Exodus, Part II

"Exodus, Part II" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 3, Episode 4
Writer(s)	Bradley Thompson David Weddle
Story by
Director	Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)	Lucy Lawless as Number Three
Production No.	304
Nielsen Rating	1.5
US airdate	2006-10-20
CAN airdate	2006-10-21
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Exodus, Part I	Exodus, Part II	Collaborators
Related Information
Official Summary
R&D Skit – View
Podcast Transcript – View
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Listing of props for this episode
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Commander Lee Adama of the battlestar Pegasus has serious doubts about the success of the New Caprica rescue mission by Galactica. On New Caprica, Saul Tigh decides the consequences for his wife's betrayal of the Resistance. Aboard Galactica, Admiral William Adama executes a dramatic rescue plan.

Summary

Teaser

• On Pegasus, Lee Adama and Dualla talk of Galactica's mission. Adama worries that Admiral Adama's mission will fail, and about his impending responsibilities as leader of The Fleet. Dee notes that Lee has given up hope on his father, but expresses her faith in her husband.
• On New Caprica, Samuel Anders confronts Saul Tigh about his wife Ellen's betrayal and tells him that either Tigh "takes care" of Ellen, or someone less sympathetic will do so.

Act 1

Saul handing Ellen her poisoned drink.

• Ellen Tigh explains her recent actions, that she would do absolutely anything to save Saul, including betraying the Resistance. Tigh consoles her and provides her a drink when she asks. She falls unconscious, her drink having been poisoned by her husband. He says that he loves her, rests his head on her corpse, and weeps.
• On Colonial One, Gaius Baltar tells the Cylons that they have failed in their experiment and suggests the Cylons simply leave. A Three voices the concern that one day the descendants of mankind might exact vengeance upon the Cylons, should they be left to their own devices.
• Gaeta suddenly looks up, noticing dozens of explosions outside the window, signalling the beginning of the Battle of New Caprica.
• Anders and the resistance team has set a series of explosions, mimicking a Fleet attack and causing confusion among the Cylons.
• Tory Foster commands a team of section leaders in the evacuation and orders Maya to head for her ship with Isis.
• Anders and a large group of resistance fighters retrieve weapons from beneath the Pyramid court to rescue the detainees in the detention center.
• In space above New Caprica, Galactica deploys a squadron of Raptors and Vipers. The Raptors launch swallows to mimic the EM signature of two Colonial battlestars. The Cylons pick them up and fall for the ruse, moving two basestars with their Raiders away from the planet.
• The Cylon command on Colonial One initially are fooled by the swallows and their mimicked battlestar signatures.

Act 2

• The Raptors succeed in drawing off the entire Raider defenses of the two baseships, and leave the vicinity of New Caprica with the Raiders in pursuit.
• When Leoben Conoy leaves the residence inside the Detention Center to aid with the fighting, he keeps Kara Thrace inside. She assaults him and tries to escape, but he knocks her unconscious.
• Tom Zarek tasks Jammer to protect Laura Roslin as she makes her way to Colonial One.
• At the entrance to the shipyard, where the Cylons keep the grounded Colonial vessels, a team under Tigh and Galen Tyrol are pinned down by Cylon Centurions.
• The Cylons realize the drones are decoys as Galactica jumps into the planet's upper atmosphere, avoiding initial detection from the baseships. As the ship plunges rapidly towards the planet, Galactica launches its Vipers.
• Before it can collide with the ground, the ship jumps back into space. The Vipers begin to attack targets on the ground and clear the way of Centurions for civilians to escape.
• As humans are freed from the Detention Center, Anders finds his unconscious wife and carries her away.
• Galactica is shaken up by its reentry to orbit. Their plan to remove the Raider fighter defenses to allow the civilians to escape is working, and, according to plan, the two basestars near the planet are coming after them. But when two more baseships appear out of the nebula, Admiral Adama realizes they cannot hold off all four.

Act 3

Galactica is outnumbered.

• The battle is turning against Galactica: its FTL drives are down, most of its weapons are offline, and there is heavy structural damage from the atmospheric entry. The basestars are closing in and the battlestar is bombarded from all sides with no hope of survival. "It's been an honor," Adama says.
• At that moment Pegasus joins the battle, with Lee Adama having disobeyed his father's orders. He opens fire with the forward batteries and incapacitates one basestar in the opening salvo. Admiral Adama orders priority repairs on the FTL drives.
• When Thrace awakens, she goes back to retrieve Kacey Brynn against Anders' advice, who soon follows her.
• The Cylons realize that they have lost and decide to evacuate the planet. Number Three volunteers to stay behind and set off the nuclear weapon that was left in the city for such a contingency. She offers Baltar a place with the Cylons and leaves.
• Several Colonial ships initiate intra-atmosphere jumps from New Caprica as soon as they become airborne. Raiders and Vipers have dogfights amongst them.
• Pegasus succeeds in drawing fire off of its sister ship, and is heavily bombarded by missiles, having left all of its Vipers and most of its crew back with the rest of the civilian Fleet. Admiral Adama realizes that his son has planned a one-way mission for Pegasus, and orders recall of Galactica's fighters. With its fighter complement back on board, the admiral orders a jump back to the rendezvous point as Pegasus fights on.
• On Colonial One, Felix Gaeta holds Baltar at gunpoint, and accuses of having betrayed humanity. Gaeta admits his guilt in idealistically believing in Baltar, but has realized, in the end, that Baltar was only thinking about himself. Baltar admits his own guilt and begs Gaeta to shoot him. Gaeta relents, however, giving Baltar a final chance to redeem himself: stop Three from setting off the nuclear bomb.

Pegasus rams into a Basestar.

• With Pegasus dying, Lee Adama orders everyone to abandon ship. He sets the ship on a collision course with a basestar as the last of the skeleton crew leaves in Raptors. Pegasus collides with a basestar, destroying it; the remains of its starboard flight pod collide with and destroy yet another basestar.
• Kara Thrace returns to the apartment to find Kacey, and Conoy enters with the child.

Act 4

• To try to regain possession of Kacey, Kara Thrace appears to give in to Leoben's demands to say "I love you." She does, and kisses him. As they embrace, Thrace uses the diversion to stab the Cylon to death. She picks up Kacey and leaves with Anders.
• Three searches Dodona Selloi's tent, but the oracle has left. Outside, Caprica-Six and Baltar find Hera next to Maya's lifeless body, still alive.
• Three arrives, asks to hold the child, and leaves with her. Caprica-Six says Three no longer intends to detonate the nuke, then leaves the planet with Baltar.
• Laura Roslin and a group of resistance fighters enter and retake the now abandoned Colonial One at Roslin's insistence and are the last ship to leave the planet.
• On Galactica, many people are reunited as Tyrol immediately takes charge of ushering the incoming refugees. When Thrace shows Kacey to Tyrol, another woman walks by and recognizes the girl as her daughter, whom the Cylons had stolen. The mother thanks Thrace for rescuing Kacey. Thrace is visibly and emotionally paralyzed by the revelation that Kacey is not her actual daughter.
• Admiral Adama gives a warm welcome to his son, who was happy not to have followed his father's orders.
• The admiral welcomes Tigh back aboard, and congratulates him on bringing everyone back from New Caprica. With a tremble to his voice, Tigh quietly replies, "Not all of them."
• The colonists in Galactica's hangar deck begin chanting "A-dam-a, A-dam-a..." and carry the admiral on their shoulders in celebration. Adama turns to see Tigh wandering off, numbed with grief.
• Tory Foster tells Roslin that neither Maya nor Hera can be found, and it seems likely neither made it off the planet. Foster apologizes, but Roslin muses that this was part of something bigger than them.
• Admiral Adama shaves off his mustache and returns to a fully staffed CIC, aboard the now very loud, bustling corridors of Galactica.

Notes

• "Exodus, Part II" was awarded the IGN.com Editor's choice award, following a review in which it recieved a rating of 9/10. This marks the second of such awards presented for the third season, the first of which was awarded for the season premiere Occupation.
• There is also a TOS comic named Exodus!
• This episode marks the destruction of Pegasus.
• The two parts of "Exodus" were originally planned as one episode. However, it was quickly realized that the story was far too large for one episode and it was split in two. This happened before with "Scattered," "Valley of Darkness" and the "Resurrection Ship" two-parter. It also helped save money because the construction of New Caprica, the extensive location shooting, the number of actors, as well as the special effects for "Exodus, Part II" were very expensive and the production was over budget.
• The Viper Mark VIIs deployed by Galactica in this episode have a yellow engine-glow instead of their usual blue. This is also the case in "Maelstrom" suggesting that it is a normal effect in atmospheric flight.
• The moment where Lee Adama pauses to look back at the Pegasus CIC and says "thank you" is reminiscent of a similar moment in the Deep Space Nine episode "The Changing Face of Evil," in which, after the doomed Defiant is ordered to be evacuated, Captain Sisko takes a long look back at his ruined bridge. As with Pegasus, in the next shot, the ship is destroyed. Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, who wrote "Exodus, Part II," were staff writers on DS9.
• Kate Vernon on the SciFi Forums stated that Ellen Tigh knew about the poison in her drink.
• The Battle of New Caprica scenes were constructed using Lightwave, with each Cylon Raider being keyframe animated.
• When Galactica jumps several thousand feet from the surface of New Caprica a vacuum is created by the sudden loss of mass that consumes the re-entry fires engulfing its hull and the clouds surrounding it. A sonic boom and a shock wave are also produced when it jumps.
• In the 2007 Emmy awards, this episode won one award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects For A Series, but lost in the directing and sound editing categories.
  • During Galactica jumps into the atmosphere scene, Ron Moore in his podcast states that the episode "better win the fucking Emmy," months before the awards were handed out.
• It's revealed that Kara's apartment is actually in the New Caprica Detention Center.
• This episode marks the supposed death of Ellen Tigh. However its later revealed that she's a Cylon and simply downloaded into a new body on a Resurrection Ship and remained a prisoner of John Cavil for eighteen months until Boomer helps her escape.
• This episode and "Precipice" are the only ones in which all twelve humanoid Cylons appear.
• As Galactica descends through the atmosphere of New Caprica, the brand of the pencils on the tactical table, "Dixon China Marker," is clearly visible (when paused on the DVD or Blu-ray).

Analysis

• Baltar may not be aware that most of the civilians have already escaped the planet when he says, in the Gaeta-Baltar scene, "The Cylons have a nuke in this complex. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is getting off this planet alive unless I stop D'Anna."
• The Cylons are not keeping closer tabs on the whereabouts of the launch keys—no alarms or other warning—and don't notice that they are gone until the attack starts. Since only a Cylon could enter the facility, and as the only other Cylon (one of the Threes) is incapacitated before the attack (possibly unable to download and warn the others), this appears to be a logical omission.
• While it seems that the Cylons leave the planet implausibly under-guarded, Ron Moore has mentioned in his podcasts that the Cylons do have major operations elsewhere (possibly hinting at the search for Earth story arcs later in the series).
• With the former crew of Pegasus on Galactica now, the ship has something close to its standard crew size. (Galactica's crew was deduced to be 2,693 in the episode "Water," and Pegasus's was introduced with a crew count of 1,752 in "Pegasus" (see Crew tally). William Adama notes that over half of the crew has settled on New Caprica in "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I," and Lee confirms that both ships are at half-strength in "Occupation".) Military operations should be much smoother now, and repairs to the ship in general are more feasible.
• While the combination of the Pegasus and Galactica air wings give the latter battlestar a full-strength fighter wing, the Fleet has suffered the loss of its most advanced and best-armed warship. With it also went the capability to build replacement Vipers. Defensively, the Fleet is pretty much back to the position it was in when it left the Colonies.
• Pegasus parallels its role with the original Pegasus as it fights to the end to defeat two basestars, allowing Galactica and the Fleet to escape from the Cylons. However, while the Original Series left the fate of its Pegasus and its crew to speculation, the Re-imagined continuity's Pegasus is totally destroyed and its crew evacuated.
• Despite the DRADIS distorting nebula surrounding the planet of New Caprica, several scenes and lines of dialogue in this episode clearly show DRADIS to be at least partially functional. This could indicate that there are gaps in the nebula allowing DRADIS to function, or that the Colonials developed ways to operate limited DRADIS despite the distortion.
• A key component of Adama's plan is to jump Galactica into the upper atmosphere of New Caprica. In "Home, Part II," Gaeta tells Adama that jumping the ship into the upper atmosphere of a planet isn't possible. Not only was Gaeta wrong in his assessment, but it is worth noting he is not on board this time when Adama conceives of the maneuver. Of course, it is possible Gaeta simply considers the maneuver so dangerous that it should be considered infeasible. His concern in this regard seems valid, as pieces can be seen tearing off of Galactica as it falls, and the event is later shown to have caused, or at least contributed to, terminal structural damage to the ship.
• During its fall through New Caprica's atmosphere, Galactica is shown launching Vipers with its flight pods still retracted, indicating they need to be extended only to recover aircraft.

Questions

• With Baltar missing at the conclusion of this episode, who will become the President of the Twelve Colonies? (Answer)
• What will be the final disposition of the Pegasus officers, and the former military personnel who have returned from New Caprica? (Answer)
• Did Ellen Tigh know or suspect that the drink was poisoned? (Answer)
• What consequences will Ellen Tigh's death have for her husband? Will Saul Tigh return to his old alcoholic habits? (Answer)
• What equipment and people were left behind on New Caprica? (Answer about people: Survivor Count)
• Will Gaeta be the target of persecution or assassination as a collaborator? Or will people believe in him when he is found out to be the secret informant? (Answer)
• Will Cally Tyrol identify Jammer as the NCP officer who released her, based on his voice? (Answer)
• Now that Galactica is carrying the Viper squadrons from both battlestars, will the starboard flight pod be returned to service? (Answer)
• What are the Cylons' plans for Gaius Baltar? (Answer)
• How does Internal Six know that the baby Maya had was Hera?
• Where is "Boomer" Valerii? (Answer)
• How many ships are in the Fleet as of the Battle of New Caprica? Also, in light of the exodus, what of consumables and other resources needed to sustain the Fleet? Were these loaded into ships already as part of the escape plan?
• In what condition are Galactica's gun batteries following the Battle of New Caprica? Do any of them remain operable, or is Galactica largely stripped of its main armaments?
• Did Commander Adama order all supplies on Pegasus not essential to the suicide run to be dumped overboard?

Noteworthy Dialogue

• Lee discussing Adama's orders with Dualla:

Dualla: Hoshi's working on updating our map coordinates for the search for Earth. Civilian captains want to meet with you. They have questions, problems... [He is silent.] Talk to me, Lee.

Lee: I'm having trouble... accepting this.

Dualla: I know. But we have to push forward. Keep the Fleet together. Find Earth.

Lee: Right. That's our duty.

Dualla: There's still a chance they'll come back. Your father has pulled off more than a few miracles in his day.

Lee: I know that. And I haven't given up hope.

Dualla: Yes, you have. I saw the look on your face when you came back from Galactica. Like you were never gonna see him again.

Lee: Am I that easy to read?

Dualla: Just to me.

Lee: He's taking on too much for one half-strength Battlestar to handle. And that's not opinion. That's military fact. He's not coming back from this. None of them are.

Dualla: All we can do is make plans for the future. We have to survive. We have to find Earth. If we don't, they'll be no one to remember a man named William Adama. Or a Battlestar named Galactica. That is our charge to keep.

Lee: To keep humanity going. No matter what the cost. No matter—No matter who we leave behind.

Dualla: You can do this. You can get us there. You are Commander of this Fleet, and you will guide us to safety. And you will do it no matter the cost. Because you're an Adama.

Lee: Did I ever tell you how proud I am to serve with you?

Dualla: Not in so many words, no.

Lee: Well, I am proud to serve with you, Lieutenant. And to call you my wife. [They kiss.] Now let's talk about... map coordinates, meeting with ships' captains.

• Discussing the failure of the occupation:

Number Three: What would you have us do, Gaius?

Gaius Baltar: Leave. Pack up your centurions, and go. Please. Go.

Number Three: And then what? What would you do if we really just left you here? You'd live out your lives in peace and never trouble yourselves with thoughts of us again? Or would you raise your children with stories of the Cylon, the mechanical slaves who once did your bidding, only to turn against you? Killers who committed genocide against your race, the occupiers of this city until we just ran away? Would you tell them to tell the story to their children, and to their childrens' children, and nurse a dream of vengeance down through the years so that one day they could just go out into the stars and hunt the Cylon once more?

Gaius Baltar: Blood for blood ...has to stop one day.

• Roslin wishes Zarek good luck:

Zarek: You're coming, aren't you?

Roslin (gestures to Colonial One): My ship's up there.

Zarek: You sure have a sense of the dramatic.

• Adama comes to accept Galactica's end:

Admiral Adama: Then that's it. It's been an honor.

• After hearing Pegasus has joined Galactica:

Admiral William Adama: Damn You, Lee ...Thank You, Lee.

• Pegasus is evacuated before its destruction:

Dualla: Alright, people, let's move. Out! Let's go. (To Lee): You too, Commander.

Commander Lee Adama: Yes, sir. (Begins to leave, then stops and looks around at Pegasus): Thank you.

• As the two Adamas reunite after the battle:

Admiral Adama: I guess you didn't understand my orders.

Commander Adama: I never could read your handwriting.

• Adama welcomes Col. Tigh back to Galactica:

Adama: You did it. You brought 'em home, Saul.

Tigh: Not all of them.

Guest Stars

• Michael Hogan as Saul Tigh
• Aaron Douglas as Galen Tyrol
• Tahmoh Penikett as Lt. Karl "Helo" Agathon
• Nicki Clyne as Cally Tyrol
• Alessandro Juliani as Felix Gaeta
• Kandyse McClure as Anastasia Dualla
• Michael Trucco as Samuel Anders
• Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek
• Rick Worthy as Simon
• Callum Keith Rennie as Leoben Conoy
• Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
• Matthew Bennett as Number Five
• Rekha Sharma as Tory Foster
• Erica Cerra as Maya
• Luciana Carro as Lt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine
• Leah Cairns as Lt. Margaret "Racetrack" Edmondson
• Madeline Parker as Kacey Brynn
• Dominic Zamprogna as James "Jammer" Lyman
• Eileen Pedde as Erin Mathias
• Ty Olsson as Captain Aaron Kelly
• Ryan Robbins as Charlie Connor
• Emilie Ullerup as Julia Brynn
• Winston Rekert as Priest