First, how nice was it to see Nana Visitor guest in this episode (aired May 9)? Visitor portrayed a favorite character from Star Trek: Deep Space 9 — Major Kira Nerys, who was a sexy, independent-minded and tough former resistance fighter.
In this episode of BSG, there’s nothing sexy about Visitor’s character, Emily Kowalski, who is dying of cancer. Emily and Laura Roslin become friends even though Roslin is dismayed that Emily finds comfort in the preaching of Gaius Baltar.
References to ancient mythology again permeate the conversation as Emily describes dreams about dying in which she crosses a river and sees her mother waiting on the shore. Our BSG writers pulled this death dream from mythological stories about the River Styx, which had to be crossed by the dead before entering the “underworld.” Emily’s dream is much more pleasant than the myth, however, as she tells Roslin about feeling God’s presence.
Roslin herself makes reference to another death story by mentioning the Elysian Fields, where the “worthy” dead lived out eternity in bliss.
This was a complex, and sometimes difficult episode to watch, because at various points there were two conversations going on at once. While Emily and Laura talk, one can hear a recorded Baltar sermon playing in the background. And, Kara Thrace, encounters a “hybrid” cylon who seems to utter gibberish but finally gives Kara a disturbing prophecy — that Kara is a harbinger of doom for the human race. It may take a couple more viewings of episode to pick out an interesting nuggets in the hybrid’s soliloquy.