This episode was largely about the fallout from the Cylon enslavement and audacious rescue mission of the entire human population from New Caprica. We meet the Circle, a group of resistors (including Tigh and Chief) who make good on the promise to string up the traitors who worked with the Cylons. One of the humans who worked in the secret police is shot out of an airlock — the fact that he helped save Callie is irrelevant.
The payoff of a huge space battle after the first three episodes finally came to pass. Adama’s insane rescue plan leads to an all-out battle with four Cylon base stars and the burnt-out shell of the Pegasus ramming directly into one. It was a bit predictable that Lee would come back to give the old man another lease on life, but still, the pull-back away from the surrounded, doomed Galactica and the Pegasus flying over with cannons-blazing was amazing… I eat this stuff up.
The third episode Exodus was somber with an almost religious, contemplative theme, reinforcing everything at stake before a huge rescue effort to come, and we’re given some hints as to the importance of Hera, the Cylon and human hybrid baby of Athena and Helo.
There are basically three plot threads going on at this point. First is the insurgency led by Tigh on New Caprica, and the Cylon’s efforts to squash it. Tigh’s current tactic is suicide bombings, to which the Cylons respond with imprisonment, a secret police force, and executions. The parallels with America’s current situation in Iraq are blatant and uncomfortable, but I appreciate it, as the best drama makes us ask questions about our own lives.
Well, the producers of Battlestar Galactica weren’t kidding when they said season three would take a darker turn. The premiere episode’s first hour turned out to be an exercise into the oppressed and the oppressor, the ravages of war and the fight for freedom under disheartening odds, reminding me more of a World War II concentration camp movie documenting life under the Nazis.