Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill Ship Discussion Thread

[Zoser]

I don't dislike Season 7, although it has some real stinkers IMO, I just like Season 8 better in comparison.

For a long time I refused to buy the boxed sets of Season 7 and 8, then I saw 9 bought 7 and 8 and called it a day.

[Akamaimom]

[SPOILERS]

My first question was going to be 'What cold meds are you taking?' but that's answered.
Great review, I don't know nor care about the Spanish, it's usually the science that bugs me.
I love Evolution both l and ll. And yes those looks across the lab bench and on Sam's return are steamy.
How could that woman ever doubt the feelings between them, especially when we see the alternate.

It's kind of funny--everyone has their own things to complain about with shows. And it's usually the thing that you know the most about. Not that I'm fluent (anymore), but that kind of thing really annoys me. I can imagine that if someone knows a ton about science or math and the show isn't at all accurate, then that would be annoying, too. Interestingly, however, there seem to be a number of people who have been in the military, and that aspect of the show doesn't really seem to be picked at much. Or is that just because there are so few positive views of the military on TV that they're not going to complain? I don't know--but it's interesting to me.

Having said that, as an Evolution 1 and 2 liker, the one thing I didn't like about the episode was the lighting in that infamous lab scene. They both looked kind of sallow--although apparently it didn't hinder their abilities to gaze longingly and steamily across horizontal surfaces.

[hlndncr]

Having said that, as an Evolution 1 and 2 liker, the one thing I didn't like about the episode was the lighting in that infamous lab scene. They both looked kind of sallow--although apparently it didn't hinder their abilities to gaze longingly and steamily across horizontal surfaces.

Really?! I love the lighting. I think it adds to the intimacy and they both look great IMO. But AT did say that she didn't want to be filmed that close up ever again. Although I can't understand why someone who looks as flawless as her would feel the need to complain.

[Akamaimom]

Really?! I love the lighting. I think it adds to the intimacy and they both look great IMO. But AT did say that she didn't want to be filmed that close up ever again. Although I can't understand why someone who looks as flawless as her would feel the need to complain.

I think it was the red and green-ness of them. They just look odd to me. But hey--it's not the lighting that counts, it's the angst. And the longing. Yummy.

[Lilac736]

It's kind of funny--everyone has their own things to complain about with shows. And it's usually the thing that you know the most about. Not that I'm fluent (anymore), but that kind of thing really annoys me.

It’s exceptionally funny if you are watching with my friends. We all have very different professions, so everyone is nitpicking a different aspect. I totally agree with you on the language aspect (Daniel speaking German in 1969 for example ). I don’t like all the little things that remind me that this is not real but a tv show. I have an eye for faces and it really bothers me if they use the same actor for different characters.

[josiane]

Banner by Treknik

There are many Stargate episodes that I love, but not that many that I really admire. Grace is one of them, and the reason for that is the writing. It’s beautifully shot and acted too, granted (all those disorientating camera angles), but in terms of the writing it’s a real tour de force. It’s essentially a character study of Sam, with the set-up entirely being to put Sam in a position where she is stranded with herself, and as her situation becomes more perilous, and as she becomes more exhausted, her barriers come tumbling down and we get a real insight into what makes Sam tick.

This is also the episode that my inner literature student adores most of all. In fact, I actually wrote a whole long essay about it, subtitled ‘a Jungian interpretation’, because I found that when I looked at the episode in those terms it made a lot more sense! I hope none of you will mind if I basically post an edited version of that for my review; I tried to write something afresh but I’m going to end up saying all the same stuff anyway I should state at the outset that most of the ideas I'm about to cover have come from all the many discussions I have had on GW with many people (some of whom I know are participating in this rewatch), I just put them all together with a Jungian spin on them I should also say that although I have edited it, it is still written more in critical essay style than I normally would use for a rewatch review, so apologies if it sounds oddly formal at times!

Analysis

As we see right from Children of the Gods, there are three distinct aspects to Sam's personality - the Soldier, the Scientist, and the Woman. Throughout the series, the first two vie for dominance, whereas the third is habitually suppressed - witness Sam's determination to be seen as the equal of any man, her refusal to allow her gender to make her seem weak, her discomfort with all her alien suitors, and of course, her willingness to put duty above her feelings for Jack, all as we have discussed time and time again. In Grace, the three aspects of Sam's personality are represented in the hallucinations of her three team mates. Teal'c appears first, pushing Sam to stay awake, to stay on guard, to fight, not to succumb to exhaustion. He therefore represents Sam the Soldier, as befits him as a warrior and also as someone who has demonstrated a very strong protective streak towards Sam in the past. Daniel is the next of the three to appear, encouraging Sam to question what happened, why the crew disappeared, what the other ship is, what the nebula is, and therefore represents Sam the Scientist. Daniel and Teal'c's appearances alternate, showing how these two aspects vie for dominance in Sam, but that in a situation like this it is fitting that the Soldier comes first, on guard for potential danger, while the Scientist works to discover what's happened and find a solution. The last hallucination to appear of the three SG1 team members is Jack, the only one not in uniform, here representing Sam the Woman because of her feelings for him, and he only turns up right at the end, when Sam has virtually given up. She is exhausted, both physically and mentally, and out of options, just sitting in a corner. She has also just had a conversation with a hallucination of her father, who has pointed out some home truths to her about what is missing from her life, namely love. I'll come back to the significance of Jacob and her conversation with him later, but for now it serves to show how Sam only admits to her woman aspect when she can no longer cling to her soldier and scientist roles, ie, when she loses control over how she appears and feels about herself. The three hallucinations later appear together when Sam is trying to carry out her plan to rescue herself and the rest of the crew of the Prometheus, and in their interaction show the inherent conflicts. Daniel and Teal'c both try to point out the flaws in her plan, from the scientist proposing alternatives ("Get back to Earth, and then bring in the cavalry.") to the soldier pointing out the potential danger ("The alien vessel is too formidable."). Jack, meanwhile, offers unconditional support ("Will you guys shut up, just let her work."), just 'being there for her' - exactly what Sam the Woman needs from the man she loves.

The other two hallucinations are of course Jacob and Grace. Jacob, as mentioned above, turns up just before Sam's conversation with Jack, and acts as the precursor to that encounter, bulldozing through her carefully constructed defences about her feelings about love, and opening her up so that the hallucination of Jack can get a look in. The fact that it is Jacob that points out the deficiency in Sam's emotional life is significant in that Sam has been portrayed as trying to live up to the image she believes her father has of her, and the life she believes he wants for her. We know from previous episodes that Sam's decision to join the Air Force in the first place is due to her father's career there, and when we first meet him, in Secrets, he is pushing Sam and pulling strings to get her into NASA, because he knows that was her dream as a child. Since then, and Jacob's discovery of the truth of Sam's job and joining the Tok'ra, they have worked together a lot and become 'closer than they ever were', but still only ever really scientifically or militarily. Sam is trying to live up to an idea with her father every bit as much as with anyone else, and to have Jacob be the one to poke holes in that is more effective and devastating than it could be from anyone else.

Who or what Grace is is left intentionally vague. She drifts in and out around the other hallucinations, encouraging Sam to play, making cryptic pronouncements, and singing Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Many suggestions have been made as to what Grace represents - Sam's inner child, Sam as a child, Sam's potential (or future) child, possibly with Jack (some of the things she says are rather Jack-like), an ascended being, Sam's undeveloped potential, the personification of the nebula in which the ship is trapped (hallucinatory Daniel's suggestion), the personification of a state of being, etc etc. Sam even asks her herself but receives no answer ("Whoever you are, I know why everyone else keeps showing up, why are you here? What do you want from me?"). However, what Grace does say in response to that seems to me to be the best indication - "I don't want anything, but you do." Whatever she is, and however she came to be, in the context of the episode Grace is there to shine a light on Sam's subconscious (hence the references to Twinkle, twinkle, little star), to push her into confronting the deeply buried parts of her psyche. And this is where a Jungian interpretation of the episode comes in. Sam is undergoing a process of individuation, or self-realisation, which has been described as follows:

How can we enable the unconscious to realize itself? By granting it freedom of expression and then examining what it has expressed. Thus, self-realization required the psyche to turn round on itself and confront what it produces. In conducting this experiment Jung again experienced himself as split in two - between the conscious subject, who experienced, recorded, and struggled to survive, and the unconscious other, manifesting in the personalities and powers that forced themselves on him, demanding his attention and respect.

This sounds remarkably like the experience Sam has on board the Prometheus, experiencing, recording and struggling to survive, while surrounded in manifested personalities and powers demanding attention and respect. The three men of SG1 represent her three personas, but it's only one of these that Sam hasn't fully accepted - the Woman/Jack - and it's the confrontation with this persona that she is led to, effectively, by Grace and Jacob. The direction supports this too, with the hallucinations of Teal'c, Daniel and Jack (in particularly Jack) coming out of the shadows to talk to her. Grace and Jacob could actually be seen as one and the same in this interpretation, as if Jacob is a persona that Grace adopts in order to force Sam into the state of mind where she is able to confront Jack/her Woman persona. Jacob is almost introduced by Grace, coming in and taking over from her seamlessly in the mess, almost completing Grace's sentence:

Sam: Who are you?
Grace: You know.
Sam: No, I don't know.
Jacob: I'm your father.

Grace returns after Jacob has said his piece, but soon gives way to the confrontation with Jack, described on the DVD commentary as 'showdown time'. This is what the episode has been leading up to, the underlying storyline that needed to be addressed. But Sam is really confronting two things here, her feelings for Jack and her own undeveloped aspect of her personality, related to her as a woman and her capacity for both giving and accepting love. Jack points this out to her with his line "Maybe it's not me that's the problem here", which leads Sam to the realisation that "As long as I'm thinking about you, setting my sights on what I think is unattainable, there's no chance of being hurt by someone else". She is denying herself a huge part of both her personality and her life, out of fear - she is not comfortable with this aspect of herself, so she avoids looking at it. But Grace forces her to confront it, forces her to take that step towards individuation, because if she never does then she will never be complete, never have "meaning and balance" in her life.

However, Sam does not achieve this with the events of Grace. Her conversation with Jack shows her uncertainty about his feelings, and whether it is really about them or about her. At the end, she backs off from following the implication through, as the hallucination fractures - she imagines kissing him, but even though she knows it's not really Jack, she doesn't actually do so, instead bringing the confrontation to a close with a defeated "Never mind".

The failure of this confrontation is compounded when she wakes in the infirmary at the end of the episode, having successfully saved herself, the crew of the Prometheus and the alien ship all at once. Jack is sitting by her side and her first word is his name, which takes him by surprise - Sam never uses his given name, as we were only just reminded during their conversation on the ship. In perfect contrast to the hallucination, the real Jack questions Sam not calling him 'Sir', and so the episode ends with no change to the established way of things - success as a soldier and scientist, failure as a woman, with her military relationship with Jack asserting itself over her desires for a personal one.

TBC...

[josiane]

Implications for Sam and Jack

I'm going to try not to anticipate the discussions we have to come too much, but Grace really is the pivotal point for Sam and Jack's relationship in the later seasons, and in fact informs and sets up everything that is to come right up to Threads. This is the catalyst for Sam's attempt to 'get a life' by dating Pete, but as we see that story unfold, we see that she hasn't actually learned the lesson Grace was trying to teach her. She continues to be hung up on Jack, and tries to confront him several more times about their feelings, but it's not until things come to a head in Threads that she does. Not to anticipate too much, but the pivotal conversations in Threads are basically do-overs of the same pivotal conversations in Grace, and Sam gets a second chance to make the right choice in her response to Jack:

Grace
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: Nothing.
Jack: Think nothing of it. I've got plenty of that.

Threads
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: For being here for me.
Jack: Always.

In Threads, Sam does not back off from the conversation like she did in Grace, and this allows Jack to make the promise to her that he did as a hallucination, that he would always be there for her. And, more crucially, this time, Sam accepts this promise for what it is, accepting what she needs him for - the role that he played towards the end on the Prometheus, supporting her, not just as a 'safe bet' - and understanding the importance of this third aspect of her life. Having failed to understand what her subconscious was showing her in Grace, this time round Sam does realise what she needs to do to complete her process of self-individuation, to achieve that meaning and balance, that grace, in her life.

And I've duly gone ahead and anticipated... sorry...

[hlndncr]

Ah Grace! Part of the brilliance of the this episode is that I can watch it again and again and I don't think I'll ever entirely make my mind up about it. There are so many different ways to look at it and understand it, and I think each one has validity. In fact, I've decided that the many interpretations of Grace need not be exclusive.

I really appreciate Josi's analysis of the Soldier/Scientist/Woman trichotomy of Sam's character. I think women often do contend with their many roles and deciding which ones have dominance at different points in their lives. I also think our society today tends negate the value and encourage a supression of the feminine self in favor of other pursuits. Choices about love, motherhood, and the standards by which we measure our own true worth and happiness confront all women in a varied and fast-paced modern society.

As I've alluded, my own take on who or what Grace is and what it means are varried. One of my favorite interpretations can be found in this excellent fic: Other Eyes.

One thing that I think sometimes gets lost in the discussion of the this episode is Jack. We talk about Sam and her experience on the Prometheus, but we have the secondary plotline of Jack back at the SGC in a very different position than he is usually in. A couple of times in the past Jack was lost and Sam pulled off a miracle to find him and bring him back. This time Sam is the one missing (and again she pulls off the miracle that saves everyone in the end) and Jack is left to dispair. His frustration is probably increased by knowing there really isn't anything he can do to bring her home to him. In the end both fall back on familiar defense and coping machanisms to avoid actually confronting their true feelings and desires.

"What do you want?" I think that is the main question of this episode; the focal point if you will. What does Sam want? What does Jack want? Do either of them really know?

That's my say for the moment, but I may add more later. Meantime, I am looking forward to reading everyone else's thoughts.

[josiane]

I knew that by basically repurposing my Sam essay I'd miss something - Jack! Thanks hlndncr This is of course the counterpart to Paradise Lost, with the secondary focus being on Jack and how Sam's absence affects him. I love how Teal'c is the one to call him on it, just how he was the one that got Sam to admit how she was suffering in PL.

There have been big discussions too I know about why Jack called Sam on her use of his first name right at the end. Some people I know see it as a reprimand, and rather harsh. Personally I think it's surprise, and mixed up with his relief at seeing her back and safe and well, it comes out rather ham-fistedly and Sam takes it as a reprimand. Just MHO, of course

[Lilac736]

Grace
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: Nothing.
Jack: Think nothing of it. I've got plenty of that.

Threads
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: For being here for me.
Jack: Always.

I don’t know how many times if have seen both Grace and Threads and of course I noticed the similarity of their conversations. With all the implications it has for their relationship. But how could I miss the fact that it is basically the same dialogue. As you said, Sam’s chance to make the right choice. Sometimes I’m a bit shocked that I miss these things.

[Lilac736]

I really appreciate Josi's analysis of the Soldier/Scientist/Woman trichotomy of Sam's character. I think women often do contend with their many roles and deciding which ones have dominance at different points in their lives. I also think our society today tends negate the value and encourage a supression of the feminine self in favor of other pursuits. Choices about love, motherhood, and the standards by which we measure our own true worth and happiness confront all women in a varied and fast-paced modern society.

I agree. I think it’s especially difficult for Sam. She is working in a male dominated profession, both as a soldier and as a scientist. As a woman in such an environment it’s hard to embrace your female side.

[hedwig]

The failure of this confrontation is compounded when she wakes in the infirmary at the end of the episode, having successfully saved herself, the crew of the Prometheus and the alien ship all at once. Jack is sitting by her side and her first word is his name, which takes him by surprise - Sam never uses his given name, as we were only just reminded during their conversation on the ship. In perfect contrast to the hallucination, the real Jack questions Sam not calling him 'Sir', and so the episode ends with no change to the established way of things - success as a soldier and scientist, failure as a woman, with her military relationship with Jack asserting itself over her desires for a personal one.

TBC...

My personal opinion on Jack's reaction to Sam calling him "Jack" is not him questioning the use of his name, but rather was just startled that she spoke (and called him that). He's been sitting there for who knows how long waiting for her to wake up. He may have been thinking about lots of things with nothing much to do in the infirmary, which apparently has been very quiet. And out of the blue, Sam's voice says "Jack". He's more startled to hear her voice than he is that she called him "Jack". I'm pretty sure she could have called him "Homer" or "Daffy Duck" or anything, and he wouldn't have cared, just as long as she woke up and spoke to him. I know we all have differing opinions about his reaction, but it hardly seems likely to me that he'd have been sitting there for however long, only to correct the first word that came out of her mouth when she woke up.

Sam likely misunderstood his reaction, but he wasn't questioning what she said.

I've also wondered for a long time what the issue is with calling Jack "sir". Is there any actual rule that Sam must call him "sir" at all times, regardless of the situation? Does the Air Force or other military service require this? Or is this simply a personal choice that Sam has made, which she can change at any time? I don't think all CO's demand that they be addressed as "sir" at all times, so I don't really think that Jack would demand it of Sam either. After all, Jack calls Hammond "George" (to his face) occasionally, and doesn't always address him as "sir", so I don't see where this issue comes from.

[Akamaimom]

Implications for Sam and Jack

I'm going to try not to anticipate the discussions we have to come too much, but Grace really is the pivotal point for Sam and Jack's relationship in the later seasons, and in fact informs and sets up everything that is to come right up to Threads. This is the catalyst for Sam's attempt to 'get a life' by dating Pete, but as we see that story unfold, we see that she hasn't actually learned the lesson Grace was trying to teach her. She continues to be hung up on Jack, and tries to confront him several more times about their feelings, but it's not until things come to a head in Threads that she does. Not to anticipate too much, but the pivotal conversations in Threads are basically do-overs of the same pivotal conversations in Grace, and Sam gets a second chance to make the right choice in her response to Jack:

Grace
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: Nothing.
Jack: Think nothing of it. I've got plenty of that.

Threads
Sam: Thank you, Sir.
Jack: For what?
Sam: For being here for me.
Jack: Always.

In Threads, Sam does not back off from the conversation like she did in Grace, and this allows Jack to make the promise to her that he did as a hallucination, that he would always be there for her. And, more crucially, this time, Sam accepts this promise for what it is, accepting what she needs him for - the role that he played towards the end on the Prometheus, supporting her, not just as a 'safe bet' - and understanding the importance of this third aspect of her life. Having failed to understand what her subconscious was showing her in Grace, this time round Sam does realise what she needs to do to complete her process of self-individuation, to achieve that meaning and balance, that grace, in her life.

And I've duly gone ahead and anticipated... sorry...

This is a great catch. I had noticed it, but hadn't really thought about the implications of it. Thanks for bringing it into clearer focus!

Of course, having said that, I think that people will often hear things only when they're ready to hear them. In any kind of communication, you can only accept and internalize things when you're ready to do so. I think that, at the end of Grace, neither Sam nor Jack were ready to hear or respond to what was, in essence, the true conversation. The undercurrent or subtexts of those conversations could only be acted on or truly understood when both parties were ready to act on or understand them. That's when decisions could then be made.

And fish caught.

[EvenstarSRV]

I've been just a lurker on this thread that past several episodes, in part because the current insanity of my RL and in part because I don't really care for much of the first half of S7. But I made myself make time for this episode because I absolutely adore Grace, though as a non-shipper probably for different reasons that many posters here.

First, great review josiane! I really enjoyed your Jungian spin on the episode, it's not a perspective I've thought about in depth though I find myself agreeing with it to an extent. As Petra can attest to, Grace can get me rambling more than any other SG-1 episode (). I'll spare you guys the brunt of it and just touch on the parts where my interpretation probably differs most from others here.

The other two hallucinations are of course Jacob and Grace. Jacob, as mentioned above, turns up just before Sam's conversation with Jack, and acts as the precursor to that encounter, bulldozing through her carefully constructed defences about her feelings about love, and opening her up so that the hallucination of Jack can get a look in. The fact that it is Jacob that points out the deficiency in Sam's emotional life is significant in that Sam has been portrayed as trying to live up to the image she believes her father has of her, and the life she believes he wants for her. We know from previous episodes that Sam's decision to join the Air Force in the first place is due to her father's career there, and when we first meet him, in Secrets, he is pushing Sam and pulling strings to get her into NASA, because he knows that was her dream as a child. Since then, and Jacob's discovery of the truth of Sam's job and joining the Tok'ra, they have worked together a lot and become 'closer than they ever were', but still only ever really scientifically or militarily. Sam is trying to live up to an idea with her father every bit as much as with anyone else, and to have Jacob be the one to poke holes in that is more effective and devastating than it could be from anyone else.

Regarding Jacob, I personally don't believe Sam joined the Air Force just because of her father, or that she's been trying to live up to his image of her. As Jacob tells in her in the Tok'ra, he was proud of her even when he thought she was a satellite geek, and IMO he only tried to get her into NASA because he thought she would be happier there. Once he found out about the Stargate, he realized that his daughter was already happily living her dream of exploring the stars and he doesn't question her career choice after that, so I don't quite see this image of Jacob's that Sam has been trying and failing to live up to.

Grace returns after Jacob has said his piece, but soon gives way to the confrontation with Jack, described on the DVD commentary as 'showdown time'. This is what the episode has been leading up to, the underlying storyline that needed to be addressed. But Sam is really confronting two things here, her feelings for Jack and her own undeveloped aspect of her personality, related to her as a woman and her capacity for both giving and accepting love. Jack points this out to her with his line "Maybe it's not me that's the problem here", which leads Sam to the realisation that "As long as I'm thinking about you, setting my sights on what I think is unattainable, there's no chance of being hurt by someone else". She is denying herself a huge part of both her personality and her life, out of fear - she is not comfortable with this aspect of herself, so she avoids looking at it. But Grace forces her to confront it, forces her to take that step towards individuation, because if she never does then she will never be complete, never have "meaning and balance" in her life.

Regarding Sam's hallucination of Jack, to me Jack's made his feelings for her fairly clear, so IMO Sam realizes that her doubts of his feelings and the regs are her 'excuse' for not trying for a relationship with Jack, and the real reason is that she's afraid it will only end it pain and loneliness. And I believe rather than trying to find meaning and balance in her life, Sam is, at the end of her life, thinking on the aspect of her life that she hasn't fully explored yet. I know there's not a big difference between the two, but I think the distinction is important because IMO I don't think Sam believes that her life has lacked meaning simply because she hasn't found a romantic relationship with Jack, or any guy for that matter.

The failure of this confrontation is compounded when she wakes in the infirmary at the end of the episode, having successfully saved herself, the crew of the Prometheus and the alien ship all at once. Jack is sitting by her side and her first word is his name, which takes him by surprise - Sam never uses his given name, as we were only just reminded during their conversation on the ship. In perfect contrast to the hallucination, the real Jack questions Sam not calling him 'Sir', and so the episode ends with no change to the established way of things - success as a soldier and scientist, failure as a woman, with her military relationship with Jack asserting itself over her desires for a personal one.

I also personally don't believe that Sam's conversation with hallunication Jack was a failure, I think she did come away from the experience learning the right lesson, IMO Jacob's speech about Sam's mom sums up the lesson Sam's meant to learn, that even knowing that he would lose her, Jacob would have still fallen in love with his wife. She realizes that even if a romantic relationship ends in pain, it’s worth it in order to have the experience of being loved in that way, but she's kept herself from trying for one out of fear. And we see in Chimera that she's trying to change that status quo, she's taking a chance on a romantic relationship and even if she gets her heart broken she's decided that the experience will be worth it.

And IMO, she doesn't try for a relationship with Jack at this point because doing so would require her to give up her position on SG-1, and she's not prepared to do that, nor does she think Jack would want her to do that. As a non-shipper I don't think Sam starting a relationship with someone besides Jack means that she no longer has feelings for him, it's just that I think she realizes that exploring her personal/feminine side is not dependent solely on him, she can also try with someone else, Pete is this case. And while we know by Threads that it doesn't work out, it was still a worthwhile experience for Sam and could only benefit Sam when she starts a relationship with Jack.

As I've alluded, my own take on who or what Grace is and what it means are varried. One of my favorite interpretations can be found in this excellent fic: Other Eyes.

Ohh, lovely fic, thanks for sharing.

[Nynaeve506]

Regarding Jacob, I personally don't believe Sam joined the Air Force just because of her father, or that she's been trying to live up to his image of her. As Jacob tells in her in the Tok'ra, he was proud of her even when he thought she was a satellite geek, and IMO he only tried to get her into NASA because he thought she would be happier there. Once he found out about the Stargate, he realized that his daughter was already happily living her dream of exploring the stars and he doesn't question her career choice after that, so I don't quite see this image of Jacob's that Sam has been trying and failing to live up to.

I wanted to jump in here to offer the "officer's daughter" perspective on Sam. One of the things I'm astounded by with the writers is how very accurately they wrote Sam's character. I grew up with a career military father - a man who had deep principles, was very proud of me, and would move heaven and earth if he thought it would make me happy.

That said, I would argue the primary reason Sam joined the military is partly rooted in Jacob. She was a military brat and the military was her culture. I speak from personal experience here - it was probably one of the most painful things in the world to hand in my dependent ID when I graduated college. I lost a piece of myself in a way that I can't define. I love it when I'm near a military base and there's tons of people in uniform...I feel like I'm "home", if that makes any sense.

I actually almost joined the USAF because of this inexplicable ache inside to be part of the world I was so quickly exiled from because I wasn't the one active duty.

I genuinely think that's why Sam joined. Throughout the series she has demonstrated a very "military" mindset (making her fit so well with Jack). She bleeds USAF. One of the unfortunate side effects, however, of being a military brat, is the inability to form a unique identity. Whatever Jacob conveyed, she grew up with expectations to be a certain way (when you're an officer's child, you are drilled from an early age to BEHAVE. There is a decorum that you are to follow because your missteps can cause your parent to be dressed down by their CO).

It's all about the unspoken with Sam. Her father's "unspoken expectations" - real or imagined (after all, in "Grace" this is HER subconscious telling her what she perceives). Jack's unspoken feelings. Her own unspoken feelings. Her own unspoken dreams. Her own unspoken expectations. Her unspoken acceptance of her circumstances.

I don't know if any of that makes sense. I wish I had more time to craft my answers but life just keeps me constantly going. I've always loved the Sam character because I see my own relational experiences in her and I'm just blown away by how incredibly multi-layered and nuanced her character is in capturing such realism.

My two cents for what it's worth.