BSG Recap: No Exit [Flowchart Included]

All of this has been confusing before, and all of this will be confusing again.

Instead of the previouslies, we begin with yet another new prologue, and as is apropos for this show, it’s all cycling back to the beginning.  The question is, as you’ll see, “what, exactly is the beginning?”  Weirdly enough, I actually think that we find out.

It's the familiar white lettering on the black background:

THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE
AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN

A shot of Earth.  Sucking.

THE CYLONS WERE CREATED BY MAN 

Scary-ass Centurions.

THEY REBELLED 

War!

THEN THEY VANISHED
FORTY YEARS LATER, THEY CAME BACK
THEY EVOLVED 

Caprica Six walking on the planet Caprica, which is then nuked.

50,298 HUMAN SURVIVORS

The Fleet

HUNTED BY THE CYLONS

Being hunted by the Cylons

ELEVEN MODELS ARE KNOWN

Shown in order we discovered them

ONE WAS SACRIFICED

That, of course, would be Ellen Tigh, who was poisoned by Saul after he discovered that she almost gave them away on New Caprica.  He never even knew that she’d been banging Brother Cavil . . .

Ellen is resurrected, with only a single Centurion for company.  She initially freaks out, and then comes to a realization – about everything.  Showing us Ellen Tigh realizing her true nature is just the beginning of the amazing work from Kate Vernon throughout this episode. She asks for the Centurion for help out of her resurrection tub.

Present day.  We’re hanging out in surgery with Kara Thrace and Sam Anders, and he is chanting gibberish like a Hybrid.  Last episode, he took a bullet to his brain, so they need to drain it and then bring in the Fleet’s Foremost Authority on Brains to remove the bullet.  Meanwhile, Sam is giving us foreshadowing of the rest of the episode, even mentioning Ellen.  Nobody pays any attention.

This is an incredibly dialog-heavy episode -- in every sense of the word -- where we learn  a shitload of backstory and mythology.  So I’m going to summarize a lot of scenes with the information presented, as opposed to the dialog itself.  Otherwise, this becomes 10,000 or 20,000 words, and as long as one of Jacob’s  TWOP recaps.  Which you should be reading.

For example, 18 months ago, the then recently resurrected Ellen Tigh is sitting naked on a Cylon Basestar, when in strolls in Brother Cavil, and they instantly start sniping at each other.  What we learn is this: 

• Ellen created Cavil.
• Cavil has always known who the Final Five were. 
• Cavil’s first name is John, but it should be Oedipus.

Back in the present day, aboard Galactica, Tyrol shows Adama the big scar that runs through the length of Galactica.  Adama almost instantly reinstates Tyrol as Chief and tasks him with fixing it.

In Sickbay, post-drainage, Sam is beatific, and asks Kara to bring the others. Kara’s thinks that Sam is so confused that he’s talking about the wrong show entirely. Sam, still with a huge smile on his face, says:  “Not those Others, silly.  The other Cylons.”  You know, Tigh, Tory, Tyrol, Ellen.

After Kara gently corrects Sam with the fact that Ellen is dead, Sam says: “I remember everything.  Earh.  Why we’re here. Everything.”

Oh.  That.  And we’re into the opening credits.

39,556 survivors searching for a home.  Home.

We’ve lost over 10,000 souls since the original attack.

12 Months ago.  On the basestar, Ellen is a prisoner of Brother John Cavil and his new girlfriend Sharon “Boomer” Valeri. Boomer,  you might remember, is the only Eight out of her entire line to not rebel against Cavil, and it was the single vote by this single model that led to the Cylon Civil war.  Here’s what we learn:

• The belief in God comes from the Centurions, not the Skin Jobs.
• Cavil claims that he is driven to destroy humanity by his outsized sense of justice for the enslavement of the Centurions.

What Cavil doesn’t say is that he wants to destroy humanity because he resents being made in the image of humans. He’s a self-hating android.   Data would be so disappointed.  Lore, on the other hand, would totally approve.

Cavil leaves Boomer alone with Ellen, who offers her an apple.   After Boomer refuses, Ellen tells her to think for herself, and crunches into the apple.  Symbolism!  Also: juicy!

In Sickbay, Tigh, Tory, Tyrol & Kara gather around Sam, who tells them this:

• The Final Five all worked together (in a “Research Facility”) on Earth.
• Tyrol & Tory were doing it.  Sex, I mean.  As were Ellen & Saul.
• There was resurrection -- “organic memory transfer” -- on Kobol, it became a lost art after procreation started. 
• Resurrection had only recently been reinvented; Ellen was a driver of that process.
• They knew that the nuking was happening – because of warnings from beings only they could see (!) --  and had themselves downloaded to a ship orbiting Earth when it got blowed up real good.

Sam’s round of series-altering exposition is interrupted when Cottle walks back in from his cigarette break, and notices that Sam looks like crap.  So he breaks up the memory party.  One of the secretly funny things about this episode is that Cottle & his people are around the whole time Sam is spilling the beans about their crazy Cylon adventures. It’s not like this is secret, closed-door testimony.  He’s in a semi-public place the whole time.

Over on Colonial One, Lee Adama & President Laura Roslin are in the Quorum room, mourning the recently-massacred members of the Quorum.  Lee points out that this might be a good time to change their entire system of representation:  instead of being planet-based, it could be ship-based, as reflecting their currently reality.  Given the fact that there are 35 ships, they’re going to need a bigger room.

Roslin agrees, and taps Lee to put it all together.  She’s going to step aside and let him run things for the rest of the series, but warns him:  “You’re so hell-bent on doing the right thing that you sometimes don’t do the smart thing.”  And that’s pretty much it for Roslin and Lee this episode.  See you next week!

Elsewhere aboard Galactica, Tyrol is telling Adama that the damage is worse than they thought.  Apparently, the contractors who built Galactica cut some corners.  Shocking!  If they can sit still, and not jump for awhile, Chief thinks that he can “squeeze some more life out of her.”  But you really don’t care about this sub-plot, do you? 

Nope, you’re really waiting for some more of those Sam Anders mind-fraks.  So, let’s head back to Sickbay – though not as fast as Tyrol, evidently – and find out some more cool, but confusing, stuff.  To wit:

• The Final Five all downloaded to their ship orbiting Earth, and headed back to the 12 Colonies.
• But they didn’t have any jump drives, so the trip took thousands of years – luckily, time slowed down for them. 
• When then got there, the Colonials and Centurions were already at war.  The war from 40 some-odd years ago.
• The Centurions were already experimenting with creating humanoid Cylons: the hybrids.  But they weren’t fully successful.
• So the Five struck a deal with the Centurions:  you stop fighting with the Colonials, and we will help you build your Skin-jobs.
• The Five created Eight humanoid models, and gave them Resurrection.

And then, Sam has a seizure, so it’s time to call the Fleet’s Foremost Authority on Brains to take a look at him.

OK.  Too much to chew on right here, but let’s take a hunk.  First off, I have no problem with the trip taking thousands of years from the standpoint of, er, time, but only taking a few years from the standpoint of the Five.  That’s just classic Sci-Fi.  What I have a bit of a problem with is the fact that they didn’t have FTL technology.  I mean, how did they get to Earth in the first place?  Or did the colonization also take thousands of years?

So my working theory is that the FTL was lost in the same way that Resurrection was lost: they didn’t need it, so they stopped using it.  Much in the same way that pocket calculators have robbed future generations from being able to do math in their heads.

But here’s the bigger question:  why was Earth a myth to the Twelve Colonies when it clearly wasn’t the other way around?   At first, the Fleet had no idea how to find Earth; but the Five knew exactly where to find the Colonies.

Oh, and for anybody doing the math, we’ve got an extra Cylon model unaccounted for.  Kara got that almost instantly.  Maybe it’s her!  (Or maybe . . .  we’ll get to that.)

Supernova! It’s 12 months ago, and Cavil and Ellen and Boomer are talking again.  Cavil tells the story about D’anna and her visions of the Final Five in the Temple, and how they had to box her because she was going crazy.  Ellen then points out that boxing isn’t permanent; not like what happened to poor Cylon #7.

This is a cue for Cavil to monolog again about how limiting it is to be human – he’d rather experience things like supernovae as a machine -- and he places the blame for that at the feet of the Final Five and storms out. After his hissy fit, Boomer asks Ellen if she is remorseful for how badly Boomer’s boyfriend feels about his sucky human body. Ellen says not at all, because in making them human, she gave them free will, and sings “if you choose not to decide; you still have made a choice.” 

Outside of Sickbay, Tigh, Tyrol & Tory are trying to deconstruct what Sam just told them.  Get a whiteboard!  They argue over whether they lead humanity to its destruction by creating the Skin-jobs, or just bought humanity some extra decades by making the deal with the Centurions.  Tory points out that it’s really all the fault of the humans on Kobol for making them in the first place, and Tigh finally says that there’s plenty of blame to go around: everybody is complicit.  Society’s to blame.  All right, we’ll arrest them, too.

In Sickbay proper, the Fleet’s Foremost Authority on Brains says that the seizure was a hemorrhage and another one could happen any time. So despite the fact that we’re getting all of this great exposition, we really oughta get that bullet out of Sam’s brain, already!

Four months ago, on the basestar; Cavil tells Ellen that the Resurrection Hub is all gone.  He wants her to rebuild it.  Make it better, faster, stronger.  Ellen says that it would take all of the Five to do it, not just her.  She’s pretty insistent on this point.

Cavil, sensing the need for a parallel plot structure, says fine, if you don’t want to tell us, then we will cut your brain open, poke around, and just find the memories.  But it might take a few months to get it all put together.
 

Back in Sickbay; Sam has one more round of plot points to exposit before Kara finally gets him operated on by the Fleet’s Foremost Authority on Brains.  Ready?  No?  Tough:

• John Cavil was the first skin-job; he helped build the others.
• Ellen’s gamble was that since the Centurions believed in God; maybe they would embrace the God of Love and Mercy and not the God of Judgment and Revenge.  Sure, because that’s always how things are done in the name of God.
• Cavil, who doesn’t believe in any kind of God whatsoever, did the following:
  • Suffocated The Five.
  • Boxed the Five.
  • Implanted the Five with false memories.
  • Loosed the Five one by one into the Colonies in order for them to have ringside seats to the holocaust.  Tigh first, and then the others. 
• Kara is not Number Seven.  We know.  (Or is she?) The Number Seven was named Daniel. Definitely named Daniel. He died. That was the Number Seven.  Daniel.  Who is now a star in the face of sky.

As he is being wheeled into surgery, Sam has one more piece of advice for Saul, “Stay with the Fleet.  It’s all starting to happen.  Right here, the miracle.  It’s a gift from the angels.  Stay with the Fleet!”

Tigh goes to his quarters, where a very pregnant – and a catalyst for the situation they all find themselves in, don’t forget – Caprica Six asks him what Anders said.  Saul Tigh lies with the truth:  “Cottle kicked us out; he never got to finish.”

Also: Tigh hasn’t had booze in his quarters for weeks, now.  Because he mind-melded his alcoholic tendencies to Adama.

Apparently, my prediction last week of Caprica, Baltar & Hera all being in the same place at that same time – and the fireworks that would ensue -- was just wrong.  Hera’s obviously back with (the absent from this week’s episode) Athena & Helo, with no further developments. I’m beginning to wonder if the Hera plotline is just a red herring.

It’s two days ago, and Cavil has finally rounded up enough Simons – Dr. Skin-job to you -- to cut open Ellen’s brain, and dig out the resurrection information.  Why did it take so long? Apparently, there were insurance issues delaying what is, after all, an elective surgery. 

Cavil & Boomer walk in, and Ellen is unconcernedly drawing a picture of Saul – man, that’s going to be good times when she and Caprica Six come face to face! – and seems utterly unconcerned that they’re about to split her head open like a pumpkin.  But first, some more plot points:

• Cavil sent the Final Five to live amongst the humans so that they could see how sucky humans are as compared to the perfect machines the Cylons could be.
• Which is part of the reason that he never killed the Five all of the times he could have:  he wanted them to apologize to him for making him humanoid. 
• Number Seven, the Daniels – who had better be important, somehow – were artists.  And they were all killed in a jealous rage by Cavil, who thought that they were loved more by Ellen than he was.

BTW, I should point out that Cavil seems wayyyyyyyy more one-note on paper than he does when he is embodied by Dean Stockwell, who knocks every single scene right out of the park.  Even when he throws one more temper tantrum; claims that he is somehow a mistake, and it’s all her fault, because she made him. 

Ellen reacts like mommies have throughout time when a selfish and petulant child makes that claim.  He’s not a mistake; he can be a good boy if he only chooses, and she loves him.  He rejects her, and storms out to get ready to watch the rooting around in her brain.

Back aboard Galactica: Chief tells Adama that remember how the damage to the ship was worse than they thought?  Well, its even worse than they thought when they thought it was worse that what they originally thought it was!   Luckily, the Cylons happen to have some organic technology that will fix everything.  Of course they do.  Adama, who just risked a civil war trying to put Cylon technology on every ship in the fleet, doesn’t want this on Galactica.

Oh yeah, you don’t care about this, so lets just wrap it up.  A little bit later, Adama sees a big-ass scar on the war of his quarters, and eventually drunk dials Chief and tells him to do whatever he needs to fix Galactica, his girl.  That said, the fact that they are essentially doing surgery on Galactica, and making it a organic-machine compound, dovetails nicely with the rest of the episode, and the confusion of human and machine that permeates nearly every single bullet point I’ve listed above.

Right.  So which brain surgery do you want to know about, Sam’s or Ellen’s?

Sam’s.  Not good.  Hours and hours under the knife, has left him with very little brain activity.   The final diagnosis from the Fleet’s Foremost Authority on Brains:  Sam has the Blue Screen of Death.

Ellen’s.  Good.  Remember all of that stuff about free will?  Boomer exercises some of her own, and instead of leading Ellen to surgery, spirits Ellen from the basestar, jumping away at the last second.

So that’s where we are.  Are you confused?  I was, so I broke it down with a flowchart:

This is how I interpret the sequence of events.

Humans and Skin-jobs both existed on Kobol, for reasons unknown.  The Humans went to the Twelve Colonies; the Skin-jobs went to Earth, also for reasons unknown.

On Earth, the Skin-jobs created Centurions; who rebelled and nuked them.  However, the Final Five escaped via downloading and headed towards the Colonies.  Slowly.

Meanwhile, Colonialists also created Centurions, who rebelled against their creators.  Oh, and got religion.

The Final Five met up with the Colonial Centurions, convinced them to stop the war and helped them create the Eight Skin-jobs.

Cavil killed Daniel; killed and boxed the Final Five, and rebooted the war effort, seeding the Colonials with Skin-jobs.  Some knew who they were; some needed to be activated.

At some point, he reintroduced the Five into the Colonials, but without memories of their true nature.  They needed Bob Dylan to activate them.

Finally, who is Daniel?  I always write the first draft of these in a vacuum, so I can get my thoughts down without being polluted by smarter people; then I go nuts and read a bunch of recaps.  There seem to be two big Daniel theories out there:

• Daniel is Starbuck’s father.  This would somehow help to explain her mysterious disappearance and reappearance. 
• Daniel is Baltar.  This would somehow help to explain his ongoing visions of Six.

Both theories are good; both theories have flaws.  Hell, maybe Daniel is Baltar AND Starbuck’s father. 

My brain hurts.

Jim Connelly writes about Technology and Pop Culture for Medialoper.