Battlestar Galactica Reviews: Rapture (Episode 3.11)

Reviews:
Episode Name: Rapture
Episode Number: 311
Written by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson
Directed by: Michael Rymer
Original Air Date: 1/21/07 on SciFi Channel
Review Posted: 1/27/07

Back to Act 2 & Act 3
Act 4:

Back from the final break and the Cylons disappear without getting in a last word. That nova turned out to be a great plot device to split up the Cylons and the fleet again. Kara and Dee are seen to have managed to get the Raptor flying. The rescue Raptors clear the planet just in time and the Galactica jumps just before the nova obliterates everything.

On the hangar deck, it's revealed that Tyrol somehow managed to smuggle Baltar onboard in one of the body bags. How many others, besides Lee, in the planet-side party are aware of Baltar's presence? Baltar being smuggled back means he can be down in the brig for a long time like Athena without it being public knowledge and free to be tortured. We sense that this sets the stage for some commentary on the CIA's use of secret prisons for holding and torturing suspected terrorists.

Next, Helo, who jeopardized fleet security, strolls onto the hangar deck. He finds Athena and Hera in one of the Raptors. They happily reunite and NO ONE questions whether that really is Athena or is another copy that has taken her place. After all, it's been established that downloading can include all memories and even those in the fleet know (from Athena herself) that one copy can have the complete memories of another. As a matter of fact, the door is left open for the audience as well, since Athena and Caprica weren't actually seen making a clean escape, but based on the structure of the episode, this is likely.

After the happy reunion between Athena, Helo and Hera goes unquestioned, weapons come out from everywhere when Caprica Six walks out. Guess Baltar will have company down there and she'll move into Athena's old quarters in the brig. At least until she knows the Cylon fleet is nearby again when she can die and be downloaded. Will her fleet-side arc be more of a parallel to Gina or Athena? Or will the writers manage to take it in a completely unexpected direction?

Lastly, Kara and Anders reunite followed by Lee and Dee. While hugging their own spouses, Lee and Kara manage to share a look. Have they learned nothing yet? At this point, we wish one (or two) of the four (preferably Kara and Lee) would be killed off just so this soap opera storyline would end or at least go in a fresh direction. As Lee's stock has fallen, Anders' has gone up. After his inauspicious first appearance in the arc set on Caprica, we now hope he's set to be a regular as has been reported as long as he's not endlessly paired with Kara.

The debriefing involving Tigh, Adama, Roslin, Gaeta and Helo is hard to follow, but apparently there was a previous nova and the current nova might have been predicted thousands of years ago after the other nova. Confused? So were we. They apparently conclude that there are some coordinates to be drawn from cross-referencing the two novas. During the briefing, Helo notices something about the nova, so he pays a visit to Kara who's in her bunk. She happens to have pictures of her old apartment around and her painting matches the nova. She repeats the line that she was told about having a destiny, of which we can now assume that Helo will put some credence in as well. It took a long while, but Kara's "destiny" has returned.

The episode's final scenes are saved for the Cylons, which likely indicates that the Cylon-centric arc is done for a while. D'Anna wakes up to find a Cavil (wonder if it's the same one that was shot by Baltar planet-side) by her side. He informs her that she and her entire series will be boxed. She's too groggy to put up much of a resistance when Cavil declares that the model is flawed. Cavil pulls the plug and we get an eerie scene of what boxing looks like with thousands of resurrection tubs illuminated by their little "night lights."

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