Battlestar Galactica

“Epiphanies”

2.5 stars.

Air date: 1/20/2006
Written by Joel Anderson Thompson
Directed by Rod Hardy

Review Text

There's nothing really wrong with "Epiphanies" except perhaps that unlike a lot of episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I knew more or less where this one was going. One of BSG's biggest strengths, much like The Shield or 24, is that you never quite know where the characters and the story's momentum will take you. You just know that there's so much momentum that it will have to take you somewhere.

"Epiphanies" is somewhat boxed in by the fact that the only way for it to end shockingly and unexpectedly would be to kill off the series' female lead — which, obviously, is not going to happen. President Laura Roslin, who has been dying of breast cancer since the first half-hour of the first episode, enters "Epiphanies" literally on her deathbed, and it quickly becomes clear that by the end of the hour she will either be dead or miraculously saved by sci-fi machinations. I leave it to you to guess which is more likely. If you guess wrong, you are banned from reading my reviews.

To kill Roslin would be a writer's coup d'etat, just as killing Adama when he was shot at the end of "Kobol's Last Gleaming" would've been equally spectacularly shocking. The problem, of course, is that then your main characters are dead and you don't have the same show anymore. Quite simply, there are things you cannot plausibly do on a still-running television show. I suppose it's an item of courage that the writers are willing to look the deaths of the lead characters straight in the eye, playing a game of storytelling chicken before swerving at the last possible moment to avoid the collision. It's also worth noting that the way Roslin's death is averted is perhaps the most absolutely appropriate under the circumstances, and one that adds yet another layer to the Cylon/human conflict and Roslin's personal world view concerning same.

On her deathbed, Roslin realizes she must make the order she has likely been putting off: deciding the fate of Sharon's hybrid child. Dr. Cottle has seen strange things about the pregnancy, although I would suggest (as does Baltar) that any hybrid pregnancy between a man and a machine would likely have some ... oddities. Roslin decides the baby, which could potentially become a threat to the fleet, should be terminated. Since she won't be around to make the decision later (when there might be more information to make a more informed decision), she makes the decision now, and it's the last one she expects to make as president. Adama agrees to carry it out. The moral implications here are obviously huge, since we're talking about the forcible abortion of a prisoner's child against her will.

This storyline coincides with a subplot involving new turmoil brewing in the fleet thanks to an organized group insisting on finding a peaceful, negotiated solution with the Cylons to end the war. This group is not above sabotage and violence to get their message across, which begins as a thorn in Adama's side before escalating to a true threat when one of their members carries out a suicide bombing on the fleet's tylium refinery vessel. Adama arrests their suspected leader, a man named Royan Jahee (Paul Perri), but the movement continues and Jahee is not cooperative.

Yes, these are all interesting and relevant issues that have a basis in the world we live in today. I guess the problem is that the story is a little too much of a functional plot and not enough of a dramatic enterprise with fresh character insights. Yes, Helo is understandably appalled at the notion of his baby being aborted. Yes, Sharon flips out when he delivers her the news. (In what might be the visceral peak of the show, she takes on the characteristics of an enraged animal, ramming her head repeatedly into the glass wall of her cell.)

But after all we've been through this season with the "Pegasus" trilogy and the whole Kobol arc, "Epiphanies" feels more expected and inevitable, and less surprising or riveting. Adama must track down the terrorist threat while the characters react — expectedly understandably negatively — to the edict that Sharon's pregnancy will be terminated.

There are also some ancillary issues worth mention. There's a parallel flashback storyline that follows Roslin on Caprica in the days before the Cylon attack. This was when she was secretary of education and was trying to broker a deal with an educators union on strike. She does some behind-the-scenes negotiations to end the standoff and get them back to work. President Adar (Colm Feore) does not like the method of Roslin's solution: "You've just showed them that if they hold out long enough, this administration will cave."

The flashback narrative runs parallel to Roslin's and Adama's current problems with the organized sympathizers, and the lesson to take from this is that there's a difference between negotiating to solve a problem and negotiating because you're afraid of violent reprisals. In the end, Roslin agrees to negotiate with the sympathizers if — and only if — they bring serious intentions to the table. I think that's the lesson, anyway, because it honestly lacked clarity to me. Meanwhile, if there's any point to the revelation that Roslin was having an affair with Adar during the education standoff, then I've missed it. I found it completely arbitrary, extraneous, and distracting — downright puzzling, in fact. In brief: Who cares, and what does it have to do with anything?

Meanwhile, there's Vice President Baltar, who looks to be just hours away from assuming the full-time role of president. Baltar already shows signs of not being up to the job; at one point, Adama gets in his face and essentially tells him to grow up: "Pull yourself together. You're about to become president of the Colonies. You're going to be asked to make some very hard decisions. Act like you can handle it."

Baltar's situation is further complicated by the fact that he still has feelings and sympathies for Pegasus Six, whom he helped escape and who is now hiding on board the Cloud Nine, apparently helping the sympathy movement. She wants his help. He's conflicted and still uncertain of what she's capable of. Does she want to truly negotiate peace or wage her own agenda and destroy the fleet? I like that Baltar is such a wild card: You never know whether he's going to act out of his quasi-psychotic love for Six (any version of her) or his deep guilty need to safeguard humanity from his own potential contributions to destroy it. Roslin's flashbacks also reveal buried information: She remembers seeing Baltar with Six on Caprica before the attack. Now she knows he was somehow involved. And this will all lead somewhere.

Baltar makes an eleventh-hour discovery that the blood in Sharon's hybrid baby has unique resistance to human disease, including cancer. The blood in fact is able to cure Roslin's cancer at the last possible moment. There's irony in the fact that Roslin is saved by that which she ordered destroyed, and it's an irony that will prompt some tough questions for her and everyone else. I guess if you're going to rescue the president with a sci-fi solution at the last minute, this is the way to do it, and one that creates at least as many new issues at is resolves. Still, I found myself asking: Once you're on your deathbed — hours away from death — isn't the damage to your body already done? Even if you cure the cancer, aren't you still damaged beyond repair? Perhaps this sci-fi treatment also healed all of Roslin's organs. It's a tidy resolution, for sure.

I didn't much care for the episode's final exclamation point, where Baltar delivers to Pegasus Six the nuclear warhead given to him (and virtually forgotten by the series) way back in "Bastille Day." I'm having a very hard time believing that Adama would be so careless in following the whereabouts of this device, which he gave to Baltar, of all people, whose trustworthiness has hardly been ironclad. I guess I'm resistant to the idea of a nuclear bomb becoming a plot device in a world that often tries so hard to be plausible in its military details.

Bottom line: "Epiphanies" is a perfectly acceptable hour of BSG, but this series has done much better.

Previous episode: Resurrection Ship, Part 2
Next episode: Black Market

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20 comments on this post

    There was a mention of the (thermo)nuclear bomb in "Tigh Me Up Tigh Me Down." I know, not your favorite episode.

    Although a friend of mine pointed out that slamming nuclear bombs into ships in the vacuum of space wouldn't so much damage said ship, but merely "push" it.

    Based on what rationale? As far as I understand it a nuclear detonation would produce hardly any shockwave in space, but release very strong thermal radiation that shouldn't leave a spaceship unaffected.

    Every bomb is essentially a big "push". The limiting factor in space would be oxygen to promote combustion. While I'm not sure if there exists the necessary quantities of oxygen onboard a space ship (life support and what not) there's probably enough to at least rupture the hull significantly...which is really all you'd hope to accomplish.

    As far as the shockwave...since there's very little matter (apart from the ship of course) there's no way for a shockwave to propagate. However, the nuclear reaction would radiate a lot of heat, probably melting any metallic objects (read: space ships) nearby.

    Just rewatched this episode last night. Anyone else get a huge chuckle over the way Baltar answers the phone in Roslin's office??

    "Hellloooooo?" with a big stupid smile on his face. Gets me every time.

    Unlike other bombs, nukes don't combust, therefore, they don't need oxygen. The fusion reaction is what causes the damage, not any explosive combustion. Doesn't matter if it's in the vacuum of space or not.

    The way Roslin gets cured of her cancer was one of the weakest plot points in the entire series. This and the way people seem to just heal miraculously from bullet wounds were the two weak plot points that annoyed me in season 2 the most. First Adama basically gets shot twice in the stomach/chest, is in a coma for a week then manages to go hit up his home boy Tigh...right. Apparently in the future people heal 50 times at the rate of real life. Tigh was in charge an entire week...*shakes head*. The curing Roslin of cancer was even worse. The fact that she had cancer was built up for nearly two entire seasons and it ends with Gaius doing a House like 'pull it out my ass aha moment 45 mins into the episode' and completely curing her...right.

    So, Roslin gets miraculously saved, in the final five minutes of the show. Never saw that one comin'. I wonder: Seeing as she has cylon blood in her now, is SHE a potential threat to the Fleet (I mean, more than she was before)?

    As for the pacifists, damn them!!! It's people like that who are hindering our ability to conduct wars and wars have to be conducted. I'm all for peace, but sometimes war is inevitable; surely everyone recognizes that human vs. cylon is one such situation.

    What is curious is how Roslin is a hardass one minute and then a limp weakling the next. She goes Rambo on Boomer's kid but then demonstrates what can only be described as utmost stupidity toward the peaceniks.

    BTW, shouldn't the number of the survivors on Roslin's notice board have been updated upward since the arrival of the Pegasus?

    End the War? Do the folks on the show watch the show? Does the lower deck crew of Galactica and the civilian crews of the fleet pay attention to current events? The war is over. You lost. So what does End the War mean? Stop running and let yourself be slaughtered or put in a prison camp? Plot doesn't even make sense. Writers keep trying to instill real world messages into the shows but a great many of them just do not work in the story's own setting.

    This was the episode where BSG started to lose its way, made up only in strong arcs that followed. It began to take liberties with its own world.

    For example, in the miniseries, it was established that the moment the cylon raider exposed its nukes, Galactica could read them via its radiological alarm. Later the same technology was able to scan the Olympic Carrier for a nuke. How then was Galactica not able to sense the nuke on cloud 9? I can usually watch BSG in one almost continuous sitting from the mini series to ressurrection ship pt 2. From the episode onward, the inconsistencies begin to pile up, the episode of the week format takes over, and if not for the New Caprica arc, the Earth 1 arc, and the Final Five, the show really takes a nosedive.

    I agree with about everybody. The 11th hour miracle healing of the president seemed like kind of a cheat, at least for this series. Makes me wonder why they bothered to give her cancer in the first place.

    Please tell me Baltar finally faces the music. His smugness is annoying me again. He will probably be investigated and then get away by the skin of his teeth again. I at least hope Roslin removes him as Vice President. If she has doubts she shouldn't allow him to be a heartbeat from being leader. She needs to do what she should've done in the first place: make captain Apollo Vice President. I thought she was going to do it the first time. Makes perfect sense to me

    Wow, I had no idea that Khan Blood (TM) existed years before Star Trek Into Darkness!

    All kidding aside, I thought it was a cheat. If the intention was always to keep Roslin alive, there really wasn't a reason for the writers to give her cancer in the first place, at least in my opinion. Furthermore, the existence of miracle cure blood, whether in the Star Trek or BSG universe, just throws science out the window and creates a world where anyone can be saved anytime (just the characters keep forgetting the resources available to them).

    This was absolutely the moment the series jumped the shark. There were strong episodes after this, but nothing sustained; and anything that seemed at the time like it might be an interesting arc was undermined by the very poor job of wrapping up threads in the finale.

    So since the story arc that concluded just before this episode with the whole Pegasus standoff was so strong, it's easy for me to recommend that people stop there and go no further. As a whole, the entire rest of the series really tarnishes what had been built up at that point; and it makes a strong finale with no real huge loose threads hanging around.

    I keep waiting for Baltar to get caught.
    How did he get away with helping 6 out of Pegasus's brig?
    How did he smuggle 6 off Pegasus?
    How did he manage to get her one of Galactica's few remaining nukes?
    etc. etc. etc.....

    Arrrgghhh... I want him to hang from the yardarm....

    Nothing sustained? The last 3 of season 2 followed by the first 5 of season 3. The last 4 of season three followed by the first 11 of season 4...

    This is my first viewing - finally made it to the 2nd half of the 2nd season. Can't believe this series is halfway over!

    The fact that Baltar can get away with all these things is quite silly.

    God I hate Tigh so much. He is not XO material at all. No class, no etiquette. Nothing. He is a filthy wanna-be tyrant who does not even remotely believe in the principles of Democracy. I mean in a scene in this episode, the guy comes in peace wanting to prevent further bloodshed and to just talk, which is a reasonable proposal, and this son of a bitch greets him with "visitor my ass. We shoot people like you for treason."

    Fuck you, Tigh!

    The only one who belongs shot on this show is him. Of all the people they have (and will end up) killing, to think they kept this jackass around is unbelievable. He is a mean, petty, abusive drunkard who totally deserves Ellen and what she did to him. It only speaks of Adama's bad judgment as a leader and deeply flawed character to be best friends with this guy and keep him in charge as his second in command. Then again I dont like Adama's leadership style either. He, too, is a dictator wann-be. Like when he just removed Roslin from office when he didnt like what she had to say. But in this episode he pulls rank on Baltar saying "well as the president of the colonies it is her right to make this decision". Really? Why? Cause it is something he personally agrees with.

    Thing is, in a Democracy you respect the rule of law and dont just follow the ones that personally agree with you while spitting on and ignoring those which dont. Yet that is something Adama does again and again and again on this ship. Like during the trial of Baltar where he just wants to dissolve the court or tribunal cause they ask him and his girlfriend some tough questions he'd rather not answer.

    Watching this show the question in the back of my mind remains: why the hell does anyone think humanity deserves saving ?

    What I don't understand is why Roslin decides that, on her deathbed, the most important thing she needs to say is "let's kill the baby we have known for months to be not 'normal' but have decided to keep until now." She had zero new info that lead her to this decision. Dr. Cotter's 'odd findings' don't count because it was dumb of him as a doctor to expect otherwise to begin with. Nothing says the odd findings were bad, it just confirms that a Cylon is the mother, which is not news considering the baby is literally growing inside said Cylon.

    What she DID have new info about is that she just realized she has seen the VICE PRESIDENT having an affair with a known Cylon before. Is this not important information to tell people hours before your death, considering the VP is going to be president in the event of your death???

    Regarding the Cylon sympathizers, it would have worked better if there was any indication that the Cylons want a peaceful resolution... considering they started with a sneak attack as opposed to request for surrender, not sure how anyone thought Cylons even want peace.

    Another weird part is it appears that Starbuck has not told anyone about the new Cylon she met at the Farm on Caprica... There didn't seem to be any photo/drawing of him in the known Cylon folder.

    Why in the world did Baltar give Six the nuke? Before the war, he foolishly shared secrets with a Six to get in bed, but he had no knowledge of human Cylons at the time, and just believed he was giving a defense contractor a, uh, leg up on her competition.

    When they learned of the skin jobs, he became well aware that his actions could easily be seen as treasonous, amply highlighted in this very episode.

    Aside from the risk of getting caught, what did he expect her to do with it?

    Makes zero sense.

    Season 2 takes a nosedive in quality after Pegasus

    -The forced wokeness of screenwriters becomes apparent with rape/feminism/ torture / abortion storylines that are 100% not needed, destroy the moral tone of the franchise, AND destroy the consistency of certain characters.

    -The success/extension of the franchise causes "filler" or "padding" creep. Basically most shows have ONE season's worth of great ideas. There are usually enough leftovers to produce a solid second season. After that, it's a hot mess of garbage until the arc setting up the series finale.

    -Starting with Pegasus, Baltar and Roslin break character until they fully jump the shark in this episode.

    -It makes zero sense for Roslin not to assert authority over Caine, right away. If military chain of command is the ultimate sacred cow to Adama, then obviously Roslin outranks Caine and Caine needs to formally accept it... it makes less than zero sense to 'integrate the fleet' without this detail... because it's setting up the exact military dictatorship everyone agrees is such a problem.

    -The letter Roslin writes Baltar from her deathbed makes very little sense to me. It breaks several walls... for instance we the audience understand Baltar's flawed character because of his monologues and flashbacks and interaction with Head Six... how the fuck does Roslin, bedridden and zonked out on Chemala, have any knowledge? Baltar volunteered for the mission to Kobol. Baltar was cleared of charges brought by Shelly Godfrey. He determined the weak point of the Cylon Refining operation, and He successfully interrogated Pegasus Six for details about the Resurrection Ship.

    So where does Roslin get all the crap she puts in her letter about his 'ethical lapses??' It only makes sense if she's watching the show along with us! But of course, they needed a contrived plot element to make Baltar go off the rails and seek power.

    I think the writers literally had no idea how to fill 2-3 more seasons, and so reverted to the original BSG tropes of Baltar being a slimy traitor, and also decided to turn the later part of Season 2 into a medical drama

    This one's a mixed bag and a bit frustrating. Not a fan of the fact that there's this "Demand Peace" Cylon sympathizer movement being introduced as something for Adama to contend with going forward. But Baltar is back to his selfish ways (his epiphany), which is what best suits the character. Didn't care much for Roslin's epiphany on negotiating with terrorists / protestors and her life before heading into space -- but it is curious that she saw Baltar and No. 6 kissing in her visions, which may have factored into the potent letter she writes him.

    Of course it's too early in the series for Roslin to die and we get the miraculous cure like something out of Trek. That Roslin would order Sharon's baby terminated is also dubious to me even if we know how Roslin can be toward Cylons. Why should the Cylon/human hybrid child be of more danger / priority than actual fully grown Cylons? And why should this be Roslin's main priority whilst on her deathbed?

    I quite liked Roslin's letter to Baltar -- it is written as if from somebody of great wisdom and really speaks to Baltar's flaws and how he can improve himself. Of course, he rubbishes it (#6 in his mind right there doesn't help) and he takes it to mean Roslin fundamentally will never trust him. That's perhaps true but I also take it that Roslin would be more magnanimous about working with him and teaching / guiding him on the political aspects, etc. But no, Baltar is in love with the Pegasus #6 on Cloud Nine who is a key person in Demand Peace and he brings her the nuke just like that.

    2.5 stars for "Epiphanies" -- a clear step down from the trilogy just prior. Again a bit convenient with the Cylon blood curing Roslin's cancer, and Sharon keeps her baby. But I'm not too keen on Demand Peace becoming the next thorn in Adama's side. Also thought Lee reinstated as CAG is ridiculous given his prior actions, but maybe it's clean slate time after the big trilogy.

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