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flowrs4opheliaSort of like I did with my epic post for the last Harry Potter book, I'm trying to put my thoughts in a format that makes it easy to pick and choose what to look at or skip since this is not going to be light reading, heheh.
In this post:
— My favorite little things from the episode
— Thoughts on all the characters' resolutions
— Final thoughts on my dear OTP's ending as well as their entire story since the beginning
I have kind of a weird thing about endings. Sometimes, I don't care about them that much. A part of me would have been happy if all of the mysteries and arcs of BSG had been suspended forever and it never ended. For me the golden age of the show was when we just kept being thrown these little bones like Leoben somehow knowing these things about Kara's mother and what the frak is that about, and Six telling Baltar they're going to have a child which did not seem to make any sense. I'm not the kind of fan who gets impatient for answers. I like wondering, and I usually find that no matter how good a resolution to a mystery is it was always more fun not to know. (And so as you can guess, I don't have a problem with a lot of the things that were left open to interpretation as I guessed they might be.)
I am not incredibly impressed by a writer's ability to resolve things in ways that make perfect sense. It's important, of course, but at the end of the day you can find plenty of shitty, boring movies or books that make perfect sense and are rigidly consistent with every single detail. Plot isn't what makes a story engaging to me. There's a certain line of ridiculousness that once crossed means I can't take something seriously anymore (like, say, Tigh having the bright idea to leave Tyrol a note saying exactly where to meet the other Cylons where Cally can find it in "The Ties That Bind"), but "Daybreak" definitely did not cross that line for me even though some parts of the resolution were kind of obvious and underwhelming.
Don't get me wrong, I felt very unhappy about some things right after I watched it even though I didn't think I was disappointed with the whole thing overall. I had such a complicated mix of emotions, especially about the fact that the show was over in general, that I couldn't even tell if I was sad in a good and moved way or just an empty and disappointed way for a while and just felt too overwhelmed to process everything. But after a whole weekend of mourning my dear show I have really come to terms with it and am warming up to it more and more.
These were all little items on my wish list of things I thought would be awesome for the finale:
— One last "What do you hear?" exchange between Starbuck and Adama [check]
— For Bear McCreary to finally rock the bagpipes in the score again a la "Storming New Caprica" [check]
— For the last line of the series just like the first line of it to be "Are you alive?"
— Head Six and Head Baltar somehow appearing together [check]
— For the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower" to somehow end up used...yeah right, like that'll happen [omg check]
Other random little things I liked a lot:
— Laura's goodbye to Cottle. Awww.
— Ahaha, why am I not surprised that Ellen and Saul would go to strip clubs together? WIN.
— Sam and the basestar hybrid communicating. I just love the hybrids and was glad to see generic she-hybrid again. Even though it looked like it was re-used footage, heh.
— Absolutely every scene with Baltar and Six. It was candy. I'm so glad they actually ended up together and Baltar didn't need Head Six anymore. And I loved the very last scene with their head versions being the ones to finish the story like the narrators or Greek chorus. I don't know if it was really needed but it was fun.
— The Galactica ramming right into the Colony. New school Centurions pwning old school Centurions. Pretty much the whole battle, though going back to basics and letting us have some VIPER ACTION would have been nice. Really. Nice.
— I was kind of surprised that the whole opera house vision played out so literally and wasn't really that symbolic or anything (Athena doesn't really have her child taken from her at all), and the way it happened was pretty cool. The music alone in this part made me teary.
— THE ZAK/KARA/LEE FLASHBACKS OH HELL. Christmas for me. Zak seemed so cute and lovable and it makes me so sad for him. Every single note they hit in these scenes felt so right, from what they said about Lee's idealism and relationship with his father to the way they made the immediate attraction between him and Kara obviously really strong so that it made me kind of nervous to watch them, but without quite taking it too far and making them look like assholes. (We got enough of that in the Love Quadrangle of Doom, lol.) And the way they realize what they're doing when Zak says, "Oops. Something's broken." What a line.
— The ships flying off into the sun was so powerful to see it doesn't matter that the idea behind it was silly.
Goodbyes To Lots of Awesome People
I think in a frakked up way killing Tory might be what the Chief needed to be able to find a little peace and I guess his ending isn't completely depressing. At least he knows now that Cally's death wasn't his fault.
I was so glad the Agathons all got a happy ending because I wasn't really expecting it. And I didn't hate Boomer because I...well...just usually don't have it in me to hate characters in general, but it was quite satisfying that Athena got to kill her.
The last scenes with Adama and Roslin were absolutely perfect and beautiful. Along with that of the bird trapped in Lee's house, one of the most haunting images from the entire last season that has really stayed with me is the view of all those flamingoes through their Raptor window. When they cut directly to that from the final flashback from Laura's past, it was such a sucker-punching way of illustrating how fucking far all of these characters have come, literally and figuratively, and you can feel how much that previous life must not even seem real to them anymore and how they never could have imagined back then where they would be now.
However, I'm a little bothered by Adama just taking off and resolving to live a life of heartbroken solitude. Ending his story this way doesn't make a whole lot of sense and just seems to be for the sake of making it all bittersweet. When they gave D'Anna that kind of ending because there was something kind of poetic about her choosing to stay behind on Earth, I thought it was okay for a guest-star character, and it worked nicely if you didn't think about it too much and realize she slowly and painfully starved to death all by herself, so you know, just don't think about it too much. But Adama? Geez.
Though honestly, the goodbye scene with him, Lee and Kara is so devastating but in a more moving and "good-sad" way that it makes me forget when I watch it how stupid the reason for it is. I've already told the kind of hilarious story of how this scene has killed me in my personal journal and I'll reiterate that Bear McCreary's use of Adama's theme in the music totally makes the scene. It's like Howard Shore's "The Gray Havens" all over again, gahhh. D':
It's nice that Ellen finally gets her man all to herself like she's always wanted. I wish there had been some kind of goodbye between Saul and Bill, though.
...And then there's that thing with Starbuck. Of all the ways things could have ended with her I just never expected it would be like this so I wasn't prepared for it at all. The more I think about it the more I've decided it's not really the fact that she's always still been dead that bothers me as much as the way her whole resolution was handled. Though the flashbacks with her were great stuff, she hardly even did anything in the present in this episode besides punch in some coordinates. And then *poof* bye guys. When I saw "Maelstrom" I already knew Kara comes back so I never seriously had to deal with the idea of her being dead, but that was a great death because the episode was all about her. But now all in just one second that Lee turns around and she's gone it's like she's died all over again, and the way it was done just didn't treat it like something that is a whole lot to process that quickly. It was more shock value and "Oh yeah we went there" than about character. I don't know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the extended cut of the finale to maybe have a little more Kara-centric stuff that might make me feel better about it.
Yet at the same time, maybe there's something very unique and interesting about her overall story in that the emotional impact of her resolution can only be realized by looking back on the rest of the show. Her actual death did happen a long time ago, and they couldn't really kill off Starbuck so she came back somehow, but there's a cost and the writers couldn't have their cake and eat it, too. Her disappearance at the end makes it not so much of a cop-out even though the way she came back is still ambiguous, and I think it's the closest thing to a confirmation of what she was that we were ever going to get.
At first it was really frustrating to me because I know RDM & Co. never intended for Kara to die until they started working on "Maelstrom" and I thought this probably wasn't even always the plan and she almost could have gotten a happier ending finding something else to live for besides being a warrior. But as I re-watch the flashback with her talking about fearing being forgotten but not death and it strikes me how beautifully Achilles-like and so Starbuck that is, I realize how easily I can see her just dying tragically at the end of the show if she hadn't earlier. Because that's the kind of character she has been from the very beginning and that's why it's nothing new that it hurts so much to be invested in her story. It doesn't mean she hasn't changed and grown in many satisfying ways. As Katee said it well, "The Kara of season 1 is willing to die because she doesn't value her own life, but Kara at the end of the show values existence so much that she is willing to die for others." She's always been a warrior, but she ultimately became a true hero and not just a frak-up who doesn't know how to do anything but fight.
"There's always New Caprica."
I remember the days when I had no idea if Starbuck and Apollo the almost-in-laws/surrogate siblings/best buddies would ever have anything besides platonic affection for each other and just enjoyed the dynamic between them so much I didn't care. I was intrigued by the relationship since the miniseries and then my attitude about it quickly became I'll take whatever I can get, just put them in the same room because they're always fun without fail. It made me ridiculously happy to watch Lee laughing at Kara's pain while she was on crutches and her spraying him with the water hose and it didn't really matter whether these things meant they secretly wanted to frak each other silly. Even though I was pretty sure I was already a doomed shipper and found something unexplainably irresistible about the wrongness of it and how complicated any romantic feelings between them would have to be, I knew if it was only more of a brother-and-sister kind of bond then there was still something very unique, poignant and just plain cute about their relationship.
And I remember the days after "Home" and "Flight of the Phoenix" and "Scar" when there was definitely no question any longer that these poor kids are in love and it was really exciting and heartbreaking at the same time because it only kept getting more complicated. I was so happy that the writers actually went there, but at the same time was never sure if I could imagine it going any further. I loved the insanity and volatile tension in their friendship and how they only seemed able to express that they had strong feelings for each other by going at each other's throats half the time, but I had a hard time imagining them in a committed relationship because of all their issues. I wanted it to happen but I didn't want it to happen because it seemed doomed. Even after "Taking a Break From All Your Worries" I felt like crap but was also relieved my ship didn't finally get together in such a sloppy and anti-climactic way.
And now, if I put aside my disappointment in Kara's non-ending as a character in general, I'm...actually kind of barely okay with them not ending up together. We've seen them both come a long way and mature so much as characters, and as they've become more self-aware and honest with themselves their relationship has matured far beyond them being like two little kids who show they like each other by hitting each other all the time. So I don't believe at all that they couldn't ever have made it work and think if that's the idea anybody gets than they haven't been paying attention to these characters in the past season besides making shallow assessments about how Starbuck does a lot of desperate screaming in "Six of One."
But I can see how this ending also seems true to the kind of relationship they've always had. I never expected I would say this, but somehow it feels like the lack of a resolution for them is the resolution and is kind of appropriate. With one way of looking at it their love maybe has never come to much, but at the same time it's infinite and survives anything; it started with an instantaneous connection from the first day they met and they've continued to be so strongly linked for the entire seven or so years they've known each other despite all these different obstacles never failing to get in the way, which is simultaneously remarkable and sad. It's a perfectly consistently tragic "always and never" situation with these two.
As Jamie Bamber describes it himself, the series ends with them forever intertwined and the end of his character's story is really all about this relationship. The more things change with them the more they stay the same. After their entire tumultuous history, even freaking Baltar sees that everything is still reduced to Lee Adama's personal feelings for Kara Thrace. In RDM's own words, Kara's love for anyone else has always been "supplanted by her feelings for Lee Adama." Lee's last scene in the show and Kara's last scene in the show are the same scene, just the two of them left alone for a last moment, and after saying goodbye to Anders, Adama, and Laura he is the very last person she needs to see and know he understands before she's ready to go, yet unlike them there's just no way for her to actually say goodbye to him. With the flashbacks in the final hours of these characters' stories that are all about them on top of this, I don't think we're left with any possible doubt that she is the love of his life and he is the love of hers even though they were never able to commit to each other. To the very end, the story of Starbuck and Apollo has always been one of the central stories the entire show has been telling. And a long time ago I did say that even if it was really tragic and painful, as long as the ending was true to how this relationship has always been part of the heart of the show and didn't forget them I could probably deal with it. Just let them be in the same room. Or field.
I don't even care that they never said "I love you." When I compare their ending to the kind of ending Bill and Laura got with him putting his ring on her finger to join them it makes me realize how what Kara and Lee mean to each other could maybe never be confined to specific roles like "husband and wife." They're best friends. They're family. They're brothers-in-arms who have gone into battles together and always had each other's backs. They're soul mates in every possible sense. There's something almost undefinable about them and it might seem to cheapen it to give them some typical romantic scene in which they narrow it down to one thing and put it into words.
And all things considered, I can appreciate the way their story altogether is completely unlike any other love stories in television I can think of. Most shows drive you crazy taking a nice long time to get a couple together and then have to give them problems and break them up and get them back together just to keep it interesting. I think it's pretty impressive how the developments in the Kara/Lee relationship have almost always continued to be unexpected and interesting without the writers ever getting them together in a way they felt wouldn't work just because it's what viewers want and have learned to expect from shows. Their entire arc, it turns out, has sort of developed in a backwards way compared to how these things are usually handled. Though it seemed like it would be difficult for them to get together back in season 1, they actually became more separated by obstacles as the series progressed rather than growing closer together. At the end of the finale we are taken back to the innocent time they met to find that they never really needed to grow any closer to each other than they felt right then, but at that point it wouldn't have been right and they never could have known back then that many years down the road it would be one of many missed opportunities that they just might have taken if they'd known how things would work out.
Has there been any point in the whole story that it maybe could have worked if they'd tried? I'm inclined to think maybe not and that we can never be sure, and neither can they. But what will always be compelling about the relationship to me is that with the one understandable exception of the time after she married Anders, even when they were too messed up to be ready to be together they always understood and were still there for each other as friends. Everything that kills me about these two can be summed up in the scene in "Scar" when they almost hook up but Lee has different ideas about it and is like "Dude wait a minute, I mean, shouldn't we light some candles or something?" and even after she emphatically informs him he's just a meaningless frak and he knows it's bullshit he won't leave her alone because as her friend he's worried about her. But then he isn't too easy on her and can throw her own bullshit in her face in a way Anders usually can't because he isn't inextricably a part of her problems with self-awareness and insecurity the same way Lee is. He understands her too well and it terrifies her and is the reason she loves him at the same time. She slaps him for what he says about her cowardice but then proceeds to react by kissing him, and then leaving. All in the same scene we see why they're meant for each other and also why she can't stop running from him and it's the essence of Kara/Lee and the reason I can never manage to take really happy fic about them seriously. It hurts so good.
::sniff::
Pilots. This frakking ship has smashed my heart up with a sledgehammer over and over and never made it better, and goddamn, it was worth it.
-----------
Next part of my reviewcoming soon here.
In this post:
— My favorite little things from the episode
— Thoughts on all the characters' resolutions
— Final thoughts on my dear OTP's ending as well as their entire story since the beginning
I have kind of a weird thing about endings. Sometimes, I don't care about them that much. A part of me would have been happy if all of the mysteries and arcs of BSG had been suspended forever and it never ended. For me the golden age of the show was when we just kept being thrown these little bones like Leoben somehow knowing these things about Kara's mother and what the frak is that about, and Six telling Baltar they're going to have a child which did not seem to make any sense. I'm not the kind of fan who gets impatient for answers. I like wondering, and I usually find that no matter how good a resolution to a mystery is it was always more fun not to know. (And so as you can guess, I don't have a problem with a lot of the things that were left open to interpretation as I guessed they might be.)
I am not incredibly impressed by a writer's ability to resolve things in ways that make perfect sense. It's important, of course, but at the end of the day you can find plenty of shitty, boring movies or books that make perfect sense and are rigidly consistent with every single detail. Plot isn't what makes a story engaging to me. There's a certain line of ridiculousness that once crossed means I can't take something seriously anymore (like, say, Tigh having the bright idea to leave Tyrol a note saying exactly where to meet the other Cylons where Cally can find it in "The Ties That Bind"), but "Daybreak" definitely did not cross that line for me even though some parts of the resolution were kind of obvious and underwhelming.
Don't get me wrong, I felt very unhappy about some things right after I watched it even though I didn't think I was disappointed with the whole thing overall. I had such a complicated mix of emotions, especially about the fact that the show was over in general, that I couldn't even tell if I was sad in a good and moved way or just an empty and disappointed way for a while and just felt too overwhelmed to process everything. But after a whole weekend of mourning my dear show I have really come to terms with it and am warming up to it more and more.
These were all little items on my wish list of things I thought would be awesome for the finale:
— One last "What do you hear?" exchange between Starbuck and Adama [check]
— For Bear McCreary to finally rock the bagpipes in the score again a la "Storming New Caprica" [check]
— For the last line of the series just like the first line of it to be "Are you alive?"
— Head Six and Head Baltar somehow appearing together [check]
— For the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along the Watchtower" to somehow end up used...yeah right, like that'll happen [omg check]
Other random little things I liked a lot:
— Laura's goodbye to Cottle. Awww.
— Ahaha, why am I not surprised that Ellen and Saul would go to strip clubs together? WIN.
— Sam and the basestar hybrid communicating. I just love the hybrids and was glad to see generic she-hybrid again. Even though it looked like it was re-used footage, heh.
— Absolutely every scene with Baltar and Six. It was candy. I'm so glad they actually ended up together and Baltar didn't need Head Six anymore. And I loved the very last scene with their head versions being the ones to finish the story like the narrators or Greek chorus. I don't know if it was really needed but it was fun.
— The Galactica ramming right into the Colony. New school Centurions pwning old school Centurions. Pretty much the whole battle, though going back to basics and letting us have some VIPER ACTION would have been nice. Really. Nice.
— I was kind of surprised that the whole opera house vision played out so literally and wasn't really that symbolic or anything (Athena doesn't really have her child taken from her at all), and the way it happened was pretty cool. The music alone in this part made me teary.
— THE ZAK/KARA/LEE FLASHBACKS OH HELL. Christmas for me. Zak seemed so cute and lovable and it makes me so sad for him. Every single note they hit in these scenes felt so right, from what they said about Lee's idealism and relationship with his father to the way they made the immediate attraction between him and Kara obviously really strong so that it made me kind of nervous to watch them, but without quite taking it too far and making them look like assholes. (We got enough of that in the Love Quadrangle of Doom, lol.) And the way they realize what they're doing when Zak says, "Oops. Something's broken." What a line.
— The ships flying off into the sun was so powerful to see it doesn't matter that the idea behind it was silly.
Goodbyes To Lots of Awesome People
I think in a frakked up way killing Tory might be what the Chief needed to be able to find a little peace and I guess his ending isn't completely depressing. At least he knows now that Cally's death wasn't his fault.
I was so glad the Agathons all got a happy ending because I wasn't really expecting it. And I didn't hate Boomer because I...well...just usually don't have it in me to hate characters in general, but it was quite satisfying that Athena got to kill her.
The last scenes with Adama and Roslin were absolutely perfect and beautiful. Along with that of the bird trapped in Lee's house, one of the most haunting images from the entire last season that has really stayed with me is the view of all those flamingoes through their Raptor window. When they cut directly to that from the final flashback from Laura's past, it was such a sucker-punching way of illustrating how fucking far all of these characters have come, literally and figuratively, and you can feel how much that previous life must not even seem real to them anymore and how they never could have imagined back then where they would be now.
However, I'm a little bothered by Adama just taking off and resolving to live a life of heartbroken solitude. Ending his story this way doesn't make a whole lot of sense and just seems to be for the sake of making it all bittersweet. When they gave D'Anna that kind of ending because there was something kind of poetic about her choosing to stay behind on Earth, I thought it was okay for a guest-star character, and it worked nicely if you didn't think about it too much and realize she slowly and painfully starved to death all by herself, so you know, just don't think about it too much. But Adama? Geez.
Though honestly, the goodbye scene with him, Lee and Kara is so devastating but in a more moving and "good-sad" way that it makes me forget when I watch it how stupid the reason for it is. I've already told the kind of hilarious story of how this scene has killed me in my personal journal and I'll reiterate that Bear McCreary's use of Adama's theme in the music totally makes the scene. It's like Howard Shore's "The Gray Havens" all over again, gahhh. D':
It's nice that Ellen finally gets her man all to herself like she's always wanted. I wish there had been some kind of goodbye between Saul and Bill, though.
...And then there's that thing with Starbuck. Of all the ways things could have ended with her I just never expected it would be like this so I wasn't prepared for it at all. The more I think about it the more I've decided it's not really the fact that she's always still been dead that bothers me as much as the way her whole resolution was handled. Though the flashbacks with her were great stuff, she hardly even did anything in the present in this episode besides punch in some coordinates. And then *poof* bye guys. When I saw "Maelstrom" I already knew Kara comes back so I never seriously had to deal with the idea of her being dead, but that was a great death because the episode was all about her. But now all in just one second that Lee turns around and she's gone it's like she's died all over again, and the way it was done just didn't treat it like something that is a whole lot to process that quickly. It was more shock value and "Oh yeah we went there" than about character. I don't know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the extended cut of the finale to maybe have a little more Kara-centric stuff that might make me feel better about it.
Yet at the same time, maybe there's something very unique and interesting about her overall story in that the emotional impact of her resolution can only be realized by looking back on the rest of the show. Her actual death did happen a long time ago, and they couldn't really kill off Starbuck so she came back somehow, but there's a cost and the writers couldn't have their cake and eat it, too. Her disappearance at the end makes it not so much of a cop-out even though the way she came back is still ambiguous, and I think it's the closest thing to a confirmation of what she was that we were ever going to get.
At first it was really frustrating to me because I know RDM & Co. never intended for Kara to die until they started working on "Maelstrom" and I thought this probably wasn't even always the plan and she almost could have gotten a happier ending finding something else to live for besides being a warrior. But as I re-watch the flashback with her talking about fearing being forgotten but not death and it strikes me how beautifully Achilles-like and so Starbuck that is, I realize how easily I can see her just dying tragically at the end of the show if she hadn't earlier. Because that's the kind of character she has been from the very beginning and that's why it's nothing new that it hurts so much to be invested in her story. It doesn't mean she hasn't changed and grown in many satisfying ways. As Katee said it well, "The Kara of season 1 is willing to die because she doesn't value her own life, but Kara at the end of the show values existence so much that she is willing to die for others." She's always been a warrior, but she ultimately became a true hero and not just a frak-up who doesn't know how to do anything but fight.
"There's always New Caprica."
I remember the days when I had no idea if Starbuck and Apollo the almost-in-laws/surrogate siblings/best buddies would ever have anything besides platonic affection for each other and just enjoyed the dynamic between them so much I didn't care. I was intrigued by the relationship since the miniseries and then my attitude about it quickly became I'll take whatever I can get, just put them in the same room because they're always fun without fail. It made me ridiculously happy to watch Lee laughing at Kara's pain while she was on crutches and her spraying him with the water hose and it didn't really matter whether these things meant they secretly wanted to frak each other silly. Even though I was pretty sure I was already a doomed shipper and found something unexplainably irresistible about the wrongness of it and how complicated any romantic feelings between them would have to be, I knew if it was only more of a brother-and-sister kind of bond then there was still something very unique, poignant and just plain cute about their relationship.
And I remember the days after "Home" and "Flight of the Phoenix" and "Scar" when there was definitely no question any longer that these poor kids are in love and it was really exciting and heartbreaking at the same time because it only kept getting more complicated. I was so happy that the writers actually went there, but at the same time was never sure if I could imagine it going any further. I loved the insanity and volatile tension in their friendship and how they only seemed able to express that they had strong feelings for each other by going at each other's throats half the time, but I had a hard time imagining them in a committed relationship because of all their issues. I wanted it to happen but I didn't want it to happen because it seemed doomed. Even after "Taking a Break From All Your Worries" I felt like crap but was also relieved my ship didn't finally get together in such a sloppy and anti-climactic way.
And now, if I put aside my disappointment in Kara's non-ending as a character in general, I'm...actually kind of barely okay with them not ending up together. We've seen them both come a long way and mature so much as characters, and as they've become more self-aware and honest with themselves their relationship has matured far beyond them being like two little kids who show they like each other by hitting each other all the time. So I don't believe at all that they couldn't ever have made it work and think if that's the idea anybody gets than they haven't been paying attention to these characters in the past season besides making shallow assessments about how Starbuck does a lot of desperate screaming in "Six of One."
But I can see how this ending also seems true to the kind of relationship they've always had. I never expected I would say this, but somehow it feels like the lack of a resolution for them is the resolution and is kind of appropriate. With one way of looking at it their love maybe has never come to much, but at the same time it's infinite and survives anything; it started with an instantaneous connection from the first day they met and they've continued to be so strongly linked for the entire seven or so years they've known each other despite all these different obstacles never failing to get in the way, which is simultaneously remarkable and sad. It's a perfectly consistently tragic "always and never" situation with these two.
As Jamie Bamber describes it himself, the series ends with them forever intertwined and the end of his character's story is really all about this relationship. The more things change with them the more they stay the same. After their entire tumultuous history, even freaking Baltar sees that everything is still reduced to Lee Adama's personal feelings for Kara Thrace. In RDM's own words, Kara's love for anyone else has always been "supplanted by her feelings for Lee Adama." Lee's last scene in the show and Kara's last scene in the show are the same scene, just the two of them left alone for a last moment, and after saying goodbye to Anders, Adama, and Laura he is the very last person she needs to see and know he understands before she's ready to go, yet unlike them there's just no way for her to actually say goodbye to him. With the flashbacks in the final hours of these characters' stories that are all about them on top of this, I don't think we're left with any possible doubt that she is the love of his life and he is the love of hers even though they were never able to commit to each other. To the very end, the story of Starbuck and Apollo has always been one of the central stories the entire show has been telling. And a long time ago I did say that even if it was really tragic and painful, as long as the ending was true to how this relationship has always been part of the heart of the show and didn't forget them I could probably deal with it. Just let them be in the same room. Or field.
I don't even care that they never said "I love you." When I compare their ending to the kind of ending Bill and Laura got with him putting his ring on her finger to join them it makes me realize how what Kara and Lee mean to each other could maybe never be confined to specific roles like "husband and wife." They're best friends. They're family. They're brothers-in-arms who have gone into battles together and always had each other's backs. They're soul mates in every possible sense. There's something almost undefinable about them and it might seem to cheapen it to give them some typical romantic scene in which they narrow it down to one thing and put it into words.
And all things considered, I can appreciate the way their story altogether is completely unlike any other love stories in television I can think of. Most shows drive you crazy taking a nice long time to get a couple together and then have to give them problems and break them up and get them back together just to keep it interesting. I think it's pretty impressive how the developments in the Kara/Lee relationship have almost always continued to be unexpected and interesting without the writers ever getting them together in a way they felt wouldn't work just because it's what viewers want and have learned to expect from shows. Their entire arc, it turns out, has sort of developed in a backwards way compared to how these things are usually handled. Though it seemed like it would be difficult for them to get together back in season 1, they actually became more separated by obstacles as the series progressed rather than growing closer together. At the end of the finale we are taken back to the innocent time they met to find that they never really needed to grow any closer to each other than they felt right then, but at that point it wouldn't have been right and they never could have known back then that many years down the road it would be one of many missed opportunities that they just might have taken if they'd known how things would work out.
Has there been any point in the whole story that it maybe could have worked if they'd tried? I'm inclined to think maybe not and that we can never be sure, and neither can they. But what will always be compelling about the relationship to me is that with the one understandable exception of the time after she married Anders, even when they were too messed up to be ready to be together they always understood and were still there for each other as friends. Everything that kills me about these two can be summed up in the scene in "Scar" when they almost hook up but Lee has different ideas about it and is like "Dude wait a minute, I mean, shouldn't we light some candles or something?" and even after she emphatically informs him he's just a meaningless frak and he knows it's bullshit he won't leave her alone because as her friend he's worried about her. But then he isn't too easy on her and can throw her own bullshit in her face in a way Anders usually can't because he isn't inextricably a part of her problems with self-awareness and insecurity the same way Lee is. He understands her too well and it terrifies her and is the reason she loves him at the same time. She slaps him for what he says about her cowardice but then proceeds to react by kissing him, and then leaving. All in the same scene we see why they're meant for each other and also why she can't stop running from him and it's the essence of Kara/Lee and the reason I can never manage to take really happy fic about them seriously. It hurts so good.
::sniff::
Pilots. This frakking ship has smashed my heart up with a sledgehammer over and over and never made it better, and goddamn, it was worth it.
Next part of my review
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Date: 2009-03-24 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 02:51 am (UTC)The more I think about it the more I've decided it's not really the fact that she's always still been dead that bothers me as much as the way her whole resolution was handled.
Oh, wow. This is going to sound so bizarre, but it wasn't until I read this sentence that I was really struck with what her disappearance in the finale really meant. She REALLY died in 'Maelstrom'. I think I was in denial because I believe that her and everything she went through in season four was as real as ever (and no one will convince me otherwise). But it's like there's a stabby feeling in my chest to accept that her goodbye to Lee before flying into that mandala was really the last time we saw her whole.
She was really here, but...she wasn't. :(
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Date: 2009-03-24 03:40 am (UTC)I know, it's like...sooner or later I'm going to have to rewatch "Maelstrom" with absolute certainty, not just with the little bit of denial I had when it first aired, that she's really gone. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.
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Date: 2009-03-27 07:12 am (UTC)See, I don't think it makes her experiences in season 4 any less real or meaningful. In fact, she seemed like she was more whole after she came back because she had conquered some of her demons and shed a lot of baggage by dying (even though her confusion about what she was gave her a whole new set of conflicts to deal with). She comes to terms with many things in her life that she hadn't before, and it kind of reminds me of other stories about people finally being able to see their lives for what they were only once they're in the afterlife.
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Date: 2009-03-24 03:07 am (UTC)And there needed to be a good-bye between Tye and Adama, dammit.
"There must be some kind of way out of here."
Date: 2009-03-24 03:07 am (UTC)That shot is a re-creation of a signature shot from the original series, which goes with the quotation of Stu Phillip's theme for the original series heard during Will's last flight out.
I'm not sure how silly it was, though. If you're going to destroy your fleet and leave no trace (burn your ships à la Cortez or Fletcher Christian), then flying them into the sun is the way to do it...
The idea of making Hera "Mitochondrial Eve" is cute, although the dates don't exactly jibe with what we know about human history. It would have been more sound to have just let her be a "Most Recent Common Ancestor" and put her in somewhere around 40,000 years ago or so (i.e. when modern man first appeared and began competing with other hominids). But I suppose that would be quibbling.
I was quite happy to see that they didn't explain everything. Whatever Head Six and Head Baltar are, it is something we're not told. They're not some sort of projected image, but that's all we know. Gaius calls them "angels," but at the end, Head Baltar calls Head Six on referring to their boss as "God." They could be angels. They could be demons. They could be aliens. We'll never know. And maybe we shouldn't.
Re: "There must be some kind of way out of here."
Date: 2009-03-24 04:33 am (UTC)The idea of making Hera "Mitochondrial Eve" is cute, although the dates don't exactly jibe with what we know about human history.
And Mitochondrial Eve died very young, which is kind of depressing. Apparently Helo really was a bad hunter.
I'm also glad they left some things unexplained. And yes, I loved Baltar's line implying that so-called "God" isn't even the true god because it means we can't be sure about anything the rest of the show has seemed to tell us.
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Date: 2009-03-24 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 03:51 am (UTC)Have you watched the video blog with the cast crying over the final read-through? You can catch a couple lines from deleted scenes; one I caught was Kara saying to Bill, "Is this how you'd treat your kids? No wonder Lee's so frakked up." WTH.
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Date: 2009-03-24 04:32 am (UTC)All in the same scene we see why they're meant for each other and also why she can't stop running from him and it's the essence of Kara/Lee and the reason I can never manage to take really happy fic about them seriously. It hurts so good.
--very much sums up my feelings. I assume that most fic about them will end more happily than not, just because that's why most people write 'ship fic, but my favorite parts of my favorite fics are the ones where they hurt each other the worst best. So yeah. Happily-ever-after pilots is alright once in a while for pretend (if not terribly exciting), but that was never why I was drawn to them. The not-really-an-ending that they got at the end of the show was just right for me. Tragic, but not without some measure of peace.
As for Bill, though I love him for it, he's more than a little bit of a drama queen. And Laura was his biggest drama ::sniffles::. So I expect that after a week or two of serious mourning, he got back in the Raptor and moved in next to Tigh. And drove Ellen nuts. (And they of course never mentioned his attempt to go be a hermit to his face again. They also never suggested he go find Lee. Mostly for Lee's sanity.)
Anyway. Thank you for sharing the post. :)
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Date: 2009-03-27 07:14 am (UTC)LOL, I enjoy this idea very much. :)
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Date: 2009-03-28 06:27 am (UTC)Hee. This is EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT.
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Date: 2009-03-24 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 07:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 09:31 am (UTC)So true. But I swear, no more shipping for me. Not like this. It damn well nearly killed. As much as I understand that they could never be, there's something so cruel about her disappearance. After all they've been through, it just breaks my heart again and again to think of how abruptly it ended. But, then, like you said, how could it be any other way? I'm still so torn.
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Date: 2009-03-28 11:03 am (UTC)You don't need to worry on that account; if anything, chances for you to encounter another ship like L/K in this lifetime tend to zero.
...how could it be any other way?
Fact is, it could and should've been resolved differently. Their connection deserved to be acknowledged. That's what's tormenting so many of us and that's exactly the reason why you feel torn. No way Kara could leave him like that (even more cruelly than in Unfinished Business) without saying a word or even looking in his eyes and thus condemning him to realise he wasted a few months with her like it was nothing.
And there's no way I'll buy she was at peace and free because the touchstone of her freedom has always been Lee, her whole life as we know it. The only way she could possibly break free would be if the writers allowed her to express her all consuming feelings towards Lee in whatever form. Instead, they made her suppress herself in eternity. She needed at least that kind of freedom if not the freedom to stay with him – one last time, for just a moment she needed not to hold back or bottle up... Which is why the ending we got is so contemptibly cruel for both characters.
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Date: 2009-03-28 12:49 pm (UTC)She certainly didn't look peaceful. She looked like at any moment she was about to cry. It still pains me to think about it.
Just...what a waste of four years. The more distance I get from it, the less I buy it.
(I friended you, btw, if that's ok?)
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Date: 2009-03-28 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-28 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-24 10:47 am (UTC)That made me think about the beauty about the whole thing. I mean, if we had a whole married-on-new-caprica like the Anders thing - 'starbuck' is gone, we have a slightly unhappy Kara :(
A angelic Kara is lovely, despite me not believing in such a thing. It's FICTION. lol, I'll be fine :P
ahhhhh my opinions come from other people, I just steal them. That's why positive things are important. THANK YOU!!!
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Date: 2009-03-24 11:50 am (UTC)So even if my heart is still broken, posts like this help me to overcome my grief. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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Date: 2009-03-24 12:52 pm (UTC)I'll second this notion any day. We have laughed, cried and cried some more along with these pilots. I am finally starting to accept the fact that Kara died in the Maelstrom. She came back, to Lee, to give him a new home and help him find the peace he was missing in his life.
It still doesn't make it hurt any less to say goodbye to them. I still think Ron could have handled it better.
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Date: 2009-03-24 08:38 pm (UTC)Anywho, going into the finale, I had a feeling that Maelstrom was Kara's last hurrah, which, as a tragic ending, was more than any other character got. Still, her simple poof! though I appreciated it and see where it came from, is rather painful to watch/think about.
With regards to L/K, I just flat out agree. WIN.
Thanks for the awesome post, helps organize my jumbled messo'thoughts.
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Date: 2009-03-26 04:39 am (UTC)There's something almost undefinable about them and it might seem to cheapen it to give them some typical romantic scene in which they narrow it down to one thing and put it into words.
I agree. They already have said what they need to say--in "The Oath," when Kara grabs him and says, "All we can count on is you and me," and in the memorial hallway, where Lee says, "I don't care what you are." What more could they say to each other, really? Their relationship goes far beyond romantic love, as you say.
In their actual farewell scene, you can see Lee start to go towards her, start to protest--but then he stops himself. She was always afraid of words and the expectations that they create, I think--for instance, she doesn't do anything drastic until he encourages her to shout her love to the world in Unfinished Business, and then she flips out and marries Anders. Maybe Lee no longer had the need to hear it.
And I also think he was able to let her go because he had already mourned her death after Maelstrom. After her return, every moment that he had with her was a gift. He had already paid for them in advance.
but Lee has different ideas about it and is like "Dude wait a minute, I mean, shouldn't we light some candles or something?"
HAHAHAHAHA!
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Date: 2009-03-27 07:29 am (UTC)Not at all! :D
In their actual farewell scene, you can see Lee start to go towards her, start to protest--but then he stops himself.
Yeah, this is something I noticed when I was re-watching it. It looks to me like he wants to touch her or say something to stop her but she pulls back a little and asks "So what are you going to do?" to stop it. I think she knows it'll make it too hard for them if they cross a certain line of restraint in this moment.
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Date: 2009-03-28 06:23 am (UTC)I liked the finale, and I was actually kind of pleased that there was a sense that the story wasn't finished..that we could all decide what happens to these people after that last scene. There are already fics happening.
A really lovely Lee one is here (http://elly427.livejournal.com/177906.html) from
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Date: 2009-03-28 06:29 am (UTC)Absolutely every scene with Baltar and Six. It was candy.
Yessss.
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Date: 2009-03-28 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 05:49 am (UTC)I was so glad the Agathons all got a happy ending because I wasn't really expecting it. And I didn't hate Boomer because I...well...just usually don't have it in me to hate characters in general, but it was quite satisfying that Athena got to kill her.
It's nice that Ellen finally gets her man all to herself like she's always wanted. I wish there had been some kind of goodbye between Saul and Bill, though.
Agreed with all of the above, thoroughly.
And although I'm not a Kara/Lee 'shipper (always preferred Anders with her), I thought your write-up was lovely.
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Date: 2009-05-26 06:06 am (UTC)