Still unfinished with Unfinished Business
Dec. 4th, 2006 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieOK, I am still thinking about Battlestar Galactica’s ‘Unfinished Business.”
This isn’t going to be a lovely long meta like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wisteria_’s, but I do have a few somewhat scattred thoughts.
I find Kara fascinating. In fact, if I have a favorite character on the show, it’s her. She is a beautiful disaster: you see her completely screwed-up, even horrible (the way she treats Anders and Lee in this ep is, by any definition, despicable) but somehow she never loses this radiance, this contageous fun that makes you mesmerized by her even as you want to shake her. I have no problem believing that Lee still ‘can’t quit’ her even after their past and that Anders was (at least before the end) putting up with her treating him as a rentboy.
And you know, Kara is impossible to ignore. If you love her, she will lash out and run away in the haste to make you see her unworthiness. If you hate her, she will just absorb it and believe it’s deserved. And if you ignore her, she will provoke and provoke until she hits a nerve, because any emotional reaction is better than none.
Btw, this flashback ep explained something to me. Both Mr. Mousie andalexandral pointed out that Anders’ investment in this relationship is that of a boyfriend, not really a husband. He is willing to have Kara walk away. (No, I don’t want Crichton level dysfunctional attachment, but it does seem a bit hands off). But after this flashback ep, this makes sense. Because, that is what they are, Kara and Anders. There is no ‘only the very deepest love will tempt me into matrimony’ a la Pride and Prejudice. It’s a panicky move on her part, not anything planned, and on his? A gorgeous girl who saved him and who he is very much into asks to marry him after a few weeks of being together and he says yes. It’s not a bad foundation for marriage at all on his part (and manageable somewhat even on Kara’s). But it’s not anything that would lead, after a few months in a tent on New Caprica and a long absence when she is being mind-frakked, to a strong, love-against-all-odds type of marriage.
In a way, we can contrast Kara/Anders to Helo/Sharon. At the end of S2, Sharon gave up on Helo, on everything. She literally turned her face to the wall. We don’t know what happened to them in the missing year, but we do know Helo refused to give up. Just as Helo refused to give up when it seemed Sharon and he would meet only through plexiglass or when he got ostracized. (And as to Sharon, any sacrifices she’s made have also been enormous). Helo and Sharon overcame fifteen kinds of hell to be together. I can’t see Anders and Kara doing that.
Does that mean that Anders is a worse guy than Helo? No, of course not. It just means that his relationship with Kara is different, and in part, it’s because Kara is no Sharon with her star-crossed-love thing going (now with Anders and as with Lee? They are certainly star-crossed something, but as lovers or merely closer than family friends or something else remains to be seen).
If Anders decides to give up on Kara after the boxing match, I wouldn’t blame him (though I hope they keep him around as I like his character regardless of who he is with). Interestingly, I think he can do so much easier than Dee can let go of Lee. Anders strikes me as a very independent person with his own place and a strong sense of self. He’s survived on Caprica when there was no knowledge of hope of rescue, he survived New Caprica etc etc. Callous as it might sound, he will survive the loss of Kara. Dee? I don’t think she has a Romeo & Juliet ‘I will slit my wrists over Lee’ kind of love, but she strikes me as less resilient, less strong, more young somehow. She has emotional connections and attachments to him. She is more tied, if that makes any sense.
But how about Lee and Kara? Gosh, I love the two of them together (in whatever capacity) so I am glad we are back in the point of the show where they will interact again. I do not think that after the end of ‘Unfinished Business’ they are going to skip happily into the future, or that they will even attempt to pursue anything more than their previous great friendship with the undertone of UST. They are too messed-up, too convoluted together, too tangled up to try anything more for now (and Anders and Dee enormously complicate things if they did want to take it that way. But I can’t see them wanting to, not yet. For Kara, even admitting she missed Lee first is a gigantic gigantic step).
In a way, passionate inability to give up on a person, however romantic in fiction, also usually goes hand in hand with some sort of messed-uppedness. It might often be the cause of this dysfunction (Lee’s issues, whichever he has, a lot of them stem from his inability to be without Kara), or the result, but whichever way, it is tied. Great need or great love or great pain make for compelling storytelling but usually poor psychic health.
And that brings me to Lee. Gosh, I love the boy. In so many ways, he is always controlled, reserved, deal with your head not your heart. But in a way, that façade is false. He is the idealist after all. The one that wanted the elections, the one who read banned books in college. He is a creature of extremes: he held a grudge against his father for two years. So in a way, I think he controlls himself so tightly because when he lets go, he really lets go. And we see him lose control throughout this episode: in happiness with Kara in the flashback (totally adorkable) and in rage and pain in the present.
Someone’s meta on the ep (I am sorry, I read so many, I don’t remember whose it was) said ‘Congratulations, Admiral. Your son finally lost control.’ And it is true. He loses control utterly and it’s both painful and exilirating to watch.
Those last scenes are raw to watch: the pain is heightened because it’s these two who love each other so much (and yes, whatever your view on the state of their romantic feelings, they love each other, in whatever capacity you percieve this love to be). It becomes more intimate than if Dee and Anders walked in on them canoodling and that is why Dee watches with heartbreak on her face.
In a way, for her, it’s worse than walking in on Kara and Lee together. That she could do something about, it would be something concrete. But how do you address the fact that your husband seems emotionally tangled up with someone else to a breathtaking degree? Do you even give voice to this and make your fears real? We have never seen so much raw emotion from Lee towards anyone except Kara and Adama. Dee cannot like being third.
This isn’t going to be a lovely long meta like
wisteria_’s, but I do have a few somewhat scattred thoughts.I find Kara fascinating. In fact, if I have a favorite character on the show, it’s her. She is a beautiful disaster: you see her completely screwed-up, even horrible (the way she treats Anders and Lee in this ep is, by any definition, despicable) but somehow she never loses this radiance, this contageous fun that makes you mesmerized by her even as you want to shake her. I have no problem believing that Lee still ‘can’t quit’ her even after their past and that Anders was (at least before the end) putting up with her treating him as a rentboy.
And you know, Kara is impossible to ignore. If you love her, she will lash out and run away in the haste to make you see her unworthiness. If you hate her, she will just absorb it and believe it’s deserved. And if you ignore her, she will provoke and provoke until she hits a nerve, because any emotional reaction is better than none.
Btw, this flashback ep explained something to me. Both Mr. Mousie and
alexandral pointed out that Anders’ investment in this relationship is that of a boyfriend, not really a husband. He is willing to have Kara walk away. (No, I don’t want Crichton level dysfunctional attachment, but it does seem a bit hands off). But after this flashback ep, this makes sense. Because, that is what they are, Kara and Anders. There is no ‘only the very deepest love will tempt me into matrimony’ a la Pride and Prejudice. It’s a panicky move on her part, not anything planned, and on his? A gorgeous girl who saved him and who he is very much into asks to marry him after a few weeks of being together and he says yes. It’s not a bad foundation for marriage at all on his part (and manageable somewhat even on Kara’s). But it’s not anything that would lead, after a few months in a tent on New Caprica and a long absence when she is being mind-frakked, to a strong, love-against-all-odds type of marriage. In a way, we can contrast Kara/Anders to Helo/Sharon. At the end of S2, Sharon gave up on Helo, on everything. She literally turned her face to the wall. We don’t know what happened to them in the missing year, but we do know Helo refused to give up. Just as Helo refused to give up when it seemed Sharon and he would meet only through plexiglass or when he got ostracized. (And as to Sharon, any sacrifices she’s made have also been enormous). Helo and Sharon overcame fifteen kinds of hell to be together. I can’t see Anders and Kara doing that.
Does that mean that Anders is a worse guy than Helo? No, of course not. It just means that his relationship with Kara is different, and in part, it’s because Kara is no Sharon with her star-crossed-love thing going (now with Anders and as with Lee? They are certainly star-crossed something, but as lovers or merely closer than family friends or something else remains to be seen).
If Anders decides to give up on Kara after the boxing match, I wouldn’t blame him (though I hope they keep him around as I like his character regardless of who he is with). Interestingly, I think he can do so much easier than Dee can let go of Lee. Anders strikes me as a very independent person with his own place and a strong sense of self. He’s survived on Caprica when there was no knowledge of hope of rescue, he survived New Caprica etc etc. Callous as it might sound, he will survive the loss of Kara. Dee? I don’t think she has a Romeo & Juliet ‘I will slit my wrists over Lee’ kind of love, but she strikes me as less resilient, less strong, more young somehow. She has emotional connections and attachments to him. She is more tied, if that makes any sense.
But how about Lee and Kara? Gosh, I love the two of them together (in whatever capacity) so I am glad we are back in the point of the show where they will interact again. I do not think that after the end of ‘Unfinished Business’ they are going to skip happily into the future, or that they will even attempt to pursue anything more than their previous great friendship with the undertone of UST. They are too messed-up, too convoluted together, too tangled up to try anything more for now (and Anders and Dee enormously complicate things if they did want to take it that way. But I can’t see them wanting to, not yet. For Kara, even admitting she missed Lee first is a gigantic gigantic step).
In a way, passionate inability to give up on a person, however romantic in fiction, also usually goes hand in hand with some sort of messed-uppedness. It might often be the cause of this dysfunction (Lee’s issues, whichever he has, a lot of them stem from his inability to be without Kara), or the result, but whichever way, it is tied. Great need or great love or great pain make for compelling storytelling but usually poor psychic health.
And that brings me to Lee. Gosh, I love the boy. In so many ways, he is always controlled, reserved, deal with your head not your heart. But in a way, that façade is false. He is the idealist after all. The one that wanted the elections, the one who read banned books in college. He is a creature of extremes: he held a grudge against his father for two years. So in a way, I think he controlls himself so tightly because when he lets go, he really lets go. And we see him lose control throughout this episode: in happiness with Kara in the flashback (totally adorkable) and in rage and pain in the present.
Someone’s meta on the ep (I am sorry, I read so many, I don’t remember whose it was) said ‘Congratulations, Admiral. Your son finally lost control.’ And it is true. He loses control utterly and it’s both painful and exilirating to watch.
Those last scenes are raw to watch: the pain is heightened because it’s these two who love each other so much (and yes, whatever your view on the state of their romantic feelings, they love each other, in whatever capacity you percieve this love to be). It becomes more intimate than if Dee and Anders walked in on them canoodling and that is why Dee watches with heartbreak on her face.
In a way, for her, it’s worse than walking in on Kara and Lee together. That she could do something about, it would be something concrete. But how do you address the fact that your husband seems emotionally tangled up with someone else to a breathtaking degree? Do you even give voice to this and make your fears real? We have never seen so much raw emotion from Lee towards anyone except Kara and Adama. Dee cannot like being third.
