Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT You Are All A Lost Generation
By Jacob Clifton | Season 3 | Episode 18 | Aired on 03.10.2007
Roslin reads out the fifth and final name, for the tribunal -- or she would, if she weren't so surprised. She chokes on it.
Photographs, commendations, the paper trail of a life in service. The physical evidence of a pilot hounded by glory, a piece of his heart he can look at, the cabins she never got to build, the trajectory that ended wrong. There's a birthday card, from Kara: "You were always like a father to me...see the resemblance?" A smirking picture of Starbuck in uniform, a silly mustache scrawled across her face. "Happy birthday, Young Man. Much love, Kara." He breaks a little more. She's with Zak now, another child gone. When we mourn for our children, it's not just for what we've lost, but for the dreams and futures that never happened. "Yeah. I see the resemblance." It's in his smile and the way he loves the nuggets; it's in the shaking of his hands.
It's in the strength of his back, in the shadow on his eyes. Sam Anders stands atop a Raptor, a crowd gathered all around, staring up at him in his extremity. He tosses a cubit in the air and catches it: heads. Again: heads. "Did you see that? Four in a row! It's a frakkin' miracle. Watch this, one more time, it's gonna be -- watch! ... Heads! Every time! You see that? It's heads!" They beg him to come down but he's fine where he is. It's in the slur of his voice, and in the way he nearly misses it in the air, every time.
Lee stands in the Hall of Remembrance, unable to pin her to the wall. He looks down at her, up at Kat, nobody there to tell him who to be, or how to do this. He hears somebody enter the corridor and hides the picture: to be grieving, is this appropriate? Is this too much, or too little? There aren't any rules, not with that much history behind it. What if it's somebody who knows the rules of grieving better? What if it's somebody who shouldn't see him like this? A subordinate? His wife? Or maybe it's somebody who can tell him how to do this. Who to be now. Take away the plan and Lee falls apart.
Racetrack brings Apollo to the hangar bay, where Sam's still landing heads, every time. "See that? My girl's too lucky to check out." Lee knows how to do this part: "Hey, Sam." Sam smiles and calls him Lee; laughs, and calls him "Apollo." It's a hiccupping, stoner Dane Cook kind of laugh: we've never heard him laugh before. We're only hearing it now because he's angry and breaking. I wish we'd known Sam Anders before the storm; I wish we'd known Sam Anders before the attacks. Lee climbs up beside him, to save him like he used to save her, on the bad nights when she got like this: "You're flying. Let's just get down and get some sleep. Come on." Sam pushes himself away from Lee, promising him he's fine, just needing to sit down, to keep flipping coins. He lands hard, down on the Raptor's roof; Lee kneels beside him to see if he's all right. "She wasn't supposed to..." says Sam, and Lee begs him to stop. Sam always knew that she would save him; Lee always knew he could save her. They're both wrong. Who are they, now? Sam falls, hits the Raptor's wing, lands on his face on the cement below. Lee cries out and jumps down besides him, scared: "Sam! Frak! Frak. Is he okay?" The bad nights, when she got like this. Sam groans, bruised but drunk enough. "Ah...I think I fell." Lee just keeps calling his name as he holds him, on the deck. "... She's still alive, right?" Sam's breath is knocked out, he's senseless. No, Lee says, strong for a moment: "She's gone, Sam. She's gone." Sam looks up at him, into his eyes: "I know." Lee's quiet a while. "Yeah." They're the only ones that really know what that means; how a preposition can turn on you, how many places a word like "gone" can describe.
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