there's got to be more than this boat i am in
Maelstrom
Oh, fuck, this episode. Kara. Karaaaaaaaa. I’ve been chewing on it for days now and I don’t think I can make myself watch it twice to pick up anything I didn’t get down the first time around. Anything I missed, hit me up.
For all that, I’m not actually coming up with a whole lot to say about Kara herself for this episode. I feel terrible for her. But at this point, she feels (as a character and probably to herself) as someone who’s passively in the grip of so many forces - destiny, Leoben, her mother, the wounds on her traumatized mind, her physical and emotional exhaustion - that I don’t think she knows what’s driving her to destroy herself, and I’m not sure I could target any one cause. But “I’m not afraid anymore” is a bullshit reason to give up. That’s the reason you don’t give up. This just didn’t feel like something Kara would choose.
I hate Leoben, and those dreams of Leoben make me nauseous, and I assume they’re supposed to, since Kara describes her dreams about him as nightmares. But it’s still just sickening. I hate him hate hate haaaaaate. It’s unclear if the Leoben visions were actually Leoben, or if her mind gives voice to her turmoil with his image. This is my issue with the use of actors as ghosts or otherwise in the show, because what the ghost-character says can really fuck with my opinion of the character. (For good or for bad; head!Gaius is smarmily lovable; head!Caprica is terrifying no matter how hard Caprica tries to be good, which in fairness probably has something to do with that terrible first impression she made when she murdered a baby.) Our perceptions of others aren’t always correct, even if we get the general outlines right, so it’s not the best idea to gauge the character from other characters’ opinions.
This is a prime example. If this is Starbuck panicked that Leoben had insight into her, and thinks of him as the devastation she’s suffered starts to rise to the surface, that’s one thing. It says something about the influence Flesh and Bone and then Occupation/Precipice had on Kara. Fair enough. Those are important episodes for her, and he’s heavily tied into them. (Because he is a sadistic, controlling fuck, but still.) But if Leoben is actually able to get inside her head even when he is not around, and he chooses to do this, to make her kill herself, that is. There is nothing more appalling. Leoben’s connection to the Oracle suggests that there’s something to dream Leoben besides being Starbuck’s subconscious, though.
I write my own destiny. I don’t think Kara would actually be so fucked up by the visions if Leoben didn’t crawl up in her brain and torture her with them. She’d be freaked out. She might not trust herself for a while. She would definitely react. But she could deal. She believes in the gods, and she trusted Roslin’s destiny enough to abandon Adama to further the quest for earth. It’s a shock to her identity, not her worldview. As it is, though, Leoben - the character who took away her power every day for months that she never thought would come to an end - is the one telling her she has no control over her destiny, and that’s far more of a headfuck than finding out she has one.
And he goes out of his way to take everything away from her. All of your high-wire stunts have been an act. Everything you did was because you were afraid. And that’s part of it, to be sure, but there’s so much else to Starbuck that whatever is taking the form of Leoben in her mind ignores. It’s all part and parcel to her journey to the space between life and death, for what she genuinely used to love about life to be stripped away like this.
Kara’s forcing herself to try and talk about what her mother, and Leoben, did to her. She tries with Sam. She tries. Oh, as if there were anything she could do to deserve what she got.
Can I say, kudos to KS and the script for actually showing what chronic exhaustion does. This isn’t the acute adrenaline-filled exhaustion the show tried to show us in 33, this is what it’s really like. Your face sinks in. Your reflexes get dull. You tell yourself the suicidal impulses are about something else, and even if you don’t have Kara’s problems, your life is so fucked up you don’t lack for excuses. You just can’t keep it in any more. You lose the filter, you lose any opportunity to control your thoughts and your mouth, you just talk.
Anders doesn’t actually react to her confession badly. He doesn’t let loose angrily on her mother, but he points out that Kara couldn’t have provoked major abuse. He doesn’t head-pat her, but he expresses sympathy. “Gods, Kara.” He just doesn’t know what to do about it. He doesn’t follow through. Maybe there’s nothing he could do. He can’t make her leave the ship. He can’t keep her out of the sky. He can’t betray her trust and run to the admiral or Lee.
We didn’t learn a whole lot new about Kara’s relationship with her mother, really, until the terrible revelation of her reaction to her mother’s sudden death. (Does the show ever deal with the fact that Caprica was apparently awash in carcinogens for years, that so many people we meet have suffered fast-spreading cancers?) No wonder Kara is so good at pushing people away, and why it’s such an excruciating effort for her to reach out, and why she does it anyway. What did her mother know about her DESTINYYYYYYY? It sounds like there was something there, though I don’t think it was anything more to Kara’s mother than it was an excuse to take her rage out on her child the way she was always going to do anyway.
Lee and Kara finally sit down and open up to each other, but it’s too little, too late for Kara. Lee doesn’t know how fucked up she is. His guess that she needs to be the fighter pilot to be pulled together is…it was true up until a couple of weeks ago, I think. He’s trying to play catch-up to understand her, but on some level he agrees with her that it’s “like old times” and she’s the person she was at the adrenaline-filled sprint at the end of world that was the beginning of everything. She’s still the hotshot problem pilot, but she has way, way different problems, and she asks him for the opportunity to deal with them, and he tells her no. In the sweetest tones in the world, in a way she couldn’t bring herself to take exception to even if she was in a place to fight him, but it’s still the truth of what he does.
As it is. I believe thinks he’s helping. He’s doing exactly what he would want someone to do in her position, expressing confidence and willingness to support. But what he’s actually doing is pushing her out there and convincing her to depend on him. He doesn’t realize just how far away she is from being able to depend on herself. He doesn’t listen to her. He is there for her, he believes in her, and because that’s all he’s ever needed (and never gotten) he can’t get his head around the idea that that’s not the answer here.
The worst possible thing he could have done, in fact, was to respond to Kara’s self-assessment that she can’t trust herself, by saying, essentially, that she doesn’t know her own feelings as well as he does. That she shouldn’t trust herself, but he knows better. Because, she doesn’t trust herself. She’s vulnerable to exactly that. And I see why he gets it wrong, I do, and I see that it’s happening despite his active work to fight his flaws, but it’s still just so terrible to hear.
She’s doing exactly what he wanted her to do back in Unfinished Business, isn’t she? You never let anybody inside. She’s letting him in. More than she’s ever done for anyone, I’m almost entirely certain. Oh, she tells Anders what her mother did, but she only cops to how she is feeling, who she is right now at this moment, to Lee. First she talks around it when they’re sitting in front of the remember wall when she starts planning for her death with him, and in particular with her invocation of Kat - who did try to kill herself and then Starbuck helped her finish the job - and then when that’s not clear enough, she straightforwardly says that she doesn’t trust herself. Only Lee gets to see that. Now, and probably ever. But he won’t acknowledge it. He for some reason needs her to cave right when he asks her for something - even if it’s something wonderful, even if it’s Lee Adama loves Kara Thrace - and he doesn’t or can’t recognize her taking him up on his offer. On his terms, or not at all.
It’s almost like there’s a hair’s breadth between compassion and empathy with Lee, and in that tiny little difference lies everything to do with Kara. Lee is compassionate. Lee is brimming with compassion, especially with Kara. But he thinks that’s enough to be compassionate, so he doesn’t (or maybe can’t) empathize with her - that is, to understand what she is saying and figure out how best to support her. When it comes to the people Lee loves, he feels a ton. He doesn’t know jack shit. And like his old man, the last thing Lee can deal with is the idea that he doesn’t get it.
AAAAAAAAH. LEE ADAMA SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. I was actually starting to like that little twerp. Between being the one to stand by my girl in 2.0 (and however many points you think that buys with me, you are underestimating), being the only one in the fleet with his head screwed on right in Exodus, now with my compassion for his sad but realistic struggle to actually deal with the Kara situation, and Jamie Bamber’s ability to simultaneously charm and annoy me even as he is gutting me with a butter knife, he had a lot going for him. BUT HE JUST WANTS ME TO HATE HIM. I think I see why he doesn’t quite get what’s going on with Kara, but that’s just not enough to do it for me. He does still have feelings for her BUT GOD HE SHOULD BE USED TO THAT, WHAT DOES HE NOT HAVE A SHIT-TON OF FEELINGS ABOUT, and he lets his end of their connection control the way he relates to her. He lets his feelings for her burn up everything in his path - the way his very real and serious unhappiness did with work at during 2.5 - and obscure the fact that behind LeeandKara, there’s also Kara.
He wouldn’t make the offer he does for any of the other pilots, I don’t think, because if he had any ability to step back at all he would know it was a terrible idea. And right now, she needs him to be her CAG (she says as much) and her friend and pay attention to what she needs. And because he thinks, but it’s Kara, it’s different, we’re different, he doesn’t realize that it’s not different in every single way that matters.
So again, seen the promos, know she isn’t dead or if she is won’t stay dead permanently but I have to say I hope that shit gets worked out soon, because I am not sure how long I can handle a double shot of Adama mopery. Which, you know, yes, they will feel terrible about Kara and I will (most likely) have sympathy for them, but their regrets for once aren’t going to be their grandiose exaggerations of their impact on the past. Bill really did kick Kara down when she was already falling fast, and Lee really did fail in his duty to her as an officer and partner. It might let Bill deal, because he’ll at least be able to tell himself that he won’t make that mistake again, whether or not that’s true. But it will destroy Lee.
The Son Also Rises
We see a couple of dueling legal philosophies in this episode. Lamkin’s is more idealistic and philosophical, that the law exists for us to work out individual psychological demons. It’s a nice one, but it’s crap. We don’t exorcise demons with the law. We try to put just a tiny release valve on the chaos so we don’t explode. Roslin takes the long view, that we use the law to deal with social dangers within and without. And that’s why she means the hell out of it when she says “This administration…will never allow terrorism to interfere with the framework of our legal system.” Because it’s about letting people see that there’s something we fight the terrorists for. There’s a reason to go on. There’s something we can depend on that’s not defined by the enemy. (This, btw, is why the idea of Roslin as post-9/11 conservative just does not hold up. Roslin is about rationality. Post-9/11 conservatism is about rationalizations.)
Unfortunately, rationality can come up against tragically limited time and resources. Pulling names out of a hat for a tribunal? Some judicial nomination process. What in the world makes the captain of a ship into a judge? Adama especially should have been excluded. He’s been personally responsible for keeping Baltar prisoner, which could influence his judgment (and in fact we know it has because of the drugged interrogation a couple episodes back). He’s been in on interrogations of key witnesses for the defense. He has a close personal relationship with the president (snerk) and has been involved in the selection of the attorneys. And it doesn’t look too good that one of his own men murdered Baltar’s first defense attorney, either.
It isn’t about justice for Baltar. There’s just no such thing. There’s no making that right. It’s about the rest of the fleet. And part of that is for the trial itself not just to be fair, but to be above suspicion of unfairness. And that’s why Adama should never have been included on the ballots. It’s not just that I don’t trust him to be any more impartial about this than we have seen him be about anything so far, though lol @ bill being impartial, but it’s also about appearances. Having him on the tribunal just looks terrible. Is that justice, then, if Baltar is convicted by his own jailer? Is that what the fleet wants to be able to count on from here on out? And I don’t see Bill doing the self-aware thing and stepping aside, but I’m surprised Laura didn’t think of that. Maybe it’s the specter of the attempted election fraud coming back to haunt her. As if this is anyone’s idea of representative democracy anyway.
Know who this is a great episode for? Cally. She’s come a long way from assassinating the assassin. Maybe it’s being a couple of years sadder and wiser, or her time as a labor justice activist, or something in Baltar’s book just stuck. “It’s called justice.” She’s the one who finally says out loud what’s been fairly transparent since the very beginning of the show, that the Cylons could well be fucking with humanity to force our worst instincts onto each other. Of course, that wasn’t the case here - the Cylons don’t need to be involved for human murder to occur, we do that fine on our own all the time - but it’s an important reminder that it’s possible. It’s part of her tendency to demonize the Cylon threat - she throws that “some of us don’t get a second chance” in Athena’s face without a second thought - but it’s also a pretty commendable commitment to human justice. Her convictions don’t just apply to her. (Was hoping it was some wacky twist like IT IS LAMKIN HIMSELF PLANTING THE BOMBS, but no, it was Kelley, drawing enough attention to himself to guarantee that he would get caught as well. Whatever. Point is, get it, Cally.)
The grief over Kara in this episode. Ooooh. It hurts my heart. I gasped out loud three times during the pilots’ briefing when Lee says “you got lucky, Starbuck.” Oh. oh. sweetheart. i am so sorry. And Anders. Anders. oh sweetheart. He reacts, well, exactly the way Kara would have, getting breathlessly out of his head and doing everything he can to avoid the reality of his loss. Knows that's what he's doing, but can't stop himself from doing it. Throughout the episode - not just in the end - they bury their animosity enough to respect each others’ grief, and I liked seeing that a lot.
Oh my GOD BALTAR. I am worried about Six! Because of ME! Baltar has moved from “up the revolution” to “the nature of my life is obsession.” He was clinging to his anger at not getting a trial as the problem he needed to solve and his inspiration for legitimate social commentary, but getting some reasonable treatment and legal representation has taken the wind out of his sails and now he’s just moping, because really, what else does he have to do?
Oh, Roslin and Adama watching the interrogation. “I feel like part of our world just fell down.” I think it’s a little unusual that Six moves them this way but Athena didn’t - it’s one thing for the crew, who knew Boomer before she knew anything - but it’s another thing for Laura. I suppose they’ve just been able to think that Six is a femme fatale who didn’t mean any of her feelings - but if she can thoroughly intend her love for Baltar, maybe also her fear and nascent desire to do the right thing are also for real.
Poor Lee, grounded, but it’s the right thing to do, just as it would have been the right thing to do to Starbuck two weeks ago. Bill’s doing it for partially selfish reasons, of course, he just can’t lose Lee, everyone else is expendable but not his baby boy. Bill is kind of a dick about Starbuck. You think your loss is greater? It is. It is. How. How does he not know. This is even worse than the “y’ok” that pissed me off so much in UB.
Which. LET’S GET TO THIS. Lee! LEE! AAAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAH! This just made me so happy for him. This has been something I was hoping he would do (I knew he was going to be involved in the trial somehow but OH MY GOD! this! LEE!) in some form or another almost this whole time. He doesn’t even take any particular joy in being in the military, and he never has. When there was at least the opportunity of advancement, that was one thing; when the bombs hit it became about contributing to survival and taking care of his pilots and being with Kara, but now he’s been through it all, he’s commanded his own ship, he’s saved the world, and now he’s spinning his wheels. In a lot of ways the tension with Starbuck and Dee was what was keeping him together, since it kept his mind off of the lack of the conflict he clearly needs in the rest of his life. And he’s just getting over the rawest of his grief over Starbuck, enough that he’s doing more than going through the motions but not so much that he’s mulling himself into passivity when it comes to huge decisions like this.
Does it make me like him? Does it even change my opinion of him in any way? I don’t know. I’ll have to see where he goes with it. It does make me like his story better, to see the character do something besides put on a facade and spin his wheels. God knows, though, being an attorney is not in any way mutually exclusive with being a smug, self-satisfied asshat, though, so I can’t say it’s changed him for the better. I’ve had such complicated feelings about Lee since 2.0 (S1 it was mostly just contempt) that I don’t know if I’ll ever have a straightforward opinion on that. I’m definitely really invested in him, one way or the other, but he just makes me AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH so often.
Lamkin’s manipulation of him is pretty expert, I will hand it to that slimy bastard. We see him seal the envelope to Baltar, so he doesn’t just believe Lee will hand it over untouched, but that he’ll openly do something that will work to the defense’s advantage. Lee’s clearly fascinated from the first conversation he has with Lamkin - well, he’s been fascinated with this stuff for as long as we’ve known him - and Lamkin knows exactly which buttons to push to get him more intrigued. That story he told Six was as much for Lee’s ears as for hers, as we find out in retrospect when he tells us he knew about the picture of Starbuck Lee’s carrying around. It doesn’t hurt Lamkin’s mission that Lee is incredibly suggestible (as we saw on the Pegasus, as we see whenever he’s around Bill). All Lee ever needs is the tiniest push before he starts running around yelling DIE WEREWOLF ZOMBIE, but he’s been through enough now that he can channel it appropriately and follow through with it.
Perhaps most important is the specter of Joseph Adama. If daddy’s boy sees that there’s some familial tie to what he’s thinking about doing, it’ll make things a little bit easier. In a way, the law books and stories about Joseph are ways to push Lee into actually acting like Bill in this one crucial way - walking away from everything his father stands for. And oh. “He defended the worst of the worst….” See, totally new twist on this after Caprica. Some of those worst of the worst were Lee’s family too. Whether or not he knows this is up in the air but seems unlikely; I’m guessing Lamkin knows it, though, and is keeping it in his pocket.
This is exactly what Zarek tried to get Lee to do a year ago, when he was on the run with Laura. But he wasn’t ready to do it yet. Bill had just almost died. And in the end there wasn’t any future in it for him. It would made him an eternal reflection of his father. It would have just pulled him rudderless out of the military and around the fleet, to serve and ultimately become Zarek. It wouldn’t have gotten him anywhere, and something in him knew that. This, though. This is a high-profile case and an apprenticeship with probably one of the only attorneys left in the universe and the ability to contribute to that something more, that reason why he’s been fighting all this time. He’s been contrary forever because he didn’t think it mattered anyway, because he was so used to clamping down his objections and uncertainties that it didn’t matter which ones he had, and he didn’t think anyone was listening when he dropped his reservations out loud. But his reasons for shutting up are dwindling, and his opportunity to be heard has just increased exponentially.
Somebody had to call Bill out. Finally. Someone had to do it. “Is. That. An order.” And it could only be Lee. Only. That’s not actually pushing too hard. It’s just letting on to Bill that he’s willing to put up a fight for something. He’s not going to acquiesce to Bill’s dominance any more just to pass on a fight. Nobody challenges Bill, except for Laura, and Kara, and they’ve done it so selectively (in Laura’s case) and impulsively (in Kara’s) - not like this, not planned out and thrown at all of his sore spots. And even that’s enough to upset the equilibrium between them. (Lamkin, in turn, calls out Lee, as someone had to. “Suddenly I’m handcuffed to a serial contrarion.” Daaaah! DAAAAAH! Don’t even try to deny, Lee.)
Bill, of course, does not listen, and is a total jerk when he dismisses Lee. “I’m done giving you orders.” Lee…isn’t Kara. He’s followed all of Bill’s orders so far, he gives the tiniest sign of wanting to be anything other than a viper pilot, and Bill acts like Lee took a dump on the deck. Has he even had to order Lee to do anything before? I mean, really, not even the assassination plot. You can’t be “done” doing something you don’t actually do.
Whatever. I am so excited for this trial, y’all. This just presses every one of my buttons. Cannot wait.
other thoughts
- OH MY GOD. HOT DOG. “….what’s up?” I kinda love that nerd. I just see his face and laugh because I know I’m going to enjoy whatever’s coming. (ALSO KIND OF A CUTIE. Apparently he is a baby Olmos?)
- SHOW DON’T TELL. Lee and Dee are better than they have ever been? O RLY? IS THAT EVEN SAYING ANYTHING? WHAT THE HELL.
- I LOL’d so fucking hard when Helo was the one to suggest that Starbuck see the shrink. This show is so detailed. So well thought-out. I love that I know these characters so well that I can guess who would do all this. WHAT UP. And oh, Kara. “Shrinks are more frakked-up than their patients are.” Preach, sister. (Not always the case, but definitely true more often than you’d like. AND I HAVE A PRETTY GOOD SAMPLE TO DRAW FROM FOR THIS ONE.)
- HOW DOES SIX NEVER RUN OUT OF LIP GLOSS? EVERYTHING YOU COULD HAVE PACKED FOR THE NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST AND YOU BRING AN ENTIRE SEPHORA WITH YOU? (Actually, you can get almost that exact color in drugstore brands. Softlips, pearl shade. Recommended.)
- The idea that that tool Lee just gets to swan on into practice while I went through 100 years in a hell dimension law school and still have to take the bar makes me die inside. YOU SPOILED LITTLE SHIT.