The President's been having wacky dreams, while a former flight-instructor with a bad leg and a serious attitude problem gets to torture a man who keeps spouting off religious babble.
...Man, this is a million miles away from the original series, isn't it?
There's not a lot to summarize here. They find another copy of Leoben and send Starbuck to interrogate him for some reason. He messes with her head for a while in between several near-drowning experiences, all the while claiming that he's hidden a nuke somewhere in the fleet. Then Roslin shows up and offers him a pardon, at which point he says that there is no nuke and that Adama is a Cylon. The President then kindly shows the tortured toaster to the airlock. Starbuck, visibly shaken, prays for his soul.
So anyway, the first time you see this episode, it comes off as some sort of statement on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of torture. Depending on how much attention you pay to Leoben's ramblings, you may or may not (but my money's on not) grasp the real importance of this episode: this is the first encounter between Starbuck and Leoben. Also, the first mention of Starbuck's abusive mother, which comes from Leoben, who should really have no way of knowing this. (But, as we'll later discover, Leoben is all sorts of special.)
But maybe not, because we know that a) the writers were making things up as they went along, and b) Katee Sackhoff specifically requested that 3.17, "Maelstrom," be re-written to give her another enounter with Leoben. It's possible that the entire Starbuck-Leoben thing was thought up on the fly later on.
The significant things we get from this episode: Starbuck is going to find Kobol, Kobol will lead them to Earth. Fair enough, it's probable that they'd worked out the plot all the way to 2.7, "Home, Part 2" by this point. Also, Roslin's having visions which will tie directly into "The Hand of God," "Kobol's Last Gleaming," et seq.
Meanwhile, on Caprica, C-Boomer, having slept with Helo, now goes rogue and de-rails whatever last vestiges of the Cylon "plan" there were. And on Galactica, Baltar finds out that G-Boomer is a Cylon, but decides not to tell anyone, thus directly setting up the end of "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down," when he refuses to divulge whether or not Ellen's a Cylon and let the fandom stew over that question for the next two years (cf. 3.4, "Exodus, Part 2").
Insight from The Plan: Leoben intercepted Starbuck's wireless transmissions from "Act of Contrition" at the very latest (both because we see him listening to those transmissions and because she was out of action after that point). He also raved to Number One about how she was able to fly a Raider in "You Can't Go Home Again." (So, wait, does this mean Novacek is special too? cf. 3.08, "Hero.") Even without The Plan, it's clear that his obsession with Starbuck began before the events of this episode; The Plan just makes it more clear.
So it's a character piece with a political edge, which is a fairly accurate description of Battlestar Galactica as a whole. It appears on first blush to be a fairly standalone piece with the description I used at the top, but either this was never the plan or the writers liked the ideas in this episode enough to build on them further.
I will just say that I still hadn't really warmed to Leoben as a character the first time I saw this. Until Number Four showed up, Leoben had the role of the "creepy Cylon straight out of Blade Runner." (It's worth pointing out that Leoben's creepyness stems from his religious philosophy and his obsession with Starbuck, whereas Four's creepyness comes from the character's reliance on fact over faith and the character's clinical detatchment from everything. Except in The Plan.)
Side note, regarding these reviews: from now on, I'm going to do my best to leave vague hints but not actually spoil anything that happens in episodes after the one I'm reviewing (for example, leaving Number Four's identity and gender unmentioned in the paragraph above, and the vague hints about "Maelstrom" and "Exodus"). I'll try not to contradict any revelation in Season 4, but for the sake of the story I may occasionally say something slightly misleading in my analyses. Also, regarding the films: Razor is absolutely canonical. The Plan is a nice effort to tie up loose ends, but it smacks of retcon (because it, um, is), so I'll draw on it where it's convenient and ignore it everywhere else.
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