After what seemed to be an exceptionally long period of episodes that had no little or no bearing on any other episode, the writers finally got back to the business of moving the story along this week with “Maelstrom”, the fourth last episode of the season.
When dealing with fiction, it’s always a good idea to keep in mind that no important character is ever really dead if you don’t see their body, no matter what seemingly unsurvivable event takes place. In the BSG universe, thanks to the fact there are five unknown Cylon models out there who may or may not conform to the previously established rules (when they were introduced to the colonies, no replacement of an actual person, etc) that limited who could be a Cylon when it came to the other seven models, even seeing a dead body is insufficient evidence. So it’s pretty much impossible to guess at Starbuck’s fate.
One obvious, albeit undesirable, possibility is that Starbuck’s one of the final five Cylon models. Even ignoring the lameness of Starbuck being a final fiver, the Cylon/human character relations are pretty much covered. We already had the person freaking out when they realize they’re a Cylon angle (with Boomer), the rejecting humanity angle (Boomer’s current gig), the Cylon choosing to side with the humans (Athena) and even Cylon who takes the quasi-middle ground, “Why can’t we all just get along?” angle (Caprica). There’s just not anywhere that’s both new and interesting to go with Starbuck the Cylon. I suppose you could have a newly insane/evil Starbuck striving to wipe out humanity, but that wouldn’t really fit Starbuck, nor what little we know of the current Cylon agenda.
Another option is that Starbuck ejected at the last moment and the Cylon raider she had been chasing ‘rescued’ her. Of course, it is quite possible that the raider existed only in Starbuck’s mind; she was hallucinating other stuff throughout the episode, nobody else (including Starbuck’s gun camera) saw the raider, when it bumped her ship it didn’t even leave a scratch and it apparently hung out around in the planet’s atmosphere for several days without bringing in a Cylon basestar or three. Also Starbuck certainly didn’t sound like someone who was preparing to eject in her ‘just let me go’ speech to Lee. On top of all that, Apollo had a good view of Starbuck’s viper in the moments before it exploded, so if she had ejected, he almost certainly would have noticed. Therefore, the whole Cylon rescue bit seems highly implausible at best.
If you reject those two choices, you’ve got to really reach into the realms of absurdity to come up with an explanation as to how Starbuck survives. Even though I like Starbuck and I think her character is an important part of the show, for this episode not to be ruined by its ending (and to keep us free from any storyline that stretch the limits of believability), Starbuck has to be dead. If Starbuck is really dead, then this episode is much more tragic. Starbuck knew she was losing it and she didn’t trust herself to fly anymore. But her friends not only allowed her to fly, but Apollo actually encouraged her to do so. And thus, her friends desire to help her ultimately leads Starbuck’s meaningless death.
Regardless of where the story is going, Katee Sackhoff did a great job in this episode. Her scene with Helo, in particular, really sold her whole breakdown. Just that creepy grin she gave when she said she wasn’t sure if she was okay was enough to sell the whole thing.
I was kind of blasé about the focus on Starbuck’s mom in her hallucinations. The scenes from Starbuck’s childhood showed that Starbuck’s mom was physically and mentally abusive and had some major issues. The last time Starbuck saw her mom, she was still dishing out the mental abuse, though presumably logistics had lead her abandoning the physical abuse. Yet, we were clearly supposed to feel sorry for the woman just because she was dying. Granted, it did seem that Starbuck’s mom really did think she was doing what was best for her daughter, but the only time mom was even remotely sympathetic was on her deathbed. And seeing as the deathbed scene only took place within the realms of Starbuck’s hallucination, it doesn’t really win mom a lot of sympathy points. I get that forgiving her mom was an important part of Starbuck’s ‘moving on’ but if Starbuck really did kill herself, it kind of renders the whole thing moot.
Next week, they’re finally getting on with the whole Baltar’s trial business. Given that they have taken so very many episodes to get to the trial (doesn’t it feel like they’ve had Baltar locked up for a really long time?), presumably it will play a major part on how the last three episodes of the season unfold.
