For my Battlestar Galactica watching friends, I just want to remind you that Television Without Pity publishes weekly recaps, and the recent BSG recaps by Jacob have been bordering on amazing. If I was him in college I would have been able to skip as many American Studies classes as I did will also getting all the “A”s that I didn’t. One specific character relationship that he has a lot to say about is the dynamic between Apollo and Starbuck, and its fascinating to watch them converse and then read his analysis and realize that everything they do, everything they say, every single guesture between them is *always* misinterpreted by the other, that as much as they care about and perhaps love each other, they just can’t communicate. The recap for Scar, which is a fabulous read on its own, contains this gem of analysis:

Kara pushes Lee off and starts dressing. “Hey,” he whines, “what about us?” She laughs. “There is no us, all right? I just wanted a good lay. There is nothing here. Do you get that? Nothing.” She dares him to say otherwise, but he gives in so easily that she just screams, “My gods!,” exasperated. He comes in again, this time like a friend, over her shoulder, on a bunk: “Hey.” She stands up and seems ready to shoot him. “Well, that’s just great. Frack or fight, huh?” He steps right up in her business: “Okay, maybe I am just a quick lay. But, Kara, I’m also your friend.” True. She takes advantage: “I am hung up on a dead guy, okay? And it is pissing me off. And I don’t know what I’m doing.” Nice to know that, even now, she can tell him parts of the truth. Lee turns and thinks about this, the crush part and the best friend part engaging in a brief war: “Anders, right? On Caprica, the resistance fighter.” Kara pushes this off, because “Samuel” is dead, and Lee starts to give her a speech starting with “For once in your life…” but Kara translates this as pity. Lee: “You haven’t got my pity! Listen, you are fine. You’re fine with the dead guys. It’s the living guys you can’t deal with.” Which is ironic on all cylinders but still true. She slaps him, and they look at each other, and she grabs his face, kissing him roughly. Lee’s hands don’t know what to do. She pushes off, and he’s a little angry and intense by now, even though the last kiss was basically an apology for being a freak, and Kara grabs the bottle and swings out of the room.

One of the most fascinating relationships in a series full of fascinating relationships, as long as we just ignore that completely terrible episode two weeks ago where Lee did all that stuff that didn’t make sense. I’m really rooting for BSG to redeem itself, becase when its good its just so good, and in the meantime while I wallow in its surprisingly out of place suckiness, at least I have Jacob over at TWOP to keep me hopeful.