BSG: Hand of God

A dying leader will lead them to the promised land, but will die before ever setting foot there.

So basically, from this point on, Laura Roslin is Space Moses (except that in 4.10, "Revelations," she does in fact set foot on Earth. Go figure).

Roslin gives a speech about the fact that they've almost run out of fuel and don't really have a plan (at least when the humans don't have a Plan, they can go ahead and admit it). She's interrupted by a hallucination of a dozen snakes on her podium. Wise priest Elosha thinks Roslin's having her on, but it turns out that, yup, Roslin is the dying leader that a prophet named Pythia wrote about a gazillion years ago.

On the subject of Pythia, at the end of this episode, we learn that the phrase "all of this has happened before, and all of this has happened again" was written by her (and not, say, the writers of Disney's Peter Pan).* We've heard that phrase before, spoken by Leoben in "Flesh and Bone," but there, Starbuck's response was "Don't quote Scripture." Um, so then Pythia wasn't Nostradamus, but rather John, author of the Book of Revelations. (Or she's Agnes Nutter, Witch.) Point is, she's a dead woman who knows a lot about what's about to happen, but apparently Laura Roslin never got around to even hearing about her. Baltar read Pythia in the sixth grade, but Roslin, a schoolteacher, didn't. Okay, then.

*Alternatively, they both could have written it, a la Sam Anders, Dreilide T[spoiler], and Bob Dylan. And if by some delightful coincidence you have no idea what I'm referring to, then stop and revel in the fact that you have somehow managed to avoid knowledge of what is probably the show's most well-known plot twist. I envy you.

So they're out of fuel, and Roslin has no plan for getting more. Good thing Adama does. There's a ton of fuel nearby, the only problem is that the Cylons are sitting on it. Well, the solution is obvious: take it from the Cylons.

Which is precisely what they do. Starbuck's still out of commission, but she plans the attack. Baltar randomly guesses where the thermal exhaust port is, and Lee maneuvers straight down the trench, and now the way I'm describing it, it sounds more like porn than a Star Wars knockoff.

Yeah, this is one of the more superficial episodes of the show. But given that it still has a ton of Team Dad moments for Adama (visiting Starbuck in the gym and explaining why she's not going on the mission, giving Apollo his lawyer father's lighter, etc), "superficial" is an incredibly relative term.

And it's this episode where both Baltar and Roslin begin to accept their roles as instruments of God. We the audience think Baltar's still off in loony-land, but that's mainly because 2.7, "Home, Part 2" hasn't happened yet and the show's religious subtext hasn't yet become text. As I said at the beginning, Roslin basically becomes Space Moses at this point, and she'll waffle back and forth between that role and becoming more of a (benevolent) dictator until the middle of Season 4, when she settles for Dying Cancer Patient. Baltar's eventually going to become Space John the Baptist (after first trying on a dozen other ill-fitting mantles), though the actor's initials might have you guessing at a different role...