[1] In the episode, Admiral Helena Cain and Commander William Adama call a truce but plan to assassinate each other.

[3] In "Pegasus", Apollo and Starbuck plotted to steal the stealth-capable Blackbird to obtain reconnaissance photos of a mysterious ship escorted by a large Cylon fleet.

Cain sentenced Helo and Chief Galen Tyrol to death for accidentally killing an officer to rescue Sharon.

President Laura Roslin mediates an uneasy truce: the resolution of Helo and Tyrol's fate will be delayed until after the attack on the Cylon fleet.

Impressed by what she calls Starbuck's "guts and initiative", Cain promotes her to captain and appoints her Pegasus CAG.

Cain also promises Starbuck she will lead the fleet back to Caprica, destroy the Cylons, and rescue the survivors.

Cain ordered it stripped for parts, impressed some civilian personnel, executed the families of any who resisted, and abandoned the rest in space.

Likewise, Cain directs Fisk to take a detachment of Marines to Galactica to kill Adama after the attack.

Gina asks Baltar to kill her, but he urges her to seek justice, not death, and promises to hide her.

In his podcast commentaries on "Resurrection Ship", executive producer Ronald D. Moore discussed his views of what the episode's events reveal about several of the characters.

In his reviews of "Resurrection Ship", Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity discussed his own views on the characters.

Amanda Keith of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group disputes Starbuck's assertion in the eulogy that the fleet was safer with Cain in command; Keith attributes Starbuck's assessment to dissatisfaction with Adama and Roslin's leadership and ignorance of Cain's past misdeeds.

Keith compares Baltar's fancy on this point to Cain's impossible dream of reclaiming the irradiated Twelve Colonies from the Cylons.

[8] Jennifer Stoy cites Roslin's call for Cain's assassination to argue that Battlestar Galactica challenges gender stereotypes, at least in its early seasons.

[5] "Resurrection Ship" was originally written and shot as a single episode, with the assassination plots hatched at the end of the second act.

[5] They also decided early on to allow Pegasus to remain in the fleet; Moore believed this would subvert the audience's expectation that the more powerful battlestar would be destroyed at the end of the episode.

Plans to include footage of the wrecked Raptor and its dead personnel along with Apollo were scrapped due to the difficulty of creating the shots and the feeling that it would be too morbid.

The writers considered having the Vipers open fire shortly before Starbuck appears, but they feared the consequences for morale and cohesion in the fleet.

Keith McDuffee of TV Squad called the episode "amazing"[17] and praised the scenes between Baltar and Gina, Apollo's swimming fantasy, and the special effects.

[8] Jacob Clifton gave Part 1 an A, praising the moral ambiguity around Cain's actions, Olmos's performance, the editing of the final scene in which Cain and Adama give their assassination orders, and Starbuck, Adama, and Fisk's reluctance to participate in the assassination plots.

[6] He gave Part 2 an A+, calling actress Michelle Forbes (Cain)'s performance "wonderful", the battle scenes "awesome", the battle music "[g]rand, wonderful, sad and angry and terrible", and the final scene between Adama and Roslin "candid and weird and perfect and sad.

[13][20] Simon Brew of Den of Geek lauded the battle scene but said the rest of the episode was even better; he called it "all the more impressive for not doing what you'd expect it to do.

[24] Eric Goldman of IGN ranked "Admiral Cain's reign" in "Pegasus" and "Resurrection Ship" second on his list of the series's top "storylines and moments", praising Forbes's performance and calling the three episodes "riveting".