Battlestar Galactica season 2

[Spoilers]
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[Rape trigger alert]


I watched episodes 9, 10, 11 amd 12.  The ones with Admiral Cain and her fleet of hideous people.
That was uncomfortable viewing wasn't it?  Actually uncomfortable doesn't quite cut it, they were horrible and disturbing.

For those of you that haven't seen it, the protaganists ship finds a second human run ship, who take command due to military protocol.  This new ship has a cylon (enemy robot) on board, as a prisoner, and has been beating, whipping, starving and gang raping her since the start of the conflict.  I say her, because the cylons look and feel exactly like humans, and if you were to do medical tests on them, they would appear to be humans.  They have feelings, morality, can think, reason and interact just as humans do.  They also want to wipe out the human race, which is the premise for the show.

Anyway, Admiral Cain's fleet takes over Commander Adama's fleet  (the good guys), and initially this is fine, because it's how the military works.  Everything's cool.  Then we learn about how Cain's soldiers have treated their prisoner, and we cut to the good guy's cylon prisoner and the chief interrorgator (of the bad guys) is beating her up and starts raping her.  Then a couple of good guys storm in, kill the rapist and attack the other soldiers.

It's a fucking horrible scene and throughout the episodes it is made quite clear that the bad guys do not think that the cylons are human, and they say you cannot rape a machine.  Which is odd, because the way they are talking about her indicates that they know her reactions and they want to cause her pain.  If you cannot rape a machine why do it?

In contrast the good guys also know that the cylons aren't human, and although they give their prisoner no respect, she is fed, given clean clothes and is well cared for.  She is not beaten, or raped, or abused.  She is given looks of disgust and comtempt and isn't accorded any friendliness.  The good guys are quite specific that they think she is other than human, but I don't think they think she is less than human.  Just other, and dangerous, very dangerous.

It's horrible viewing.  But I don't feel that it shouldn't have been done, I don't feel that it is gratuitous, and I don't feel like I do about most rape scenes or tropes.  That says a lot about the quality of the show.
But the gods help you if you have been raped and you watched this, because I imagine it would be very triggering.