Season 3, Episode 11:
The Eye of Jupiter
After the dangerous journey to the algae planet, the fleet has restocked their supply of food. Production is wrapping up, and Lee, Kara, Anders, Dualla and Tyrol are finishing the harvest of the algae when Lee sees a Raptor fly by making more noise than usual. He smiles and goes to greet the occupant, as a confused and angered Dualla watches.
Lee gets to the ship and greets an exiting Kara, then kisses her. He tells her that they should both divorce their spouses, but Kara tells him that she made a vow to her husband. They are left unsure of how to proceed.
At the harvesting site, Tyrol becomes distracted by a strange sensation. He looks over the hills and decides to investigate. His search leads him to a door that leads into a mountain. Confused, he opens the door and follows a passageway into a large room, which has a group of obelisks in the center. He investigates the objects, and realizes he has discovered the ancient Temple of Five, which will help lead the fleet to Earth.
He radios his findings to Galactica, and Roslin contacts him to discuss the history of the temple. However, their jubilation at finding the temple is short-lived when a group of Basestars jumps into the region. Bill orders the fleet to jump away while they hold off the Cylons, but he is unexpectedly hailed by a familiar voice—Baltar, who asks for a meeting between the humans and Cylons.
In a meeting room, Cavil, D'anna, Baltar and Boomer meet with Bill, Tigh, Roslin and Sharon. Upon seeing Boomer, Tigh orders both copies of Eight to wait outside the meeting room, and Boomer tells Sharon that her child Hera is still alive. Sharon refuses to believe it.
Cavil tells the humans that Galactica can leave peacefully and leave the eye to the Cylons, who promise not to attack them. They also promise to surrender Baltar to the fleet's custody, to his shock. Bill tells D'anna that if the Cylons attempt to land, they will destroy the entire continent with nuclear weapons. Both sides leave at a standstill.
Bill radios Lee to destroy the temple if the Cylons invade, but he is suddenly cut off from wireless contact. Lee orders Anders, who is angered by Lee's affair with Kara, to organize teams to defend the site.
Gaeta also runs scans of the nearby planets, and warns Bill that the nearby sun is set to go supernova very soon.
On the Basestar, the other Cylons are discussing how to proceed. Cavil says that the Cylon fleet can wait out the humans, but D'anna countermands everyone else by revealing that she sent a Heavy Raider down to the surface just as the fleet arrived. She says that Galactica can be destroyed once the Cylons retrieve the Eye.
Lee and Anders are planning their defense of the site, and Anders chews him out for his affair with Kara. Elsewhere at the site, Dualla tells Kara to fly a Raptor and keep a lookout for encroaching Centurions, but Kara makes flippant remarks about her marriage to Lee.
D'anna decides to head down to the planet with Baltar to access the temple and discover its secrets. She tells Caprica-Six to stay behind, to the latter's disbelief.
Kara goes up in the Raptor and discovers a group of Centurions, but is fired upon. She manages to radio the enemy's location before being downed from a missile battery. Anders pledges to rescue her, but Lee countermands his order because there aren't enough troops to spare, and has the Marines hold him at gunpoint.
On Galactica, Bill confronts Roslin and asks if the story about Hera's death being faked is true. She confirms it, and he leaves in anger. Soon after, he goes to Helo and Sharon and tells them about Roslin's deception, and a visibly-angry Sharon says that she is going to see her child.
In the CIC, Bill returns to the report of six Heavy Raiders leaving the Basestar. Roslin says that the Cylons are trying to bluff them, but Bill responds by ordering the Battlestar's nuclear missiles to be armed. As the Cylons detect the nuclear signatures, Bill orders an attack on the Temple…
Tropes:
- Am I Right?: Cavil suggests that Bill and Roslin will want some "quiet time" with Baltar, and asks them if they agree.
- Call-Back: Bill remembers what happened the last time a Cylon fleet shows up, so he orders the fleet to jump to their emergency rendezvous coordinates before he does anything else.
- Chekhov's Gun: The image denoting the Eye of Jupiter in the Temple, which was originally a piece of artwork seen in Kara's apartment during the second-season episode "Resistance".
- The Chosen One: The Hybrid indicates that Baltar is this.
- Cliffhanger: Galactica preparing to launch nukes at the algae planet.
- Contrived Coincidence: The Basestar arrives at the algae planet just as Galactica is finishing its operations on the surface. Gaeta and Bill both remark on how strange it is that both of the ships arrived just before the nearby sun was set to go supernova. This helps to foreshadow that some form of destiny is in play.
- Everyone Has Standards: Adama is so disgusted with Roslin's faking of Hera's death that he simply leaves without saying a word when she tries to defend her actions.
- Internal Reveal: Boomer reveals to Athena that Hera is alive on the Basestar, and that the humans lied about her dying shortly after birth. Adama then finds out the same information when Athena and Helo start demanding to see their daughter.
- Love Dodecahedron: Lee, Kara, Anders and Dualla. Kara refuses to divorce Sam, viewing marriage as a sacred vow that cannot be undone, but still wants to be with Lee and says that cheating is just "bending the rules". Lee doesn't like the idea of violating his vows to Dee by cheating on her.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Lee, Kara, Tyrol and several other supporting characters are busy harvesting algae, despite the fact that they just risked their lives flying through a dangerous gas cloud and probably needed to rest.
- Really Gets Around: Discussed. Anders tells Lee that he's not the only one Kara's had an affair with, implying that her infidelity is a constant habit.
- The Reveal: Before this episode, it wasn't clear to the audience whether or not Adama knew about Roslin faking Hera's death. He didn't.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Referenced by Head Six, who tells Baltar that he can't come "home" to Galactica because the command staff would love to throw him out an airlock and then have a party.
- Wham Line:Tigh: They're testing us. Want to know if we're bluffing about nuking the planet.Roslin: Well, unfortunately we are bluffing.Bill: Are we? (Beat) Mr. Hoshi… order nuclear ground-strike missiles into launch tubes 4 through 10.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Bill gives Roslin this reaction when she reveals that she faked Hera's death. In a Deleted Scene, though, he sits and listens to her explanation why she did it, and tells her that he understands.
- The X of Y: The episode's title follows this format.
