The drop through the atmosphere was hands down the coolest thing ever. I got suspicious when Adama got ready to jump in orbit there... I was thinking that he would have jumped Galactica into the atmosphere and stayed there to cover the evacuation (since all the civvies jumped away from just above the surface anyways). That probably would have been the smarter thing to do, provided that the ship could 'hover'.
I was very impressed with how this episode wrapped up many of the sub-plots, clearing the way for others. Now, most things are back to 'life as usual', with all the normal relationships between characters (though we don't know if Callie and the cheif's child made it out), or how many of the civilians died in the exodus.
The victory party at the end was made a bit somber by the loss of Kasey and Ellen, and I could tell that Adama realized, and was a bit guilty for taking all the glory for the operation.
This leaves me with a few questions:
If they had to fly Galactica below the atmosphere to launch the vipers (i.e. they weren't able to make the transition themselves, for whatever reason), how did they all suddenly get back out and into orbit to make it on Galactica?
Also, in previous episodes (and I think in the miniseries also), there was much focus given to the idea that Galactica's hanger bays had to be retracted before a jump. Damage to the pods has more than once delayed jumps in the middle of battle. Yet, at this point, when Galactica was on the verge of being destroyed, and Adama was hopping across consoles connecting cables that would mysteriously fix the FTL drive, they were able to recover the fighters and jump away almost instantly!
And, Adama's mustache is gone, finally! Gotta be some symbolism there.
Wasn't Helo CAG on Galactica anyways?