Battlestar Galactica 4x13

SPOILERS

Well, they certainly do still know how to do dramatic.

On the other hand, they are really seriously running out of time.
Which inclines me to think they don't have a whole lot left to reveal.

Plus which in fairness, if you're wrapping up a series, you want to give the actors one last chance to show their chops.

Kara shooting the guys was surprising but in her defence, she's quite right that as soon as they mutiny, they are the enemy. Perhaps not the most astute move politically in terms of future reconciliation, but the correct from a ground-level military perspective.

Issues

1) There's a single phone line to the CIC? Err, single point of failure, anyone?
2) If they can block Baltar's wireless at the flick of a switch, why didn't they do that months ago?
3) Admiral staying with the ship is a valid justification. Admiral staying in tiny undefensible room after transport has already left, not so much.
4) They're in a tiny, crowded fleet, on a military ship which is usually on a submarine model, which is to say, every inch of space used AND monitored. I don't get this "forgotten areas of the ship" thing with Baltar's compartment and Secondary Storage.
5) There is a big, big outstanding issue: where is the Cylon infrastructure? There was Cylon space on the other side of the treaty line, one would expect that, if not Cylon planet(s), it at least contained Cylon ship-yards and Cylon people-yards (where the mechanical and humanoid Cylons are built/grown). Six says something like "they are going to kill us because reproduction is the future of the Cylons", but surely they can just make more Sixes? Where is the Six factory?



Prediction

A bit of a risky prediction, but Adama and Tigh both dead, and resurrected in The Place of Resurrection, wherever that may be.

Otherwise, it will be kind of weak drama - a grenade in a small enclosed space and they survive? I don't think so. If they come out bandaged, I will consider it pretty lame.

Also I do have to wonder about the cavalier way in which people run around spaceships with machine guns. Err, there are critical systems in the walls, and oh, the vacuum of space right outside. They do the same thing on Stargate where they machinegun the hell out of the replicators on their ships, while apparently never damaging the ship itself.

The Art of Misdirection

When a magician wants to move a playing card into a particular position, she doesn't make it obvious, she makes it look like she's doing something else very important and entertaining, while accomplishing her goal.

Ron Moore and his team have the same challenge, they have to get everything "positioned for the reveal", leading to surprising answers about the long-term mysteries, while appearing to be running another storyline. There are challenges that BSG faces in trying to tell both the short story (each episode has to be entertaining even for casual fans) and the long story (surprising long-term dedicated fans while answering mysteries).

So Tyrol's baby had to be human so that he could run around doing stuff during the mutiny (with apparently very little concern for the baby). Otherwise he would have been either in the brig, or spending all his time baby-rescuing and escaping.

So it looks to me like they are positioning people for near-Earth resurrection.
It's not clear how far they've gone from Earth, but the implications are that it's not very far.

* Tyllium ship disappears - this means the fleet goes nowhere
* FTL drive upgrades - this means the fleet goes nowhere while they wait for all the upgrades

If we continue with my assumption that anyone who dies on or near Earth gets resurrected (as implied by Ellen Tigh's statement and the fact that Kara is resurrected) - then that means everyone who just died in the firefight on the ship is resurrected, as well as the Admiral and the XO.

Then I think they may discover that you can use the resurrection technology, once it's reconfigured, not just to resurrect people who die near Earth but people who die anywhere.

So I think the show will go something like
4x13 - mutiny
4x14 - continuation of mutiny, with Revelation of Resurrection of Admiral & XO at the very end
4x15 - more about Resurrection and maybe we meet Earth Cylons (who are behind everything)
4x16 - more about Resurrection and possible return of Zak Adama
4x17 - battle with Cavil
4x18 - more battle with Cavil
4x19 - wrap up
4x20 - more wrap up