'Battlestar Galactica' Retro Recap: 'Scar'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

It would seem as we move into the back half of season two of Battlestar Galactica that the show is shifting in tone toward far darker places. While the earlier part of the season seemed to hold tight to working together and putting aside one's differences, these last few tales have locked their sights in on the notion of death and how we deal with it on a personal level.

Granted, the show has stumbled and stumbled hard when it comes to exploring these concepts simply because 'Black Market' was an unmitigated failure in the matter, because one really cannot explore death properly when you turn Lee Adama into an ace detective, but I digress. Since the episode that follows that mess is nothing sort of brilliant since 'Scar' continued this new exploration of our mortality, and  extended that notion beyond our human characters...by passing it along to a powerful Cylon Raider as well in a story that also saw Kara Thrace, fall from grace. 

This particular tale had us join the crew the ​Galactica as they worked to protect a mining mission that would in many ways shore up the future of fleet since the mining team was harvesting materials that would provide fleets of Vipers to be built aboard the Pegasus. But there was one caveat when it came to completing this mission; a Cylon Raider nicknamed 'Scar' that was incredibly good at bringing down colonial pilots. His existence created quite the stir amongst the pilots, since everyone outright feared him and every single time they took to the void they knew there was a chance that Scar could claim their lives and really...the aspect of death that this episode explored, was the fear of it.

Because we saw Kat clash with Starbuck over her fear of being taken down by Scar and for that matter the Cylon Raider in question also happened to be terrified over its possible end since we learned in this story that Raiders are traditionally reincarnated like other Cylons and the pain of prior death and the potential of one final one hung heavy over this warrior. But the centerpiece of exploring this fear came from Kara, who struggled mightily with the possibility that Anders was lying dead somewhere on Caprica and she was falling to pieces over that possibility and it drove her to the brink of madness, and it seemed her only hope for sanity was to drink as much as possible and hope for a swift end if a face off with Scar came into play.

Thankfully at the last moment, when she does come face to face with Scar, Kara makes the wise decision to live and in the process loses her Top Gun status to Kat when she helps the eager pilot bring down Scar, but when all is said and done...wow, this was one intense story. Not a moment was wasted in this one, and it featured top notch performances from every cast member and I truly appreciated the fact that it didn't offer any easy answers when it comes to facing death or the possibility of it, it only reminded us that sometimes we have to face whatever comes our way both good or bad with our heads held high and to never forget to honor those we have lost and there's nothing wrong with simple messages such as that and I'm incredibly glad to see the show getting back to its philosophical roots to turn this season around after that last misstep and judging from what I remember about the next episode, there's more about death to be explored, so it's time to settle in and see what somber message awaits us. Until next time.

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