With the shocking confirmation that the final Cylon is not anybody in the Last Supper photo our choices are far more limited, short of this being an out and out lie. While I don’t put it past the producer of a show to lie (or certainly to equivocate) on a show’s central mystery when asked a direct question, this is fairly direct. It’s either a lie or a bizarre equivocation where “people” is taken to literally mean “non-Cylon” so that he’s saying “The final Cylon isn’t any of the non-Cylons in the picture” — a tautology.

Let’s examine the choices left to us. It’s made more narrow by the declaration by D’Anna that the Final Cylon is not with the fleet. But there are no minor characters of note that are not with the fleet when she says this, other than dead characters. Worse, there are some dead characters she should not yet know to be dead. The one exception is Seelix, who is only marginally a character of note.

I’ve said for some time that the unmasking of the final Cylon, as a major climax of the series, must be dramatic. It has to be shocking and unexpected to most. While Baltar, who was my choice up to this point, would not have been shocking, I expected the “why” to be the real source of surprise, rather than the person. This may have to go doubly for the dead character.

Popular minor character choices Gaeta, Dee, Zarkek, Lampkin and Cottle are clearly with the fleet. And they’re also quite uninteresting choices. Revealing it is one of them will elicit a “ho-hum” rather than a “Holy Shit” the way Tigh’s unmasking shocked most of the audience (though of course not yours truly.) So even though some feel that D’Anna could be playing tricks by saying there are only 4 with the fleet, I see no reason for her to know that one is special, unless that one is on the base ship or dead. In fact, nobody on the fleet except the 4 themselves knows that one is special. And indeed, no reason for it to be any minor character on the fleet.

Other limiting clues include the following:

• A report that the final Cylon was chosen during the first season. Other reports suggest it was a person from the miniseries but this is less confirmed.
• Confirmed reports that there are clues in the show about this person
• The prophecy of the first Hybrid about final Cylon: “And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering.”
• The famous line that “Adama is a Cylon” given by Leoben, while in captivity.
• While far from certain, there are a lot of dramatic reasons to suggest D’Anna’s “You, forgive me, I had no idea” is to the final Cylon, somebody singled out for special recognition in the circle.

While it’s not confirmed, it is my belief that the “Final Five” plot, with a whole new class of ancient Cylons, was not fully fleshed out until the 3rd season. However, many of these choices require this plot to have been worked out in the first season when the Cylon was picked. My intuition could be wrong here.

It should be noted, that by and large there are no actual clues that point towards any of these characters (or any other characters not eliminated by the photo.) In fact, truth be known only a few of the eliminated characters (Baltar, Roslin, Starbuck and perhaps the Adamas) had actual clues, clues on the order of Tyrol’s compulsion to find the Temple or his superior response to vacuum.

Joseph Adama

My former favourite was recently eliminated by a declaration by Moore that it will not be somebody the audience has not seen, not a guest star.

Note that Lampkin tells Lee Adama that he looks just like his grandfather. It would be an interesting twist if Lee were a new incarnation of Joseph, however since Lee is in the last supper photo, that doesn’t work out.  read more »

I’ve received word, via E-mail, from Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune regarding the famous Last Supper promotion photo. As you may know, in the interview surrounding that photo, the Entertainment Weekly reporter asked if the Final Cylon was not in the photo. Moore responded:

You ferreted that out pretty slyly. I didn’t really want to give that away.

This equivocal answer (he doesn’t say the Cylon is not present, the reporter does) had many people wondering. Ryan did an interview with Moore in which she asked him about it, and that contained a confirmation with some reporter-added text in brackets:

MR: Just so I understand what I think you told EW for the story that went with the photo, none of the people in that photo is the final Cylon, right?

RDM: Yeah. I said that. I probably shouldn’t have said that [laughs] but I have said that. So, yeah [that is the case, the final Cylon is not any of the people in the photo].

I wrote to Ryan, and she confirmed that Moore had just said what was attributed to him, and the text in brackets was her elaboration on the meaning of his “So, yeah.” However, she wrote to Moore, and he responded to her. She reports to me by E-mail that Moore has OK’ed the following quote:

“Ron Moore confirmed to me that the final Cylon is not any of the people in the Last Supper photo.”

So, short of a tricky interpretation of “people” (which I pointed out to Ryan before she asked Moore, so it seems unlikely) this seems pretty definite.

I must admit this surprises me for several reasons. First of all, I would not expect Moore to give away such information conclusively regarding the central mystery of the season and show, cited every time in the opening titles. I would expect him to equivocate, and now he has said he did not.

The other reason it surprises me is I don’t really like the choices this lays down upon us. My current pick had been Baltar, the Chosen One but his story will obviously be different. Most of the minor characters did not provide a dramatic enough story to be the climax of the season. And now, almost all the minor characters have been eliminated by the proclamation by D’Anna Biers that the final cylon is not with the fleet. This leaves mostly dead characters, for whom my top pick is Joseph Adama, with Elosha more distant. I am not sure the audience would be satisfied by these.

I’ll have written some more analysis of the minor and dead characters.