'Battlestar Galactica' Retro Recap: 'Revelations'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

​I’ve always been fascinated by television episodes that are for lack of a better phrase, a game changer. Because these are the stories that outright alter the entire course of a particular series, to the point where nothing is ever the quite same following said story and the audience, and the characters are left in awe of what they’ve just experienced and when it comes to Battlestar Galactica, that particular type of episode arrived in the middle of season four since ‘Revelations’ is a story that still leaves me in awe to this day thanks to the bold and powerful ending that it provided us with.
 
Which quite frankly is fascinating, simply because the ending in question, and the gravity that comes with it, overshadows just about everything in this story, which is wild because…so many important moments happen in this tale prior to that finale. Like the whole mess that happens with D’Anna. Since she demands that the Final Four in the fleet rejoin their people or the hostages aboard the Basestar are going to die and in order to save lives, Saul Tigh reveals the fact that he’s one of the Five, an act that breaks the Admiral and leads to some outright serious tension.
 
Because Lee uses Tigh and eventually Tyrol and Anders as bargaining chips in order to get D’Anna to stand down and well, if it wasn’t for the trio’s sound idea to have Starbuck check out her mysterious Viper one more time, this whole mess would have likely ended in bloodshed. Because Kara found a Colonial Transponder Signal broadcasting on a lonely channel to her Viper and that was enough to get everyone to stand down and make peace because this was likely the way to Earth and just like that…everyone, including the Admiral was refocused and ready to end this long and harrowing journey and Cylon and man made the jump to Earth together.
 
Which brings us back to that ending, because I still remember the sheer surprise that I felt when it sank in that holy cow, they found Earth, in the middle of the season no less and to top it off, for the first time ever, it seemed a happy ending was in order since there were beautiful speeches and celebrations present over the fact that they had finally reached their destination. And I distinctly recall that this seemed out of place for a series that always did its best to stay grounded in reality and well, I learned the hard way during that first viewing that I was right about that. Because what awaited the intrepid crew of the Galactica, was a radioactive wasteland, with shattered skylines that spoke to a long dead Thirteenth Tribe. 
 
It was and remains a powerful image to see an Earth decimated by nuclear war and there’s no need to discuss how it impacted the characters because you can see the devastation on their faces as they all came to realize that three years of sacrifice and strife and pain and loss…were all for naught. Earth was nothing more than their worst nightmare realized, and this was indeed a game changer, simply because, nothing would ever be the same on this series going forward, because with their last hope for survival now squashed, mankind would turn inward toward its darker tendencies and what follows this moment, is heartbreaking to say the least…

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