Written & Directed by Ronald D. Moore
“Perhaps it is God, who should come down here, and beg for OUR forgiveness!”
Here are three reasons why A Disquiet Follows My Soul is nothing but a (very stylish) pause for a deep, deep breath:
(1) Roslin & Adama finally sleep together. It’s an unexpected moment for them to finally get together…but it also feels like just the right moment. Roslin has lost faith in everything…except for believing that she can live the final days of her life on her own terms. But unlike Dee’s shocking suicide last week, the President wishes to see her life end as comfortably as she can make it…
…so that means no more chemotherapy, a return to exercise, and the desire to simply live for a moment where all that matters is what SHE wants, and NOT the rest of humanity…and she gives the Admiral permission to do the same. So they finally consumate their long-simmering relationship. The concluding shot of the episode is quite lovely, and acts as a tranquil, happy counterpoint to last week’s soul-shredding gallop towards hell.
(2) Gaeta & Zarek, plotting their insurrection. What was I just saying about a gallop towards hell? This is WARP SPEED towards armageddon…as the humans finally start picking their sides, after four-plus years of hanging together by a hope made out of spit and thread. The more disgusted Gaeta becomes, the more desolate and desperate Zarek becomes…well…the audience may start hating them with a passion (a disgust I can share…but it makes for damn good drama), but they also want these machinations to come to fruition IMMEDIATELY!
But we’re not ready…as I said…this is the DEEP breath…PRIOR to the explosive exhale.
(3) The side issues that move parallel to these massive character arcs: Tyrol’s sad discovery that his son is NOT his biological son (and the resulting, unspoken ramifications of there still being only ONE Cylon hybrid child in the universe); Baltar’s unusual stirring up of the crowd (but to what end…it’s all very passionate yet surprisingly enigmatic for such a cunning man); Kara being threatened by Gaeta (the equivalent of throwing a lit match onto rocket fuel). Brief snippets and moments, but giving us some fresh material to work with, even as Battlestar Galactica heads into the home stretch.
So…a brief, lingering, loving pause…but a pause nevertheless. A few times during last year’s episodes, many of these real-time deep breaths left me extremely frustrated and irritated…but when they’re as solid as A Disquiet Follows My Soul, then I can forgive a small deceleration in the storytelling. After all, this didn’t frustrate me…it simply left me HUNGRY for more. :-P
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