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	2007-03-04
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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Listing of props for this episode
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Overview

Kara Thrace'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.
• Hot Dog 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 suggests 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 figurine of the angelic Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn.
• An oracle, Yolanda 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 Cylon Leoben and the dreams. When she repeats the destiny foretold by Leoben, verbatim, Thrace is angered. The oracle continues to repeat Leoben's words which were originally spoken under interrogation (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 angrily leaves 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, Thrace placed 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, her mother placed her hand in a door jamb and slammed the door on it, breaking Thrace's hand. Thrace states that it "was worth it".
• During a refueling operation, Starbuck and Hot Dog are on CAP when she believes she sees an enemy.
• Galactica can't see the contact, but Starbuck identifies it as a Heavy 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 fighter.
• 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. When asked, 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 Raider, then Starbuck's Viper appears, chasing it. The bogey 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 Starbuck once the news of her death reaches him?
• Who is the being that was Starbuck's "spiritual" guide during her dream? Is he somehow connected to the makers of the mandala in the Temple of Five?
• Is the cockpit truly damaged from space debris, or is it imagined just as the supposed damage that Starbuck initially believed happened at the first encounter with the Raider?
• If the cockpit is cracked, pressure is equalized, and the vehicle will not be crushed, though the pilot may get decompression sickness later. But if pressure is not the cause, why does the Viper explode?
• Is Starbuck in the cockpit of the Viper as it explodes?
• Is the Heavy Raider real or a hallucination?
• Did Apollo see the Heavy Raider, as indicated by this point-of-view shot?
• If the Heavy Raider was real, why would the Cylons not include a fighter escort or other ships within the vicinity?
• Will Helo experience any form of guilt or regret for showing the picture of the mandala to Starbuck?
• What did Starbuck mean when she told Lee: "See you on the other side."?
• Who will take Starbuck's place as Galactica's Viper ace?
• Will Starbuck's death have any lasting effect on Dualla's marriage?
• Considering the white light that appears to shine into Starbuck'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 had on several occasions ("Hero", "Rapture")?
• Is Starbuck's Leoben-figure in any way related to Baltar's internal Six?
• Is the placement of Starbuck's Aurora figurine on Adama's model ship symbolic to Starbuck, in some way, guiding the Fleet on their path to Earth?
• Based on what the oracle says, is it possible that the real Leoben model knows something about what may have happened during Starbuck's death?

Analysis

• Although Starbuck is contemplating to eject from her damaged Viper, the planet is a gas giant and doesn't have a solid surface. Although in a dense atmosphere one could possibly parachute for hours and the human body is more resistant to high pressures than metal and glass constructions, her helmet would likely be crushed. Thus, unless she were picked up quickly by a rescue craft, her survival would be doubtful.
• The episode brings many story elements of Starbuck'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 Thrace'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 and 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 rescue of her is similar to his actions in "You Can't Go Home Again" when Thrace's Viper goes down over a hostile moon. However, this time, Lee dissuades his father from the attempt because of the futility of looking for Starbuck's destroyed Viper within a gas giant.
  • Kara's initial reaction and eventual denial to pull the ejection handle illustrated the completion of her endless cycle of fleeing death, which she now embraced with joy.
  • Her continued hostility and bitterness towards her mother finally reaches its close as Thrace 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 Thrace being engulfed in light could either be symbolism or an event that represents Thrace'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.

• Thrace's death can be seen as the close of her origin desire to die during the episode "Scar". However, here she 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 Thrace'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 Adama and Thrace decided to forge on with their marriages, it is Adama who has found contentment with Dualla while Thrace 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 Thrace gives to Adama is an idol of the goddess Aurora, the goddess of the dawn and gentle breeze. The relationship between this goddess and Thrace 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 Major Adama and Thrace are furthered strengthened during Socrata Thrace's death scene. When Thrace confesses to her mother about her fear of taking the next step towards her destiny, her mother remarks that she knows that her daughter 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 Adama's son, Thrace is finally able to bury the hatchet with her mother.

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

• In many ways this episode is reminiscent of the Ship of Lights and the angelic beings that occupied it in the Original Series.

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.

Noteworthy Dialogue

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

Thrace: "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."

Thrace: "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."

Thrace: "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."

Official Statements

Information from the podcast:

• The original script had Kara do three trips to the gas giant. It is during the second trip that she sees the Heavy Raider again, but panics and fakes a hydraulics problem with her Viper, which allows her to return to Galactica. This was the original reason, not the lack of visual evidence of a Heavy Raider, that Lee and Adama had their conversation about her competency as a pilot.

• 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 the props crew's dismay as the model was worthed in the range of the $100,000s. Thankfully, the ship was insured.

• The original script was meant to be a payoff for the end of "Rapture" when Helo showed Thrace the mandala. It was supposed to have Thrace face her fear of death and resist its call, while at the same time the overall payoff would be somehow linked to furthering the Fleet's voyage to Earth. After several iterations of the script, RDM and company decided to go down the dangerous avenue of killing off one of the major characters.

• The original script had an interior scene of the Heavy Raider as the first place that Kara would wake up from after she is knocked unconscious. There she would find Leoben using a device that would delve into her memories. At the time, however, RDM didn't know if it was possible if the show could revisit Thrace's apartment. Once that possibility was available, the interior of the Heavy Raider was abandoned because of cost and storyline suitability.

• The last scene between Adama and Thrace was originally to have ended on a more sour note. Thrace was supposed to be in a meeting between Adama, Lee, and Roslin, upon which Thrace noted out loud the possible romantic undertones between Adama and Roslin. Afterwards, Adama would dress Thrace down and those would have been his last words to her before her death. The director argued with RDM about cutting this scene out and eventually RDM gave way to allow a more comforting departure between the two characters.

• According to Moore, "Maelstrom" is, for him, the first page of the third act in the series overall. He believes that with this episode, the show is well on its way to completion and is now on act three out of a 4 act series.

Guest Stars

• Georgia Craig as Oracle Brenn
• Dorothy Lyman as Socrata Thrace
• Leah Cairns as Margaret Edmondson
• Bodie Olmos as Brendan Constanza
• Samantha Ferris as Pollux
• Don Thompson as Anthony Figurski
• Erika-Shaye Gair as Child Kara