Episode Report Card Jacob: A | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT The Truth About Reconciliation
By Jacob | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on October 26, 2006
In Colonial One, Adama demands to know what the hell the Circle was about. "It's all perfectly legal," explains Zarek. "You'll find a signed executive order on file authorizing a secret jury of six men and women to try, sentence, and execute people guilty of extraordinary crimes while collaborating with the enemy in a time of war. There's also a death warrant with my signature for every conviction." Adama calls an end to Zarek's presidency with a quickness. "Your presidency is a farce." Roslin makes an appeal to Zarek's sense of fairness and democracy, reminding him of due process and the right to a jury trial. (It would be so weird if this were about Gitmo, Iraq, Afghanistan, a thousand other atrocities. Wouldn't that just be so weird?) "They have a jury. But they don't get lawyers. They don't get to showboat for weeks and months on end. They don't get to blame the system and they don't get lasting fame as martyrs or innocent people just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They just disappear." That's so beautiful I just voted Republican in my boxers.
"Now," Zarek continues, "in the gray twilight between the long night of the Occupation and the dawn of a new era, you come into office clean, without their blood on your hands." Which is...um, compelling. I'm so confused now. Are secret trials and war crimes like Zarek's version of flirting? That is so hot. "That's very poetic," Roslin stutters. "However." (Here we go! I love the Roslin "however" marker.) "You have a problem, Mr. President. Everyone by law is entitled to a trial with representation. Everyone. It is not an option to be discarded at the president's whim." He asks if she's honestly thinking she'll get justice by going public. "Come on, Laura. You're not that naive. Let me tell you what's gonna happen if these cases go to trial. It'll consume this Fleet for months, maybe years. People will be lining up to testify against their neighbors. It'll be a circus -- an entertainment for the mob. And you'll be signing death warrants almost every day. Is that how you wanna spend your next term, Laura? As executioner-in-chief?" She smiles sadly and turns away, totally grossed out, caged in, boxed up. He's right.
A crazy-looking priest swears Roslin in, aboard Colonial One. How many times has she become president? It seems like a whole lot. She shakes the Priest's hand and turns to the press. "Thank you. Thank you all, for once again entrusting me with this high office of civil service. Today's a new beginning for all of us. We share a unique destiny" -- cut, of course, to Starbuck at her locker, hanging her dogtags inside. Next to Zak's ring -- "that our future is ours to shape, and our past cannot be forgotten. A new day requires new thinking. And while I had intended on using this occasion as an opportunity to announce a formation of a special prosecutor's office charged with investigating acts of collaboration with the enemy" -- Tigh settles into his quarters, remembering Ellen -- "I have decided instead that a different gesture is called for on this, the first day of my next term as your president." Zarek, in the audience. "We all feel the need for justice, and we all feel the need for vengeance." Zarek looks down at this. "And telling the difference between the two can be difficult at times. We are all victims of the Cylons." On the basestar, Gaius watches sadly as Caprica leaves a suit of clothes in his room.