Well, it had to happen. All these simmering tensions, all these unanswered questions, all this "Unfinished Business." It all had to come to a head, preferably in a way that involved our favorite characters pummeling the stuffing out of each other. Fortunately, Bill Adama is a student of the old, Roman, "bread and circuses" variety of stress-relief, and so we get this visceral Battlestar outing. I don't know about you all, but after the sub-par fare of these last couple weeks, not to mention the nearly unrelenting darkness and horror of the first seven episodes this season, I was ready to throw down myself, and this episode gave me some much needed, vicarious relief.

First, the boxing competition is a nice framing device. By turns fun and exciting, by turns heartbreaking. Wonderful use was made of some of the tertiary characters, especially Hot Dog's ill-considered match with Starbuck. Finally, it's all right to laugh about something! The competition is also uncomplicated enough that it doesn't distract from the meat of the show: The questions still lingering over what exactly happened in the space of Ron Moore's "great leap forward."

The title match of this episode is our favorite set of bickering quasi-lovers, Lee and Kara Adama. Oops, I meant Kara Thrace. Yeah, they're NOT siblings. So hard to forget, sometimes. We'd all seen where the two of them were last season, we'd all heard that something really terrible had happened between these two while we took a year off. There was all this build up, and that worried me. What event could possibly frak their relationship up more than it already was? Well, in hindsight, it's obvious: Sex. Props to the writers for throwing that twist into the "will they, won't they" question: HA! They already did! So thankfully, the answer to the question of what happened between Kara and Lee does not disappoint.

This third season has had a running theme of, to quote a friend of mine, "finding all sorts of ways to paint Starbuck in the worst possible way." I can't argue with that here, as Kara somehow manages to betray one man and deeply wound another with one sex act, which is pretty impressive if you think about it. Kara's reaction to her tryst with Lee was vintage Starbuck: Running away from her feelings, hurting Lee to turn him away from her, marrying the man she ostensibly loves for all the wrong reasons. But to be fair to Kara, Lee's plan is hardly less awful: Shout your love to the heavens? What are you, 15? And on the basis of one night's romp, he's ready to turn around and ditch Dualla, who'd just transferred to Pegasus to be with him. He'll tell her that he's in love with Starbuck, which will simultaneously assuage his sense of honor and eviscerate her. Good plan, Commander. So neither Lee nor Kara come off looking very good from this affair, but damn if it isn't fun to watch! By the end of the second act, when the two are about ready to step into the ring, the episode has earned every bit of tension and drama it lays claim to. By then, we're all ready for the beat-down, whichever way it goes.

But all in all, the real strength of this episode is its success as an ensemble piece. The Lee/Kara story, while underlying the entire episode, does not dominate it. Rather, the script, tighter than it has been since the exodus, makes room for characters whom we haven't seen enough of in a while. Admiral Adama's bloody speech to the crew answers lingering questions about how he could have allowed the disintegration of the Fleet while in orbit above New Caprica. It also gives insight into Adama's character arc, to an extent not seen since "Precipice." The intervening weeks have shown Adama as a man subject to guilt (knew that), as a leader willing to cover for his crew (ditto), and as a tough-talker who won't take malingering (check). Now, we've got another glimpse of the Adama who wants his crew to act like a crew again, not a family. We haven't seen this side of him since Cain was around, and it's nice to have new business for the Admiral.

Of course, it'd be criminal of me to neglect mention of the sweet scenes between Adama and Roslin in this episode. The two have such an easy, charming chemistry about them at all times, it's easy to see how the first season was built upon, essentially, their relationship. I don't know that romance is in the cards for them; I don't know that it needs to be. Mary McDonnell and Eddie Olmos portray a much more subtle relationship, of two older people who have found deep, fond friendship with each other, and I could watch them for days.

The use of secondary characters in this episode was a bit of a mixed bag. Aaron Douglas, as we've come to expect, gives a great turn as Tyrol, and it's great to see him again, in a function other than as member of Zarak's Disappearing Squad. We also get to see a bit more of the Chief and Cally, in the early days of their marriage, which helps ground their relationship a bit more. One of the suspensions of disbelief for me, going into season three, was accepting these two in a marriage. Not an hour before the end of season two, we'd seen her with her jaw wired shut, courtesy of her groom-to-be. Using Tyrol and Cally to explore the problem of "mustering out" the fleet was an excellent choice, in that it also provided a bit more exploration of their relationship.

It's also nice to see Anders again. He's not given a lot to do this episode, but what there is, makes sense. His first scene with Kara, especially, shows Anders with a complexity of character which we might not have expected, given how he was initially written into the story. He still loves her, and wants to be with her, but he's not Lee: He won't put up with her crap forever, and he knows that he can't fight her battles for her. Whether this is trait is a strength or a flaw, it's at least consistent with what we've seen of Sam recently, and it distinguishes him as not just "Apollo Light."

By contrast, if there's any place where this episode fails, it's with Dualla. Dee has even less to do in this episode than Anders, and it's starting to prompt the question: Exactly what are the writers intending to do with this character? Are they trying to establish her as passive, as opposed to Kara? We haven't seen anything of Dualla, really, since the Pegasus was destroyed. And now, in an episode which, logically, should involve her to a great degree, she comes off as a non-entity. This is a problem, because the Lee-Dee relationship has suffered all along from its feeling almost like an afterthought. The scenes between the two of them earlier this season hit the mark: They were believable as a married couple, and Dualla got some good lines in, telling Lee exactly what his problem was. Sadly, the writers seem to have either lost interest in exploring what's going on between these two, or have just not figured out how to communicate it to the audience. It's a shame, because we've been with Dee the whole way, and she deserves better than to be an "also ran" to Starbuck.

The episode scores some easy points by giving cameos to some faces we probably won't be seeing again: Duck and Jammer are glimpsed in the crowd watching Baltar's ground-breaking ceremony, and Ellen Tigh manages to break our hearts just a little bit more. Yeah, it's a cheap shot, but did anyone not want to cry when Saul told her he was saving telling her that he was glad he'd married her, "for a special occasion?"

The problems with Dualla notwithstanding, "Unfinished Business" is an extraordinary episode, in terms both of its standalone worth and of its position in the larger story arc. Not all of the business gets finished, of course. The episode wisely avoids addressing Helo and Sharon, and the Starbuck-Anders-Apollo-Dualla dynamic moves forward appreciably, but hardly to any conclusion. I want more, and that's the hallmark of a successful episode.

Final Grade: A-

Episode Reviewed by: Louie Brennan "Gooby Rastor"
*****