Probably the best part of the episode, aside from discovering that Admiral Cain is having girl-on-bot love with a Number Six model Cylon, is the character Kendra Shaw. A Starbuck-esque macho girl, Shaw becomes Cain's right hand after the Cylon attack. We watch a lot of the action in this episode unfold through Kendra's eyes: she sees Cain slowly degenerate into vengeful madness after the Cylon attack (and the discovery that her lover is a Cylon spy), and then she becomes Lee Adama's XO after he takes charge of the Pegasus in the wake of Cain's death. Wracked with guilt for her role in a massacre of civilians protesting the Pegasus takeover of the fleet, Shaw tries to honor Cain's legacy with bravery but not to fall prey to her appetite for violent destruction.

The episode centers on what happens when an exploration crew goes missing and Pegasus sends out a rescue mission to find them. Of course, they discover a hidden nest of Cylons — but not the ones you're expecting. They've come across a group of old-school Centurions who have survived for decades guarding a creature they call "God." This sets off Commander Adama's own flashbacks to the first Cylon war, when he found the lab where "God" was made during a series of experiments in human-Cylon hybridization.

You'd think all the flashbacks and digging into BSG's past would be boring fansturbation, but instead it makes for riveting, character-driven action. The legendary old Centurions and their God make for creepy-cool spectacle, while the sparks that fly when Starbuck argues with Shaw over battle plans are just plain good drama. Admiral Cain's shadow is cast across the whole story, as it should be. Her choice to embrace war over survival is the dark foil to Adama's more rational choices. What propells this episode into a brilliance that transcends space opera is that we come to sympathize with Shaw's loyalty to Cain, even as we reject Cain's idea of justice. This moral ambiguity is what has always made BSG such a strong show. Whether grappling with Cylon love or human cruelty, Razor delivers. It will renew your hopes for season four of the show, set to begin (hopefully) in April.

• The Wachowskis' Speed Racer movie backgrounds will be all greenscreen like 300, says star Emile Hirsch. All except for Chim Chim the monkey, which is real. And presumably flung its poop at the pristine green walls. [Empire]
• Dave "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" Eggers collaborated with director Spike Jonze on the script to Where The Wild Things Are, Jonze's next movie. Wild Things will mix live puppeteering and computer animation. [Hollywood Reporter]
• The Mist took ninth place in the holiday weekend box office, behind more obvious holiday movies Enchanted, This Christmas, Bee Movie and Fred Claus. But Beowulf, American Gangster and Hitman also blew The Mist away.

• Jack Black is bummed that he didn't get to star in a Green Lantern movie. Black was set to star in a comedy, involving an ordinary schlub who joins the corps of space cops with wishing rings. He would have attacked his enemies with green boxing gloves, cages... and condoms. Suddenly, the upcoming Justice League movie (which includes Green Lantern) doesn't sound so bad. [MTV Movies Blog]
• But Black's getting his revenge, by creating a fake trailer for Robocop. It's one of the viral videos posted on the Web site for Be Kind Rewind, his January 2008 film about a guy who erases a video store's stock and decides to remake every movie himself. [Slashfilm]
• When Michelle Forbes return to play Admiral Cain one last time, she chased the other Battlestar actors around the set demanding if they knew who the final Cylon was. And she got nothing. Come to think of it, maybe Cain's the last Cylon? [TV Guide]
• The fans are all right. Southwest Airlines' Spirit in-flight magazine randomly decided to feature an article about fan-fiction. Want to see a version of Heroes where the physics actually makes sense? Leave it to the fans. [Spirit]

• Everything You Need to Know About Razor. Here's the crucial background from season two episodes that shed light on the plot twists in Razor.
  
  
• Everything You Need to Know About the Flashback Webisodes. SciFi has aired a series of two-minute webisodes that flash back to the first cylon war. Here are the ones you must watch.
• Gay Cylons Can Be Your Allies and Friends. Will you still think so after tonight's episode?
• Leaks from Starbuck's Mouth for Season 4. Here's what Katee "Starbuck" Sackhoff told fans at a recent convention. You'll want to know after Razor.

• Midway through Season Two, the Galactica encountered another Battlestar that survived the Cylon attack: the Battlestar Pegasus. It's a much newer ship than the Galactica, is twice as big, has a ship-building facility onboard, and superior firepower.
• Pegasus is commanded by Admiral Helena Cain, an iron-fisted woman who defines the term "hardass." She's skeptical of everyone and everything, and doesn't tolerate anything less than perfection.
• Cain's Executive Officer is Colonel Fisk, who serves as the whip for Admiral Cain. He drunkenly tells the Galactica's Colonel Tigh that Cain killed her previous XO for not following orders. It's unclear if he's joking or telling the truth.
• The Pegasus has a Cylon Number Six model in captivity in their brig. This model is later freed by Baltar, and she executes Cain with a point-blank shot to the forehead.
• Colonel Fisk assumes control of the Pegasus after Cain's death, but is later killed by a man running a large black market in the Colonial fleet. After he dies, Chief Engineer Barry Garner assumes control, although he quickly proves that while he's a whiz at solving engineering problems, he's not much of a commander. He dies saving the ship, after which Admiral Adama promotes his son Lee to commander, and gives him the Pegasus as his first command.
• Commander Lee Adama sacrifices the Pegasus in order to save the Galactica and the Colonists fleeing from New Caprica. The ship is destroyed in a massive firefight, although the crew is able to abandon ship.
• Razor takes places between seasons Two and Three: Lee Adama is the commander of the ship, but through a series of flashbacks we're told how the Pegasus evaded destruction during the initial Cylon attack, and what happened to them up until their encounter with the Galactica.

Turns out there's a separate Cylon faction that wants to protect something called The Guardian. We'll be seeing more of this Cylon civil war in season four. And a Cylon "God guy" makes some dire predictions of what will happen if the humans follow Kara Thrace, who is referred to as "the harbinger of the Apocalypse for the human race."

Battlestar Galactica: Razor Is Amazing [Eclipse Magazine]