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Note: This review contains significant spoilers.

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Battlestar Galactica: "The Road Less Traveled"

The chain of command on the Demetrius is threatened when Kara 
considers an alliance with the Cylons brought to her by Leoben. 
Tyrol, facing a personal crisis, confronts Baltar over his attempts 
to expand his religious movement.

Air date: 5/2/2008 (USA)
Written by Mark Verheiden
Directed by Michael Rymer

Rating out of 4: ***1/2

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
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"The Road Less Traveled" is both visceral and thoughtful; immediate 
and reflective. It's a best-of-all-worlds kind of BSG outing that 
features nuanced characterization, tough choices, rapidly escalating 
adrenaline, and the vintage type of "Battlestar" depiction of 
military protocol that this series was originally built upon. 
If "Escape Velocity" -- while good -- left me feeling slightly at 
arm's length, "The Road Less Traveled" pulled me back in close.

The episode begins on Day 58 of the Demetrius' 60-day mission to find 
Earth before rejoining the fleet. Tick, tock. Kara remains frequently 
closed-off and erratic in her behavior during this mission she is 
supposed to be commanding. The search for Earth has produced nothing, 
and the crew's patience with Kara's antics has run out. The grumbling 
was already evident weeks ago during "Six of One"; here it's 
approaching fever pitch. (My, how cynical Gaeta has become. Once one 
of the happiest-go-lucky of the crew, New Caprica turned him 
downright bitter, not that you blame him. Equally bitter is Seelix.)

On this day, however, Kara goes on her first Viper scout flight since 
the Demetrius left the fleet. It's one of those decisions that has 
been carefully guided by cosmic fate (or as I have joked about in the 
past, by the Plot Gods that are the show's writers, led by Plot God-
in-Chief Ronald D. Moore), because on this particular day and on this 
particular flight, the Viper runs across a damaged Heavy Raider. Its 
sole occupant: Leoben. Specifically, the same Leoben that held Kara 
captive for months on New Caprica. Also the same Leoben whose ship 
had been attacked by the Cavils, et al, after the divide in ideology 
split the Cylon ranks into civil war.

So what was a winding-down mission that was about to end with the 
Demetrius returning empty-handed instead gets a new spark of 
inspiration: Leoben *must* be the key to the mystery, because what 
are the chances that he just happened to be floating out here for the 
Demetrius to find? In Leoben, Kara discovers a certain amount of 
faith -- a faith that a coincidence of this sort cannot simply be 
meaningless. This despite all he did to her on New Caprica, and 
perhaps *because* of his role in "Maelstrom."

Leoben fully encourages this train of thought. He wants Kara to 
realize her destiny. He reveals the civil war that has broken out 
between the Cylons, and he offers the possibility of a new alliance 
between the renegade Cylons and the Colonials, invites the Demetrius 
to rendezvous with the renegade Cylons' damaged basestar where Kara 
can talk to the Hybrid, who surely can offer cryptic advice that may 
lead them all to Earth, the promised land.

Sound crazy? Well, maybe not to a person watching a fictional story 
unfold where there are only a certain number of pieces to the puzzle 
and this scenario seems to lock them together naturally. But as 
members of the Demetrius crew whose lives are on the line, watching a 
Cylon apparently manipulate Kara -- who has recently come back from 
the dead, by the way -- into what could very possibly be a deadly 
trap ... well, can you blame them for thinking Starbuck is off her 
rocker?

Meanwhile, Anders' role in all this is worth pondering. When you 
consider that he's one of the Final Five Cylons and no one on the 
Demetrius but him knows that, what does that mean for where his 
motives lie in this puzzle? Add to that his loyalty to his wife, 
despite how screwed-up their relationship is. Talk about complicated. 
The most crucial key to making these major characters Cylons lies in 
that they are still individuals motivated by their own sense of 
identity. And they all respond in individual ways.

That theme allows me to transition to the other storyline in the 
episode, centering on a quiet war of attrition between Baltar and 
Tyrol. After the death of his wife and the loss of his job, Tyrol is 
nothing short of lost. Baltar's radio program argues the non-
existence of the Colonials' traditional Gods, in favor of the One 
True God that Baltar seeks to replace the establishment with. Tyrol 
listens in his quarters. Shuts it off. His son cries. He turns it 
back on.

Tyrol tries to make sense of Cally's suicide. Tory provides her 
perspective, saying that God has a plan for everyone. Tyrol: "You 
spend way too much time with Baltar." Indeed she does, and Tory and 
Baltar's pillow talk is revealing. We learn that Baltar's religious 
movement is still a fringe one. "No one of consequence" will be a 
part of it. If only they could get someone of consequence to stand up 
and lend credence to the cause.

Watching how Tigh, Tyrol, and Tory react in such different ways to 
living with their secret is fascinating and wonderfully attuned to 
their individual personalities. Tigh simply sucks it up and decides 
to go on; he *is* Saul Tigh, and that's all there is to it. Tyrol 
can't do that, and instead suffers, crashes, and burns. Meanwhile, 
Tory thinks they can be the salvation of the human race. "All I 
know," Tyrol says, "is if there is a God, he's laughing his ass off."

Watching this, I realized that this story was really most crucially 
about Tyrol. Being a Cylon has put him in this awful place mentally, 
but how he reacts to it is all about who Tyrol is as a man. There are 
scenes where he goes to Baltar's temple. We're not sure exactly what 
will happen or what will be said; we're simply invited to watch as 
Tyrol stands motionless and silent and the camera regards his eyes 
and we imagine what might be going through his mind. He's in deep, 
conflicted torment. Aaron Douglas is excellent in scenes where he 
doesn't say a word. And it makes his outbursts of bottled rage all 
the more effective. In one scene he very nearly kills himself, before 
gradually calming himself down. It's potent stuff.

The payoff comes late in the episode when Baltar reaches out to 
Tyrol. It's a scene that has so many intriguing layers to it, and I 
would argue that it is this episode, much more so than "Escape 
Velocity," where Baltar's sense of purpose and the attractiveness of 
his movement really shine through. I wasn't persuaded by Baltar's 
murky "You are all perfect" speech in "Escape Velocity" (partially 
because we had little stake in the faceless extras he was supposedly 
winning over there, and perhaps also because there was too much of 
Head Six pulling the strings).

But here I see a Baltar who (1) can offer something to a man who has 
lost everything, and (2) seems absolutely genuine in his attempt to 
reach out to someone in pain. It may not be selfless (this is Baltar, 
after all), but it's an attempt at something at least mutually 
beneficial. Genuineness is not something that usually comes across in 
Baltar, but here the writers and James Callis nail it. In retrospect, 
you realize the whole story was setting us up on the question of 
whether Tyrol would lend Baltar the legitimacy he wanted. But it ends 
up being more than just a harbinger; there seems to be some 
legitimacy behind what Baltar is preaching. That's the beauty of 
framing the whole situation through Tyrol's lost soul. Can Baltar 
seriously replace the religious establishment with something new? And 
can he do it without destroying the fleet in the process? Interesting 
questions.

Back on the Demetrius, we have another crisis of faith: the loss of 
faith in Kara Thrace to command the ship. Even the command staff 
shows fractures. The wheels really start to come off after a crew 
member is killed in an accident trying to investigate the damage to 
Leoben's ship. Kara flies into a rage and brutally beats Leoben for 
what she initially suspects was his own sabotage of his ship. Bursts 
of violence like this have an immediate visceral impact, but what's 
interesting is how the story takes something viscerally satisfying 
like Kara beating on Leoben and turns it on its ear: Kara realizes, 
to her horror, that she has lost her taste for the things that used 
to get her juices flowing (the rush of a fight, meaningless sex, 
etc.). She isn't the same person she was before "Maelstrom" and 
Leoben drives the point home by knowing Kara better than she knows 
herself. And the only way she can find answers about herself is to 
put her faith in Leoben and accept his offer to see the Hybrid on his 
basestar.

But that just ain't gonna fly. The crew is on the edge of revolt. 
There are murmurs of mutiny, which Helo tries to quell. But Kara's 
plan is too big a risk, and if they miss the rendezvous with the 
fleet, they're all as good as dead. It's here where classic BSG 
military protocol becomes an asset to the story. Kara is clearly not 
being impartial. And yet she's also trying to carry out the mission 
at hand: Find Earth.

Helo, as the XO, finds himself in the hot seat, in a scenario that 
plays out with a surprising amount of suspense. It's nice to see the 
writers spread the wealth and put him so crucially in the middle of 
this mess. Helo has always been loyal to Kara, but he has also always 
been about doing the right thing, and those two priorities come into 
conflict here. (I also liked the dynamic of how Sharon thinks Kara 
has gone off the deep end and thus puts her two cents into her 
husband's ear.) It's fun seeing characters in jams like this one, 
where no matter what call they make will mean hell to pay. What does 
Helo do? He announces that he is relieving Kara of command. It's sort 
of an obvious cliffhanger, but it's well executed. The prospect of 
dismantling the chain of command is not taken lightly, and the show 
earns its payoff by depicting its military procedures seriously. Even 
with all the mythology themes being mined here (and this season in 
general), BSG still finds time to skillfully revisit its roots.

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Copyright 2008, Jamahl Epsicokhan. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is 
prohibited.

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