It is now my solemn belief that Saul Tigh is the secret tragic hero of Battlestar Galactica. He was a damned interesting character before he was revealed as a Cylon, and now that he’s one of the Final Five, I daresay he might be the most human, flawed and ultimately redeemable character on Galactica. And writer-producer Jane Espenson puts the poor old bastard through the ringer this week in her final episode of the regular series (she’s still got the final TV movie coming later in the year).

Through FTL calculations unknown to the audience (and possibly the writers), Ellen and Boomer arrive in the fleet, and Mrs. Tigh is shortly reunited with her husband, as well as her old friends Bill Adama and President Laura Roslin. Despite the humans’ misgivings, she’s soon reunited with the Final Five (well, what’s left of them), and her renegade Cylon children.

There are three major issues at play this week — two relate to the Cylons and one to Gaius Baltar. I’ll cover that one in a bit. We’ll start with the Cylons — first, Ellen has to grapple with the fact that her estranged husband has been living in pseudo matrimony with Caprica Six and successfully impregnated her. To Ellen, the numbered skinjobs are essentially the children of the Final Five, so naturally she’s a little grossed out by this.

Second, the Cylons have to decide whether to stay with the ragtag fleet, or strike it out on their own. Tigh and Anders (pre-coma) are for staying, Tyrol and Tori are for leaving. Ellen is the critical swing vote.

And since she’s so worked up over both Tigh betraying her for a Six, and the fact that she and Tigh were never able to conceive a child together (Cylons believe that love is the critical ingredient to conception), Ellen decides that they should leave because it would hurt Tigh the most. She believes, not incorrectly, that Tigh loves Bill Adama more than he loves her or Caprica Six.

Meanwhile, Ellen makes Caprica Six doubt if Tigh really loves her, essentially bringing on a miscarriage, which ultimately leads to the death of Tigh’s unborn son, Liam.

In the end, Ellen changes her mind about Six and the child, but it’s too late — the baby dies. This devastates Tigh, who runs to the arms of the person he loves best — Bill Adama. The Admiral embraces his old friend and is genuinely moved that Tigh named the boy for him. The friendship between these two old men, tested as it has been, really has set Galactica apart from many other shows on television. It captures the sentiment of love and loyalty that two male friends can have, without degenerating into the bromance nonsense that so permeates contemporary male culture.

Finally, Gaius Baltar returns to his flock to find it virtually taken over by one of his stronger-willed followers. After being moved by the plight of the children in the ship’s “Dogville” slum (and the sexy mother he meets there), he decides to give away their stockpile of food to the poor refugees living in Galactica’s lower decks, which leads to the Sons of Ares showing up and using superior weapons to take the food for themselves. The need for better guns becomes apparent, so Baltar lobbies the two Adamas and Laura Roslin for weapons to outfit his people so that they can maintain order in the lower decks. With so much potential for rioting and chaos, only a human solution can fix the problem. No doubt with the marine units depleted after the mutiny, Adama needs all the help he can get, and ultimately agrees. The alternative would be having Centurions aboard Galactica to maintain order. And after using Cylon baseship technology and mechanics to repair the ship’s structural decay, Centurions could be the tipping point to another revolution.

The episode ends with a Six (not sure if it was Caprica or not) leaving a photo of dead Cylons on Galactica’s memorial wall. Roslin and Adama realize that the Cylons have been leaving photos of their dead there since they joined the fleet. The blending of the two cultures has inevitably begun. As Tigh said during the debate about leaving the fleet, neither side can survive without the other. With the loss of his pure Cylon son and Hera’s continued good health, only a hybrid child can survive — meaning that Cylons need humans to continue their race.

Next week appears to be the trial of Boomer — then I suspect Cavil will show up to blow the lid off of everything.

Despite some melodrama with Ellen Tigh (and her sharp character U-turn from the elegant mother figure of last week’s outing), this was a strong show, injected with some surprising humor (for a BSG episode) from Jane Espenson. I’m now looking forward to seeing what she does when she’s running Caprica. Three and a half out of four chrome toasters.