DPP: Echoes and Reflections

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

So a while back, maybe when I was making my Pilot Moments picspam, I noticed that Kara and Lee's scenes together in 4.0 and 4.5 fittingly (because I still believed they were supposed to come full circle in the end) had a bit of a cyclical nature with what had come before. For me, there seemed to be echoes and reflections of previous interactions in many of their scenes (which I think is totally coincidental on the part of the writers and may have been down to personal interpretation).

For starters, the season opens with one of them coming back from the dead and a climactic prolongued touching on the hangar deck and then a brig scene--all elements, if a bit jumbled, of the miniseries. This time it's Kara returning when Lee thought she was dead, and they hug and cling to each other like we all thought they were holding themselves back from doing with that loooong handshake in the mini. And then in the brig, they banter about it being like old times (in a way) and Lee tells Kara that she will find a way to talk to/convince his dad, not that dissimilarly from the way Kara encourages him to talk to his dad in the mini.

Then in Revelations, Kara goes to Lee in his dad's office and tries to cajole him out of his stubborn bad mood, telling him that they'll walk those halls together on Earth and trying to share comforting wisdom (from...er...Leoben) and it struck me that that scene was in some ways a reflection of the scene in Home, where Lee is trying to cajole Kara out of her bad mood and telling her that he's her friend and he loves her and she can talk to him.

Finally in Islanded, Lee offers unconditional love to Kara, telling her that he knows who she is, and despite the impossible things that have happened he loves her and that's all that matters. This is such an echo to me and fulfillment of Kara's wistfulness when she speaks to Lee on Kobol in the dark about Helo knowing Sharon is something unfathomable to them, a foreign being, but loving her anyway. Sigh.

So I was wondering what patterns you might have seen in their relationship arc? Did these later scenes remind you of those earlier ones too? Are there other scenes that you think are connected in a way or are parallels?
 

 

 

Comments

[latteaddict.livejournal.com]

Those are some really sweet observations, I love the idea of their story playing over and over again (until they get it right, of course).

I don't remember any specific cycles at the moment but I love the obvious repeated interactions between them such as shaking hands always leads to holding hands and holding hands always lasts much much longer than is polite. The use of each other's names, whether it's their full names because they're conveying something important or just constant Kara, Kara, Kara, Lee, Lee, Lee, always makes me smile!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Mmm agreed! I remember when I first saw the deleted/extended version of the Islanded scene, I was actually kind of shocked that they came right out and made the declaration in a meta way: "I'm Lee and you're Kara and nothing else is worth a damn."

♥

[justascrewup2.livejournal.com]

I have nothing to add to this :) Love our pilots so much!

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful analysis; I hadn't thought of it that way before, but I think those are some fascinating parallels you've observed. I'll enjoy thinking of the scenes in this way as I rewatch them.

I did sometimes notice parallels between scenes(probably purely subjective) as I was watching the show. I thought there were some interesting echoes between Kara's mother and Lee's father, actually. The moment in Maelstrom when Kara is about to accept her mystical mission and she asks her mother how she can be sure that Kara can do it, her mother says "Because you're my daughter." It seemed such a striking mirror to the Hand of God scene when Bill says he knows Lee will succeed on this mission "because you're my son." Each of our pilots, in their own way, have struggled to escape from their parents' legacies, and yet in moments of crisis they have accepted them and recognized that part of themselves will always be defined by their parents (though they really began to move forward in season 4).

Another parallel between Bill and Socrata was the infamous "you are a cancer" speech he gives to Kara after she comes back from New Caprica. When he used that line, I literally gasped. I thought it must have been deliberate. And it hurt my heart to see the way she responded to that kind of treatment - she actually took it to heart and pulled herself together and apparently neither resented it nor asked for an apology. It was interesting to see Lee's polar opposite reaction to the same kind of treatment - in Crossroads I, when Bill starts accusing him of stabbing Tigh in the back and being a liar and a coward, etc., Lee basically serves notice that he has no intention of sitting back and taking that kind of crap from his father or his commanding officer, and he walks out. I think all these scenes are interesting reflections of each other, and show again the complementarity and diversity of the Adama and Thrace family dynamics.

I also think that the scene in "Someone to Watch Over Me" where Helo offers Kara all her old stuff, and she takes her father's music but nothing else, plays like a sad echo of their beautiful scene on Caprica when she reflects on her old apartment and how meaningless it is to her.

And finally, I love the themes of daylight that run through Maelstrom. I love the opening, with blue skies taking the place of the constant night of space, and the contrast as they get lost in the grey, chaotic storm. I love how the lighting in the under-the-wing scene between Kara and Lee gives such a feeling of sunset. I think it's a beautiful contrast to the symbols and themes of Aurora throughout the episode - the promise that dawn will return.

Anyhow, those are just some seeming resonances I've noticed as I watched. I loved your analysis of the season 1 and 4 echoes. Thank you!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I wondered too if the "You're a cancer" line was deliberate repetition in Torn or ... just the writers forgetting they'd used it before.

Likewise the "See you on the other side". Kara says it to Lee in Maelstrom, Sam-brid says it to Kara in Daybreak.

One more blood-thirsty example is Kara killing Simon by stabbing him in the neck in The Farm and killing Leoben the same way in Occupation.

In Maelstrom, Kara is continuously being bathed in light actually. In the hallway when she talks to Adama and Roslin the light is out and briefly comes on. In the screening room when they are watching her guncam footage, Kara stands up in the light of the projector and it halos around her head. They do this same kind of halo/light around Kara in Daybreak 1 I think when she goes in to unplug Sam.

There is of course the "stuck on the table" business of Scar echoing the flashbacks, but since I firmly believe they didn't plan that all along (or there would have probably been some kind of "this seems familiar" quote in Scar) I'm just dismissing that as a coincidence. ;)

[thrace-adama.livejournal.com]

Lovely parallels. I cling to things like this when it comes to S4, that's for sure.

I don't have anything as deep, but I will always love the mutiny eps because Starbuck and Apollo kicking ass together there reminds me of how they worked together in Colonial Day and Home I & II, which are some of my absolute favorite eps.

ETA: Oh, and the kissing! I like how Kara randomly kissing Lee in "The Oath" is a nice little bookend to how Lee planted one on her in Home. Though I appreciate how Lee started to really get into it in the Oath instead of pulling back like Kara did that first time, lol. Pilots! <3333

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Parallels you say!

So many amazing examples have been given already, that I won’t give a specific one. Instead I’ll just add a comment that it seems to me that with Kara and Lee, absolutely every interaction they have are playing out some complementary part of the other’s existence. Unfortunately, in a yin yang dynamic, that also means that Lee and Kara are never in the same place at the same time. Together, they form something whole; apart they are always broken.

I fully expected that at some point during BSG, this dynamic would shift and we’d see them meeting “in the middle”. And then it didn’t happen. *sigh* But I suppose that’s what fanfic is for.

Great answers everyone!!!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Well...technically I guess that one moment of them meeting in the middle is their one night together on New Caprica? I mean it's pretty much the true midpoint of their relationship in many ways. Like Heather points out above, if you were to map it, the kisses in home/the oath are parallels and that would make Scar/EOJ parallels

Home>>>Scar>>>UB>>EOJ>>The Oath

It's sort of like a weird bell curve of Pilot Passion. Heh. But you'd have to leave out the Brig Kiss in Six of One...and really that might be my favorite of all.

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Well said! Now, since I love your idea so much, am I allowed to amend my earlier statement of meeting in the middle to include "long-term"? (One night seems pretty insignificant considering the strength of all the Lee/Kara interactions.)

Agree with you that the Brig Kiss in Six of One was AMAZING! It was part of the reason I was so perplexed at the ultimate ending of the series, though I'll admit I can't remember now which part was in the deleted Six of One scenes and which was in the original broadcast. (A side effect of watching it all on DVD at once.)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I'm always torn on whether the "just one night" thing is far more epic/romantic or if I hate it because it's so wrong and they should have had so much more. ;)

In the deleted Six of One there's more banter when Lee first comes in about Kara being in the brig, more discussion of her convincing Adama to trust her about Earth (he doesn't say "I believe you" but "you'll make them believe you"), and my favorite part, he gives her the statuette of aurora and makes her promise to hold on to it until she comes back to him. ♥

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have anything extra to add to your lovely words. But the observations that you made, I thought was a good sign. The pilots finally coming full circle but these moments, they were more adult, they had grown apart and still came back to each other. It was the same scenes repeating itself but without the fallout like from before, no one ran off and such.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Exactly! It was both a repetition and an...escalation to something better/more.

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

I agree there were a lot of parallels in season four to their past.

I helped make a vid (a collaboration)back during season 4.0, where I intercut old season with the aired brig scene. The way it was shot it echoed how those earlier scenes were shot. For example, how she offered her handshake to Lee was shot exactly how it was done in Captain's Hand. How Lee walked away stopped and turned back, much like he did back in KLG1, but this time he came back.

One thing that bugs me about season four is that I know how it ended up was not how it was originally planned for them going in. Going back to TSAR podcast where the writer of the episode said the line Romo used to Six about how if it took so much strength to leave his love, what was the point he had to be with her and they show Lee as he listens. It was meant to reflect on what Lee was feeling. Then we go to season four and when you put back the extended brig scene, also there another scene where Lee was talking to his dad after his send off party, this is the scene where Lee got the Aurora idol from his dad. Also in the following eppies there was a lot more of Kara and her holding that Aurora idol. There's still some of it in the aired eppies but greatly cut back. Also oddly in the aired eppies there was no reunion scene between L&K when she came back with the Demetrius. You have to believe, if they kept the Aurora storyline, there would have to be, especially since she's supposed to give Lee back the Aurora idol on her return. Only question to me was it cut from script or is there a deleted scene out there somewhere.