BSG 3:17 Maelstrom
Death and the maidenhead
Is this to be the season of significant female character death? Ellen, the Threes, Athena, Kat and now Kara. All entering that state with eyes open, Ellen accepting, D’Anna devout, Athena demanding, Kat heroic and Kara? Kara embracing. Death is a runty little man surrendered to, painted in milk before a g-spot mandala. As Starbuck she used sex to keep people at arms length but not today.
Mother’s milk is dead today
Big surprise of the evening? Kara loved her mum. Who beat her, belittled her and taught her to fear no lesser monsters but one. On this show love is complicated, not wise or good. Lee fell out of love with Carol Ann but he had to watch her unleash her demons on Zak where Kara and Socrata just had each other. Was it mutual? There was a story in the papers a few weeks ago about a blind boy whose mother refused to accept that as a limitation and who’d taught himself to see by sonar. Reported as a triumph of mother love but it must have been hard in the early days. What if it hadn’t worked? What if she grew bitter fearing that outcome? What if you push too hard and then can't come back from it?
It’s left ambiguous whether Kara was rationalising love where there was none, whether even that rationalisation was something she only discovered how to make after Casey, but I think the vision of going back her mother’s house actually wasn’t about making peace with the dead but with death itself, the one monster she’d never learnt to face.
A very special cover band
Considered a stand-alone this episode has an icy perfection, a purity of purpose that brooks no distractions as it heads to its inevitable (with hindsight) conclusion. However, killing off the most iconic character on the show isn’t a plot development that can be earned in isolation, it has to have some wider meaning. That meaning could be meaninglessness, Kara’s death could be reduced to her suicidal tendencies finally catching up with her, the dreams and the destiny the self-justification of a broken woman. It could be saying, as Lee admitted on the show, that this war is pushing all of them beyond their limits, that human beings are not infinitely resilient, one way or another we all break eventually. If so Kara’s death will not be the last and the show may have to end in a very dark place, darker than I think is really sustainable in a long running serial drama.
She came in through the bathroom window
Alternatively, the destiny could be something more mythological, the introduction of the Aurora figure an indication of what’s to come. It’s a risky step to take although the amount of set up makes it seem more likely that they’ll have to do that; in general the series has seemed to be moving in a more mythic direction since the Home arc ended the way it did. BtVS season 6 fan that I am I do hope they don’t bring Kara back as a goddess or if they do as an unconflicted one. Whether that’s the atheist or the feminist hoping I’m not sure.