Maelstrom

"Maelstrom" An episode of the Re-imagined Series
Episode No.	Season 3, Episode 17
Writer(s)	David Weddle Bradley Thompson
Story by
Director	Michael Nankin
Assistant Director
Special guest(s)
Production No.	317
Nielsen Rating
US airdate
CAN airdate	{{{CAN airdate}}}
UK airdate
DVD release
Population	41,400 survivors
Additional Info
Episode Chronology
Previous		Next
Dirty Hands	Maelstrom	The Son Also Rises
Related Information
Official Summary
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Overview

Kara's past comes back to haunt her when Adama has doubts about her fitness for duty.

Summary

Teaser

• Kara Thrace is dreaming of her old apartment, trying to paint over the strange mandala. The dream is augmented when a Leoben Conoy comes behind her, and the two embrace and begin to have sex, rolling through the white paint that Thrace attempted to use to cover up the mandala. The mandala "pushes" itself through the white paint to reveal itself.
• Hotdog looks over to question what Thrace was dreaming in her bunk.
• Thrace meets Helo in the head. He notes that Hera Agathon wakes up from frightening dreams as well. Helo notes a psychologist, but when Thrace declines, he also suggests an oracle camp in Dogsville. She also sees, as Helo speaks, Thrace see in her mirror an image of a little girl standing by the hatchway, who appears bruised and beaten. When Thrace looks again for the child, she has disappeared.
• Thrace enters the oracle camp and finds a small golden angelic figurine of the goddess Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn.
• An oracle, Brenn, appears, who tells Thrace to keep the figurine. She asks Thrace to sit before a pool of water. The oracle holds Thrace's hand and begins a reading.
• The oracle knows of the Leoben Cylon and the dreams. When the oracle repeats the destiny that Leoben has said, verbatum, Thrace is angered. The oracle continues to repeat Leoben's past words to Thrace, done back when she interrogated a captured copy long ago (Flesh and Bone).
• Thrace wonders how the oracle could know what was said. The oracle tells her that her mother, Socrata Thrace, was trying to tell her something.
• The oracle notes that Leoben is the answer, who can see the answers to Thrace. Thrace leaves angrily from the tent.

Act 1

• The Fleet is orbiting a cloudy gas giant planet as they refuel various ships after the fuel crisis had passed (Dirty Hands)
• Samuel Anders, after the two had a lovemaking session, is asking Thrace to join him for some leave time on another ship.
• He complains that the oracle wasn't helpful, and neither was her mother.
• Thrace notes how the two fought, and the injuries she sustained. Thrace recounts her mothers fear of insects, a holdover from the first Cylon war.
• To get revenge on her mother, Kara places rubber ants in her mother's closet, causing her to have a panic attack as she furiously tries to stamp the rubber bugs to death. In retaliation, Kara's mother places her hand in a door jamb and slams the door on it, breaking Kara's hand. Kara states that it "was worth it".
• During a refueling operation, Starbuck and Hot Dog are on CAP when she thinks she sees an enemy.
• Galactica can't see the contact, but soon someone finds the bogey: Starbuck's Raider.
• As Starbuck goes closer, she sees a storm system that looks remarkably like the mandala. The Raider flies close and, to Starbuck, appears to strike her.
• Starbuck keeps descending into the storm, against Apollo's continuous attempts to warn her back up.
• Eventually, Starbuck struggles successfully to return to space, but not after, during the descent, she sees flashes of sights of an apartment with her mother standing there.

Act 2

• Starbuck is back aboard, but as Galen Tyrol and his deck crew inspect her Viper for damage, there is none.
• Starbuck's gun camera shows nothing, as several pilots including Sharon Agathon, Lee Adama, and Racetrack review it. They don't see Starbuck firing at anything but clouds.
• Admiral Adama speaks with his son and questions Thrace's competency. The admiral believes she is close to burnout, but the younger Adama believes her "steely-eyed Viper jock" mentality is all that holds Thrace together. The admiral repeats the question: Can she handle the strain?
• Lee Adama and Thrace are standing in the memorial hallway. Starbuck asks Major Adama to place her photo next to Kat if she meets her end before him. Likewise, Adama asks to have his photo next to Duck and his sweetheart, Nora, both lost on New Caprica (Battlestar Galactica: The Resistance).
• Thrace asks what Lee and Admiral Adama think of her flight readiness. Major Adama tries to give her encouragement but Thrace is distracted by a wax dripping that looks like the mandala.
• Thrace passes by the Admiral and President Laura Roslin without noticing them when Adama greets her with an old tag line they shared before the new Cylon War (Miniseries). Before moving on, Thrace gives him the Aurora figurine from the oracle's tent as a masthead for his sailing ship models.
• As Thrace goes through inspection of her Viper, she again sees a little girl, this time in her cockpit--Thrace as a girl. Her face is bruised and bleeding. Thrace has flashbacks of her mother and is shocked into stopping her inspection.

Act 3

• A visibly shaken Thrace sits by her Viper when Lee Adama goes back to check on her.
• Thrace says she is not going back out to fly, not trusting herself. Adama volunteers to be her wingman to give her confidence.
• Thrace asks about Adama's wife and how their relationship was going. After a moment of discomfort after he notes things are going well, Thrace tells him that she is happy that things are working out. Thrace says that, as it was in the beginning, the two are back to being platonic.
• During Apollo and Starbuck's CAP, Starbuck sees another bogey and engages, but no one can confirm it on DRADIS again.
• Admiral Adama chooses caution and orders the Fleet to Condition One status, stopping refueling once more.
• Apollo is again trying to flag down Starbuck, but she is entranced once more and again flying downward in the clouds.
• Starbuck's Viper is hit by debris. Her forward canopy window is punctured, she is knocked unconscious, and her fighter begins to tumble. An alarm sounds in the cockpit, and the scene blurs to find a sleeping Thrace shutting off a radio alarm and awaking in her apartment, with a Leoben greeting her.
• Thrace believes she is being tricked again, unconscious or on a Cylon ship, but Leoben states otherwise.
• Leoben keeps noting how the mandala shape cloud attracts her, and that she has told anyone little about it.
• Leoben tells her of her tendency to cheat death ever since a day with her mother as they materialize to a small apartment, reliving an event six years ago, where Lieutenant Thrace stands before her mother as she reads a letter from a veterans administration. On the wall is a Colonial Fleet medal of honor, ostensibly from the first Cylon War.
• Socrata Thrace first congratulates her daughter for being the first of her family to become an officer, then berates her for being only 16th in her class and having many demerits.
• Kara Thrace retaliates by discussing her mother never reaching officer status despite serving in the Cylon War.
• The lieutenant sees a doctor's report that tells that her mother has cancer that has spread rapidly.
• Socrata rejects any attempts of her daughter's sympathy, and Kara Thrace runs out the door, vowing never to return. The "real-world" Starbuck begins to cry as she relives the moment.
• Socrata Thrace stares at a filled dish of cigarette butts.

Act 4

• The scene shifts. Leoben tells Thrace how her mother waited at her apartment and died five weeks later.
• When Thrace tells her reluctance to return, Leoben presents her with another image, where she is able to walk to her mother's deathbed, Socata has a scrapbook of every doodle and letter that Thrace made, including one with the mandala.
• Thrace tells her mother that something is about to happen, the thing that her mother was preparing her for. Socrata tells her daughter that she is ready as she holds her mother's hand. As she presses Socrata's hand to her face, her mother takes her last breath. Starbuck cries and then smiles at being able to be there to hear her mother's final words.
• Leoben tells her that death is not hard to embrace, that this was the lesson her mother was trying to teach her daughter.
• When Thrace realizes that Leoben is not actually a Leoben, he replies that he never claimed to be - he is there to be her guide to see what lies between life and death.
• The scene shifts back to the cloud where Starbuck fails to climb. She reawakens, but continues to drop and chase the Raider image. The planetary cloud boundary, the point of no-return, also called the "hard deck", is getting closer, upon which the air pressure would crush the Viper.
• Apollo finds Starbuck in her dive, and briefly sees the heavy raider.
• Starbuck finally calls out to Apollo: "Lee, I'll see you on the other side." As Apollo frantically calls her to wave off, she repeats, in a whisper, "Just let me go."
• Starbuck sees a vision of white light in her cockpit, and she smiles. Viewers also see an image of herself as a young girl in the same white light.
• A view from the tail of Apollo's Viper clearly shows the UFO/Raider, then Starbuck's Viper appears, chasing it. The UFO vanishes into the clouds, and the view cuts to Apollo, looking straight forwarding, declaring "Visual!"
• Shortly after Apollo gains visual of Starbuck, her Viper explodes. There is no ejection or rescue chute.
• Apollo reports the grim news to CIC. Everyone, from Saul Tigh to Gaeta to Admiral Adama, is visibly heartbroken.
• William Adama tries to work on his sailing ship model, with the Aurora figurine now attached, which fits perfectly. But his anger and grief over the loss of Kara Thrace leads him to destroy the model and begin to cry heavily.

Bonus Scene

• The scene begins shortly before Act 3, where, as Starbuck inspects her Viper, she finds hydraulic fluid, and becomes visibly angry at Chief Tyrol. Major Adama moves in to attempt to calm her down.

Questions

• Will Anders blame Apollo for the loss of Kara once the news of her death reaches him?
• Who is the being that was Kara's "spiritual" guide during her dream? Is he somehow connected to the makers of the mandala in the Temple of Five?
• Is Kara in the cockpit of the Viper as it explodes?
• Is Kara a Cylon, more specifically, one of the final five?
• Is the Heavy Raider real or a hallucination?
• Did Lee see the Heavy Raider, as indicated by this point-of-view shot?
• Is the cockpit truly damaged from space debris, or is it imagined just as the supposed damage that Kara initially believed happened at the first encounter with the Raider.
• Will Helo experience any form of guilt or regret for showing the picture of the mandala to Kara?
• What did Kara mean when she told Lee: "See you on the other side."?
• Who will take Kara's place as Galactica's Viper ace?
• Will Kara's death have any lasting effect on Lee and Dualla's marriage?
• If the Heavy Raider was real, why would the Cylons not include a fighter escort or other ships within the vicinity?
• Considering the white light that appears to shine into Kara's cockpit and what the Leoben-figure mentioned about showing her what lies between life and death, is it possible that she is experiencing the same event that Number Three has on several occasions (Hero, Rapture)?
• Is Kara's Leoben-figure in any way related to Baltar's internal Six?

Analysis

• Although Kara is contemplating to eject from her damaged Viper, the planet is a gas giant. It doesn't have a solid surface and the atmosphere would crush her just like her ship. Thus, even if she successfully ejected, her survival is doubtful.

• The episode brings many story elements of Kara's history to a close as everything comes to a full circle, which is a general meaning of a mandala in spiritual contexts. A few of these elements include:
  • Admiral Adama and Thace's interchange of "What do you hear? - Nothing but the rain". This is first scene that introduced Kara and her overall relationship with Adama at the beginning of the Miniseries.
  • The scene between Apollo aand Starbuck where she states that they've reached full circle as she is again the hotshot pilot who gives nothing but grief to her CAG.
  • Admiral Adama's proposed proposed rescue of her shows his a to rescue his pilots. Similar "You Can't Go Home Again" when Kara is lost on a hostile planet, Adama wants to use search and rescue team to attempt to find her. However, this time, it is Lee who denies his father the attempt because of futility of looking for her Viper's broken pieces.
  • Her continued hostility and bitterness towards her mother finally reach its close as Kara is finally able to witness her mother's death and hear her final words.
  • The final moment before Thace's Viper explodes, an image of a younger Kara being engulfed in light could either be symbolism or an event that represents Thace's return to her childhood innocence.
  • Her hostility towards Leoben comes to a close as she comes to welcome the help and guidance of her "Leoben" guide.

• It should be noted that the Leoben in her vision is not a Cylon, but an unidentified manifestation. Kara says "You're not Leoben, are you?" and the manifestation replies "I never said I was." What this aspect of Kara's vision means remains unknown.

• Kara's death can be seen as the close of her origin desire to die during the episode, "Scar". However, Kara is ready to embrace death and see a new beginning with it, while in "Scar" her original desire is fuel over despair of her belief that Anders was dead on Caprica. Both episode plots are motivated by a mysterious Cylon pilot.

• Admiral Adama is shown in the middle of building his model ship after the failed assassination attempt and the division of the Fleet (Home, Part I). The ship is finally completed at the moment of Adama coming to grips with his grief of Kara's death. In reaction, the ship that was begun during a period of great personal turmoil within Adama is destroyed in the midst of another episode of intense grief and anger.

• Even though Lee and Kara decided to forge on with their marriages, it is Lee who has found contentment with Dualla while Kara remained in turmoil with Anders. The scene after another love making session indicates that their relationship hadn't improved much since "Taking a Break from All Your Worries".

• The figurine that Kara gives to Adama is an idol of the goddess Aurora, the goddess of the dawn and gentle breeze. The relationship between this goddess and Kara seems to be highlighted prior to her Viper's explosion as she apparently is engulfed in light and wind within her cockpit.

• The connection and parallels between Lee and Kara are furthered strengthened during Socrata Thrace's death scene. When Kara confesses to her mother about her fear of taking the next step towards her destiny, her mother remarks that she knows that Kara can meet the task. When asked how she knows this, her response is almost word for word exactly what William Adama said to his son in "The Hand of God": "'You are my daughter (son).'" Thus, similar to Lee, Kara is finally able to bury the hatchet with her mother.

• The "Leoben" guide explains that his role was to help Kara take the next step to the place between life and death. Interestingly, this is the type of "location" that the model Three D'anna described when she begun her suicide/resurrection chamber sessions in order to discover who the Final Five were.

Notes

• Katee Sackhoff had to sign a confidentiality agreement relating to what happened to her character in this episode.
• Adama can be seen building his model ship in "Home, Part I".
• The introduction of the goddess Aurora increases the number of known gods within the Colonial religion. As before with the use of names such as Mars and Jupiter, Aurora is the romanized name for the Greek goddess Eos.
• An aurora is a radiant emission from a planet's upper atmosphere that occurs sporadically over the middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres in the form of luminous bands, thus forming the pattern of the mandala that Kara sees in her first flight over the planet.
• The model ship Adama was building over the course of the series was a very expensive rental prop which Edward James Olmos destroyed in an ad-lib expression of Adama's grief over the loss of Starbuck, much to Ron Moore's dismay.

Noteworthy Dialogue

Kara Thrace sees Socrata Thrace die in a vision guided by Leoben Conoy:

Kara: "Mama, something's about to happen, you know that thing you were trying to prepare me for, I don't know if I can do it."

Socrata: "Oh yes you can, Kara."

Kara: "How can you be sure?"

Socrata: "You're my daughter."

Leoben: "See there's nothing terrible about death, when you finally face it, it's beautiful. You're free now, to become who you really are."

Kara: "You're not Leoben, are you?."

Leoben: "I never said I was. I'm here to prepare you to pass through the next door, to discover what happens in the space between life and death."

Guest Stars

• Georgia Craig as Oracle Brenn
• Dorothy Lyman as Socrata Thrace