Battlestar Galactica

Episode #215 - "Scar"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

49,593 survivors in search of a home called Earth.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

In the pilot's quarters they are cleaning out Reilly's gear. Starbuck states, "Reilly's dead for one very simple reason. He couldn't control his fear." Kat adds, "Yep, poor idiot cut and ran. Gave the toaster a free shot up his ass." "Scar spooked him. He saw that motherfrakker's red eye coming straight for him, and he panicked. Reilly was a good stick. A little hsort on guts, but a good stick." Duck adds, "Beano had plenty. Took Cally an hour to clean out his cockpit." Kat asks, "Hey, does anybody remember the name of Reilly's girlfriend?" Duck replies, "Karen, I think. Died on Picon." Hot Dog thinks it was Kather or Kathy. Starbuck says, "You guys, what does it matter? Gonna hold a little prayer circle? Good cry? The whole thing?" "Actually, it does matter." Ensign Baxton (JoJo) and Ensign Clark (BB) introduce themselves. BB tells them, "We just finished... Viper training on Pegasus. Ready to kick some Cylon butt." Kara adds, "So was Beano." "Who's, uh, Beano?" She removes Beano's bunk label and sticks it on BB's shirt.

Kat tells him, "Oooh. Scar's gonna smoke you like a fine cigar, my man." "Who's Scar?" Duck replies, "Not who. What. Toaster's top gun. Deadliest raider in the Cylon fleet." JoJo comments, "Gimme a break. Come on, they're machines. One's the same as the next." "Yeah, that's what we thought till Captain Thrace cut the brains out of one." Hot Dog says, "Scar's the best they got. Lotta pilots die going after that bastard." BB asks, "Why do they call him Scar?" "You'll find out soon enough. He's got a taste for nuggets. Easy pickings."

It's 88 hours earlier and the pilots are in the ready room. JoJo asks, "So, how does Scar take out an experienced pilot like Beano?" Starbuck replies, "He hides behind an asteroid. Or the debris field that you've ignored. Because it looked like a bunch of harmless rocks. You see, Scar doesn't like to fight until the odds are on his side. And then, suddenly out of nowhere, bam. He pops out, blows you to pieces. And then jumps away before you can return fire." "Well, if you ask me, I think Scar's a coward." "This isn't dueling pistols at dawn, this is war. You never wanna fight fair. You wanna sneak up behind your enemy, and club 'em over the head. You see, Scar understands that. And so do I. So, that's why I'm gonna kill him." Kat retorts, "You? Starbuck, you can barely walk." "Look who's talking, stim junkie." "You know, I wouldn't be calling anyone a junkie if I were you Starbuck. Not the way you been pounding back that booze lately. One Tigh on the ship's enough. Uh.. I got 200 here. Says I nail Scar's chrome-plated ass. And when I do? You hand that top gun over to me and pour me my first drink." "Your lips'll never touch the rim, little girl." Starbuck stumbles around drunk, then dives over a table, falling over.

The episode then flashes back to the present. Starbuck and Kat are patrolling the asteroid field. Kat thinks she's found Scar. "Starbuck, kiss your 200 goodbye. This guy's mine." "Something's definitely wrong. That can't be Scar. He should be jumping, or wheeling to gun at us. I'll check our six." It was the wrong ship, the raider was a diversion. Scar starts its engines and takes after the Vipers. Starbuck does a 180 and can't see that Scar is firing at her because the sun is in her eyes. " Frak! I'm hit."

81 hours earlier, Kat is in the briefing room, showing the pilots footage from Beano cockpit. "See, Beano opened fire too early. You guys, you gotta fill the windscreen with the sucker or you're not gonna hit him. See, look. He's still not close enough. Beano's already dead, he just doesn't know it yet. Do any of you guys see where he went wrong? There, you see that glint? There. That's a Raider. If Beano hadn't fixated on his target, he'd have seen that." A pilot asks, "Was it Scar?" She shows a closeup of the fighter. "There he is, boys and girls. There's the motherfrakker I'm gonna kill." Laura is with the command staff in CIC. "I"m afraid fraid this is one of those good news, bad news conversations." Adama says, "Bad news first." "The mining chip's broken another drill bit. We need to extend again. Another eight days... They've just discovered an incredibly rich vein of ore. Enough to build two entire squadrons of Vipers. I can't walk away from that." "What's the good news?" "The Pegasus production team has just turned out its first combat-ready Viper. We are beginning to replace our losses." Tigh asks, "Hmm. Are they going to be able to replace pilots as well?"

Starbuck is in the briefing room with the pilots. "Let's review the tactical situation. Four weeks ago, our mining ships struck pay dirt on this asteroid. A pile of strategic metals that we need to build new ships. Since we're sitting ducks until the miners finish the job, the old man has sent the fleet out of harm's way under the protection of Pegasus. Our job is to stay behind and protect the miners. Unfortunately, this star system is full of rocks and dust. Cannot tell the rocks from the bad guys, so our only reliable system of detection is..." Kat finishes the sentence, "Our eyeballs." "Which means we have to put those eyeballs way out there. Split up, cover a huge perimeter. We'll be patrolling the area in divisions of four at these picket points." Kat tells them, "We're going in sections of twos" and Starbuck asks, "Are you planning the ops for me now too?" "CAG wants us to spread out to control a larger area. It's right here in the briefings." "All right. So, we do go in twos. Scar and his buddies are out there. Looking for easy kills. Let's not give him any."

In CIC, Laura states, "This operation is vital to the long term survival of this fleet." "Yes it is. And we'll continue to support it." Tigh remarks, "They're grinding us down, Viper by Viper." "Why'd they stop coming at us en masse? Is it because we destroyed the Resurrection ship?" Adama replies, "Starbuck's working on that."

Starbuck is asking Sharon questions about Scar. Sharon tells her, "This guy's probably died and been reborn a dozen times. You may have faced him before." "So what, raiders reincarnate? Just like you?" "Yeah, just like me... A raider's much like a trained animal, with the basic consciousness and survival instinct. But with the destruction of the resurrection ship, when they die, they're really dead. So, they're not gonna mount mass attacks where they could have major casualties." "Raiders reincarnate?" "Makes sense, doesn't it? It takes months for you to train a nugget into an effective Viper pilot. And then they get killed. And their experience, their knowledge, their skill sets. They're all lost forever. So, if you could bring 'em back and put 'em in a brand new body, wouldn't you do it? 'Cause death then becomes a learning experience." She asks Starbuck, "How many pilots have we lost? I mean, have you lost?" "You know, there are times when I look at you and I forget what you are. All I see is that kid that pooched her landings day after day. The kid that was frakkin' the chief and thinking she was getting away with it." "Yeah, I remember (she starts crying). You were like a big sister to..." She tries to reach out to Starbuck but the Marines stop her. "Be careful of Scar, OK? He's filled with rage." "About what?" "Dying's a painful and traumatic experience. Every time he's reborn, he's filled with more bitter memories. Scar hates you every bit as much as you hate him."

Starbuck is on the firing range with the pilots. Pilots are placed inside a large rotating gyroscsope, then, once done spinning, they shoot a target. "A raider is a squirmy son of a bitch. You won't be able to keep him in your sights for more than two seconds. So, you have to deliver a killing burst within that time or he will turn and nail you. All that yanking and banking gives you one hell of a case of vertigo. And that is what this chair simulates." JJ fires but barely hits the target. Hotdog tells him the all time record is four hits on the X-ring. "Are you kidding? Who did that?" "I did." Kat asks to give it a shot "for old times sake", then makes five hits in the central target area.

We flash forward to the asteroid field. Starbuck is being chased by Scar and is hit. "Primary and secondary hydraulics are bent. I casn deal with it." Kat has lost visual and can't find her. "Forget it, Kat. Scar's mine." "Don't be an idiot, Starbuck, what's your position?" Starbuck is making more threats against Scar.

It's 42 hours earlier. Starbuck and Helo are working out in the exercise room. "Why are you pushing so hard? Kat's just another hot shot kid out to make her bones. Like you were before you met Anders. You ever think about him?" "What's the point? He's dead." "Kara, if you didn't think he had a chance of surviving, why'd you promise to return with a rescue party?" "I thought I was... I don't know what I thought." In the locker room, BB is worried about Scar and Starbuck is giving him advice. "They drilled this into you over and over and over again at basic air combat." "I now, sir, but Scar's something I'm not..." "Scar is no different than any other attacker. He come at you, turn into him, get closer, pull the trigger. "Thank you sur." "Don't run, or you'll die... Now listen to me, you're roying Duck's wing today. Baxton, right?" "Yes, call sign BB, sir." "OK, that' sone of the best pilots that we got. OK, so just do what he says and you'll be fine.." Kat tells him, "Go get 'em tiger." And to Starbuck, "That kid needs more than a pat on the ass and a textbook quote about tactics, OK?" "You wanna be his wet-nurse, go right ahead, all right? Be my guest. His jacket says he's a qualified Viper jock. So, I either fly him, or I ground him and then we go up short. What's it gonna be? Your call, Kat."

Duck and BB are engaging several raiders. Duck, who is out of fuel, says, "From behind the rocket, left ten. Coming hard, looks like Scar... We don't have enough fuel to mix it up. We bug out BB. Letour relief deal with 'em. We're going home." "Negative! Starbuck said to turn into any attack." "Gods damn it, BB. This is the frakkin' exception. Abort and reform." Starbuck, Apollo and Kat try to reach them but it's too late for BB. Kat tears into Starbuck in the landing bay. "What happened to BB?" "He did exactly what you told him to do, Captain. Him and Duck had bingo fuel and a head start home, but instead the FNG turned and attacked. And Scar lit him up like a pinwheel." "Why'd he try to take Scar on by himsef? Stupid idiot." "Try and run and your dead. I heard you, you drilled that into the poor moron's dead." "You and I both know that 99% of the time that is the right move." "Not this time."

In the ready room, Starbuck and Apollo are sharing drinks and remembering the dead. He says, "You know what gets me? I know that in two weeks, I won't remember his face. I can't remember any of their faces after they're killed. No matter how hard I try, they just fade." "I don't even remember their names." "Let me see, there was Flattop, who bought it on his thousandth landing. There was Chukcles." She's laughing. "It's not funny." "It is funny. You know the President says that we're saving humanity for a bright, shiny future. on Earth. That you and I are never gonna see. We're not. Because we go out over and over again until someday, some metal motherfrakker is gonna catch us on a bad day and just blow us away." "Bright shiny futures are overrated anyway." "That is why we gotta get what we can. Right now." "I'll drink to that. Rigth now." "So, why don't we?" "Why don't we what?"

They start undressing each other and kissing but it's too much for Apollo. "Hey, slow down. This isn't a race. Kara, what's going? What's wrong with you all right." "You know what? I don't wanna know." "Hey, what about us?" "There is no us, all right? I just wanted a good lay. There is nothing here. Do you get that? Nothing." "Well, that's just great. Frak or fight, huh? OK, maybe I am just a quick lay. But, Kara, I'm also your friend." "I am hung up on a dead guy, OK? And it is pissing me off. And I don't know what I'm doing." "Anders, right? On Caprica, the resistance fighter." "Yeay, well, Samuel's dead, so what does it matter?" "Oh, Kara please..." "I don't need you pity, Lee!" "For once in your life, you haven't got my pity. Listen you are find with the dead guys. It's the living guys you can't deal with." She slaps him and then kisses him again and then she breaks it off. Later, Starbuck is drunk and watching films of Scar.

Three hours earlier in the ready room, Starbuck is briefing the pilots. "In two on two engagements, Cylon raiders like to isolate individual Vipers, and then gang up on one, hoping to kill it before his wingman has a chance to protect him." A crewman hands her a reportl and she comments. "Which is exactly what happened to Jo-Jo 20 minutes ago. Bastard smoked Jo-Jo and jumped away in less than 15 seconds before his wingman could get a shot off." Kat asks, "And where were you? Flight schedule had you flying lead for Jo-Jo on that patrol. So, why'd you assign Snake to take your place? Was it too early in the morning for you, Starbuck?" "What exactly are you tryin to say, Lieutenant?" "What I'm trying to say, Captain, maybe if you weren't up all night drinking, Jo-Jo would still have been here." She asks the other pilots to leave.

"What is it with you, Katraine? Ever since I got back, you've been on my ass like a bad rash." "You know, coming late for a briefing 'cause you're hung over, that's bad enough. But when you back out on a mission?" "I put Snake in my place because I was in no condition to fly. And I knew that. You see, unlike you, I don't take a bunch of pills, and then climb into my cockpit so wired that I can't land the frakkin' ship." "Starbuck, you're an embarassment. You used to be the hottest stick on the fleet. Now, you're just a reckless drunk that sends other people out to get killed. You gonna hit me, Starbuck?" "It scares you, does it? You're afraid most of the time, Kat. You're afraid that you're gonna end up like that picture of Reilly's girlfriend. Some little, forgotten picture that nobody really remembers. You see, that's why you're riding my ass so hard. So, no one will notice that Scar scares the living crap out of you." Kat punches her, Apollo enters, asks what's going on. "Little tactical discussion, sir." "Well, it must have been lively. Right, I'm pairing you two up. Kat, I want you to fly Starbuck's wing out by the big spud." He asks Starbuck if she's OK. Some time before the mission, Kat visits the memorial hallway and pins up the picture of Reilly's girlfriend.

In the asteroid field, Starbuck tells Kat, "This is where BB and Jo-Jo bought it." "Cassie! Maybe that was her name." "You know what, Kat? I told you I have no frakkin' idea, so give it a reast, all right?" Kat spots Scar, who hits Starbuck's Viper. Kat closes the distance, and Kara is getting ready to take on Scar. "All right, Scar, let's see how much you like playing chicken when you can't download, bitch. How's it feel, you bastard? One of us is gonna have to break away first and it isn't gonna be me!" "Starbuck, wake up! He's a machine. He's not gonna break." "I got nothing to lose." "You're committing suicide, Starbuck!" She's thinking of her promise to Anders. At the last second Starbuck pulls away and Scar turns around and gives chase. "Gods damn it! I am going to put him right in front of you. Do not miss him, you frakkin' stim junkie." Kat takes a shot and destroys Scar. "And that's the way it's done! Yeah, let's go home, skipper!"

In the ready room, the pilots are celebrating. "Hey Starbuck! My cup runneth dry. Seems I recall someone boasting that my lips would never touch this rim." She walks over and pours Kat a drink in the mug. "You earned it. To BB. Jo-Jo, Reilly, Beano, Dipper, Flattop, Chuckles, Jolly, Crashdown, Sheppard, Dash, Flyboy, Stepchild, Puppet, Fireball." Apollo adds, "To all of 'em." Then Adama says, "So say we all."Later, Starbuck and Helo are boxing and she explains she could have taken out Scar. "Why didn't you do it?" "Probably would have died in the process. The bastard was too good. Couple months ago, I wouldn't have even thought about it. Would have just gone for the glory hoping I could pull it out of the fire somehow." "Quit kicking yourself. You did the right thing and called in your wingman, OK? Scar's dead, you and Kat came out alive." "It's not why I did it though. Can't get Anders out of my head. Can't get over this insane hope that maybe he's alive." "You got something to live for now. Not just die for." They fight some more and she knocks him over. He jokes, "He's down for the count."

Ron Moore's Commentary

9/3/2006 -- This scene that you're seeing here in the tease of them gathering all of the possessions of the dead pilot into a box actually led to a scene that ultimately we cut in editing where they auctioned off the possessions of the dead pilot, which grew out of something that I remember from history and fictionalized history as well where, in the Royal Navy, back in the Napoleonic war era, when members of the crew -- officers or enlisted men -- died they would take all their possessions and they would take them up onto the deck after the battle and they would auction them off to the other members of the crew. And it was a way of saying goodbye in carrying some pieces of their memories forward. And also in a practical sense there was gear to be had... And we did shoot that aspect of the sequence. This scene was going to then cut to Lee holding up the skin magazine from Beano, and it was like, "OK, how much do I have for this?" (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- It's interesting just to see the development of Kat, who started as just a day player in "Act of Contrition." I don't know that any of us anticipated that we were ever going to really do anything with that character again. And then bit by bit over the course of the first and second seasons, writers started dropping her in the shows and using her as another fighter pilot... It's nice because it creates a reality of the world, it really makes it feel like a continuing story with familiar faces, and the world just keeps expanding. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- In this episode, it's interesting that we take Kara down a significant peg here. She's really frakking up in this episode. She's not on her game, she's getting blinded by this competition with Kat and she doesn't know why. She's confused, she gets drunk. She tries to sleep with Lee for all the wrong reasons. She's a really confused, flawed character. And she's the top gun character on the show, and she's supposed to be perfect, and she's supposed to have all these abilities. This is one where we really put her through the wringer. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- I like this runner a lot between Helo and Kara. There's something very nice about it, and it is borne out of a throwaway line from "Kobol's Last Gleaming." Because you know Helo was separated from the entire cast for the whole first season. When he and Kara hooked up in "Scattered", I just had a line where she said, "Helo, you and I go back a long ways." But it was nice to say that there was a history between the two of them, and it's interesting that in the show, she's revealing herself in an intimate way with Helo instead of Lee, that there's this other person who is more of a friend, and that there is a camaraderie between the two that's really kind of nice. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- And this angle on Jamie, I love this when she says, "Why don't we?" And the look on his face, the dawning awareness. And then, right here, that's so great. He's so like caught in this scene. You can kind of feel it right away, the energy in this scene all wrong, if this is really the time where Apollo and Starbuck are going to finally get it on, which of course has been something we've talked about since the miniseries. When are these two finally going to get in bed, when's it going to happen? And I always wanted it to happen for all the wrong reasons, in a very screwed up way... It's a confused, angry emotional scene. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- It was a great concept, and I loved the notion of going through a laundry list of the names. I don't know if it's scripted or a Nankin thing that she falters, and kinda can't remember. It's great 'cause she doesn't run down the list, and they don't complete the list. She literally gets to a point where she just honestly can't remember. And the whole scene is about to just collapse because it's like "omigosh, I've ruined this great moment." And then she can't do it, and Lee steps in and saves it. It's one of the most heroic moments he has in the whole series, this little thing he does. It's such a bigger heroic moment than a lot of the other things. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- And this is a great beat too. The music is actually from The Dear Hunter, David Eick's [inspiration]. (source: Scar podcast)

2/27/2006 -- Is [the blonde woman lying on her back getting belly-button shots in "Scar"] Starbuck? There is some controversy over this question.

No it isn't and we struggled with it in the editing room to tweak her hair color and other things to make it clear that it wasn't her, but we never licked the problem. We really wanted the shot because it directly ties into the flashback shot of Anders kissing her on the stomach, so we opted to keep it in rather than lose it altogether.

Commentary by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson

9/3/2006 -- BT: One of the mighty nice things that Michael Nankin brought to the show was the little moment you saw earlier with putting the tag of Beano on the new guy, JoJo... This thing that you just saw Kara do, this carrier landing, it comes from astronauts that we interviewed from another project we were on, where they would go to bars and literally dive across the tables. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- BT: [This beat] actually comes from a thing that Pappy Boyington used to do in the Second World War when he was flying with the Flying Tigers. The bad guys were always in the sun. And he just at one point he put his thumb up there and realized he could see around the sun. And he assumed that everybody else had already twigged to that particular thing. Nobody had... When we were doing the actual fighter tactics, and the things that Kara says or that Kat says about you'll have only two seconds to actually blow this guy away, so you've got to get close, this all comes from real fighter pilot concerns. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- BT: The diagrams that you'll see on the wall of the dogfight, the crosswalk, and all that stuff comes from a book called "Fighter Tactics," by a U.S. Navy pilot, which is one of the textbooks used learning to dogfight. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- DW: The whole thing about Riley's girlfriend started out as just a color. When we first put it in the script, we thought, "It's probably gonna get cut." It's just a color thing. But as we continued to do the rewrite, it became a central thematic throughline for the characters, because that's what Kara said when she confronts Kat, "You're afraid you're gonna end up like that." We never intended it in the beginning, to have that function.
BT: That's another one of those wonderful things that grows as we do draft after draft. Certain things fall away, and certain things take on much more meaning. (source: Scar podcast)

9/3/2006 -- BT: There was a final party scene that was written in there, and then Michael Nankin came to us up in Canada when we were in prep and said, "You know, I would think it would be nice to do the names here."
DW: He had the whole concept of Kara pretending not to remember the names in the rec room with Lee, and I could remember when he brought the note, and we were like, "No, we're not gonna do that, it's too sentimental. Who is this director coming in with these notes?" And then late at night we're thinking about it for a couple of hours and go, "You know, maybe he's right." And then you start to do it and realize, "God, this is good, this is really good." He brought the whole show up with this idea. (source: Scar podcast)

Commentary

"I was really impressed with how my character's story arc unfolded last year. Starbuck learnt a great deal about herself, and at the end of the season we see her crack. Prior to that she'd been sort of 'Super Starbuck,' and always did her job and saved everyone. She was perfect, spot on, and then lost it completely. I enjoyed that, and, in fact, have asked the show's producers and writers if we could keep that up this season. I really want to drive home the point that Starbuck is human and has flaws. She's probably one of the most flawed characters on the series as well as one who's extremely scared. There are quite a few skeletons in her closet and some of them are going to be coming out in year two, which I'm excited about." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 6/27/2005 (source: TV Zone)

"She is extremely vulnerable, and extremely fragile. And she wants so badly to be loved. And she doesn't know how to do that. She's been hurt so many times in her life. The easiest way for her to feel loved is to have sex with somebody, to feel that immediate connection. And I think that when she [did] do that and realized that wasn't what [she] wanted, again, she leaves them. So that's why it's a string of men and it's only one time or two times. But I think with the man that she met on Caprica, she finally gave her heart to someone. And it's a big thing for her, and we've been seeing the emotional toll it has taken for her, because she misses him a lot." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 7/25/2005 (source: SciFi Wire)

"So much has happened to Starbuck. She's lost so much. How can she not be growing up? She's losing faith, not in the gods but in the people. Everything that has happened to her has been a test, some sort of a lesson, and heartbreaking. If something good doesn't happen to her soon she's going to completely lose the farm." -- Katee Scakhoff (Starbuck) on 12/7/2006 (source: SciFi.com Behind the Scenes)

"It's a complete departure from whom she's been for two seasons. I went to Ron Moore and David Eick and said, 'I don't get it. I don't like it.' I thought, 'What happened to my character? She's drinking all the time.' The whole episode stems from her wanting to go back to Caprica and get Anders. The likelihood of him being alive is growing small, and she knows he's probably dead, and she loves him. It's a great episode." -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 1/4/2006 (source: Scripps Howard)

"As the latter half of this season unfolds, Starbuck gets knocked off her superstar pedestal. In fact, I think she's giving Colonel Tigh a run for his money when it comes to the drinking. You know how they say that you inevitably turn into the person you most despise if you don't figure out the reasons why you despise that person. Well, that's what my character is doing... I thought, 'How can Starbuck suddenly go from being so capable and on top of her game -- at least where her job is concerned -- to someone who is everything she despises?' "The whole thing starts in the episode 'Scar,' and it was one of the biggest challenges I've faced yet on this show, mainly because my ego as Starbuck got in the way. I kept saying to our producers, 'Starbuck would never do this,' and they'd say, 'Yes, she would. At some point if she can't solve her problems on her own, she's going to turn to drink, drugs, something to numb the pain.'" -- Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) on 3/23/2006 (source: Starburst)