Battlestar Galactica — 2x07 — Home, Part 2

Aired 2005-08-26

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:4.79

Factoids

Survivors, according to the main title: 47855.
While it's impossible to be 100% sure, I'm fairly certain that Dr. Cottle says, "oh fuck," when Baltar first disrupts the brain scan and it simply slipped past the censors.
Boomer knows her baby is a girl.
The star patterns seen in the tomb of Tomb of Athena were on the flags of the twelve colonies back when the twelve colonies were called by their ancient names. The ancient names were identical to Earth's zodiac names.
This episode confirms that the child Six was referring to since "Kobol's Last Gleaming" is actually a metaphor for Helo's and Sharon's child.

Problems

Since the map to Earth was made from the perspective of Earth, the Lagoon Nebula should have been in the Sagittarius constellation, not Scorpio. However, if this series takes place deep in Earth's future or past, stellar drift could be an explanation for this supposed error.

Synopsis

Following a firefight with Cylon Centurions and the death of her spiritual adviser Elosha, President Laura Roslin treks onward with her confederates in search of the Tomb of Athena. Heavy rain and Kobol's rugged terrain make the journey difficult for all except the tireless Sharon.

Tom Zarek again butts heads with Lee Adama, inspiring Zarek's henchman Meier to consider drastic measures that will clear the path to power for his old friend.

Meanwhile, aboard the Galactica, Gaius Baltar questions his sanity as Number Six toys with him, and Commander Adama mounts a rescue mission to Kobol.

Adama enlists presidential aide Billy Keikeya to join his quest for peace with the rebels. After discovering Elosha's grave on Kobol, the Galactica landing party continues its search and finally intercepts Roslin and her group. Putting aside old conflicts, Adama opens the door to peaceful reconciliation for all.

Meier, however, sees the détente between Adama and Roslin as a renewed threat to the rightful power of Tom Zarek, and he conspires with Sharon to murder Adama, Lee and the president.

Finding the ransacked tomb, the unified team struggles to unlock its secrets with the Arrow of Apollo. Before they can do so, however, Meier and Sharon spring their ambush, leaving everyone's fates uncertain as the triggers are pulled....

Remarkable scenes

The teaser was beautifully crafted in this episode. I especially love the little string piece that was scored for it.
Adama: "And Zeus warned the leaders of the twelve tribes that any return to Kobol would exact a price in blood." Tyrol: "It certainly did for us."
Boomer regarding the lords of Kobol: "We don't worship false idols."
Boomer: "We know more about your religion than you do."
Baltar: "So what's it gonna be this week? Don't tell me, I'll guess. The ship's gonna blow up! No, damn, damn, done that one. Done that one. So it's gotta be someone else. Me! It's gonna be me! I'm going to explode! God is going to make me spontaneously combust in a great big ball of flame and then the whole crew of Galactica can celebrate on Ambrosia and get really drunk."
Tyrol getting frustrated with topography.
Adama to Billy: "She thinks you'll be president one day." Billy: "Excuse me?" Adama: "That's what she said to me once. That you reminded her of President Adar when he ran for his first office." Billy: "I don't really know how to respond to that, sir." Adama: "Don't let it go to your head. Adar was a moron."
Adama being reunited with Apollo and Starbuck, Roslin being reunited with Billy, and Adama confronting Boomer.
Baltar's little middle finger quip to Cottle for his condescending attitude about Baltar's brain scan.
Cottle: "Frakkin' hypochondriac. One on every bloody ship."
Boomer thwarting Meier's plan, killing him, and making it clear to Adama that she's not what the other Boomer was.
Adama, Roslin, Billy, Apollo, and Starbuck activating the hidden message in the Tomb of Athena.
Adama: "The gods shall lift those who lift each other."
Six: "I'm an angel of god sent here to protect you, to guide you, to love you." Baltar: "To what end?" Six: "To the end of the human race."

Review

The exposition in this episode allows us to draw several interesting conclusions about BSG's setting. Incontrovertible evidence now says that Earth is real, not a myth as Adama and Roslin once believed. Since the map to Earth on Kobol is from the perspective of Earth and depicts our Earth, the one we're all living on now, we can conclude that the Colonials are mistaken about having evolved on Kobol since we all know humanity evolved on Earth.

Thus, the BSG universe must be set far into the future. Humanity left Earth at some point for Kobol. When the thirteen tribes left Kobol, twelve founded the Twelve Colonies and the thirteenth tribe returned to Earth, but created the map to Earth before they left. Over many years, all of this history was lost; only fragmentary religious scriptures document any of it. This raises some interesting possibilities indeed of what they will find when they reach Earth! Are there people still there? If so, is there society more advanced than the Twelve Colonies, or more primitive?

Unfortunately though, this episode only further complicates the Six in Baltar's head. We now know that she is neither a chip, nor is Baltar crazy. So what is she? An undetectable chip made from organic Cylon technology? Or did she simply upload her personality into Baltar somehow using Cylon technology on Caprica prior to the attack? The information in this episode is too vague to draw a conclusion. One interesting bit of dialog concerning Six however is her line about how Boomer is undeserving of the honor of bearing the first of the next generation of god's children. It's been made clear since early in season one that Six just plain doesn't like Boomer. Is it possibly because Boomer has been established as a "weak" Cylon model?

Also, it remains unclear why the Cylons didn't bother to send more reinforcements or another basestar to Kobol. Again, there could be any number of reasons why this is the case, but once again more reinforcements from the Cylons would have prevented their military defeat in the prior episode. Moreover, in this episode they seem to just let the Colonials merrily explore Kobol without interference in the slightest. Why?

Aside from exposition, this episode sports a teaser that's just as good as the one in Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part 1 featuring another beautiful string piece by Bear McCreary. It's wonderful how simple visuals allows you to draw connections between the search party preparing for their mission to Kobol on Galactica and Roslin's party searching for the Tomb of Athena in the rain on Kobol. Much about this episode but especially the teaser is just stylistically spot on which make the episode a great pleasure to watch, despite the less than thorough exposition.

In the end, this is a fairly satisfying episode which turns the show's premise upside down somewhat. Now we're certain there is an Earth. Adama may have lied about it in the miniseries, but it seems there's more truth to the scriptures than the atheists thought. However, this episode would have been far better if the exposition were not so incomplete.

4 reader comments

Although it may not have been made clear enough, only the "Six is a chip in Baltar's brain" idea has been ruled out. Baltar could still be insane, there could be a chip implanted somewhere else in his body (Important nerve cluster, e.g.) or there could be paranormal abilities involved - Baltar could have a psychic connection to Six, or he could be clairvoyant in some way. Six could be Six's ghost, with only Baltar able to see her. Or, the entire series could be the psychotic inventions of a broken Baltar, unable to cope with the fact that he betrayed humanity. The possibilities are numerous, and IMO no solution has yet been ruled definitively out.
by EKH | 07/04/2007 at 8:48 pm

"* While it's impossible to be 100% sure, I'm fairly certain that Dr. Cottle says, "oh fuck," when Baltar first disrupts the brain scan and it simply slipped past the censors."
Haha, pretty sure that was "Oh, for…" as in "Oh, for god's sake". Or "the gods sake", as it were. He just cuts himself off.
by szycag | 01/07/2010 at 9:28 am

Why do you question who or what the Six is in Baltar's head?Six tells Baltar at the end of the episode that she is an angel of god sent to protect him, so she is neither a chip nor an hallucination.
by Rob | 12/19/2014 at 11:23 am

Because she's an unreliable narrator. You don't take the antagonists with a history of deception at their word.
Because the show is otherwise totally devoted to being as realistic as possible and the idea of supernatural beings existing in the show flies in the face of that in the most terrible way imaginable.
Taken together, it made much more sense at this stage of the show to assume she was lying to Baltar to manipulate him as she had done so many times before.
by Eric Newport | 12/19/2014 at 3:42 pm