What if Kira tried to redeem herself in the tag of Starsky vs Hutch?
Let me begin by saying that I despise Kira as much as anyone, but I’ve been analyzing this episode, and particularly the tag, for a long time, and after seeing the recent Aaron Sorkin film “Being the Ricardos,” I began to wonder if maybe we’ve been looking at the tag all wrong. Because maybe instead of inviting Starsky & Hutch to The Pits to tell them which one of them she’s chosen, what if Kira’s actual plan is to get S&H back together?
So what does the I Love Lucy biopic have to do with Starsky vs Hutch? The film references a particular episode of the show where Fred and Ethel Mertz have a big argument and temporarily split up, and Lucy comes up with a scheme to get them back together by asking each of them (separately) to come to dinner.
When each arrives at Lucy and Ricky’s apartment, she tells them she’s fixed them up on a blind date, and they’re forced to sit next to each other during dinner. By the end of the ep, the two lovebirds have made up and are back together.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
I Love Lucy wasn’t the only show to do this storyline. It’s a popular TV trope.
And I think the tag of SvH just might play on this trope, but with a little twist.
Let’s review:
Kira tells each guy to meet her at The Pits, but doesn’t tell them that she’s also invited their partner.
In the freeze frame at the end, when the guys have made up and walk out with their backs to Kira and arms around each other, Kira’s big poofy head is front and center, and she has a curiously satisfied expression on her face which I could never figure out the meaning of until now.
It’s because she believes her plan to get the guys back together worked as intended.
But unlike the I Love Lucy episode where Fred and Ethel have no idea they’re being setup, the twist here is that Starsky & Hutch have figured it out beforehand, since they’ve already discussed it with each other and made up off-camera. They only pretend to still be mad at each other when they arrive at The Pits.
Update 3/9/24: I actually now believe that S&H *didn’t* discuss it and apologize to each other off-camera prior to the tag, because of what is written in the script. I have the revised second version of the script, and in it, the guys make up with each other and come up with their Shylock speech after they arrive at the Pits (while still mad at each other) but before Kira gets there.
So Kira has been a tiny bit redeemed at the end since she tries to get them back together, although S&H have already secretly gotten back together without her help. Why? Because they don’t need a third party to do that.
Now, I’m sure it’s a total coincidence, but when Starsky & Hutch walk out with their arms around each other, both wearing black leather jackets, it’s remarkably similar to the scene where Fred and Ethel have reunited and are wrapped up together in Fred’s black coat.
But getting back to Kira, don’t think I’m letting her off the hook entirely, because she still has several questionable actions in the episode.
Besides the fact that she sucks as a cop and lied to Starsky and manipulated him, pretending to be serious about him in the scene where he’s at her house helping to hang plates on the wall and she doesn’t bother to mention that she’s banging his best friend on the side, she also makes it all about her feelings when Starsky walks in and finds Hutch walking out of her bedroom.
When the guys start fighting in her house, she screams at them to leave. I have a real problem with her behavior in this scene, because she sees how hurt and upset Starsky is, but she doesn’t care that he’s upset and doesn’t apologize to him, because it’s all about how she feels. Bitch, nobody cares how you feel, just STFU.
Just imagine how Starsky felt as he drove away from her house. He’d have probably been in tears from the double betrayal. Poor woobie. 😢
So anyway, fuck her and the horse she rode in on.
Hi:
I read your blog. Thanks for the insights and suggestions of other possibilities. It made me review the scene again, which is enjoyable. It’s is an interesting idea about Kira that you have, and I can accept it as a option. If she really loves them both
( S&H), then maybe she planned to help to put their friendship back together by calling them all to the Pits. But did she intend also to chose one of them?
I lean toward their assessments that she is going to chose one of them at the Pits (they are my favorite detectives, after all, and they have, no doubt, discussed their feelings, her expressed feelings to each of them, and all of the clues of her behavior).
Her face in the scene at the Pits, always seemed to me to be bemused/kind of surprised that they had taken the initiative, were not leaving the “choice” up to her, and were leaving her.
Plus I have always seen her as a kind of a Barbie-doll, that neither of the guys really knows well… who doesn’t show her true feelings well (or purposefully doesn’t show them?). She is hiding things from both. The episode doesn’t show her as kind, but more as a sex object…in earlier scene the neighborhood guy walking his dog even makes a move on her… but that could be just bad plot/writing so that Hutch can save her… but I always thought that all the males in the show including the bad guy are just after her, and she is okay with it. That made me wonder is he is hiding more, like does he have more than two guys on her string. But that’s me.
I really enjoy looking at all the possibilities, because that was one unexpected episode.
I know the I Love Lucy ep you’re talking about–I’m smiling just remembering Lucy’s scheming! And I think this is an interesting way of looking at the tag. Just as with the whole of the episode itself, everything seems off-kilter even in the tag and I don’t think I’ve ever looked at Kira during that walk out. I mean, the guys are back together so yay!? But seeing her face, it is a strange expression for someone who was just dumped (or offered a threesome–who knows if that was really what was being offered–and who would turn that down even if just to be an observer!).
The thing I think is interesting about SvH (even though it’s not an ep I re-watch very often because it’s so weird. Like I honestly think it’s weirder than Dandruff!) is that there can be so many different interpretations put into it. While i was doing the dishes after supper, I was thinking about your blog post and then I thought–what if Kira was like an angel/demon (not sure what she would be) sent to either 1. test their love or 2. get them together. Then again she can just be a gal who knew when she had them both in bed that they were meant for each other and not her! It’s one of those eps where everything feels off kilter and so wrong–mainly because although we’ve seen the guys at odds, we’ve never seen them like this (at least I can’t think of any times). I love the ambiguity in the scenes with Minnie (and Huggy) where both of them talk about Starsky’s gorgeous blond sergeant. Do we even know Kira’s rank before that first comment from Minnie? Looking through the transcript I don’t think we do! And Huggy actually mentions it being Hutch.
For me, having an alternate interpretation of Kira being the catalyst/matchmaker for the guys to get together or back together makes an unsettling episode more bearable. I don’t like seeing the guys at odds and I think Kira gets the brunt of most of my anger at the situation. Kind of like the woman who finds her boyfriend cheating and doesn’t get mad at him but rather at the woman he cheated with!
I never knew about that trope in American TV. It does explain her blank expression at the end. Like she was checked out of the whole meeting before it ended.
She so definitively said no when they unitedly made her the silent offer. I always thought that she only wanted her sex buddies her way, not anyone else’s. Self-centered, but then again, that probably got her her position in the police force.
She wasn’t a very good cop, but she got the same type of gigs as S&H did. Maybe she was sleeping her way to the top?
I love your point about Starsky being doubly betrayed. Wow, what a whammo from both sides. But I’d think the one from Hutch hurt more. Now I want to write a fanfic between the blowup and the ending.
Thanks for such broadening thinking on this episode!
As a huge I Love Lucy fan knowing the episode you’re referring to, I can totally see the parallel (now that you’ve pointed it out). It does explain Kira’s ‘no’ to both of them. I am discounting the whole ‘this is TV and they couldn’t have shown it’ thing. I mean if she loves them both, why not take them up on their offer, right?
Of course the way the word “love” is thrown around in the episode bugs me from all parties. Although I don’t think Hutch ever says the word love? Not sure–and I’m not going to bother to rewatch to find out–my dedication only goes so far. There’s such a lot of subtext in the episode–the “big blond(e) sergeant’ remarks from both Minnie and Huggy, the guys dressing alike, etc. I do think that ‘big blond(e) sergeant’ was left deliberately ambiguous. It’s not like Minnie (or even Huggy) wouldn’t have said Kira’s name. Also, why on earth does Kira not have a last name considering most every other minor character does and she’s not even a minor character?
As to her being a bad cop, I’d argue Starsky and Hutch aren’t being particularly good cops in this episode either!
Oh–as a huge I Love Lucy fan, I totally know the episode you’re referring to, and can absolutely see the parallel of the tag. I mean, why on earth, if Kira loves both of them as she states, wouldn’t she take them up on her offer? Big grin here.
And (devil’s advocate here) if Kira had been watching S&H’s behaviour with women for a while, it’s understandable she was looking out for herself. There’s no excuse for those socks, though….
Your theory holds water as well as any other does-and better than many! This is one of those episodes where I would love to know what the writers wanted us to think. I wonder whether we were supposed to see Kira as a shining example of Free Love/Women’s Lib-S&H’s bizarre “we want to be loved for our minds, not our bodies” stuff may be intended as an ironic pointer to this. But for me, my problem as a fully paid up member of team Hutch, is that he behaves infinitely worse than anyone else. He is just awful. A bad friend, a bad lover, a bad cop….just a bad human being. And if Kira’s ploy was to get them back together again and it worked, I hope he spends the rest of his life apologising. And does all the dish washing/trash taking out for ever.
Starsky will also make Hutch do other favors for him 🙂
I have to watch the episode again, I love reading your blog, greetings from Peru
Thank you so much! Greetings!