i know we'll make it anywhere / away from here.

[thrace_adama]

In discussing during the Black Market rewatch afterparty which episodes of Season 4 I personally would be willing to rewatch at this point (almost a year later and the rage is still fierce with this one, in case you didn't know, and grudges are still being held!), I remembered this tidbit I'd read thanks to a friend that made "Sometimes a Great

Comments

[rayruz]

At least now I understand what Katee was talking about when she was saying it seemed like Lee was so torn up over Dee's death... that makes sense now...

[callmeonetrack]

YES! Exactly. I wondered when I read that quote by her what else must have been in this scene that we didn't see.

And clearly they DID write it that Lee was gutted by her death. And not that he shouldn't greive for Dee but... I can almost understand Katee interpreting it as Kara being shocked by this and wondering what it means wrt how he felt about Dee and how he feels about her.

[canadiangirl_86]

I get why Katee would feel that way but....of COURSE he would be this distraught. She was his wife.

But we saw him when Kara died. He screamed and cried and that was just in the few moments right after her ship exploded. His entire life was turned upside down.

[callmeonetrack]

Yup. I'm just saying I get why Katee would take that as some sort of sign that the writers were making Lee/Dee into...more than they were? IDK.

Maybe that's why TSAR was such a disappointment to me. I wanted more screaming and crying for a change.

ETA: I mean I think a lot of people say oh Kara never chose him, never chose him....but...Lee didn't really choose her either at the times he could have. Maybe UB, her marrying Sam was a bigger gesture, but they both failed to choose each other too many times.

[thrace_adama]

...but they both failed to choose each other too many times.

Indeed. I had SO hoped that would change there at the end for once and for all. *sigh* I think that's maybe why I'm loving the reincarnation fic--let's get it right this time, kids!

[thrace_adama]

His entire life was turned upside down.

So true. And with Dee, yes, he's horribly upset here. That it's a suicide is just BRUTAL. Yet he's also able to go on. After Kara, man...he was a comparative wreck. Which I heartily believe even though we only got to see a couple examples.

[callmeonetrack]

I very much disagree. I think they wrote Lee as horribly under-affected by Kara's death. I wanted so much more from TSAR than that lame Romo speech which ended up meaning nothing. Oh and him calling Racetrack Starbuck.

[thrace_adama]

I don't disagree the writers should have written more for Lee. I so wish there had been more. (I love alissabobissa's "Alone Time" so very much--wish we could have seen something like that.) However, what they did show was true to character, I felt. Like, I thought calling Racetrack Starbuck was huge because he's not one to lose his cool like that up there. As repressed as he is, and as much as he depends on his facades just like Starbuck, that was very telling. The other pilots certainly were affected by it. They key to making TSAR better in my opinion would have been to give him a scene in which he was truly alone, in quarters (because other than Kara, there's no one he would have let see how upset he was, not even or maybe especially his dad and Dee), but of course that wasn't going to happen. Too quiet a scene for BSG, especially in an ep where they needed to move the plot along quickly too.

[callmeonetrack]

It was sorta true to character, but...that was the problem maybe? If ever Lee was gonna indulge and let out his feelings for Kara that should have been it. Like I said, and you agreed, a scene in private would have been crucial where he could just really let the audience in on his grief. THEN him being so stoic and trying to hold it together everywhere else would have been even more powerful. I don't think the scene should have been quiet though. With the way they had shown Lee breaking down previously, it should have been huge. That's where he should have been shoving shit off his desk and sobbing and doing his Leemo thing. I wanted to see big, huge, loud, angry grief.

[thrace_adama]

Can we really say for sure that Lee didn't break down in private? After all, TSAR (unfortunately) takes place weeks after Kara's death. So we just don't know. I choose to believe he did. But what could he do after that? He didn't really have the right, in his mind, to be publicly mourning her weeks later like Sam. Yet he was still walking around like a zombie, and everyone noticed and knew that even if he wasn't getting drunk and falling off Vipers like Anders, he was in fact still grieving for her.

[callmeonetrack]

Right, but the gap is the problem. I mean we can fanwank whatever we want: he loved her, he hated her, he was just numb, he was drunk for those two weeks, etc. I wanted CANON acknowledgement of his intense, crippling grief--how else could Lee react to Kara's death, right?--and what they gave us felt way too small and already processed and... distant. Because of course he'd already been coping with it for two weeks and done all the inappropriate things (presumably) he would've done

Re: in defense of TSAR

[callmeonetrack]

I'm thinking that Lee did his grieving in a very Lee-appropriate way.

I agree. Which is why it wasn't enough for me. I didn't want "appropriate" levels of grief. I wanted WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE levels.

Because like it or not, Lee had been set up with his prior outbursts and that stupid wedding ring scene to be the kind of guy who DOES breakdown (shades of Adama maybe). So it was already canon that he has it in him to do that...therefore I was baffled when he DIDN'T for Kara's death.

They just failed on the execution with TSAR for me. It wasn't big enough or profound enough. Everything was mute and disconnected. I'm not saying the whole episode should have been this complete wrecked/sobfest. But the whole thing shouldn't have been so quiet either. It would have been more powerful to see the contrast between his private moment and how he really felt vs. his public moments when he was holding it together mostly.

Re: in defense of TSAR

[callmeonetrack]

Lol! It's not Baltar's trial. You don't have to defend it or defend liking it. :) Most people love it; I don't. Wasn't enough for me. Wanted to see his immediate raw grief, more than the minute or so we got of him in the cockpit. I really think narratively we should have seen the immediate aftermath and it should have been huge.

And I actually would've liked more reactions from other people too. Dee especially could have been very interesting. Someone wrote a great fic about how she dealt with her own grief as well as Lee's over Kara's death. If Kara had died in S1 or S2....we wouldn't have gotten an episode like TSAR I think. It would have been very different. (But then again, that's true of the whole show.)

But back to Lee, he frustrates me most when I can't understand him. And I couldn't understand how he could be so well-adjusted/functioning (mostly) just two weeks after Kara's death. I just couldn't believe it.