'Battlestar Galactica' Retro Recap: 'Shattered'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

When we last left the intrepid crew of the Battlestar Galactica things were well...bad. The discovery of the lost thirteenth colony, Kobol, at the end of season one, led to all kinds of trouble for the last remnant of mankind. The science team sent to investigate this mysterious planet found themselves under fire from the Cylons and despite a victorious counter offensive that saw a nuke take down a Basestar in orbit, the sleeper agent in Sharon was activated and she put two bullets into the Commander before everything went to black, closing out a wild and dynamic first season of this stunning show.

Of course with a cliffhanger like that, surely things would improve come the second season premiere right? Yeah...that was simply not the case. While season one set the stage for this grand and sweeping space opera about the plight of survival at the end of the world, it became clear quickly in 'Scattered' that season two was going to take us right into the thick of it. Hard choices, the kind that don't have time for discussion or committees were going to be made from here on out, and whatever consequences came from that had to be lived with, whether those responsible liked it or not and that was never more evident than in the opening moments of this episode when Colonel Tigh assumed command of the Galactica and made the call to jump the fleet shortly after the Cylons arrived. 

However, in the midst of all of the chaos of getting the Commander down to medical, and dealing with Lee's screaming and Sharon's protests for being placed under arrest a critical mistake was made allowing for the Galactica and the fleet to jump to two wholly separate locations, leaving the crew stranded and alone and clueless as to what to do next and that's when things truly got interesting because for the first time on the show, Tigh was forced to lead and bury all the petty garbage in his mind and well...it was little bit touch and go early on for the colonel because let's be honest...Tigh hasn't exactly done much to earn the crew or the audience's trust, but you know what? He managed to redeem himself by taking some bold risks.

He bothered to let Lee out of his jail cell, he went along with Gaeta's plan to network the computers in the hopes of finding the fleet and what made his actions matter on a deeper level is that everything he did was all done in Adama's name. This was an episode that informed us that Bill had more or less saved Saul's life on multiple occasions and the time had come to repay the favor and make Adama proud and the end result was downright impressive. Everyone that Tigh talked to this episode when it came to orders that they weren't comfortable with came through with flying colors. No one liked Gaeta's plan but Saul backed it and it worked like a charm since they found the fleet and the medic that was unsure of how to help Adama, stepped out of her comfort zone and performed life saving surgery on the Old Man.

If anything, it's about damn time. Saul's drinking and apathetic stretch was becoming difficult to stomach and this new bold attitude from the XO could not have arrived at a better time. Because despite the pseudo happy ending to this particular tale, there's more trouble on the horizon. Their forces are still trapped on Kobol and the survivors are under fire and of course, that strange armored Cylon Raider that went after the Galactica during a brief firefight as the ship worked to find the fleet, was filled to the brim with Centurions who are now aboard the ship and they will no doubt do their best to alert the Cylon fleet to their location, which means one hell of a fight is on its way and once again these poor souls will have to be prepared to give life and limb to repel their enemy in the hopes of keeping mankind alive. Until next time.

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