Re: Kira

Meta
Title:	Re: Kira
Creator:	Flamingo
Date(s):	November 9, 1999
Medium:	mailing list
Fandom:	Starsky & Hutch
Topic:
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Re: Kira is a 1999 Starsky & Hutch essay by Flamingo.

It was posted to The Pits Mailing List and quoted here with permission.

Some Topics Discussed

• the flashpoint character, Kira
• Kira's role as a disrupter of the relationship between David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson
• the role of closer watching of a show made possible by VCRs

From the Essay

I think most of the fans who think this scene was not pre-staged by S&H have either not watched it recently or are seeing it entirely too literally. I think the reason this happens is because this episode is so disliked that fans have trouble really *watching* it. They are so caught up with their own upsetment over the guy's estrangement that they can't see past that to see what the *script* clearly intended for them to see. (In addition, I would have to say this is the LEAST watched ep in all fandom and most fans opinions of it are formed with a one-time viewing, so it's not surprising they misinterpret it.) Not only do fans misinterpret the pre-staging of the scene, but I've met some fans who didn't follow what the guys are actually offering Kira, what it is she actually says "no" to. Again, I believe this is because fans find it so hard to really *watch* this episode, to pay attention to it.

[...]

It's the curse of modern entertainment. Since you can rerun it over and over, you never really feel the need to pay close attention to it.)

It is interesting to me that ALL of the fan fic surrounding this episode that was written pre-net (while the show was still being actively run in syndication, so that fans were watching all the eps over and over as they were being rerun again and again) revolved around the "unseen" scene that took place after the bad guy is taken down at the dance hall and before the reunion scene in the bar. None of the fanfic written pre-net (while the show was in syndication) ever assumed anything but that the reunion in Huggy's was totally pre-staged by the guys and I don't know a single fan from that period that ever assumed anything else. Nor had I ever met a fan from that time that didn't completely understand what the guys were offering Kira in the bar. Again, I think this uniform perception of the intention of the script was because the fans actually watched the ep more often since they were watching it whenever it rolled around in the schedule (as opposed to having the choice of any ep to watch on tape), and the show was in syndication for many years. Many stories have been written (pre-net) around this ep. Labyrinth and The Thousandth Man come to mind at the moment.

The intention of the script is clearly to portray that the incident in Huggy's is completely staged by the guys to turn the situation with Kira to their advantage and take it away from her. After the two of them work together to save the dance hall from being destroyed by the hand-grenade, and after Kira chooses *neither* of them at that crisis moment, their eyes meet and clearly there is some dawning understanding of what jerks they have been. (After the entire incident in the dancehall, these guys would've then had to spend hours working over the paperwork *together*. They couldn't have gotten away from each other. So, even though we have no idea how much time is elapsed, it's a given that they've spent a lot of time together before the bar scene. And they've had time to change their clothes.)

When we next see them in the bar, their behavior is clearly exaggerated and has no relationship with the rest of their behavior in the episode. They're quoting lines at each other. There is absolutely no heat, no real anger in anything they say. (Compare this with the scene with Dobey when they won't face each other. Their anger with each other is palpable, not staged.) The dialog in the bar is totally unlike them. They don't even act their lines that well because it is staged. They've pre-agreed on how to act and what to say, and when Hutch steals one of Starsky's lines, Starsky complains about it, "Hey, that was my line." The entire purpose of that remark is to clue any viewer who has yet not figured this out by their stagey behavior and the fact that they showed up dressed exactly alike that they have planned out every moment of this. The stagey, poorly expressed dialog, the deliberate way they place themselves at the bar (they could've gone to the far corners of the place so they wouldn't even have to see one another) so that they will be equally far from each other, but not too far, so that they can then have the "showdown" stance reminiscent of a western shootout, only to join shoulder to thigh in front of the woman and make her an offer that could not be spoken aloud on TV in 1978. There is no way all of this could be something they could decide on and coordinate on the spot at that moment through their "telepathy". It's too choreographed, too precise.

And more importantly, the scripts weren't that sophisticated. TV scripts, especially in that era, left little to the imagination. Hence the need for Starsky to complain about Hutch stealing his line. He does this as well to clue Kira in on the fact that they are working in concert again, not independently as they had been. The intention of the scene is to show that boys have made up off screen (remember, they never show the scenes we *really* want to see. They would've considered that boring details.), and have plotted something to get back at Kira. And what they have planned on is to offer her something they are convinced she will refuse. It's both of them or neither. Now clearly, this whole show has been a man's fantasy as most of the eps were and as this whole episode has been. There are few women alive (at this time period) who would've said "no" to what they were offering Kira. Not only would most women have said "yes," but there are few women who couldn't outlast 2 (or more) guys if she wanted to -- that's simple biology. But to the male mind, this offer would be "too much" for the poor frail woman. Her saying "no" makes no sense to the women in the audience, but makes all the men feel like major studs. Puh-leeze.

I think if you guys watch the entire episode, really watch it, I don't see how you can come up with any other scenario. I know at the time it was shown, that was what everyone assumed the script intended. It's only really recently that I've become aware that some fans thought this scene occurred on the spot between the guys because of their rapport (never mind that they've had absolutely none during the entire ep).

[...]

You've gotta think like a guy about this scene. To them, this whole set-up was more guy-humor. Which is clearly evident in their extremely flippant (and precisely simultaneous -- not *spontaneous*) and cheery "Okay" and retreat when Kira refuses them. They would assume (as do I) that when Huggy realized what he was being privileged to witness that like any guy, he would find this vastly amusing. But again, this presumes that they weren't in the middle of a fight but in the middle of a come-uppance. Considering how tense things had to be between them for the entire last month, there is no doubt that Huggy had had his fill of their crankiness, and allowing him to be part of the resolution was probably their idea making it up to him. No, it's not what a woman would do, but you gotta cut them some slack, they're working with broken chromosomes.

Fan Comments

Although I felt that most of your comments were right on concerning this ep, Mama Bird, I have to part ways with you here. NOT the part about few women refusing this very lovely offer. I for one would have said yes, grabbed a hand of each, and been leading them to my place before they knew what hit them. And if they turned up on my doorstep right this minute and made that

offer, I'd do it now, too. <vbeeeeg> But I digress... I don't see how her refusing them makes them or other men feel like studs. My take on this part -- and I watch this ep fairly regularly because Hutch looks so damn sexy with his hair all mussed coming out of Kira's bedroom that I can't help myself -- is that they knew that Kira's feeling of power came from coming between them, from playing one of them against the other. If they showed her a united front and said, "Take us both or you can't have either of us," that would take that away from her. That's how they knew she'd say no. I imagine them having a long, beer-soaked, heart-to-heart after they got done with the paperwork from the nightclub fiasco, and working all this out. Hutch saying he'd been a bastard to mess with Kira even if she DID throw herself at him, Starsky saying he shouldn't have taken it so hard considering they were falling neatly into the trap she'd set for them, both of them apologizing to each other for all the nasty stuff they'd been through, and realizing their friendship was strong enough to withstand this, too. And then, with evil glints in their beautiful blue eyes, planning out this whole scenario at Huggy's and rehearsing their lines -- and, I'd be willing to bet, getting Huggy in on it too. I think he knew the whole set-up ahead of time, though he may not have known what they were going to say. He knew what they were going to do. My point being, once Starsky and Hutch realized what Kira was up to and how dumb they'd been to fall for it, their only option was to let her know in no uncertain terms that they'd figured her out and that it wasn't going to work. "Me and Thee" came to the fore again, they had their fun getting even (and it's not just "guy humor"; I love that scene and cackle like a crazy person every time I watch it) and the Dynamic Duo goes on, stronger for having had this huuuuuge misunderstanding. Hutch acts completely out of character in this ep, as many people have said, but don't we all have moments, days, even whole weeks, when we just sort of go a little nuts and watch ourselves turn into our evil twins?

Let's face it. Hutch, for all his pragmatism on the surface, is really kind of a romantic, while Starsky, for all his childlike wonder and love for acting like a court jester, is really the realistic one. I think Starsk knew Hutch was going a little nuts during this time, and that's why it took him so long to actually get angry about it. He kept thinking it would pass.