Gunny Burrel kills one of the goons and Starbuck has to hit the deck. Apollo jumps up to get into the fight, but Starbuck shoots him in the chest. She is horrified, and blanks out. It's interesting, because obviously, she's now killed all the sons of Adama, but also because of something on the forums relating to how no matter what happens with Kara, she still has her Overwhelming Awesome Skills and Tactics, and not only has the operation just gone to hell, but she's lost her perfect markmanship. Her body, her instrument, has failed her, for failing it last week with Lee. Gone. Control. Gone. Her jumping in and living through, borne of sheer willpower and hellcat exuberance -- her luck. That's gone. This op should have gone without a hitch just because it's Starbuck, and if you find that concept annoying, switch sides and pretend it's all you have for a sec. Gone. And because one random dude saw one random drunken harridan catch her eye -- not because she fucked up, not because of anything she did wrong, but because, like everybody else here, including Ray Abinell, was in a place that was not a good place to be at a time that was not a good time to be there. It's a nice companion to her conflict with Kat last week -- I am all for the Buffy theory of "If you take it all away, what's left?" because I think that's maybe the only story there ever needs to be told, over and over and over again until you get it, but thinking about Kara going through it...she's lost her bad-assery, her irradiated boyfriend, her Top Gun status, her invulnerability, her unspoken and unrecreated fantasy sex with Lee...that is very fucking sad, man. Even if you hate her, you hate her for the things she is built on, the fake bravado and the free passes she gets from everybody all the time, and the noli me tangere bullshit, the "I'm so prickly and nobody can get close to me...but could you try?" stuff, but...if you take those away, what's left? All she is, is this bad-ass architecture, built around something broken and screaming she can't even access and wouldn't want to. You wouldn't either. This is a woman so cut off from her own center, by abuse and terror, that she -- as Cymon said -- cannot imagine herself as a parent, or a lover, or a person who trusts. She doesn't get to make choices. She was running well before the Holocaust, and taking these things away from her is like removing skin. Like Voyage Of The Dawn Treader when Dragon Eustace gets ripped completely open under the moon and comes out all fresh and naked and allegorical. My favorite story of all time. It's not a "storyline," it's not Apollo's one-episode descent into suicidal johndom, it's a character in the middle of being dismantled, and becoming small. I am scared for Starbuck, for once. The price of being a mythical persona is that the landing's a bitch; you become a sacrifice to yourself.