BSG 3.05 Ronseal Collaborators

[hazelk]

This week’s episode, despite obvious merits, left me feeling somewhat detached. For all that it dealt extremely thoroughly and fairly with an issue that was inevitably going to arise given what happened during the occupation and managed to do so while keeping all the major characters very much in character, flaws and virtues both, I still came away from it feeling as if I’d rather read a book about post war (insert occupied and then liberated country of choice).

This may spring from an aversion to drama-documentaries, I’m not sure. Or that an episode called Collaborators only did exactly what it said on the tin. It may be that the characters were so in character that the only one I felt that I learnt something new about was Tom Zarek. I didn’t expect him to have been behind the circle tribunals but that revelation and his defence was illuminating. So somewhere between failed idealism and hard-earned pragmatism he’s evolved into some kind of Machiavellian populist? Not so far from Roslin really and I wonder how she might have dealt with the circle had she been made president immediately instead of being presented with it after several people had already been airlocked. The form of the executions pointedly mirrors her previously preferred method of cylon disposal and during the occupation she certainly seemed to have plenty of rage against their collaborators. But she’s had time to think now.

There are structural similarities with the S1 episode Litmus, where again the slip down the slope to summary justice was halted by the intervention of a higher authority (Adama in this case) deciding stirringly that the cure was more dangerous than the original disease. Caprica/Galatica Sharon issues in the B-plot of Litmus mirrored the identity concerns of the A half, as does Baltar's trial by Cylon and the question of his allegiances here - ironically Roslin’s pardon for all collaborators did rather echo his dream at the beginning of the episode, the first part at least, in the latter part she’s standing in for the softer side of Sixes. Possibly.

I think Litmus worked better overall. Possibly because the issue was more urgent, identifying cylons became a witch hunt but the original threat remained a problem for the future. Whereas here, the Occupation being over, those seeking vengeance had less underlying justification for their actions. Also in the earlier episode Sharon *was* a cylon and, in that narrow sense at least, calling off the Tribunal was a mistake but in the current one Gatea *wasn’t* the collaborator the circle had thought him to be.

On reflection part of my dissatisfaction comes from the feeling of the whole collaboration issue having been tied up in a neat bow and that may well be a premature assessment. Zarek may yet be proved justified in seeking to prevent the issue lingering by any means. While Tyrol and Anders may be satisfied with Roslin’s pardon, I doubt that Tigh, the nameless man with the 7 year old son and possibly Starbuck will be, having suffered more permanent and personal damage at the hands of the Cylon. And if Zarek is a smart Machiavellian he probably would have realised that when he gave presidential approval for the circle and set a precedent for institutionalised vengeance that Roslin cannot now deny is within the power of law.