Fair warning: I really, really like this episode, so sorry, but this is going to be a long post.
Yes, it marks the official beginning of the dreaded “love quadrangle of doom,” but I have to admit, “Unfinished Business” is to me what “Colonial Day” is to Chuck. I knew I really liked BSG when Galactica dropped like a rock into the atmosphere in “Exodus II,” but “Unfinished Business” impressed me because it showed how well BSG does the little, personal moments, not just the big, jaw-dropping sci-fi/action moments.
I admire the writers’ and director’s creativity and guts in how they told the story with such a complex structure. Having an episode where we simply see that life on New Caprica did not always suck wouldn’t have been very interesting, and it definitely wouldn’t have been in keeping with the show’s dark tone. Nobody is allowed to be happy for that long on BSG. Telling that story not only through flashbacks but paired with a present-day story that shows how much those happy times have damaged people in the long run was just brilliant. It’s like the episode gives us a happy ending for everybody on New Caprica but makes it incredibly bittersweet because we know that it’s not the end; it’s just a break between rounds that leaves everyone dangerously softened or broken by the time the fight recommences.
“Unfinished Business” shows that not only did Baltar put everyone in a position so the Cylons could take over, but he also killed the Colonials’ dreams of just living life like people again, even if they were idealistic. To an extent, everybody bought into Baltar’s vision, and like Gaeta, they’re all angry at Baltar and at themselves for it; everybody has a Gaeta-level grudge against Baltar, but they just express it in ways that don’t involve stabbing Baltar with writing utensils.
Tigh’s scene with Ellen is heartbreaking, as is the scene when Adama gives Chief and Cally permission to settle on New Caprica. They’re all so happy, and it all could have worked out so well; instead, we have one-eyed, broken Tigh watching Chief beat the daylights out of Adama to punish him for being soft and allowing himself the naive belief that “we all deserve to be happy.” In flashbacks, we see Adama and Roslin, without the weight of the world on their shoulders for once, at liberty to just be Bill and Laura and get stoned and talk about building cabins. In the present, they’re back to being the Admiral and Madam President, and there’s something very sad about that, very different from when they first received their titles, when their positions as humanity’s leaders gave them a purpose and importance in life that seemed to save them from just being shuffled off into lonely insignificance.
The Kara/Lee/Dee/Anders love quadrangle comes with its own sense of loss, and I find the whole setup a lot less obnoxious in this episode than in later episodes. When I saw this episode the first time, I hadn’t seen Kara and Lee’s comfortable, brother-sister relationship in S1 yet, and after I went back and watched that, I better understood why it seemed some people were unhappy with how their relationship panned out. However, Kara and Lee are both a lot like Adama in that they don’t ever just let anything go. They have to play every emotion and argument out to its end, no matter how bitter or ugly. Something more than a sibling dynamic has been brewing between these two since “Colonial Day,” when Kara dances with Baltar and Lee walks away like a beat puppy, and “KLG I,” when Lee chews out Starbuck for sleeping with Baltar, and neither of them are the type of person who can just let well enough alone and walk away.
Anyway, I love this episode, and I give the creators extra brownie points for making a boxing episode that I actually enjoyed. I never, ever thought I’d like a boxing episode of any TV show, let alone like one as much as I do this one.
