Episode Report Card Jacob: A+ | 562 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT There's Beauty In The Breakdown
By Jacob | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on April 25, 2008
When God created the universe, He had to exhale and get a little smaller, just to make room for Himself to look around and see what He made: ein soph.
Or when God created the universe and all His angels, He had to make room for humanity and free will, just to see if He guessed wrong, and when it seemed like maybe He had, He sent his only begotten son to reboot the game. That's two right there.
Or we're human because we committed a crime, during the war in Heaven: The angels upheld Allah's absolute authority, those who became animals rebelled but repented, the djinns believed that Satan could become a God, and the humans couldn't make up their minds, and weren't strong enough to stand on God's side.
We recapitulate it every single day, getting fired at work and seeing why it happened, or being betrayed by a lover and realizing our own history and faults: Kara painted the sky, but it took a lifetime of abuse, and worse, to get her to admit it.
I don't believe in God. The whole thing seems silly. But I've never found that to be an obstacle to having a strong relationship with Him. I've written a lot about faith and religion on this website and I do try to keep myself out of it, mostly. I was raised in an atheist and half-hearted polytheist environment, and I guess now I would call myself a Christian if I had to say. I know about as much about Mithra and Thelema as I do about Christ or Islam, which is to say not much.
But this episode is a challenge, because it balances all of these things against the tropes and themes of the series as a whole, and this season in particular, so finely, and in such a lovely and literary manner, that it's hard to respond without going into it a little. I will say that the show has always been about the contrasts and parallels between these two cultures: how they can possibly exist when they're so seemingly incompatible. But the orbits are decaying: The Cylon are looking for their saints, while the monotheist undercurrent in Colonial society is busily gaining strength.