Rating: ***
Written by: David Weddle & Brad Thompson
Directed By: Michael Nankin
The underlying premise of "Scar" is sound enough. The fleet has determined that an asteroid field in a particular solar system is a rich source of the metals out of which Vipers and Raptors are constructed. Given the inevitable attrition of fighter craft Galactica and Pegasus have sustained over the months since the Colonies were destroyed, those losses have to be replaced eventually, and this is a prime opportunity to gather the natural resources to accomplish that.
Unfortunately, there is a squadron of Cylon raiders in that particular solar system, as there seems to be in every location of the slightest strategic value to the human diaspora, so Pegasus jumps ahead with the fleet while Galactica remains behind with a mining ship to gather the precious stuff of future Vipers and Raptors.
I didn't have any big problems with this story, but there were a handful of small ones, and the Cylon presence was one of them. I understood that the Cylon fleet destroyed by the two battlestars back in "Resurrection Ship" was the source of all their attacks on the "ragtag fugitive fleet" going back to day one. It made, if not perfect sense, than darn close to it. They knew in which direction the Galactica jumped from Raknar Anchorage, where Kobol was, and they could track the humans accordingly. Of course, by that same logic they should have been able to destroy them any time they wanted as well, which is why the sense this template makes isn't flawless.
But the farther from the Colonies the Colonial fleet travels, the less sense it will make. Having lost the means of tracking the humans, and the means of easy clandestine communication and "resurrection" since they're out of range of either the Colonies or the Cylon homeworld, how would the Cylons know where to find their quarry? How far does their strategic reach extend? How limitless are their resources? Why was a Cylon squadron in that solar system waiting for them?
The dramatic answer is Messrs. Weddle and Thompson needed a plot device - "Scar." I just didn't happened to buy it.
But for a plot device, Scar was a pretty good one. Much like Space: Above & Beyond's Chiggy Von Richtofen, this particular Cylon raider, which we learn from an underrated scene between Boomer v. 2.0 and Starbuck also endlessly reincarnates as well as the humanoid "models," is the aliens' unbeatable ace, who takes an inexorable, grinding toll on the Galactica's pilot contingent. A master of cat & mouse, hit & run tactics in the chaotic maelstrom of the asteroid fields, Scar is like the old Green Bay Packers' power sweep - the Viper jockeys know what's coming, but none of them can stop it. And there are fewer and fewer of them left to try as time soldiers relentlessly on.
This is war in microcosm. One might even call it a protracted Kobayashi Maru scenario. The flyboys (and girls) know they're getting massacred, and they know they have no choice but to keep going back for more. Not exactly the best means of maintaining pilot morale.
Least of all for the last person you'd have expected would start falling apart: Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. Though the underlying reason for that is another minor (IMO) flaw of the story.
The more immediate reason, by contrast, is the highlight of the episode.
Remember Lieutenant Louanne "Kat" Katraine, one of Kara's "nuggets" back in "Act of Contrition" and the "stim" addict depicted in "Final Cut"? Well she's come of age, baby. Not just in the "holding her own/pulling her own weight" sense, but in a bravado that is positively Starbuckian. And Starbuck herself definitely takes notice.
In a boisterous officer's club scene that would be called "testosterone-laden" were the two main protagonists not women, Kat challenges Starbuck for her title (symbolized by a stylized beer stein) as Galactica's "top gun" by betting her that she'll get Scar first. 'bucko, never one to shrink from a challenge, accepts in a fusillade of suds and a drunken header over a nearby table, where she lands in a sodden heap against the wall in apparent laughter.
I say apparent because there are tears behind the guffaws. And that leads to the aforementioned "underlying reason" for her emotional angst.
Remember Sam Anders, the human resistance fighter Kara met and buggered on Caprica in "The Farm"? So does she, and she can't get him out of her mind. It seems that, as their tearful parting seemed to mordantly foreshadow, Kara fell head over heels for Anders, something completely out of character for the brash Miss Thrace. Even in a "wartime romance" sense this would be a bit hard to swallow, but for Starbuck? To the point of emotional implosion? Maybe I could have bought into it had their been even a brief arc tangentially festooned to previous episodes showing the toll of guilt and loss taken by Kara's inability to fulfill her promise to Anders to come back for him (The isolated exchange on the subject of liberating Caprica between Starbuck and Admiral Cain in "Resurrection Ship" didn't mention the Anders/romance angle). As it is here, it's just plopped into our laps like a turd on your front stoop.
Still, if Kara's motivation is questionable, its effect on her is nevertheless powerfully compelling. Her legendary braggadocious façade is steadily eroding from within over Anders and from without under Kat's challenge. So Starbuck, being all too human, does what many humans do in that kind of pressure cooker: pulls a Colonel Tigh. Climbs inside a bottle. Tries to use Apollo as a surrogate "frak" and gets called cold on it ("Your problem isn't dealing with the dead, it's handling the living!"). And, while sleeping off a hangover, assigns a newbie pilot to a CAP in her place who gets vaporized by Scar.
This escalates the Starbuck-Kat rivalry to full-blown confrontation when Kat, outraged at Kara's Tigh-like behavior costing pilot lives, calls her on it in front of the entire remaining Viper squadron. Not really being able to dispute Kat's criticism, 'bucko orders the flight briefing room cleared and deliberately provokes her young apprentice by accusing her of hiding selfish ambition behind noblesse oblige - which is also spot-on as Kat, pouring on the boastful exterior to cover her abiding fear of her own imminent mortality, seeks to at least make sure that her name won't be forgotten - and the young(er) hotshot takes the bait and socks Kara. Who, tellingly, doesn't retaliate, almost as if she was orchestrating her own punishment for the guilt of her personal failings costing one of her pilots his life.
It was cliched, I suppose, but nonetheless necessarily inevitable that Starbuck and Kat would end up in the climatic showdown with Scar (periodically flash-forwarded - or maybe the rest of the ep was flashbacks - Ron Moore and his crew have so overused this device that it's difficult to even notice anymore). And at first, in her classic fashion, Kara makes a frontal "chicken" run at Scar, all guns blazing, until for some reason - almost as if she suddenly realizes the stupidity of what she's doing, notwithstanding Kat loudly repeating it at the top of her lungs ("Frak me!!!") - she pulls up at the last possible moment and sets up Kat to score the kill - and thus loses her "top gun" bet but wins the battle, and lives to, perhaps, keep a promise.
The final scene in the celebratory officers' club is very fitting and well done. Kat triumphantly and smirkingly makes Captain Thrace pay up on her bet. And Kara does, silently and burningly, her eyes never leaving Kat's, as she surrenders the "top gun" stein and fills it for Lieutenant Katraine. She turns and calls for a toast to Kat - and then, connecting with an earlier scene with Apollo where the discussed the anonymity of the pilot losses they'd taken, proceeds to rattle off the call-sign of every Viper jockey lost in the fight against Scar. A splendid reminder that it isn't about individual glory but about the team, and the ultimate survival of their people.
Something to which everybody, including Apollo, Tigh, and Admiral Adama, could - and did - drink heartily.
I just hope Kara was drinking ginger ale. She really does need to lay off the sauce for a while.
Next: First it was Cylon sympathizers, now it's anti-Cylon vigilantes - aren't there any normal people in this ragtag fleet?
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