Friday's Battlestar Galactica was a moody, disjointed episode and was reminiscent of the hopelessness a common alcoholic feels. And as much as we like self-loathing drunks, they become tiresome. What the frak? With only three episodes left, we don't feel any closer to the answers we seek.
We start with a despondent Starbuck, who finds herself quarreling with a lone piano man at the ship's bar, Joe's. She eventually finds herself drawn to this nameless man and her relationship with him is weaved throughout the episode.
Meanwhile, Galen Tyrol struggles to make peace with the recent arrival of his ex-lover, Sharon Valeri a.k.a. the original Boomer, who is locked up in the brig. She shows Tyrol that she's still in love with him by projecting the image of a fantasy life that she created after her death on Galactica. In that life they have a home, marriage, and daughter together on Picon. Throughout the show, Tyrol finds himself fighting for Boomer's life. The Cylon allies want her put to trial and excecute her and President Roslin is in agreement.
Tyrol is desperate and kidnaps another eight to take Boomer's place in the brig. As soon as Boomer is on the loose, she wreaks havoc on the ship by beating up Athena, hooking up with Helo, and stealing their child, Hera. She was only playing nice to get to the girl.
As Starbuck's story unfolds, she sees flashbacks of herself as a child, playing the piano in dream-like sequences. She spends more time with the piano man and becomes fond of him. His story sounds suspiciously familiar and it becomes apparent that this man is a hallucination of her father, and also that she may very well wind up making out with him. He convinces her to play a song on the piano from her childhood. While she's playing, she realizes that a drawing of stars that Hera gave her is a line of musical notes. When they make the connection, Starbuck and the piano man start to play the notes. The song is supposedly the same one that brought all of the Cylons together -- "All Along the Watchtower" -- except of course it totally isn't, it's just some piano mashing. Guess if it ain't the Cylons, it's ASCAP/BMI!
Saul and Ellen Tigh hear Starbuck playing the song and it's urgent for them to find out how she learned it, even though Ellen wasn't actually around when Saul heard at the end of Season... urgh, whatever. Starbuck reveals that Hera wrote the notes and they are left with the fallout. In the climactic ending, Boomer kidnaps Hera and escapes out of a closing flight deck and jumps away, blowing a hole in the side of the already weakened Galactica, leaving us with a sense of dread for the characters and also for us, wondering whether this show and its many plotlines are gonna really get wrapped up, or if it's just the Galactica herself that will see some sort of definite end.
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