Episode Name: He That Believeth In Me Episode Number: 401 Written by: David Weddle & Bradley Thompson Directed by: Michael Rymer Original Air Date: 4/4/08 on SciFi Channel Review Posted: 4/4/08
Review of Episode 4.01:
Last season ended with Lee and Kara and that's exactly where this episode and season four picks up. Even though it's been more than a year since the season three finale aired, only seconds have passed in the BSG universe. There is a brief interplay between Lee and Kara, which is heard by all in CIC. Adama has a surprisingly strong reaction to Kara's voice. Oh, then those pesky Cylons butt in. After the Cylons manage to get a few through the first line, Adama orders all pilots into flight. Tigh has a "moment" in which he imagines shooting Adama in the head thus finishing the job that Boomer failed to complete. Back to reality, Adama yells at Tigh to give the order.
Down in the hangar deck, Anders is having a panic attack and practically blurts out his Cylon identity, which leads Tyrol to tell him to clam up. Anders is worried about going all Boomer on someone. Tyrol tells him to pull himself together and we're off to battle. Seelix has turned into a strong character and already interesting in a way that took Kat many episodes to reach. She seems to be a natural thankfully without Kat or Starbuck's cockiness. Speaking the battle, it looked stunning and left us wanting more. Anders tracks a Raider, but fails to shoot it. This gives the Raider a chance to turn on him. It scans him, apparently senses his Cylon identity and immediately bugs out. The entire Cylon fleet then bugs out. Now, was Anders just panicking like a nugget or was their some sort of safety that has now kicked in that prevented him from shooting the Raider? Of course, if he takes out the Raider, then maybe the Cylons never learn that the Final Five is in the fleet and the fleet is wiped out.
Back on Galactica , Anders and Lee share a joyful reunion with Kara, who is surprised by their zeal. She still keeps her distance from her husband. Everyone else treats her with suspicion. Adama orders everyone to stay away from her. Kara wants to know why everyone is reacting so strangely since she's only been gone for six hours, but it's been two months. So what has Kara been up to for two months if she only remembers a few hours?
Meanwhile, Baltar is spirited away to a sanctuary of some kind. Considering the fleet was apparently crushed for spare room after the escape from New Caprica, how is there now an unused compartment that looks to be half the size of the hangar deck? This compartment's centerpiece is a shrine to Baltar that reminded us of a really bad Christmas tree for some reason. When he sees it, Baltar seems to know he's fallen in with some unstable people. Outside, it turns out that Charlie Connor from Anders' resistance and then part of the tribunal has followed them, which doesn't bode well for Baltar's health. Inner Six is back, but she's totally spiritual now. She coaches Baltar into promoting the one true god which completely turns on young Tracey, so Baltar gets a piece less than a day after getting out of the brig.
Rats. We don't get a Cottle sighting. Instead we skip past Kara's exam and straight to a rather interesting interrogation in Adama's quarters and not the brig. Well, maybe it's for Roslin's health. Lee's there. He's a civilian and yet he gets to come along. Other than the recon photos, a planet with rings (think Saturn) and a comet (think Halley's), Kara hasn't got an explanation for how she went from blowing up to Earth and back again in what she thinks is six hours. No one seems to be bringing this up, but after the showrunners on Lost spent nearly three seasons saying that there would be no time travel, they introduced time travel. One crackpot explanation is that Kara found her way into a wormhole which conveniently takes care of the all the space-time discontinuity. Anyway, Roslin isn't buying any of Kara's story especially since the Cylons apparently decided to skip out not long after Kara's reappearance. This is reinforced by Tyrol who says that her ship is clean and rebuilt and even her computer is wiped.
The scene in the hangar deck was great because it was all about not knowing who could be a Cylon considering not only are Tyrol, Tigh and Tory present, but they themselves add to the discussion by debunking DNA testing (Tory) and Baltar's detector (Tigh). It's probably not the last of these kinds of scenes. We just hope the writers don't overdo it. Although, Lee throws out the idea that maybe the clue at the Nebula was Kara. This actually gave us pause until Roslin immediately shot it down.
Back with Baltar's cult, he finally sees a very sick Derrick and actually seems concerned for the boy's health. It looks like Inner Six's brainwashing might finally be taking. The secret Cylons meet. It was great to have Tigh ask if they still heard the song. They then do a bunch of theorizing. Anders seems sure that he's going to go all Boomer on someone and there's nothing he can do about it. Tigh, on the other hand, refuses to even consider the possibility. Tyrol and Tory seem to be somewhere in the middle.
Gaeta goes all snobby on Kara to the point where CAG Helo (demoted from XO again) steps in. Kara says that she's led to Earth by a feeling. Adama steps in and she plays the "love me like a daughter" card, but Adama isn't buying it. Roslin's got his heart.er. ear now. Kara says the more jumps away from the nebula, the more her gut feeling fades.
Lee and Adama seem to have gotten over their Baltar's trial argument even though they sit on opposite ends of the room. Lee wants to believe that Kara is Kara. Adama isn't quite so ready and now we know why. Roslin's staying in his quarters. He tries to deflect that they are looking for space for her, but there's at least one whole empty compartment that they could have used, so we're not buying Adama's excuse. What's nice about this scene is that this would be a typical "reset" scene for most series. Adama offers Lee his officer's pins back and Lee's back to being CAG, but not here. Lee instead declines and says he's about to take a government position where he has a chance to make a difference. If Colonial politics are anything like US politics, it won't take long for Lee to be watered down in the beaurocracy, but we digress.
More Baltar. He continues his apparent genuine concern by praying to god and even offering himself in the boy's place. This isn't the Baltar we're used to. He's taken to a washroom by a confident woman named Paulla. She decides that he's going to shave his beard. Just as he finishes up, Charlie Connor shows up. He acts all friendly until telling Baltar that his son Kevin was killed back on New Caprica. He then attacks Baltar. To show what kind of scum Connor has become, his buddy Shaunt not only grabs Paulla, but even starts choking her. Connor wants the satisfaction of Baltar begging for help before killing him, but instead Baltar again offers himself. Suddenly, Paulla manages to break the choke hold, fiend off Shaunt, grab a bar, knock him out and take Connor out. That was just about too much for us. To top it off, when they get back to the compartment, Baltar finds out that Derrick has recovered. We're guessing that he already believes his own hype and will set out to bed every woman in the cult by the third episode.
The final sequence has Kara noticing that no one has bothered to take her picture down. We can understand her annoyance about that. She then manages to run through a few theories that fans have been debating since her reappearance at the end of season three. Anders tries to feel her out by saying that he'd love her whether she was a Cylon or not, but she says that if she found out he were a Cylon, she'd shoot him between the eyes. We're guessing that the news that the love of his life would shoot him dead if she found out his Cylon-ness will likely drive the already unstable Anders into doing something unpredictable.
Speaking of unpredictable, yet another jump by the fleet seems to make Kara snap. She manages to get the drop on not only Anders but the two guards too. We're guessing that the Marines aren't quite what they used to be since she takes two more out outside Adama's quarters. And as if we haven't just come off one cliffhanger, we get one more with Kara pointing a locked and loaded gun on Roslin as the episode ends.
All in all, this is not a bad episode although it doesn't pack the punch of the best BSG episodes except for the awesome battle sequence. The episode manages to not answer any questions and actually introduced a few new ones in a very Lost -esque way. The only real movement is the introduction of Baltar's cult. We're willing to give it chance. It was laughable at times, but the whole Inner Six bit has us intrigued. It could become an albatross for the season, but we're hoping that the writers have his arc planned out just as they do with Kara, the four Cylons, Earth and the final Cylon.
One thing that we do have a gripe about: it wasn't so long ago that people were bedding down in every available space because of the loss of ships in the escape from New Caprica, but in this episode there was an empty compartment, a large one. Also, they just came through a battle and so it would seem that there would be even more activity in the corridors than usual, but instead Baltar roams around unseen and Kara makes it all the way to Adama's quarters without encountering anyone.
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