Just finished watching the second half of “Crossroads”, and boy, do I have some thoughts.

Major spoilage here. If you haven’t seen the ep yet, DO NOT CLICK THROUGH.

HOLY CRAP.

Okay, let’s start with the easy stuff. Jamie Bamber (Lee) had one of the best scenes he’s had all series. His courtroom scene was plain excellent. The whole scene was damned good.

Baltar’s acquittal: No surprise there. It was a lock that, one way or another, he wouldn’t be executed. Better drama to keep him around. So either he’d be acquitted, or convicted and sprung. Based on the next-ep scenes from Crossroads 1, showing the courtroom in a near-riot, I assumed he’d be acquitted. Adama’s vote surprised me, though. (I didn’t mind it, though; it’s nice to see a bit of conflict between him and Laura again. Been awhile.)

Anders and Tory: Excuse me? Where the frak did THAT come from? Anders sure seems to have gotten over the death of his wife pretty quickly - but Tory? We’ve barely seen her all season, and now suddenly she’s racking with Anders?? I hope we get some sort of explanation for that, because it really came out of left field. (I did enjoy Seelix’s look of utter disdain when she entered the room and saw Tory there. You could see the accusation: godsdamnit Anders, Starbuck’s body isn’t even cold yet!)

The Cylon Gaggle. I don’t buy it - the only one of the four that makes sense to be a Cylon is Tyrol. (Yes, I know that Ron Moore is confirming in interviews that they’re indeed Cylons. We’ll see. If they are, Moore and Company have one hell of a lot of explaining to do. See comments below.)

1. All four of them (Tigh, Tory, Anders, Tyrol) were Caprica survivors - none of them resurrected away as Six did when the bombs fell. Tigh and Tyrol were already on Galactica (as the rest of the fleet was destroyed); we don’t really know where Tory was, but we can assume she was somehow involved with the President’s office; Anders was back on Caprica, shooting toasters in the mountains and doing resistance raids. Are we supposed to believe that out of the final five, four of them were on Caprica and somehow miraculously survived the war? When only 45,000 survived from BILLIONS? No way. I call bullshit.

2. There weren’t a bunch of duplicates of them running around the colonies before the war. Anders was a recognized sports celebrity. If there were other Anders twins running around, someone would have noticed.

3. Tigh has served in both Cylon Wars, since long before they started taking human form. If he’s a Cylon, then we seriously need to redefine “Cylon” - he’s not just an evolved version of a human-created toaster. In all likelihood, that would mean that the final five “Cylons” actually predated the Cylons altogether, and had nothing at all to do with the rebellious critters that the Colonials made 40 years ago. Big plot problem.

4. There has been absolutely no dramatic buildup of any kind to support the other three suddenly being Cylons. Anders and Tigh have been acting pretty damned human; Tory has been MIA for most of this season. This little plot thread was just hamfisted into the story in the two-part finale. Meanwhile, the writers are treating Tyrol very gently.. leading me to believe that the “all four of us” thing is more misdirection. It’s just Tyrol. They’re giving us bright-shiny.

If they’re truly all Cylons - defined as they’ve always been - then Galactica has jumped the shark. Based on three seasons of quality writing, I have to believe that the Galactica writers aren’t that sloppy; those are some serious plot holes to plug up.

But if they’re not all Cylons, why are all four of them hearing the music? Well, right from the start of “Crossroads, Part 2″ we establish that something strange is leading to a Cylon-human psychic connection. Roslin, Six and Athena. So it’s not completely crazy to think that maybe one of the four is broadcasting to the others. But why these four?

Oh, I dunno. Maybe because they were all prominently involved in the New Caprica resistance? Is that a coincidence?

But the big shocker: the music. Anders and Tory are walking around, quoting BOB DYLAN LYRICS - or, more to the point, JIMI HENDRIX. That wasn’t just a cute soundtrack effect to end the episode. They quoted actual lines from “All Along The Watchtower”! The second I heard Anders mutter, “There’s too much confusion” (followed by Tory muttering “I can’t get no relief”), my jaw hit the floor: suddenly we were way, WAY too close to Rocket’s Earth theory for sane comfort. Christ - could we be RIGHT??

The obvious implications: four new Cylons, Earth around the corner, Starbuck somehow alive, and the Cylons are somehow picking up Hendrix on their psychic radios. And I’m willing to bet good money that every one of those points are misdirection. It’s just Tyrol, and we’re about to see some cherished assumptions about the Earth quest go up in flames. Unfortunately, now we have to wait past the season break to find out.

We are definitely going into some very interesting waters now with Galactica. Either that, or the writers are on some serious drugs. Dylan/Hendrix. Holy hell.

Second viewing thoughts:

The scene with the final five. When I saw that frame, the first word that jumped to mind was “archangel”.

Mary McDonnell has always been a good looking woman, and she usually looks sharp in Galactica. But in her dream scenes in the Opera House, she’s looking damned hot. I love her with straight hair like that.

The Dylan/Hendrix quotes are happening right from the start, and all four of them are doing it; first time through, I only really noticed it towards the end. And they’ve been happening since long before the fleet jumped to the Ionian Nebula - they’re not just picking up stray radio signals from nearby Earth. This is something else - as Anders and Tyrol point out, the music is “like something from childhood”. The source of the Hendrix is behind them, not ahead of them.

Laura, Athena and Six are all dreaming about the Opera House, and all three want to protect Hera. Protect her from whom? Not the other Cylons. Not the other humans. Hera must be protected from a third party who would have a vested interest in either harming her or using her to his/her selfish ends.

First time through, the end struck me as a little bit lame, but it plays much better on second viewing. For one thing, it’s a great rendition of Watchtower. For another, the closing frames make it clear that they’re still clear on the other side of the galaxy from Earth. Everything really pulls together on second viewing.

One last note about the post-ep Moore interviews: Just because he says they’re all Cylons, doesn’t necessarily make it so. They might be. But then again, the season finale ends on that note, and those interviews were done less than one day after it aired; we now go into a LONG break, riding that cliffhanger, with S4 set to start airing in early 2008. So what exactly was Ron Moore supposed to say? “Well, no, not really”? Would you have?

Asked point blank whether all four of them were really Cylons, he had three options for a reply: yes, no, or maybe. If he had said no, that would completely destroy that part of the cliffhanger ending. And a maybe would almost be as good as a no - the fans would jump on that, taking the cliffhanger apart pretty fast. With nearly a year before the audience comes back, that cliffhanger has to stay solid, or else Moore can kiss an S5 of Galactica goodbye.

No matter what the truth of the situation, Moore would have had no choice but to say that yes, they’re all Cylons, because that’s what the episode said. Whether he’s telling the truth is an entirely different story, and on this one, Ron Moore has every reason to lie. So I’ll believe it when I see it.

Ed. note: If you’ve been hunting around (as I have) for an MP3 of that “Watchtower” cover, you’re not going to find it. It was an original composition done by Bear McCreary for the Galactica S3 soundtrack. Click the link for the full backstory. They’re putting the official soundtrack together now for an August release, and word has it that “Watchtower” will be on there.

Posted by Rob on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 10:58 pm.