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
US airdate	2006-10-20
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
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Exodus, Part I	Exodus, Part II	Collaborators
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Official Summary
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Overview

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

• On Pegasus, Lee Adama and Dualla talk of Galactica's mission. Adama worries heavily that Admiral Adama's mission will fail and of what future responsibilities he may have as the leader of the rest of mankind. His wife tells him to not give up hope.
• 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 else less sympathetic will do so.
• 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.

Saul handing Ellen her poisoned drink.

• Suddenly, dozens of explosions can be felt and seen. The Battle of New Caprica has begun.
• Anders and the resistance team has set a series of explosions that mimic a Colonial attack and causes chaos. 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.
• 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 detect the decoy drones, but Galactica jumps into the planet's upper atmosphere and plunges rapidly towards the planet. Mid-descent, Galactica launches its Vipers. Before colliding with the ground, the ship jumps back into space. The Vipers begin to attack targets on the ground and clear the way.
• As others are freed from the Detention Center, Anders finds his unconscious wife and carries her away, but when Thrace awakens, she goes back to retrieve Kacey.
• The battle is turning against Galactica. Her FTL drives are down, weapons are offline and there is heavy structural damage from the atmospheric entry. Four Cylon basestars are closing in and the battlestar is soon bombarded from all sides with no hope of survival. At that moment Pegasus joins the battle, Lee Adama having disobeyed his father's orders. He opens fire with the forward batteries and destroys one basestar in the opening salvo.
• 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.
• The Colonial ships initiate intra-atmosphere jumps from New Caprica as soon as they become airborne.
• Pegasus is heavily bombarded by missiles, having left all of her Vipers 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.
• On Colonial One, Felix Gaeta accuses Baltar at gunpoint of having betrayed everyone. Gaeta admits his guilt in idealistically believing in Baltar's initial vision, but realized in the end that Baltar was only thinking about himself. Baltar admits his own guilt and begs Gaeta to shoot him. However, Gaeta relents, giving Baltar a final chance to redeem himself: stop Three from setting off the nuclear bomb.
• With Pegasus dying, Lee Adama orders everyone to abandon ship. He sets the ship CBDR with a basestar as the last of the crew leaves in Raptors. Pegasus’ collision destroys another basestar. The remains of Pegasus’ starboard flight pod collides with and destroy another basestar.
• Kara Thrace retrieves Kacey, but Conoy has returned and confronts her. She appears to give in to his demands, says "I love you," and kisses him. However, Thrace uses the diversion to stab him. 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 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 the now abandoned Colonial One 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 taken away. The mother thanks Thrace for rescuing Kacey. Thrace is shocked by the relevation that Kacey is not her daughter after all, but gives her up.
• Admiral Adama welcomes Tigh back aboard, and tells him he brought everyone back. 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. 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.

Questions

• With Baltar missing at the conclusion of this episode, who will become the President of the Twelve Colonies?
  • Tom Zarek, as Vice President, seems to have the best claim. Since he chose to become a political prisoner rather than collaborate with the Cylons, he has probably retained his good standing in the public eye. If Baltar had him removed from office, he could probably make a good case that such an action was illegal.
  • Laura Roslin's decision to evacuate on Colonial One may not have been an expression of her intent to claim the presidency. Colonial One had been her home for the first nine months that the fleet spent on the run. Zarek may have deliberately opted to evacuate aboard the Astral Queen for non-political reasons, as he previously served as a leader and representative of that vessel and her passengers.
  • However, Saul Tigh seemed to expect that Roslin would assume the presidency (Precipice), and when boarding Colonial One, she makes herself at home at Baltar's desk as if she intends to do so.
  • The Colonial Government has scheduled elections (Bastille Day), although it has also called special elections before (Colonial Day). As of this episode, it has been about a year and five months since the last presidential election, so it is unlikely that another is scheduled in the near future.
• What will be the final disposition of the Pegasus officers, and the former military personnel who have returned from New Caprica?
  • Saul Tigh's injuries may prevent him from resuming his post as XO of Galactica. Additionally, he has been outranked by Lee Adama since "The Captain's Hand".
  • Lee Adama's command, the Pegasus, has been destroyed. Given Tigh's incapacity, he may begin service as XO of Galactica. He has also expressed dissatisfaction with his military career (Final Cut) and may wish to retire from fleet service, or resume his earlier duties of military liaison to the civilian government.
  • It will be difficult to justify replacing Louanne Katraine as CAG, given the length of her service since the foundation of New Caprica, and her skill as a pilot, shown to have rivaled or outstripped even that of Kara Thrace by the time of "Scar".
  • Kara Thrace is separated from Fleet service, and although she will probably return to active duty, it is unlikely that she will resume her former duty position as CAG, Galactica so long as Katraine is serving competently in that position.
  • Anastasia Dualla is now an officer, and will not be expected to resume NCO-level tasks. Hoshi held her former position on Pegasus, and is now available to serve on Galactica.
  • Felix Gaeta is separated, and will have to answer for the crimes of Baltar's administration, despite his covert affiliation with the resistance. Karl Agathon and Aaron Kelly have both been shown performing Gaeta's duties in CIC on Galactica, and one of them may replace him.
  • Cally Tyrol, Galen Tyrol, or both may choose to remain separated (from fleet service) to raise their son, Nicholas. We have not yet seen young children being raised on board Galactica, although there is a precedent for keeping a civilian minor onboard.
  • We may also see characters assume roles not previously shown onboard Galactica.
• What consequences will Ellen Tigh's death have for her husband?
  • Will Saul Tigh again drink to excess?
    • A Chicago Tribune interview with Ron Moore answers this.
• What equipment and personnel were left behind on New Caprica?
  • In order to build New Caprica City, the ships were at least partially stripped and supplies were offloaded.
  • Medical supplies were running low as of "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II", although apparently the colonists were resupplied by the Cylons.
  • Are there any people alive remaining on New Caprica after the exodus, due to wounds or infirmity? Were there any detention facilities which the New Caprica Resistance failed to liberate? Did anyone besides Gaius Baltar stay behind willingly?
• If the civilian ships only needed to get a few hundred feet off the ground in order to use their FTL drives and escape, why do Galcatica and Pegasus need to engage the basestars? Is this just to keep the Raiders, Heavy Raiders, and missiles from being used on the civilian fleet, on the surface below? (Note: it is not in dispute that having Galactica launch its fighters within the atmosphere is important so they could attack the Centurions and few raiders there.)
  • As with the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, the Cylons could destroy the city with a single nuclear bomb in orbit. The plan appears to force the Cylons to be too distracted by the battlestar's offenses (Raptors at first, then the battlestar itself) to worry about the actions on the planet. Galactica jumps intra-atmosphere to minimize detection by the basestars.
  • As part of Adama's strategy, after the intra-atmospheric jump, he probably wanted to jump the Galactica to the lowest possible orbit such that when the planetary rescue effort was complete that he could recover the vipers in the shortest possible time. To jump the Galactica to an extremely high orbit could add hours to viper recovery and allowing far too much time for Basestars and Raiders alike to close into their position.
• 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?
• Will Cally Tyrol identify Jammer as the NCP officer who released her, based on his voice?
• Galactica's escape seems questionable. Most or all of Galactica's Vipers were launched during the atmospheric maneuver. Later, after the four basestars start pummelling Galactica, its situation is dire, facing explosive decompressions and with its FTL disabled. Adama says, "Then that's it. It's been an honor." Pegasus immediately appears and uses its superior weaponry to engage the basestars, destroying one in the first volley, so Adama orders the FTL to be fixed. Soon, Helo reports that most of the civilian ships have jumped, that FTL is back online, and that Pegasus is taking "a hell of a pounding." Adama orders his Vipers to land so that Galactica can leave. The next shot is Vipers landing, but weren't they all at the surface? How long does it take a Viper to climb into orbit? Real-world atmospheric escapes take several minutes, at least. How much damage were the basestars and battlestars doing to each other in this time?
  • We aren't seeing events in real-time. Several minutes can lie between scenes that appear to happen right after another. Sometimes it is simply necessary to compress things in order to fit them into one episode.
  • There may be several key differences at play between an escape from New Caprica's atmosphere and a real-world atmospheric departure, such as a lower atmospheric boundary, more powerful thrusters on the Vipers, etc.
    • In a real-world example, the Space Shuttle takes approximately 10 minutes to attain escape velocity. The length of this time is partly due to the fact that the Space Shuttle's engines are occassionally throttled back to keep acceleration below 3 G to reduce discomfort to the crew. Additionally, typically it takes several hours for the Space Shuttle to attain the same orbit as the ISS. For convenience of fiction, from the time of escape velocity of the vipers to attaining the same orbit of the Galactica could be said to be several minutes. Therefore, the entire sequence probably took in real-time 1/2 hour from the time the order was given by Adama to retrieve the Vipers to the time that all Vipers were aboard the Galactica. This is not taking into account that all craft can't land simultaneously on a carrier. The Pegasus probably took a pounding from 1/2 to 1 hour from the 3 remaining Basestars before it reached its final demise, a process that was beyond the timeframe of the show.
    • Also, the Vipers might already have been en route to Galactica by the time Adama gives the order to "bring them home." That order might have referred to landing them. (The combat-landing shot, fwiw, was recycled from the mini-series.)
• Why did Kara Thrace wait so long to stab Leoben? She could have done it before even kissing him.
  • Possibly, Thrace intended to insult to injury by her quick betrayal, but also, she needed to ensure that the Cylon agent was completely off his guard.
  • It's also possible she is not as strong as we think, and truly felt something for Leoben in those few moments.
    • That seems unlikely considering that after she shoved a 6" blade into his belly, she watched his face as she twisted it. That would be taken as an indication of extreme hatred by most people.
  • She does, of course, have a well-demonstrated flair for the dramatic.
• What about the Cylons, such as Leoben, who were killed during the insurection? If they were dependant on a resurrection facility on New Caprica, is said facility still operational? If not, is there a resurrection ship in range?
• What, besides Galactica and her crew, was gained by the sacrifice of Pegasus? Most of the civilian ships had already jumped to safety, and Pegasus did not bring any Vipers along to escort the remainder, opting instead to leave them to defend the small civilian fleet it had been protecting. If nothing was gained besides the survival of Galactica, the sacrifice was a costly and foolish mistake - the fleet has lost the more advanced of its two battlestars, and along with it, its ability to manufacture new Vipers (Scar).
  • From a purely military mission perspective that is correct. Pegasus' intervention seems to have been made solely because of the personal feelings of its commander. For the Cylons, the destruction of Pegasus and the retrieval of Hera compensate to an extent for the loss of three base stars and 39,000 human prisoners.
  • Actually the mission was to rescue the 39,000 humans, the bulk of the survivors of the human race. The military perspective would be the sacrifice was worth the loss (though it would have been better, perhaps, if Galactica would have done the suicide run). It seems, though, that Pegasus would have jumped out if it could do so, but the ship lost its FTL drive during the pounding. This seems to happen relatively frequently for heavily defended warships designed to engage in brutal combat -- both Battlestars lost FTL during this battle. Also, Galactica's facilities to manufacture Vipers may have been greatly improved during the year at New Caprica.
  • From a tactical point of view, the survival of Admiral Adama, the best tactician in the rag-tag fleet, was more important that the survival of the superior battlestar.
  • All of which raises the question of whether the loss of the Pegasus could have been averted had Lee gone along with the rescue plan in the first place, rather than arriving at the halfway mark.
  • The lost of the Pegasus is a blow to the humans, but this also serves the intention of the writing staff. The Pegasus was an off-balanced factor to the strength of the human fleet. Without the Pegasus, the show returns to the rag-tag fleet that was established in the first season. This will make the survival of the human race more difficult, but the story of the show is to watch the struggle and search for Earth.
• Now that Galactica is carrying the Viper squadrons from both battlestars, will the starboard flight pod be returned to service?

Analysis

• There is a major plot hole concerning the continuity of the story from Exodus, Part I. In Part I, D'Anna sees Caprica-Sharon in the detention center and is shot by her. Yet in Part II, D'Anna is in Colonial One, apparently unharmed, and has not alerted the Cylons to Sharon's presence.
  • That is a different D'Anna. You'll note the D'Anna in Colonial One before the attack is wearing all black, whereas the D'Anna that encountered Sharon typically wears lighter colors. The two D'Annas are seen together in The Occupation.
    • This is NOT a different D'Anna. This is the same D'Anna that dreamt about Hera and relayed this information to Sharon Agathon, and later carried Hera in her arms as her dreams foretold. The plot hole stands.

• Either the scenes aren't in order or Baltar is not aware of what is going on. In the Gaeta-Baltar scene, Baltar says, "The Cylons have a nuke in this complex. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is getting off this planet alive unless I stop D'Anna." But this is after most of the civilian ships have already jumped.

• Further, until Hera is discovered by Baltar, Three is still looking to set off the nuke -- even though it is clear that the colonists are all long gone.
  • It's possible Three wasn't seeking to set off the nuke, but said she was as a ruse to go seek answers about her premonitions concerning Hera.
    • Any nuke held by the Cylons would likely be stored somewhere inside the guarded Cylon perimeter. It appears that this Three made a beeline to the Oracle, and was upset that she was not there. While going through the tent, knocking things over, she is quoted as saying "frackking liar!".
• In general, the Cylons seem to have left the planet implausibly underguarded. Considering the strategic nature of the site, as well as the well-known fact that two battlestars remained at large, one would have expected the Cylons to have an overwhelming amount of protection for the planet -- perhaps dozens of basestars. Furthermore, it is hard to believe that the Cylons were not keeping closer tabs on the whereabouts of the launch keys.
  • It has been established beforehand that the Cylons are overstretched with the occupation. This could account for the lack of protection. At any rate, four basestars against two battlestars is hardly an even match, let alone two half-strength battlestars.
    • A Basestar does not seem to be a 1 to 1 match for a Battlestar. They lack offensive and defensive gun batteries, the ability to maneuver quickly, and have a critical design flaw that is easily exploited (central hub holding the six arms together). Basestars depend on missiles and large numbers of Raiders. Adama felt that the Galactica, even barely manned, could hold up to two Cylon Basestars.
      • Additionally, RDM has mentioned in his podcasts that the Cylons do have major operations elsewhere hinting at future storylines in the season. It is possible that the Cylon higher command made a strategic decision to guard the planet with what they deemed the minimal required number of basestars to defend against 2 battlestars.
        • One may also be prone to over estimating the number of Basestars the Cylons own. When preparing the attack on the twelve colonies, the cylons knew that they had surprise and the backdoor computer viruse on the their side, as such they may not have produced a very large amount of basestars (Perhaps not even enough to match the numbers of battlestars the twelve colonies had). Furthermore, the knowledge that the colonials ignored where the Cylon homeworld is may have also played a part them having a smaller fleet. If, for some reason, the attack failed, the cylons could simply retreat and bide their time before trying again. After all, when one is sure he can render his enemy defenseless, theres no real need to produce a pointlessly large army.
• With the former crew of Pegasus onboard 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.
  • However, many repairs, such as structural, will require shipyard or dockyard facilities equiped with replacement parts and heavy repair machinery required for such repairs, and these facilities are no longer available. The Galactica may never again be the fighting force that it once was.
• While the combination of the Pegasus and Galactica air groups 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, unless one of the civilian ships can be converted for such a purpose. Defensively, the Fleet is pretty much back to the position it was in when it left the Colonies.
  • However, the Galactica did take significant structural damage during the conflict, therefore, it currently isn't in the same state of battle readiness as it was at the time it left the Colonies.
• It appears during the whole conflict in atmospheric combat that the Raiders were spending most of their time running from the Vipers. This may be due to the fact that Colonial Vipers have a far superior atmospheric design where Raiders are optimized for space operations. The Viper has a stabilizing vertical wing which aids the pilot in manuevering through the atmosphere just like all real-life combat aircraft. The Raider lacks this stabilizer wing much reducing their effectiveness in aeronautic combat and manuevering thrusters are not as effective in air as in space due to resistance. This made the tactic of depositing the Galactica's Vipers into a solely air-support role for evacuating ships very effective once the Space-borne Raiders were decoyed away from the planet so that the Galactica only had to face the Basestars, not the Raiders.
• Pegasus seemed to fulfill its role just like the original Pegasus, as it fought to the end to defeat two basetars and allowed Galactica along with the last of the fleet to escape from the Cylons.

Notes

• There is also a TOS comic named Exodus!
• Both 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" and "Valley of Darkness" and "Resurrection Ship." 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.
• Apparently, the viper Mk.VIIs deployed by Galactica in this episode have a yellow engine-glow instead of their usual blue. This may be a visual-effects-gaffe or the engines may have been effected by the nebular gas or even using a diffrent type of fuel or engine.
• The moment where Lee pauses to look back at the Pegasus CIC and says "thank you" references a parallel moment in the Deep Space Nine episode "The Changing Face of Evil", in which, after the doomed Defiant is ordered evacuated, Captain Sisko takes a long look back at his ruined bridge. As with the Pegasus, in the next shot, the ship is destroyed. Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, who wrote of "Exodus, Part II", were staff writers on DS9.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• 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 heads to Colonial One

Roslin: 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.

• The 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 William Adama: I guess you didn't understand my orders.

Commander Lee Adama: I never could read your handwriting.

• Adama welcomes Col. Tigh back to Galactica

Adama: You did it, Saul. You brought them back.

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
• Luciana Carro as Lt. Louanne "Kat" Katraine