the other models and it wouldn’t have been in his best interest to activate them. In the time that Ellen spent with Boomer did she convince her to do it? Show her how to do it? OR, is it that one true God that set up D’Anna seeing them?

13. It seems that next week, all of The Five will have to make a decision as to where their loyalties lie.

"You just KNOW I'm gonna be the one punk-ass bitch."

14. I feel good about my theory that Starbuck is the offspring of a Cylon-Human pairing. Her mother was military… did she encounter Tigh at some point? The permanently boxed model, Daniel, was an artist as is Starbuck. The creator of the Cylons was named Daniel Greystone. A whole lotta coinky-dinks if you ask me.

15. We still don’t know what makes Laura Roslin so special. She just could be fulfilling the prophecy.

16. The dying leader could still be Laura, Adama or the ship itself.

Ok, what are your thoughts, theories, predictions, and questions?

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