Four have been revealed. One remains hidden.One of the more intriguing plot threads throughout Battlestar Galactica's four season run has been the mystery (and the audience conjecture) surrounding the final five models of the Cylon.
While four of those models were tantalizingly revealed at the end of last season--stripping away the veneer of humanity from sleeper agents Colonel Tigh, Tory, Anders, and Chief Tyrol--one model still remains torturously hidden from view.
This week's episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Faith") gave us a tantalizing clue about the final five's origins as the hybrid tells Kara (besides for the fact that she is the harbinger of doom for humanity and will bring them to their end) that the final five came from Earth, from the planet of the thirteen tribe of humanity. It's an interesting twist, especially as the music that awakened them from their sleeper state was Earth music, something they had heard from their childhoods (Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower").
This to me is pretty darn shocking as I've been thinking for a while now that the Final Five don't seem to be Cylons in the general sense. We've yet to see them interact in any meaningful way with machinery (though Anders was poised to place his hand into the operating goo about the base star) or indeed do anything that indicates that they are anything but human. Yes, Tory did seem to be preternaturally strong when she flung Cally across the airlock (and Gaius noted her strength during one of their trysts), Chief Tyrol seemed to heal pretty quickly from those blows to the head from Cally, and Anders was scanned by the Raider and recognized, but other than that they do appear to be human. Tigh's eye never regrew itself and they appear to age as normal humans would. In fact, Tigh has known Adama for decades, a fact that has yet to be clarified, given his status as a Cylon sleeper agent.
If these five are in fact from Earth, I still maintain that they were seeded into the timeline at different points in order to be aboard the Galactica when it entered the nebula. In fact, I think that there's someone or something that is pulling their strings for a greater purpose than just to spy on the fleet.
I raised a point last week that these four Cylon sleeper agents all played major roles in the human resistance movement on New Caprica during the Cylon occupation. If so, then my guess for the final Cylon model would have to be among others who also held major responsibility during this conflict. Kara is too much of a red herring and, while she must play a pretty spectacular role in the dark days ahead, she can't be the Final Model.
Which leads me to poor Felix Gaeta.
Gaeta played a pivotal role in Gaius Baltar's cabinet during the Cylon occupation on New Caprica but he was also a double agent for the human resistance, secretly passing them messages and classified intelligence without any one within the Colonials aware of his identity.
Like Athena and Anders, he somehow ended up on Kara's mission aboard the Demetrius in search of the fabled blue planet... and wound up getting injured (possibly mortally) when Anders shot him for attempting to spin up the FTL drive to return to the fleet against Kara's orders.
I'm going out on a limb here, but I think he's the final Cylon. He seems to be in the right places at the right time, has access to Kara, Adama, and Baltar at various times, played an influential (if furtive) role in the resistance, and Ander's attack seems to have put the spotlight on him in a way we haven't really seen during the series so far. Of course, that assumes that he'll survive the shooting, but Tigh lived through far worse (Cylons are notoriously resilient and tenacious) and lived to tell the tale, albeit with only one eye.
What do you think? Who is your best guess for the identity of the final Cylon and why? And who do you hope definitely isn't a sleeper agent?
On the next episode of Battlestar Galactica ("Guess What's Coming to Dinner"), Laura Roslin faces some new challenges as the Colonials form an alliance with rebel Cylon forces to unleash a devastating attack upon the Cylon Resurrection Hub.
Comments
I hadn't considered Gaeta, mostly because he's such a supporting character. He has had basically no story lines of his own (excepting perhaps the New Caprica double agent storyline and now being shot in the leg). His role throughout the series has been as the extremely competent "right-hand man", to Adama, to Baltar (first early in the series with the Cylon-detector, and then on New Caprica), and now on Demetrius. He's like the go-to guy if you need someone to execute orders, reprogram Galactica, or figure out jump-coordinates or something.
I'd would be a pretty radical departure from his character if he was the big bad-ass final model. I'm not sure I buy it completely, but it does sound plausible. I certainly don't have a better candidate.
By the way, the hybrid saying that thing about how the final five came from Earth, I'm thinking that means that the whole Cylon race was created there. Tigh certainly has brought up the possibility that the humanoid Cylons are waaaaay older than we think they are. I'm thinking that they came from Earth (probably searching for "the lost" Twelve Colonies of Kobol), and started the first Cylon war. Maybe the story is that the earthlings where the ones who created the Cylons, and they fought a war against them. Then the Cylons went looking for the the last remnants of humanity. Or maybe the human race on earth created the Cylons to go looking for the Twelve Colonies, but when they found them, instead of helping them find Earth, they started the First Cylon War.
Anyway, I've seen a lot of people be somewhat negative about this season. I couldn't disagree more, I'm down with it, hook, line and sinker.
This business of the final five coming from Earth is intriguing, but does that mean literally? I like the sound of Oscar's final theory, although the cylons being created on Earth doesn't jive with what we know of the prequel, Caprica, does it? Nor with the idea that the people on the colonies are the descendents of Earth, and to have arrived at the population they did just prior to the Cylon attack, they must have been there hundreds of years, no? I'll admit to being part-confused, part-skeptical about how long ago the cylons began seeding the sleepers, how much is all pre-determined and how much is reacting to events. One thing I don't think we can take for granted, though, is that the final cylon will be 'bad-ass'.
Might not he (or she) be Baltar and the Cylons' One God? My money is on Benjamin Linus.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/1,,20169703,00.html
There are a lot of clues in there and where the characters are situated, who they are looking at or pointing at and their expressions are all under much debate.
I like the Felix theory. I definitely think it won't be Lee. There's all ready too much complexity with Tigh being a Cylon given his friendship with Adama to have Adama's son also somehow end up to be a Cylon too.
If one of this sons were to end up being a Cylon, I'd say Zack.
My brain keeps looping back to the "everything has happened before and will happen again" statement.
What if, the original series was before?
What if a Zarek model was based on one of the crew members of before?
Why wouldn't someone from before have been sent to now to help guide this fleet?
Sure, he wasn't an integral part of the resistance on New Caprica, but that was because he was immediately thrown into a prison camp when he fought against Baltar's unconditional surrender.
If it turns out to be Zarek because of the whole "before" thing, I don't know how I'll feel about it. Is it a cheat? Does it rob the show of the universe that's been built, or would I see it at building on the original?
A while back, I noted the apparent second human-Cylon hybrid from Tyrol and Cally. However, since no one on the show has mentioned it, it must not be a hybrid. It's either Cylon-Cylon (and Cally's not really dead a la Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians) or ... it's not Tyrol's baby. I think the latter.
I think the final Cylon is Doctor Cottle. He's always been around. He was instrumental in hiding Hera. He's involved in Laura's cancer therapy. (Her cancer came back how?) And ever since The X-Files, the Cigarette Smoking Man is evil. (Baltar smoked cigarillos, and Adama and Tigh enjoyed cigars.)
Tom Zareck
The lawyer guy
Gaeta
Cally
Petty Officer Dualla (ex wife of apollo)
Doc Cottle
If not in the last supper photo is the key. I hope it's Cally but my money is on either Gaeta or Dualla. Could the body language of those around the 'cup' in the last supper be a clue?
Baltar's lawyer is an interesting thought, especially since his character seemed pretty developed and dynamic for a one-off appearance, but again, that's pretty underwhelming as a big reveal.
Zach, on the other hand, would be a relatively big surprise, since he's dead and all. Plus, the impact and reaction of Apollo, Adama, and even Kara would make for an interesting storyline.
Plus, someone must have helped Starbuck get back to Galactica (with a new Viper and all) after her death. And what about when Kara reappeared and Adama was sceptical and concerned that she was a Cylon? What did Lee say to his father?
"What if Zack had come back to us in that Viper? If my brother had climbed out of that cockpit? Would it matter if he were a Cylon? If he always had been? When all is said and done, would that change how we really feel about him?"
So was Apollo just putting Adama and Starbuck's relationship into perspective, or was that a bit of foreshadowing? Just a thought.
As long as it doesn't turn out to be Dirk Benedict ("All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again"). Actually that would be pretty cool for about a minute. But after that I would feel pretty ripped-off.
I remember in the original miniseries when Roslin confessed to Billy all you could think at the destruction of the colony that she was dying of breast cancer. Billy replied to her comment that it was human to feel that way.
My money is on Roslyn as on the Basestar that jumped out with her, Baltar, Helo and the others on board went to awaken the Three/D'Anna model. Trailers show D'Anna saying to someone 'You know about the Final Five, but don't know that you are one of them?'. Of course, that is following my theory that the final is a female. If it is Male, I think it may be Helo... that would make Hera a Cylon/Cylon child.