Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B- | 4 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT The Girl Kneeling By The River
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 17 | Aired on 03.03.2007
"You didn't tell anyone else. Because you're drawn to it. You feel its pull. You want to fly into it. You want to cross over, but you're afraid." Um, of a frackin' cloud? "Of the unknown. Death. All of your high-wire stunts have been an act. Time after time you skip to the edge of the abyss, then dance away again. But you never really conquered your fear. You've been afraid ever since that day." She knows; she's always known. Where this leads. The Eye is a circle, a circle is a zero, a birth canal, the beginning and the end: how you start and how you know you've become a grownup. The opposite of a one, combining with it to create everything Cylons ever knew. "What day?" she asks.
Somewhere else less interesting, in the eye of the storm, Kara dozes in the Viper, listening to the whistle of the wind and the sound of thunder.
Socrata sits in her apartment, six years ago, smoking a cigarette and reading a letter from her doctor. There's a Colonial medal on the wall, from her Marine service. "All of this has happened before, and will happen again." Kara continues not crying, watching this unfold, watching herself admit that this is happening and bringing it into existence as she does so. Human psychology is based on projection; time is a human construct the Cylons will never understand, because if humans knew everything there is to know, they'd go mad, whereas Cylons go mad only at the edges of what they know. There's a knock on Socrata's door; Kara knows who it is. Somewhere a door's about to open.
"It's open," says Socrata. It's open. Kara greets her mother, with her original haircut, which looks a little wiggy from here, and Leoben and Kara stare at her. "It's hard to believe it's only six years ago. You look so much younger." She was. "I was." Socrata greets her daughter on being the first person in the family to become an officer in the Fleet. Kara smirks: "What is the world coming to?" It's an imaginary mongoose. She's a warrior like her mother; Socrata's been told that her daughter's the best natural pilot they've ever seen. Kara jerks as her younger self admits pride, admits excitement and love, forgetting herself and the lines between mother and daughter, and admits joy: "The first time I got in that cockpit, I just...felt like I belonged." Kara jerks. One day this will be all that you are, and then that will be taken away from you too. And what you'll be then, nobody knows.
"All that natural ability, and still you only graduated sixteenth in your class," gruffs Socrata. Kara looks down, ashamed at her younger self's exuberance and where it inevitably leads; Leoben looks back at her, concerned. "Sixteenth out of 117 cadets, Momma." That's nothing to be proud of; Socrata and I are agreed on that. This is Starbuck, dude. She just doesn't know that yet. She's still only Kara Thrace. "You should have been number one. They tell me that you have left a trail of demerits from here to Aerelon. You're undisciplined, you have no respect for authority." Kara tells her mother this is no longer her concern, and Socrata gets a little scary: "You have a gift, Kara. I've always known that, here in my gut, and I am not going to let you piss that away. You're special, don't you understand that?" Kara's exuberance squeezes out the other end of the tube. Sometimes you're the interrogator, sometimes the prisoner. "No, I'm not. Would you let go of that stupid dream of yours? Look, I am sorry as hell that you never made officer. And all you have to show for a life of dedication is this crappy apartment and that frakkin' medal on the wall. But I will not make up for it all. I can't." Socrata lights a cigarette, calls her a quitter. Kara knows what happens next, watching it unfold with tears standing in her eyes; Kara doesn't know what happens next, and picks up a letter from the table. "You went to an oncologist?" Socrata rages at her to put it down, but Kara's caught in the light. "What are you gonna do about this?" Nothing. "There's nothing to do, it's metastasized. Game is over." Kara tells her mother she's sorry, but that's not enough. Socrata methodically smokes her cigarette: with every breath, she breathes out the day, with every delicious sip she drinks away the night.