3.14 The Woman King

Odd title for an episode, I thought, and it turned out to be something of a play on words, featuring as it did a pivotal character, a woman, named King! This episode focused on Helo for once, which made a welcome and interesting change. As became clear towards the end, Helo’s function has been very much as a lone voice crying out in opposition to what is usually viewpoints that don’t agree.

Usually he’s a bit of a bleeding heart for Cylons, and even in this episode, when he is left defending the fate of the curious people of Sagittarion (who don’t believe in medicine or technology so much, so I guess they’re kind of Mormonic, or Luddite!?) when he believes they are being bumped off by the doctor.

As it turned out he was right, but he had to go through a lot of self-examination and cross-examination from the likes of Adama and Tigh, amongst others. In the end, Adama bestowed an apology and Helo saluted him so I guess that sort of puts them back where they started. The only thing we had gained was more of an insight into Helo’s character, which was worthwhile though probably not wholly consequential in the grand scheme of this Season.

What was pivotal, it would seem, is the brief scene with Laura and Zarek discussing whether to hold the trial of Gaius. Zarek was adamant, and apparently scared, that holding such a trial would open up a “hurricane” of trouble that even the provision of marshall law might not be able to contain.

I’m not quite sure where Zarek’s conviction comes from. I got the impression that, basically, since Gaius was so clearly guilty in the eyes of the people for their sufferings on New Caprica that the idea of even giving him a chance of being proven innocent would create anger and rioting. At least, if this trial goes ahead, it’s been granted an extra layer of interest!

Meanwhile Caprica Six was in her cell, being watched as she talked to herself and kissed the imaginary Gaius that had turned up for her. Again, I am forced to ask myself what the deal is with these two and each having an imaginary version of one another serving as their conscience of sorts. There’s hopefully some form of rationale behind this, but beyond mad thoughts about them both being Cylons that died and, on their way to being downloaded somehow got entangled en route, I can’t really fathom it out.

So that was that. A bit of a standalone, character study of an episode that Battlestar Galactica occasionally chucks out there – biding time until the next set of ‘to be continued’ episodes rear their heads! (They’re always the best ones!)