Lee "Apollo" Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
Title: Not The Hero You're Looking For
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Character: Lee Adama
Author: inlovewithnight
Spoilers: All episodes to date; miniseries through the end of season 2
Notes: Thanks to karabair and romanticalgirl for AIM discussions that really helped clarify a lot.
The thing about Lee Adama is that his own show doesn't seem to like him much.
This is, to put it mildly, a bit strange. On your standard sci-fi program, you put your conventionally-attractive under-40 male lead front and center. You give him Heroic Storylines and Romances-of-the-Week. You, well, make him the hero. (See everything from Kirk, James T. to Sheppard, John.)
The "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica, though, opted not to go that route. It had so many other shiny things to show us. It had political allegory and feminist reinventions and parables--parables, I tell you!--about the deeper meanings of humanity, divinity, love, and war, not to mention coming up with outfits for Tricia Helfer that wouldn't scare the SciFi Channel's censors...
All of which means that Lee Adama didn't get the hero slot that, by genre convention and character archetype, should have been his. He got something potentially more interesting.
He got to be a real bastard, a wide-eyed idealist, a broken little boy, a traitor, and the last of the white knights at the end of the world. He's Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in one (with maybe a dash of Boba Fett when it comes to "Black Market"), with the kind of angsty issues George Lucas only wishes he could write. He got to do all that because the show doesn't particularly care if you like Lee Adama. He's not a textbook hero, and he doesn't require your affection to function as a character.
Instead of being front and center all the time, most weeks Lee Adama is everyone's foil. He's a complicated character if viewed as a whole; when broken down into episodic chunks, that complexity may read as inconsistency. Lee's more than the sum of his parts, or his scenes.
1. "Apollo's just my call sign. My name is Lee Adama." (Miniseries)
We meet Lee Adama in the miniseries when he shows up at Galactica for the decommissioning ceremony. It should be noted that he does so against his will. He emphasizes this repeatedly. Vocally. Miniseries-Lee is a bit of a prick, you see. He's cranky and he's bitter and he has daddy issues. He doesn't get a cute or clever or dashing entrance; he shows up and immediately starts being unsympathetic.
He shows up, lands his Viper, and immediately starts mouthing off to Chief Tyrol, whom we've already met and been cued to love by virtue of his...Tyrol-ness. This is not an essay about how awesome the Chief is; suffice to say, the Chief is awesome, we learn it early on, and when we meet Lee he is NASTY to the Chief. Therefore, Lee does not start off on the right foot with we the audience.
He then goes to visit Commander Adama, the Old Man, whom we have also been cued to love by virtue of his crusty father-figure-ness to his crew. But apparently, as Lee's temper tantrum in this scene illustrates, he was not a great father figure to his actual son. And they had a big fight when the other son, Zak, died. Zak is a Big Issue for Lee (well...in season 1, he is; in season 2, Zak is pretty much forgotten, much to some of our dismay, but who knows? There are seasons to come and old plot threads might become new again), so this scene is highly important for setting up Lee's emotional baseline. He's the figurative Other Son, who feels alienated from his family and, by his attitude and evidence from deleted scenes (which I will try not to reference much in this essay, but Ron Moore has a real problem with assuming that info from deleted scenes was somehow transmitted by osmosis into the viewer's mind), from his role as a military man as well.
Over the course of the mini, Lee does step up and do hero-things, but they're largely overshadowed by the showy glowy shininess of Kara (and oh, miniseries-Kara is glowy and shiny and wonderful), who is by far the more conventionally-dramatic character, as I will go into below. The most important thing to come out of the mini for Lee, character-wise, is that he bonds with Laura Roslin, the brand spankin' new President of the Colonies, Or At Least What's Left Of Them. His shrug and grin as he delivers the line "The lady's in charge" and establishes himself as a Roslin man sets up a really lovely, interesting relationship dynamic (which also fails to survive into season 2).
2. "I didn't know we were picking sides." ("Bastille Day")
The exact moment that I fell in love with Lee Adama comes partway through the episode "Bastille Day" (1.03). This is the moment where Lee, visiting a prison ship with a few other officers in an effort to recruit a volunteer labor force, realizes that the prisoners are revolting (in senses other than hygiene). He then proceeds to launch himself physically into the fray. I can remember my train of thought while watching this scene:
"There's no way he's going to attack an entire ship of prisoners single-handed, he's not possibly that stupid...oh my God, he IS that stupid. He is stupid and noble and he's getting the crap kicked out of him. That is amazing. A-maz-ing. I think I love this guy a little."
And then in the next scene he was all sweaty and bloody and had removed his jacket to flaunt his arms. And THEN he sulked and pouted and made speeches about democracy. And I knew that yes, in fact, it was love.
At this point I imagine many of you are going "Um, what? So far you've said he's a jerk, he's mean to the nice characters, and he's stupid. And yet you love him? It's just the arms, isn't it? Admit it, shallow fangirl!" But there's more to it than that.
First of all, his prickly exterior is very clearly presented as a defense mechanism that covers up...more bitterness and anger, toward both the world and himself. Lee, it is established at several points, is an idealist. He believes in things like democracy, the rule of law, and, I suspect, the fundamental goodness of humanity. He's not sappy about his beliefs; he's actually a bit pushy and defensive over them, but he does genuinely think that they are important and that other people should value them as well. And therefore, like most idealists, he is destined to be disappointed and crushed at every opportunity.
"Stupid," then, was an inaccurate assessment. Lee is not stupid. Lee is, perhaps, at the time of "Bastille Day," a bit naive. B-Day is a great Lee episode, and one of the best scenes comes at the end, when he faces down both his father and President Roslin and defends his actions on the prison ship. "I don't owe either of you a damned explanation about anything," he says, and in that line we see the two most predominant traits of the character: his idealism and his isolation. Between them, these two elements will bring Lee down in a hard fall by the end of season 2.
3. "Because you're right, Tom. You were right about democracy and consent of the people. I believe in those things and we're going to have them." ("Bastille Day")
The idealist side of Lee is played up by his interactions with two characters who are politically opposed: Laura Roslin and Tom Zarek. Lee spends the first season as Roslin's "military advisor," since she cheerfully admits that she has no idea whatsoever how to deal with the military, and at the point when she requests Lee's help, she and Commander Adama don't get along at all.
Roslin and Lee bond over the fact that he's not a hard-line military man; he has doubts, he questions, he looks for the diplomatic solution. A particularly illustrative example of this comes in the episode "Water" (1.02), following up on the events of "33" (1.01), where Lee had to shoot a civilian vessel that was possibly infiltrated by the Cylons. He has difficulty coming to terms with what he did. His father dismisses his feelings and basically tells him to buck up and get on with it, but Roslin commiserates with him and shares his guilt, since ultimately the decision to destroy the ship came from her.
Lee's loyalty to Roslin, over and above his loyalty to the military, carries through the first season and provides the second-biggest plot twist in the season finale. Essentially, he is presented as not only wanting to save humanity, but to save the human civilization: the rule of law, the governmental structures, and the other rights and liberties that could easily be brushed aside in a post-apocalyptic scenario. He sides with Roslin because he believes she will preserve these things, more so than the military or other possible candidates for President. In the first-season finale, "Kobol's Last Gleaming" (1.12-1.13), he in fact mutinies when ordered to arrest Roslin, choosing her over his father and the Colonial Fleet as clearly as it's possible to do. Of course, then she surrenders and gets both of them arrested, so once again we have to admit that the boy doesn't think things through, but hey, he took a stand. The idealism isn't dead. (Yet.)
The following exchange with Roslin in "Scattered" (2.01), while they sit in Galactica's brig and wait for military justice to descend from above, shows the cracks of fatalism forming in his ideals:
Roslin: I am so sorry that I got you into this, Captain.
Lee: No, don't apologize. I knew what I was doing. But I didn't do it for you. I did it for... well, actually, I did it for... nothing, turns out.
Roslin: That's not true. You took a stand.
Lee: And now look at us.
There's enough idealism left, though, for him to plot an escape and sneak Roslin off Galactica and into hiding with Tom Zarek.
Zarek is another character who brings Lee's idealism to the fore, and is present at many of the points where we can track its decline and fall. They meet in "Bastille Day," and at first Lee is remarkably solicitous, telling the political prisoner that he's read his book, even though it was banned, and agreed with parts of it. Of course, then comes the ass-kicking described above, and Lee spends the rest of this episode with an understandable amount of hostility toward the man. But in the end, he chooses not to execute Zarek, prevents Kara from doing it, and gives the government's promise to fulfill one of Zarek's demands and hold elections. (Which is what prompts the "I don't owe either of you a damned explanation" scene-of-awesome where he stands up to Adama and Roslin.)
He next meets with Zarek in "Colonial Day" (1.11), which is a very strange episode for Lee, in that none of his behavior in it makes much sense in the context of the behavior we've seen before. He is contemptuous and vicious towards Zarek, which can be explained by the suspicion that Zarek is attempting to assassinate Roslin, except that open hostility seems out of character for the tightly-controlled character we've seen thus far. Lee explodes into violence at several points in the episode, which we have also never seen from him previously, and which isn't repeated except perhaps in "Black Market" (2.14). The simmering rage under the idealism has to this point shown up as biting sarcasm, and fades into hollow weariness by the end of the second season, so maybe we're supposed to think that there was something in the water in this episode.
The fugitive arc in the second season, where Lee and Roslin hide from the military under Tom Zarek's protection, produces some interesting sparks as Lee is forced to compromise some of his ideals to preserve the others. Working with the terrorist to protect the President, coming right up to the edge of denouncing his father before backing down, finally reuniting with his father and his military role before being introduced to some kind of magical/technological remnant of his culture's gods on a planet of myth...it's big stuff for Lee. Little of it gets followed up in the second half of the season, but watching the first half of season 2 as a whole, it's clear that Lee's world is being turned inside out and upside down over and over again.
After returning from Kobol, Lee drifts a bit. The Admiral Cain arc seems to put the final nail in the coffin of his idealism, as he is forced to confront both the dark side of the military and realize that Roslin isn't quite what he thought her to be when he learns she's ordered Kara to execute Cain. None of this is explicitly stated, though, just possible interpretations of various reaction shots and Lee's subsequent downward spiral and attempt at passive suicide.
He apparently loses faith in Roslin, and yet not in the military; in the second half of season 2, Lee suddenly becomes the committed military man. The military, while it has problems of its own, at least has a very obvious and rigid structure that doesn't produce sudden surprises the way Roslin can. His mission of infiltration in "Black Market" would seem to be another military-civilian blended project, but he only is mainly shown communicating with Adama and Tigh about it, and in the one scene they share with Roslin, the two Adamas stand united and framed opposite her. "Black Market" is another somewhat inexplicable episode, but it is canon, and it shows a fairly hollow and broken-down Lee, who has lost his idealism and is willing to pull the trigger as he wasn't in "Bastille Day." Call that character growth or backsliding as you like, but it does show that Lee has changed. He ends that episode sharing a drink with his father, which is light-years away from their relationship in the miniseries, but the framing of the last scene, and the expression on his face, make it clear that Lee is still very much alone.
4. "It means that you're still acting like you're everyone's best friend. We're not friends, you're the CAG." (Kara to Lee, "33")
Kara gets it right in "33" more than she or the rest of us know at the time: Lee can't be anyone's friend. Ever. He's the new kid on Galactica, not knowing anyone but Kara when he comes in, and he's immediately thrust into the role of CAG, with its inherent limitations on social interaction.
The friendship/URST between Lee and Kara is probably Lee's most consistent storyline, but it's unclear what he actually gets out of the relationship. It boils down to the fundamental difference between the two of them, established as early as the mini: Kara is active, and Lee is reactive. Kara is a mobile character, the mythological questing hero, and Lee stays home and minds the sheep. Really, Kara gets the stereotypical-sci-fi-hero archetype characteristics that, as stated above, you would expect to find in Lee. Which leaves a bit of a question as to what Lee's role actually is.
It sets up some interesting friction between them. As the quote above points out, Lee is the CAG. He's in charge of order and stability and following the rules. Kara is a maverick. She's also, canonically, special. "The best shot in or out of the cockpit," as we learn in "Bastille Day," and possibly the best pilot. It's unclear whether she or Lee actually holds that title (or later, if it's Kat), but it is clear that the rest of Galactica's crew believes that it's Kara. This comes into play in the episode "The Hand of God" (1.10), where Kara is unable to fly the big risky mission and it goes to Lee by default. Lee's bitterness about this fits into another part of his character arc, his search for respect, which will be discussed below.
There's no question that Lee and Kara have feelings for each other, but they fluctuate from episode to episode. Sometimes she's chasing him, sometimes he's chasing her, she shoots him once, they almost have sex but not quite, she calls out his name while having sex with someone else, she brings another guy home from Caprica...it's very confusing. The net outcome of this inconsistency in terms of Lee (since this is an essay about Lee, and not a Lee/Kara 'ship manifesto) is that he can't count on her. Whatever else she may be, she's not an emotional support for him.
His off-again on-again competition/flirtation/tension with Kara also fits into his complicated dynamic with his father. Kara is, in many ways, modeled on the show as Bill Adama's favored son. Lee is competing with her for parental approval and love.
This is illustrated in the episode "You Can't Go Home Again" (1.05) when Kara's Viper crashes and she's presumed lost. After an extensive, drawn-out search, beyond what would be made for any other pilot (hey, that's canon, they state it on-screen), Roslin finally bullies/convinces Adama to stop looking and move on. Lee and his father then have this wonderful exchange, which may be my favorite scene between the two of them ever:
Lee: I want you to know, I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak.
Adama: I haven't.
[Lee starts to leave but then stops and turns back.]
Lee: I need to know something: why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?
Adama: Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules.
Lee: And if it was me down there instead?
Adama: You don't have to ask that.
Lee: Are you sure?
Adama: If it were you... we'd never leave.
Adama loves both of his "kids," clearly, but that doesn't really seem to sink into Lee's head, as his angst in "The Hand of God" shows. In "Kobol's Last Gleaming," his mutiny causes Adama to entirely shut down emotionally towards him, which doesn't last very long as Adama then proceeds to get shot. Lee screaming and running to his father's side, cradling his father's head despite being handcuffed, is another defining moment for that relationship. However much bitterness Lee carries toward his father, even if he's just betrayed the man and been treated as coldly as a stranger, he loves him. Their reuniting hug half a season later, in "Home" (2.06-2.07), apparently puts a seal on their reunion on good terms, as after that point they operate essentially as a team, the tension between them apparently settled. The capstone moment between them comes in "The Captain's Hand" (2.17), which a) wins the prize for most nonsensical title of a BSG episode and b) has Lee finally receiving recognition and validation from his father when the Old Man promotes him to Commander and gives him the Death Ship Pegasus.
The healing of his relationship with his father is essentially the only positive movement in any relationship Lee has, though. He's all over the map with Kara, he drifts away from Roslin, he's antagonistic with Tigh, Zarek, and Baltar, and he rarely interacts with anyone else on Galatica in a meaningful manner. There are flashbacks to a pre-miniseries girlfriend in "Black Market," which also features a rather strange relationship with a whore on Cloud Nine. He seems to be constructing an illusion of family with her (attempting to bond with her daughter, returning specifically to her again and again), which she indulges but doesn't reciprocate. The idea that he's creating an illusion of a meaningful relationship to mask his own isolation is a fascinating one, but doesn't play out in canon, as none of the threads of "Black Market" have been followed up. Shortly thereafter he begins a relationship with Dualla that is presented to the audience as deep and meaningful rather than illusory, despite the fact that it largely takes place in deleted scenes. Perhaps this is a deliberate effort by the show to reduce Lee's isolation by providing him with a stable connection; we'll have to wait for the next season to be sure.
The death wish from earlier in the season is only briefly referenced, after Kara shoots him, but he seems to have gotten over that. By the end of the season, pre-time jump/reset button, he's still disillusioned and bleak, he still only seems to have an emotional connection to his father and Dualla, and those inconsistently, but at least he's (finally) got some respect.
5. "You're right about that part. I am not fit to wear the uniform. Maybe I never was." ("Valley of Darkness")
And really, all Lee's ever wanted is a little bit of goddamn respect. (Gods-damned, I guess. Whatever.) His snippiness and angst in "The Hand of God" all comes out of the fact that everyone openly wishes Kara was flying the mission instead. The last scene of the episode is awesomely symbolic, if you're into that kind of thing: he successfully completes the mission and returns to Galactica in time for a party. Kara (who holds the stereotypically male-role hero status here, remember) comes over to him and loads him up with some celebratory phallic symbols, which the camera lingers on lovingly. He has stepped up alongside Kara as active-hero and, symbolically been masculinized. It's all very nice, and absolutely hilarious if you have a weakness for symbolism, as I do. And after this episode he does step into a more action-hero stage of his development, instead of being the political guy all the time, so perhaps that symbolism was even intended.
As discussed above, "The Captain's Hand" seems to be the end of his fighting-for-respect phase, as he's been promoted about as far as one can expect to go in the current Fleet situation. Maybe he'll make Admiral when his father dies, but otherwise he's at the top, with a Battlestar of his own. The scenes of him assuming command of Pegasus mid-battle in that episode are really well done. Lee has a tic of talking to himself, repeating a key phrase to steady himself and his focus (evident in "Hand of God," "Valley of Darkness," and this episode) which adds a nice layer to the character by showing that he's not super-confident hero-guy. He's just Lee Adama, and he's in over his head and he'd really like to have someone to hand all of this off to. But there isn't anybody else, and so he steps up and gets the job done. Nobody ever says thank-you, because it's after the apocalypse and they're all busy with their own jobs and the problems in their own heads. But really, one passive-suicide attempt really isn't all that much after being the effective number-three guy in the military, the President's advisor and fugitive enabler, being one half of a psychosexual pinball game with your one friend/ex-almost-sister-in-law, and being on a ship with a severe towel shortage (you knew it had to come up sometime) for a season and a half.
I like Lee because he's awfully human. He's not a perfect sci-fi hero. He's short-tempered and sarcastic, but he can also be really goofy (see the beginning of "Act of Contrition"). He takes things seriously, but he has the most beautiful smile, made more so by the fact that we see it maybe one episode in ten. He's fiercely loyal to his principles and to the people he considers his, and if those loyalties come into conflict, he doesn't make the decision lightly. He's everyone's foil and everyone's whipping boy and he takes it all with some grace and some bad attitude, which is really all you can expect. He's delightfully flawed, and in terms of comparative airtime, he has a hell of a lot more issues to pack into each scene. Sure, I like Lee because Jamie Bamber is a lovely specimen of man-flesh, but I also like that he can say more with a single reaction shot than a speech, and that he brings his A-game to whatever the writers hand him (hi, "Black Market!").
I like Lee because he still has room to grow. The reset button at the end of season 2 leaves Lee in a rather odd place, and I'm curious to see where he goes next year. I'd love to see more Lee-Cylon interaction, some fleshing out of residual tensions between him and his father, a resolution to his relationship with Roslin, more scenes with Zarek...I'd basically love to see him do anything, because he's a complicated little space monkey, and I think there's a lot of ways he could go and still stay rooted in character. I like Lee Adama because he's not what I expected when I saw the miniseries, and he continues to surprise me as we go along.
Essential Lee episodes:
"Bastille Day"
"Hand of God"
"Black Market"
"The Captain's Hand"
Great Lee scenes:
Meeting with Roslin in "Water"
The scene with his father in "You Can't Go Home Again"
The dinner scene in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"
The end of "Kobol's Last Gleaming"
Fighting the Cylons in "Valley of Darkness"
Towel scene, "Final Cut"
All quotes from TwizTV.com
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Character: Lee Adama
Author: inlovewithnight
Spoilers: All episodes to date; miniseries through the end of season 2
Notes: Thanks to karabair and romanticalgirl for AIM discussions that really helped clarify a lot.
The thing about Lee Adama is that his own show doesn't seem to like him much.
This is, to put it mildly, a bit strange. On your standard sci-fi program, you put your conventionally-attractive under-40 male lead front and center. You give him Heroic Storylines and Romances-of-the-Week. You, well, make him the hero. (See everything from Kirk, James T. to Sheppard, John.)
The "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica, though, opted not to go that route. It had so many other shiny things to show us. It had political allegory and feminist reinventions and parables--parables, I tell you!--about the deeper meanings of humanity, divinity, love, and war, not to mention coming up with outfits for Tricia Helfer that wouldn't scare the SciFi Channel's censors...
All of which means that Lee Adama didn't get the hero slot that, by genre convention and character archetype, should have been his. He got something potentially more interesting.
He got to be a real bastard, a wide-eyed idealist, a broken little boy, a traitor, and the last of the white knights at the end of the world. He's Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in one (with maybe a dash of Boba Fett when it comes to "Black Market"), with the kind of angsty issues George Lucas only wishes he could write. He got to do all that because the show doesn't particularly care if you like Lee Adama. He's not a textbook hero, and he doesn't require your affection to function as a character.
Instead of being front and center all the time, most weeks Lee Adama is everyone's foil. He's a complicated character if viewed as a whole; when broken down into episodic chunks, that complexity may read as inconsistency. Lee's more than the sum of his parts, or his scenes.
1. "Apollo's just my call sign. My name is Lee Adama." (Miniseries)
We meet Lee Adama in the miniseries when he shows up at Galactica for the decommissioning ceremony. It should be noted that he does so against his will. He emphasizes this repeatedly. Vocally. Miniseries-Lee is a bit of a prick, you see. He's cranky and he's bitter and he has daddy issues. He doesn't get a cute or clever or dashing entrance; he shows up and immediately starts being unsympathetic.
He shows up, lands his Viper, and immediately starts mouthing off to Chief Tyrol, whom we've already met and been cued to love by virtue of his...Tyrol-ness. This is not an essay about how awesome the Chief is; suffice to say, the Chief is awesome, we learn it early on, and when we meet Lee he is NASTY to the Chief. Therefore, Lee does not start off on the right foot with we the audience.
He then goes to visit Commander Adama, the Old Man, whom we have also been cued to love by virtue of his crusty father-figure-ness to his crew. But apparently, as Lee's temper tantrum in this scene illustrates, he was not a great father figure to his actual son. And they had a big fight when the other son, Zak, died. Zak is a Big Issue for Lee (well...in season 1, he is; in season 2, Zak is pretty much forgotten, much to some of our dismay, but who knows? There are seasons to come and old plot threads might become new again), so this scene is highly important for setting up Lee's emotional baseline. He's the figurative Other Son, who feels alienated from his family and, by his attitude and evidence from deleted scenes (which I will try not to reference much in this essay, but Ron Moore has a real problem with assuming that info from deleted scenes was somehow transmitted by osmosis into the viewer's mind), from his role as a military man as well.
Over the course of the mini, Lee does step up and do hero-things, but they're largely overshadowed by the showy glowy shininess of Kara (and oh, miniseries-Kara is glowy and shiny and wonderful), who is by far the more conventionally-dramatic character, as I will go into below. The most important thing to come out of the mini for Lee, character-wise, is that he bonds with Laura Roslin, the brand spankin' new President of the Colonies, Or At Least What's Left Of Them. His shrug and grin as he delivers the line "The lady's in charge" and establishes himself as a Roslin man sets up a really lovely, interesting relationship dynamic (which also fails to survive into season 2).
2. "I didn't know we were picking sides." ("Bastille Day")
The exact moment that I fell in love with Lee Adama comes partway through the episode "Bastille Day" (1.03). This is the moment where Lee, visiting a prison ship with a few other officers in an effort to recruit a volunteer labor force, realizes that the prisoners are revolting (in senses other than hygiene). He then proceeds to launch himself physically into the fray. I can remember my train of thought while watching this scene:
"There's no way he's going to attack an entire ship of prisoners single-handed, he's not possibly that stupid...oh my God, he IS that stupid. He is stupid and noble and he's getting the crap kicked out of him. That is amazing. A-maz-ing. I think I love this guy a little."
And then in the next scene he was all sweaty and bloody and had removed his jacket to flaunt his arms. And THEN he sulked and pouted and made speeches about democracy. And I knew that yes, in fact, it was love.
At this point I imagine many of you are going "Um, what? So far you've said he's a jerk, he's mean to the nice characters, and he's stupid. And yet you love him? It's just the arms, isn't it? Admit it, shallow fangirl!" But there's more to it than that.
First of all, his prickly exterior is very clearly presented as a defense mechanism that covers up...more bitterness and anger, toward both the world and himself. Lee, it is established at several points, is an idealist. He believes in things like democracy, the rule of law, and, I suspect, the fundamental goodness of humanity. He's not sappy about his beliefs; he's actually a bit pushy and defensive over them, but he does genuinely think that they are important and that other people should value them as well. And therefore, like most idealists, he is destined to be disappointed and crushed at every opportunity.
"Stupid," then, was an inaccurate assessment. Lee is not stupid. Lee is, perhaps, at the time of "Bastille Day," a bit naive. B-Day is a great Lee episode, and one of the best scenes comes at the end, when he faces down both his father and President Roslin and defends his actions on the prison ship. "I don't owe either of you a damned explanation about anything," he says, and in that line we see the two most predominant traits of the character: his idealism and his isolation. Between them, these two elements will bring Lee down in a hard fall by the end of season 2.
3. "Because you're right, Tom. You were right about democracy and consent of the people. I believe in those things and we're going to have them." ("Bastille Day")
The idealist side of Lee is played up by his interactions with two characters who are politically opposed: Laura Roslin and Tom Zarek. Lee spends the first season as Roslin's "military advisor," since she cheerfully admits that she has no idea whatsoever how to deal with the military, and at the point when she requests Lee's help, she and Commander Adama don't get along at all.
Roslin and Lee bond over the fact that he's not a hard-line military man; he has doubts, he questions, he looks for the diplomatic solution. A particularly illustrative example of this comes in the episode "Water" (1.02), following up on the events of "33" (1.01), where Lee had to shoot a civilian vessel that was possibly infiltrated by the Cylons. He has difficulty coming to terms with what he did. His father dismisses his feelings and basically tells him to buck up and get on with it, but Roslin commiserates with him and shares his guilt, since ultimately the decision to destroy the ship came from her.
Lee's loyalty to Roslin, over and above his loyalty to the military, carries through the first season and provides the second-biggest plot twist in the season finale. Essentially, he is presented as not only wanting to save humanity, but to save the human civilization: the rule of law, the governmental structures, and the other rights and liberties that could easily be brushed aside in a post-apocalyptic scenario. He sides with Roslin because he believes she will preserve these things, more so than the military or other possible candidates for President. In the first-season finale, "Kobol's Last Gleaming" (1.12-1.13), he in fact mutinies when ordered to arrest Roslin, choosing her over his father and the Colonial Fleet as clearly as it's possible to do. Of course, then she surrenders and gets both of them arrested, so once again we have to admit that the boy doesn't think things through, but hey, he took a stand. The idealism isn't dead. (Yet.)
The following exchange with Roslin in "Scattered" (2.01), while they sit in Galactica's brig and wait for military justice to descend from above, shows the cracks of fatalism forming in his ideals:
Roslin: I am so sorry that I got you into this, Captain.
Lee: No, don't apologize. I knew what I was doing. But I didn't do it for you. I did it for... well, actually, I did it for... nothing, turns out.
Roslin: That's not true. You took a stand.
Lee: And now look at us.
There's enough idealism left, though, for him to plot an escape and sneak Roslin off Galactica and into hiding with Tom Zarek.
Zarek is another character who brings Lee's idealism to the fore, and is present at many of the points where we can track its decline and fall. They meet in "Bastille Day," and at first Lee is remarkably solicitous, telling the political prisoner that he's read his book, even though it was banned, and agreed with parts of it. Of course, then comes the ass-kicking described above, and Lee spends the rest of this episode with an understandable amount of hostility toward the man. But in the end, he chooses not to execute Zarek, prevents Kara from doing it, and gives the government's promise to fulfill one of Zarek's demands and hold elections. (Which is what prompts the "I don't owe either of you a damned explanation" scene-of-awesome where he stands up to Adama and Roslin.)
He next meets with Zarek in "Colonial Day" (1.11), which is a very strange episode for Lee, in that none of his behavior in it makes much sense in the context of the behavior we've seen before. He is contemptuous and vicious towards Zarek, which can be explained by the suspicion that Zarek is attempting to assassinate Roslin, except that open hostility seems out of character for the tightly-controlled character we've seen thus far. Lee explodes into violence at several points in the episode, which we have also never seen from him previously, and which isn't repeated except perhaps in "Black Market" (2.14). The simmering rage under the idealism has to this point shown up as biting sarcasm, and fades into hollow weariness by the end of the second season, so maybe we're supposed to think that there was something in the water in this episode.
The fugitive arc in the second season, where Lee and Roslin hide from the military under Tom Zarek's protection, produces some interesting sparks as Lee is forced to compromise some of his ideals to preserve the others. Working with the terrorist to protect the President, coming right up to the edge of denouncing his father before backing down, finally reuniting with his father and his military role before being introduced to some kind of magical/technological remnant of his culture's gods on a planet of myth...it's big stuff for Lee. Little of it gets followed up in the second half of the season, but watching the first half of season 2 as a whole, it's clear that Lee's world is being turned inside out and upside down over and over again.
After returning from Kobol, Lee drifts a bit. The Admiral Cain arc seems to put the final nail in the coffin of his idealism, as he is forced to confront both the dark side of the military and realize that Roslin isn't quite what he thought her to be when he learns she's ordered Kara to execute Cain. None of this is explicitly stated, though, just possible interpretations of various reaction shots and Lee's subsequent downward spiral and attempt at passive suicide.
He apparently loses faith in Roslin, and yet not in the military; in the second half of season 2, Lee suddenly becomes the committed military man. The military, while it has problems of its own, at least has a very obvious and rigid structure that doesn't produce sudden surprises the way Roslin can. His mission of infiltration in "Black Market" would seem to be another military-civilian blended project, but he only is mainly shown communicating with Adama and Tigh about it, and in the one scene they share with Roslin, the two Adamas stand united and framed opposite her. "Black Market" is another somewhat inexplicable episode, but it is canon, and it shows a fairly hollow and broken-down Lee, who has lost his idealism and is willing to pull the trigger as he wasn't in "Bastille Day." Call that character growth or backsliding as you like, but it does show that Lee has changed. He ends that episode sharing a drink with his father, which is light-years away from their relationship in the miniseries, but the framing of the last scene, and the expression on his face, make it clear that Lee is still very much alone.
4. "It means that you're still acting like you're everyone's best friend. We're not friends, you're the CAG." (Kara to Lee, "33")
Kara gets it right in "33" more than she or the rest of us know at the time: Lee can't be anyone's friend. Ever. He's the new kid on Galactica, not knowing anyone but Kara when he comes in, and he's immediately thrust into the role of CAG, with its inherent limitations on social interaction.
The friendship/URST between Lee and Kara is probably Lee's most consistent storyline, but it's unclear what he actually gets out of the relationship. It boils down to the fundamental difference between the two of them, established as early as the mini: Kara is active, and Lee is reactive. Kara is a mobile character, the mythological questing hero, and Lee stays home and minds the sheep. Really, Kara gets the stereotypical-sci-fi-hero archetype characteristics that, as stated above, you would expect to find in Lee. Which leaves a bit of a question as to what Lee's role actually is.
It sets up some interesting friction between them. As the quote above points out, Lee is the CAG. He's in charge of order and stability and following the rules. Kara is a maverick. She's also, canonically, special. "The best shot in or out of the cockpit," as we learn in "Bastille Day," and possibly the best pilot. It's unclear whether she or Lee actually holds that title (or later, if it's Kat), but it is clear that the rest of Galactica's crew believes that it's Kara. This comes into play in the episode "The Hand of God" (1.10), where Kara is unable to fly the big risky mission and it goes to Lee by default. Lee's bitterness about this fits into another part of his character arc, his search for respect, which will be discussed below.
There's no question that Lee and Kara have feelings for each other, but they fluctuate from episode to episode. Sometimes she's chasing him, sometimes he's chasing her, she shoots him once, they almost have sex but not quite, she calls out his name while having sex with someone else, she brings another guy home from Caprica...it's very confusing. The net outcome of this inconsistency in terms of Lee (since this is an essay about Lee, and not a Lee/Kara 'ship manifesto) is that he can't count on her. Whatever else she may be, she's not an emotional support for him.
His off-again on-again competition/flirtation/tension with Kara also fits into his complicated dynamic with his father. Kara is, in many ways, modeled on the show as Bill Adama's favored son. Lee is competing with her for parental approval and love.
This is illustrated in the episode "You Can't Go Home Again" (1.05) when Kara's Viper crashes and she's presumed lost. After an extensive, drawn-out search, beyond what would be made for any other pilot (hey, that's canon, they state it on-screen), Roslin finally bullies/convinces Adama to stop looking and move on. Lee and his father then have this wonderful exchange, which may be my favorite scene between the two of them ever:
Lee: I want you to know, I think she's wrong. I think we have come to terms with what happened to Zak.
Adama: I haven't.
[Lee starts to leave but then stops and turns back.]
Lee: I need to know something: why did you do this? Why did we do this? Is it for Kara? For Zak? For what?
Adama: Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules.
Lee: And if it was me down there instead?
Adama: You don't have to ask that.
Lee: Are you sure?
Adama: If it were you... we'd never leave.
Adama loves both of his "kids," clearly, but that doesn't really seem to sink into Lee's head, as his angst in "The Hand of God" shows. In "Kobol's Last Gleaming," his mutiny causes Adama to entirely shut down emotionally towards him, which doesn't last very long as Adama then proceeds to get shot. Lee screaming and running to his father's side, cradling his father's head despite being handcuffed, is another defining moment for that relationship. However much bitterness Lee carries toward his father, even if he's just betrayed the man and been treated as coldly as a stranger, he loves him. Their reuniting hug half a season later, in "Home" (2.06-2.07), apparently puts a seal on their reunion on good terms, as after that point they operate essentially as a team, the tension between them apparently settled. The capstone moment between them comes in "The Captain's Hand" (2.17), which a) wins the prize for most nonsensical title of a BSG episode and b) has Lee finally receiving recognition and validation from his father when the Old Man promotes him to Commander and gives him the Death Ship Pegasus.
The healing of his relationship with his father is essentially the only positive movement in any relationship Lee has, though. He's all over the map with Kara, he drifts away from Roslin, he's antagonistic with Tigh, Zarek, and Baltar, and he rarely interacts with anyone else on Galatica in a meaningful manner. There are flashbacks to a pre-miniseries girlfriend in "Black Market," which also features a rather strange relationship with a whore on Cloud Nine. He seems to be constructing an illusion of family with her (attempting to bond with her daughter, returning specifically to her again and again), which she indulges but doesn't reciprocate. The idea that he's creating an illusion of a meaningful relationship to mask his own isolation is a fascinating one, but doesn't play out in canon, as none of the threads of "Black Market" have been followed up. Shortly thereafter he begins a relationship with Dualla that is presented to the audience as deep and meaningful rather than illusory, despite the fact that it largely takes place in deleted scenes. Perhaps this is a deliberate effort by the show to reduce Lee's isolation by providing him with a stable connection; we'll have to wait for the next season to be sure.
The death wish from earlier in the season is only briefly referenced, after Kara shoots him, but he seems to have gotten over that. By the end of the season, pre-time jump/reset button, he's still disillusioned and bleak, he still only seems to have an emotional connection to his father and Dualla, and those inconsistently, but at least he's (finally) got some respect.
5. "You're right about that part. I am not fit to wear the uniform. Maybe I never was." ("Valley of Darkness")
And really, all Lee's ever wanted is a little bit of goddamn respect. (Gods-damned, I guess. Whatever.) His snippiness and angst in "The Hand of God" all comes out of the fact that everyone openly wishes Kara was flying the mission instead. The last scene of the episode is awesomely symbolic, if you're into that kind of thing: he successfully completes the mission and returns to Galactica in time for a party. Kara (who holds the stereotypically male-role hero status here, remember) comes over to him and loads him up with some celebratory phallic symbols, which the camera lingers on lovingly. He has stepped up alongside Kara as active-hero and, symbolically been masculinized. It's all very nice, and absolutely hilarious if you have a weakness for symbolism, as I do. And after this episode he does step into a more action-hero stage of his development, instead of being the political guy all the time, so perhaps that symbolism was even intended.
As discussed above, "The Captain's Hand" seems to be the end of his fighting-for-respect phase, as he's been promoted about as far as one can expect to go in the current Fleet situation. Maybe he'll make Admiral when his father dies, but otherwise he's at the top, with a Battlestar of his own. The scenes of him assuming command of Pegasus mid-battle in that episode are really well done. Lee has a tic of talking to himself, repeating a key phrase to steady himself and his focus (evident in "Hand of God," "Valley of Darkness," and this episode) which adds a nice layer to the character by showing that he's not super-confident hero-guy. He's just Lee Adama, and he's in over his head and he'd really like to have someone to hand all of this off to. But there isn't anybody else, and so he steps up and gets the job done. Nobody ever says thank-you, because it's after the apocalypse and they're all busy with their own jobs and the problems in their own heads. But really, one passive-suicide attempt really isn't all that much after being the effective number-three guy in the military, the President's advisor and fugitive enabler, being one half of a psychosexual pinball game with your one friend/ex-almost-sister-in-law, and being on a ship with a severe towel shortage (you knew it had to come up sometime) for a season and a half.
I like Lee because he's awfully human. He's not a perfect sci-fi hero. He's short-tempered and sarcastic, but he can also be really goofy (see the beginning of "Act of Contrition"). He takes things seriously, but he has the most beautiful smile, made more so by the fact that we see it maybe one episode in ten. He's fiercely loyal to his principles and to the people he considers his, and if those loyalties come into conflict, he doesn't make the decision lightly. He's everyone's foil and everyone's whipping boy and he takes it all with some grace and some bad attitude, which is really all you can expect. He's delightfully flawed, and in terms of comparative airtime, he has a hell of a lot more issues to pack into each scene. Sure, I like Lee because Jamie Bamber is a lovely specimen of man-flesh, but I also like that he can say more with a single reaction shot than a speech, and that he brings his A-game to whatever the writers hand him (hi, "Black Market!").
I like Lee because he still has room to grow. The reset button at the end of season 2 leaves Lee in a rather odd place, and I'm curious to see where he goes next year. I'd love to see more Lee-Cylon interaction, some fleshing out of residual tensions between him and his father, a resolution to his relationship with Roslin, more scenes with Zarek...I'd basically love to see him do anything, because he's a complicated little space monkey, and I think there's a lot of ways he could go and still stay rooted in character. I like Lee Adama because he's not what I expected when I saw the miniseries, and he continues to surprise me as we go along.
Essential Lee episodes:
"Bastille Day"
"Hand of God"
"Black Market"
"The Captain's Hand"
Great Lee scenes:
Meeting with Roslin in "Water"
The scene with his father in "You Can't Go Home Again"
The dinner scene in "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"
The end of "Kobol's Last Gleaming"
Fighting the Cylons in "Valley of Darkness"
Towel scene, "Final Cut"
All quotes from TwizTV.com