Steely-Eyed Viper Jock

[ebonlock]

Just watched the latest episode of BSG and first, moonlightnrain I don't think you should watch this one any time soon. Or if you do, don't watch it alone. Seriously.



I loved the fact that while Kara might hesitate to talk to a psychologist she's more than willing to head to the nearest oracle. And of course as soon as she picked up the figurine of Aurora I was puzzled, what does Kara's destiny have to do with the goddess of the dawn? At any rate I did recall a myth about her and her tears for the mortals she loved, and I had to wonder if the Oracle's tears were a visual reference to that. Or was she weeping because of the path she saw in front of Kara?

See this is what drew me into the show in the first place, this depth of complexity, layers of meaning one on top of another, as beautiful as a classical work of art. My inner art historian crowed with delight, there's nothing like putting my rusty old skills to use puzzling this show out. When it's worth puzzling out, that is.

The revelations about Kara's past and child abuse were both horrific and somehow so perfectly right. We'd heard some non-specifics about it earlier in the series, but seeing it was another matter entirely. One of the most powerful scenes was Kara quietly discussing the details of her mother's abuse and her own retaliation, how getting her hand slammed in a door because she'd used one of her mom's phobias against her, was worth it. Wow.

I love the oracular imagery following her around, even in something as simple and unassuming as a pool of wax on the floor. And Bear's music matching rhythm to the dripping wax...wow. The symbol appearing everywhere around her, slowly driving her mad. And the worst part of all was that Kara was aware of her slow slide into insanity, and unable to do anything to stop it.

And the coded exchange between Starbuck and Adama was a joy, an absolute joy, a beautiful verbal flashback to the premiere. Oh, and giving Adama the Aurora figurine for his ship's figurehead was frakkin' brilliant. The moment between Starbuck and Lee where she admits she no longer trusts herself and he says he'll fly her wing was so sweet. There's still that bone-deep affection between them, maybe a little something more from Lee but he is happy with Dee and Kara's happy for him. The moment she actually admits aloud that there's not going to be anything more between them, and that she's happy for him made me smile. She meant it, for the first time she really meant that she wants what's best for Lee. She finally loves him, really loves him, and sadly it's too late.

"You're a quitter, always have been." Her mom was a vicious bitch, a hard unpleasant woman who should never have had a child in the first place, but she's not entirely wrong about that. When Kara finds out her mom is dying of cancer and they fight for the last time my gut clenched with sympathy. It's the first time all season I've had that reaction, that visceral emotional response. The first time this season the show knocked me on my ass. I've wanted it, needed it, and finally they're delivering...finally.

When she held her mother's hand on her deathbed and finally came to terms with her fear of death I knew what was going to happen. The pattern she'd been drawing wasn't the Eye of Jupiter, it was that cloud, the storm that would take her life. She wasn't seeing a message meant for anyone else, she was seeing her own demise. The light that lit her face as she came to terms with her fate, found peace at last, made me wonder if it wasn't another reference to Aurora, subtle, but all the more beautiful because of its subtlety. Of course realizing that didn't stop me from bawling my head off when she told Lee to let her go and plunged her ship into the hard deck. Jesus I was sobbing so hard I could barely see the explosion.

I'm still sitting her crying my head off, though watching Adama fall apart didn't help much.

Oh my poor, beautiful, frakked up Kara. Now some suspicious part of me believes she may still end up being a cylon and they might just bring her back...but even if they don't, they did right by her death and delivered the most powerful and moving episode of the season.

Now please excuse me as I need to break down again I think. *sniffle*

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Didn't read the review, just the teaser bit, but heh. I was just about to sit down and watch it when your post popped up on my friends list.

I've been getting inklings of d00m from the preview and one other non-spoilery comment. Gonna be interesting to see what happens!

*goes to watch it*

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Comment again afterwards, I need to talk about this one...

[tersa.livejournal.com]

It looks like you got others discussing it with you, which is good, because I just finished watching it and now I have to go to bed and then not be able to check comments or email until tomorrow after work and augh. :)

In a season of real stinkers, I enjoyed this episode. You hit on a lot of the reasons why, although I don't think I feel it quite as profoundly as you or others do.

Unlike Aelf and Rose, though...I don't know. Maybe it's my sense of storytelling, or my trust in Mr. Moore, or what, but I don't think this was a pointless death. Starbuck is too integral a character for it to be pointless. There *is* a point to it, we just don't know what it is yet.

Between the last episode and this one...I'm enjoying this show again.

And yes, it was Adama's reaction at the end which threatened to make me cry. The Aurora, and then destorying that ship he's slaved hours and days and years over...that hit me harder than anything else in the show. I think her loss means more to him than even to Lee.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Yeah I really think her death is going to come back into play in a big way. However, the gag reel I saw months ago showed Katee saying that she was the one who was going to die and be revealed as the cylon so I've been thinking that particular sequence probably wasn't intended for the gag reel and may tell us what's actually coming next.

But ultimately if she doesn't come back I'll be a bit sad but it's not like my enjoyment of the show depends on her presence. And her death was so well done.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Now I'm just depressed; the show totally lost me with this episode, and I don't know how much I care about it anymore. I just didn't believe it, I guess, didn't believe she'd actually died when first seeing it (Ron certainly confirmed it in the podcast; he also said Adama destroying his ship wasn't scripted, and that the thing was rented and worth thousands (horrifying the prop wranglers), which I kinda liked), and was just left feeling entirely empty about it. And it's clearly just me, given your reaction and everything I'm seeing on forums.

I dunno. Maybe it's the last couple of months, and how often I've thought about dying myself, that put me off of it. But it just felt pointless, ultimately; dying needlessly is no special destiny. Why am I still bothering, if it is?

Right now I just want to hole up and never talk to anyone ever again, because I've lost this, too. And that's making me cry more than the episode itself did.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

See if you hadn't watched it yet either I'd have warned you against it as I did moonlightnrain. I didn't see her death as pointless, I've seen pointless deaths in shows before and this wasn't it. She'd just been given what could either be considered a gift or a curse...like, well do you remember Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, the XFiles episode? It's about a psychic who aids in the investigation of a murder and tells Mulder he'll die from autoerotic asphyxiation, foresees his own death at the hands of the killer, and when Scully (dying of cancer at the time) asks him about how she dies, he replies smply, "You don't."

He saw his fate and accepted it because there was nothing else to be done, he couldn't fight his fate. Starbuck was fated to die, it was going to happen and she had to face it, accept it, and overcome the fear that had been holding her back her entire life. It was that same fear that kept her from loving anyone else, or even loving herself. In the end she had found peace, she'd found grace, and realized what she'd been running from for so long.

Now, again, as beautiful and gorgeous as the story was, I shall be the first to cheer like a little girl if they do bring her back as one of the Final Five.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

dying needlessly is no special destiny.

I had a very similar reaction. I loved all the set-up, but when they got to Kara's actual death ... it was so utterly pointless. Unless she wakes up in a Cylon regeneration tank, I am going to be very, very annoyed with the show for killing off a good character for, apparently, no reason whatsoever.

Right now I just want to hole up and never talk to anyone ever again, because I've lost this, too. And that's making me cry more than the episode itself did.

Oh, honey. *HUGS* I know I can't be there in person to give you a hug and place of sanctuary in which to hide, but I would if I could. You have my number, right? Call if you need to, any time, ok?

[windrose.livejournal.com]

As soon as I watched this, I knew it was going to hit you hard.

I found the episode both really powerful and highly annoying at the same time. All that build-up, and Kara's "special destiny" turns out to be ... to commit passive suicide for no apparent reason. Um. Oo-kay. Either there's more to it than that, or the show's writers have a very different concept of "destiny" than I do.

The rest of the epsiode was fantastic, for all the reasons you listed and more. But the actual death scene simply made no goddamned sense to me.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I got the feeling that Starbuck's ship had been so badly damaged by the impact with the "raider" that she couldn't have pulled up if she wanted to. Now she might have ejected, but if that hard deck crushed her ship it would've done the same to her outside of her Viper. I mean how on earth would ejecting have saved her?

But by destiny I was thinking the meaning here was more along the lines of "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose". She was being shadowed by her own doom throughout her life it's...well, I've compared the show to a scifi retelling of The Iliad. As far as I'm concerned in a lot of ways Starbuck is just a futuristic version of Achilles.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Whether she would have survived isn't the point. The point is, she didn't even try. I would have had far less trouble with the episode if her stubbornness had gotten her killed because she refused to give up and pull out, or if she had tried to pull out, discovered that she couldn't, and then accepted her death with dignity and grace.

Starbuck was a fighter. Sometimes she fought for the wrong reasons. Sometimes she fought for the right ones. The point is, she fought. She kicked and screamed and survived. To have her just suddenly give up for no good reason ... it just didn't fit her character.

Now, if they'd done a better job of showing that she was tired of fighting, then I might have bought it. I would have been pissed as hell at her, but I could have understood it. But having her fly to a pointless and meaningless death and calling it a "special destiny?" I cry bullshit.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

First, again, I don't think this is necessarily the end of the character and that her destiny extends beyond her death. What I want to know is, who was the Leoben in her vision? Was he a god? Was he some cylon programming kicking in at last and staying her hand?

And yes she's always been a fighter, I'm the first to adore her because of that, but she'd finally realized that there are bigger things going on that she's powerless to stop. I think in a way she was still fighting when she refused to get into the cockpit, but the imagery would have kept haunting her. She couldn't escape her fate, which I think was what the dream was trying to tell her. She'd struggled and struggled against it all her life but it wasn't going anywhere. Her death was waiting for her and it was time to face it without fear. To me she never lost that true warrior spirit, and the courage with which she met her fate was stunning.

The imagery of the light dawning over her face as she plunged into the abyss still makes me feel like crying.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

The imagery of the light dawning over her face as she plunged into the abyss still makes me feel like crying.

A lot of this episode made me feel like crying. I do not want you to get the impression that I didn't think it was well-written or powerful stuff, because it was. And I will defer my final opinion on the matter until we see if Starbuck is really most sincerely dead, or if they bring her back in one form or another. Because if her "special destiny" was to just go blooey on an alien world, then I will be really most sincerely pissed off. But if there is more to it, then I will consider forgiving them the idiotic and pointless manner of her death.

And I wanna know more about the Leoben in her head, too, and not just because I think Callum Keith Rennie is hawt. ;)

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched this episode yet, (it's still sitting on Tivo,) so now I'm looking forward to it.

I watched the last three and found myself liking only the third, which to me seemed worse than hit or miss, so maybe this new episode bodes well for the future.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I think this episode will, at the very least, give you an emotional experience. Whether you ultimately agree with the nature of the story is another question, but you won't walk away from it feeling indifferent...which is the problem with way too much of this season so far.