I've long since written about how much I've enjoyed Battlestar Galactica. I've also written in other places about my fears concerning its ending, particularly the episodes leading up to the ending. Those episodes meandered a bit, the series suddenly felt as if it ran a marathon and suddenly decided that a stroll would be nice as it neared the finish line. It was worrying me, to say the least.
So, I wasn't exactly thrilled when the episode started. I was sure that it would go horribly wrong, that those meandering episodes took too much time away from the plot. Images of flying motorcycles were forming at the back of my mind. (Watch the failed 1980's movie if this is a "huh" moment.) Looking at the episodes now, I think that they took a stroll because they could. The ending was set, long ago (really long ago), and they could take time out to show some things about the characters we've never really seen.
In the end, I was floored. It was an ending I both expected and was surprised by, capped by wonderful closures for everyone. The rescue mission was everything I would have wanted, exciting, visually beautiful, tense. I forget how good the visuals are until they're shown in that way, and suddenly I'm a child again, seeing the grand battlestar for the first time on TV. Except it never looked that good then.
The climax was also typically Galactica in that it heads in one direction and then, using a moment I all but forgot, twists things again. Yes, I get played each and every time, but in this case, I just don't care.
But it was the final part, the sunny, green, wonderfully sad final part, that really got me. It was the light that Galactica, as a series, sought. It was a wonderful break, finally getting over the whole rollercoaster of the past four seasons to get to, well, what looked like paradise. The series needed the sunlight, and the grief. I was surprised at how happy I was looking at it, ignoring all the obvious signs of what was to come (the map gave it away for me). It brought me to a point where I too smiled into the green vistas and thought it was time to move on. As dark as the series got, it was, in the end, true to itself in that the series was also all about hope. It's nice to see that win in the end.
Spirituality was always part of the series and it was nice to see it in full play at the end. Yes, some of it smacked of cop-out, but heck, I honestly don't care. It was a good ending. I can't really ask for more than that.
And I loved the irony (and Ron Moore's cameo) at the very end, as two celestial beings debate mankind once again (and I agree with what some of you wrote - yes, the red dress makes sense now.) even as that song plays and images of robots fill the screen. Will it happen again? That's really up to us cylons, isn't it?
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