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Not as difficult to watch as one might
think on paper, given how obviously wrong the secret
tribunal was behaving. This was more of a loose-ends
wrap-up, moving characters around and advancing larger
arcs, kind of like Season 2's "Epiphanies," which
was necessary to continue stories but wasn't so powerful
on its own.
It actually took us most of the opening
scene to figure out whether it was Jammer or Gaeta
being sentenced! Logically it had to be Jammer, given
the setup from the first four eps, because he was the
one we could recognize and might have some investment
in.
Let me say right off the bat: the idea
of a secret tribunal is wrong. Trial yes, evidence
yes. But not the same jury for each trial, and the
accused has the right to a defense, and to representation.
What the Angry Six were doing was frontier justice
with a veneer of legal mumbo-jumbo to sop the conscience. If there
was sufficient evidence to convict a particular person
of treason, and given what we saw of Jammer there might
have been, then yes, the sentence for treason is death.
But not the way they handled the "trial," and
not execution by airlock. And perhaps Jammer saving
Cally might have been enough to sway a different jury
to give him a different sentence. The Angry Six don't
get to decide all that. They don't get to convict on
emotion and circumstantial evidence, as Tigh did of
Gaeta. They didn't know what he did or didn't
do. They don't have the right to decide his fate based
on their desire for vengeance. And, of course, the
Angry Six are also "collaborators," holding
these secret trials and executing people whom they
the almighty deem guilty.
Moogie called Baltar's dream immediately;
when Ghost Six strutted in wearing a new red outfit
and nobody else was speaking, I started to suspect,
but I didn't know for sure. Love that he wakes
up in a room under an enormous swishing red eyeball!
(Although not for anything, that couch would be really
uncomfortable to do anything but drape oneself languorously.
It's not built for sleeping or knocking boots, and
the SPOTLIGHT underneath doesn't help.) When Threena
came in and started pouting and posing on the divan,
I wondered for a moment if Rebel Six had died and her
personality had gotten downloaded into the wrong model....
Poor Anders. He finally earns his name
and gets shuffled off. He was a good fighter, and a
surprisingly good leader, but he never wanted to
be a soldier. He can actually think about the war being
over, about not fighting any more. It's the military
folks who are having a hard time letting go.
I was absolutely delighted to see that
the Colonials (and the writers) respected the rule
of law and had Zarek take the Octagonal Office, so
Roslin had to reclaim it through proper parliamentary
procedures. We'll have to see whether she kept her
bargain with the devil and made him her VP as she originally
agreed. I sort of hope so -- as the old saying goes,
keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Unlike
former vice president Baltar, Zarek has no outside
duties or second job to keep him plausibly wandering
off, and has shown demonstrable interest in
politics, statecraft, power, and leadership. He does want
to be on the inside, so he's going to stick around
and be part of policy-making. That will allow Roslin
to keep an eye on any extra-curricular activities he
might choose to indulge in. (and why isn't she ever
allowed a VP who's on her side?)
Tigh, and anyone else in CIC, might well
be justified in being angry with Gaeta, or choosing
not to speak to him off-duty (since he didn't explain
how he helped the resistance until the end). It does
not justify the verbal assault, and certainly not while
in uniform. If Adama ordered everyone to work with
Gaeta to get the ship back up to speed, everyone has
a duty to do so, or to request some kind of duty change
through official channels. Having a hissy fit on the
Bridge is unacceptable.
Speaking of Tigh, is he trying to expiate
his guilt over Lady MacTigh, or is he just unable to
stop waging war? He fought, I think there were two
Cylon wars originally forty years back, then this war,
and now the battle on New Caprica. Does he feel like
he can't stop fighting? If the tribunals had continued
and all fifty-odd people had been executed, would he
have been sated? Or would he have kept going some other
way? Does he feel he has some kind of special moral
permission or right to be part of the Angry Six because
he executed Lady MacTigh?
Is Baltar hooked on Vicodin,
trellium, or just some macguffinite to be revealed
later when it's useful to have him in withdrawal?
As seen on TV: Doc Cottle's Jump Rope
Diet! You'll float like a butterfly in only ten easy
episodes!
Starbuck rushes to judgment (as usual,
and quite typically for her) and assumes that Gaeta
both knew about her imprisonment and that he did nothing
about it. But it was one particular Cylon who was keeping
her locked up, not the Vichy Colonials, so Gaeta wouldn't
really have known about her regardless. Of course,
we as the audience realize this, since we're given
the omniscient look into everyone's tortured soul,
but Gaeta is protesting to a brick wall here. She demands
that he beg because she literally needs someone to
kick around. She can't get back at Buckin' Leoben,
no matter how many times she killed him, so she's looking
for other targets. Really, anyone in the entire fleet
who has the least training in psychotherapy needs to
volunteer or be drafted, pronto.
I would have loved to seen the arguments
between Boomer and the other Sixes as they tried to
sway Rebel Six to their side against Baltar. Maybe
that's being saved for another episode. But what are
they going to do with him? Toss him back to the Colonials?
Abandon him on a Cylon colony? Execute him? Borgify
him?
I am a little surprised that Anders chose
to walk when Kara pushed him away. You'd think after
the last four months, after the last year and a half,
after how she went through Fall, fog, and fire to get
him and the others off Caprica, that he'd know her
well enough to recognize when she's being bullheaded
and not let her leave. You wouldn't think he'd be willing
to end the relationship! I hope Moore and Co. aren't
rushing through this arc, and that we see more of the
struggle between them.
We were disappointed that Tyrol went
through with the Angry Six all the way to the bitter
mistaken end with Gaeta. We thought he was going to
find out about someone, like Gaeta, and take it to
Adama, who would find out that Tigh was heading off
the deep end. Kara would have been the other choice,
but she's equally likely to stay, given her anger and
her general lack of maturity.
I could not believe Zarek authorized
the tribunals. While he does have a point about the
publicity, the martyrdom, people getting off on technicalities,
etc. -- hey, that's how the system works. It's
messy, but it's mostly fair. Everyone gets the chance
to defend themselves. We do forget, as charming as
Zarek is, that he was in prison because he blew up
a government building and killed people. He's not afraid
of deadly expediency.
Mary McDonnell was deliciously frightening
to watch, with that icy smile and sweet unruffled calm
in the face of Zarek's rationalizing. She lives and
dies by the system. It caught her out last time and
she submitted to it. It's how Adama knows he can trust
her, when he can't trust Zarek, even if Zarek has good
ideas sometimes.
Did Roslin make the right move, with
the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation and the
pardons? I think she saw some of the truth in what
Zarek was saying, and tried to use that wisely. It
was a long slide into a bad situation under Weaseltar,
and five terrible months on New Caprica. The wounds
shouldn't be ignored, but they don't need to be repeatedly
ripped open. |
