Review: Episode 113 Kobol's Last Gleaming Part 2

Wow. Just wow. Combined, the two episodes that make up the season finale are better than most movies that I've seen recently and definently the culmination and high point of the entire series thus far.

Picking up where we left off last time, we have several storylines to work on. First, there is a Raptor crew trapped by a Basestar on Kobol. One of the three was able to return to Galactica, where they planned on using the captured Raider to bring a nuclear warhead to destroy the Basestar. However, President Roslin, convinced by her hallucinations, convinces Starbuck to take the Raider back to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo, which will lead them to Earth. During a test run, she does so, and ends up back at Caprica, where she lands and begins searching around. Meanwhile, Adama orders a Strike team, led by Apollo and Tigh to arrest Roslin for her actions. While that's happening, Adama orders Boomer to go to the basestar and drop the Nuke off.
Starbuck finds the arrow, but a copy of Number 6, and they fight, Starbuck getting beaten very badly, but ends up killing the Cylon, and running into Helo and a copy of Sharon, whom she tries to kill. On Kobol, the crew is trying to get their wits together while Baltar is led by Six to the ruins, where she tells him that his destiny is to be the protector of the next generation of Cylons. Boomer and Racetrack land on the ship because their missile is jammed. While loosening it, Boomer finds many of her - Naked- and realizes that she's a Cylon and runs. On Colonial One, the Strike force and Roslin's bodyguards face off, until Lee puts a gun to Tigh's head and tells him that they're not going to abandon the government. Roslin surrenders. They're both taken onto Galactica, where Adama puts Roslin in the brig, shames his son and congradulates Boomer and Racetrack. When he does so, Boomer pulls out a gun and shoots him twice in the chest. That's it until next season.

My reaction: Holy Frak. I mean wow. This episode is the culmination of the entire series. The first part of the season finale was all setup, and led up to all this, but this carried everything out. Helo's storyline and Baltar/Six's storyline come right together in a nice fasion, as well as Galactica Boomer's storyline, AS WELL as the tensions between the military and civilian, and almost everything else that's been building. They just left out Tom Zarak, and a kitchen sink.

Helo and Sharon's Storyline has been building slowly, but I think that we can now see what's going on with that. The Cylons, (My guess) are trying to get to the next stage of their evolution, and to do so, are making human/cylon hybrids, which will bring them closer to their perfection- Humanity. From what Boomer's been saying, it sounds like they're trying to get complex emotions and things like that. Combined with Baltar finding out why he was choosen, I think that this is the most likely theory.

Now I'd like to know how the Cylons can sort of predict the future and events like that. And how they seem to know everyone's names. Hopefully that will be covered in the next season to some degree.

The tensions between the civilian government and the military are also interesting, with Adama attacking the vessel and arresting the president. It was gutsy, and I'm really wanting to know how on Caprica they're going to do with her, and what the fate of the government it. I would imagine that Zarak has something more to do.

Sharon's storyline has been made clear on all fronts: Everyone knows that she's a Cylon now, and I'm wondering how she's going to fare over the next couple episodes, if she survives. The scene when she saw the twenty or so nude Sharons was downright creepy.

These two episodes are essentially a trilogy, with the third episode being the first one in season 2. There are many cliff hangers, like how Starbuck and Helo are going to get off the planet, because I really doubt that they're going to fit three people in the Raider. AND- ADAMA GOT SHOT. I've been sitting on that all season, and those summaries that I read don't do it justice. Man, that's going to be one hell of an episode (The summary of which is floating around online) when we pick up. Finally, there's the flight crew on Kobol, waiting around for a rescue. Hopefully something will be done with that.

This entire series has been wonderful. In my opinion, it's one of THE best shows that has come out ever, and I think that it's going to live up to that next season. It's almost sad that this is the end, when it seems like just the other day that they announced that they were picking up the series for 13 more episodes. Now another 20.

The worst part is: Waiting for JULY to roll around, which will be torture. The promo for season 2 didn't have any new footage that I saw.