Summary
Maverick goes to Charlotte’s house for their date, arriving at sunset on a motorcycle. When he comes in, he asks if he can take a shower, which makes Charlotte laugh; she wants to eat. They eat together and share a bottle of wine, and Charlotte wants to know more about the MiG-28. She then tells him she’s trying to get a big promotion that would take her away from Top Gun. “You always get what you want?” he asks, to which she tells him, “Maybe.” He whispers, “Then relax about the MiG.”
They listen to “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” in the other room, and Maverick comments on the fact that his parents used to love the song. In particular, he says, his mother loved the song and would listen to it over and over again. Charlotte asks Maverick what happened to his father, and he tells her that his father disappeared in an F-4 in 1965, but very little is known about it because it’s classified. “Is that why you’re always second best up there?” asks Charlotte, to which Maverick responds, “You are direct, aren’t you?” “This is gonna be complicated,” Charlotte says, smiling at Maverick. Maverick rides away on his motorcycle.
The next day, Maverick runs into Charlotte on the elevator on Top Gun premises. She says to him, “I’m gonna be honest with you. Your MiG sighting is really important to my work, but I don’t normally invite students to my house…” She begins to say something intimate, but the elevator arrives on the floor and she becomes businesslike.
Maverick and Goose share a meal at a diner, waiting for the arrival of Goose’s wife and kids. His wife, Carole, arrives and embraces her husband excitedly, before asking Maverick about his affair with Charlotte.
We see Maverick and Goose in class, as Viper instructs them in what to do in an emergency, that they ought always to abandon a mission and save the aircraft rather than push a bad position, referencing Maverick’s run-in with the MiG. Charlotte begins to lecture the class about properly dealing with a MiG, when Maverick interjects that a pilot cannot think when they’re dealing with a MiG. “If you think, you’re dead,” he says. She counters that he made risky moves and criticizes his judgment in the air. “The encounter was a victory, but I think that we’ve shown it as an example of what not to do,” she says. Iceman smirks.
Later, Charlotte stops Maverick as he’s leaving school and getting on his motorcycle to tell him that her evaluation of his maneuver was “right on.” He rides away angrily, but she follows in her car, driving recklessly. When she catches up to him, he scolds her for driving so recklessly and she again tells him that she thinks her review of his flight performance was correct, before adding, “But I held something back: I see some real genius in your flying, Maverick, but I can’t say that in there. I was afraid that everyone in that TACTS trailer would see right through me. And I just don’t want anyone to know that I’ve fallen for you.” They kiss passionately. The scene shifts and we see them sharing a romantic evening together as Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” plays.
The next morning Charlotte wakes up and finds a rose and a note on the pillow beside her. She reads the note and smiles. Back at Top Gun, a pilot tells Maverick that Iceman won another award. Maverick turns to Goose and the two of them say, “I feel the need, the need for speed.”
They fly through the air, competing for the Top Gun trophy. Iceman is in first place, while Maverick is in second, two points behind. Suddenly they realize that Viper is flying also, which makes them a little nervous. Against his fellow pilot’s suggestion, Maverick decides to go after Viper, which upsets Goose. “Stand by, Viper’s coming down,” says Maverick. Maverick gets very aggressive with Viper, but Viper leads him in a mad chase.
Jester is suddenly on their trail and it becomes clear that Maverick’s reckless move didn’t pay off. They head back to headquarters. In the locker room, Jester comes up to Maverick and says, “That was some of the best flying I’ve seen yet, right up to the part where you got killed. You never, never leave your wingman.”
Iceman lectures Maverick about the fact that his attitude is dangerous, saying, “You’re dangerous and foolish. You may not like the guys flying with you, they may not like you, but whose side are you on?” When Iceman leaves, Maverick admits to Goose that he was stupid to do what he did. “That’ll never happen again,” he promises Goose, to which Goose responds, “I know.” The scene shifts and we see Maverick at home looking at an old photo of himself with his father.
Analysis
Maverick and Charlotte’s connection is made all the more fiery by the fact that she wants intel on his run-in MiG-28. While they certainly share a great deal of romantic and sexual chemistry, Charlotte also wants something from the young upstart pilot, and their exchange of information and the professional respect they have for one another is what binds them together. They are cagey with one another when they share a meal at Charlotte’s house, never quite revealing what they are actually thinking, but engaging in a flirtatious back-and-forth that skims along the surface of their complex student-teacher dynamic. The fact that at any given moment each is both the teacher and the student makes their dynamic all the more intriguing.
In spite of the indirection of their flirtation, Charlotte proves herself to be a rather direct date, asking personal questions freely with Maverick. She engages him on the topic of his father and his family relationships, after he wistfully tells a story about listening to Otis Redding with his mother. After she asks him about his father, Maverick tells her that he mysteriously disappeared in 1965, but he doesn’t know the details. Bluntly, she asks, “Is that why you’re always second best up there?” While a connection between Maverick’s recklessness and his relationship to his father has been alluded to before, Charlotte is the first character to address it directly with Maverick himself, which heightens their intimacy.
That intimacy is challenged, and then heightened, the following day in class. In order to cover up her inappropriate affections for her student, Charlotte makes Maverick’s maneuver with the MiG an illustrative example of “what not to do” in the air. Charlotte’s lesson enrages Maverick, who leaves Top Gun in a huff and speeds away on his motorcycle, even after Charlotte tries to explain herself. The two engage in their own private battle, complete with an illegal acceleration through a 4-way intersection, before Charlotte manages to track Maverick down and let him know that, while she stands by what she said, she failed to mention that she thinks Maverick is an exceptional aviator. Yet again, Maverick’s recklessness in the air pays off in unexpected ways, and while it seems like his associates are constantly scolding him, beneath the scolding is a deep admiration.
Charlotte and Maverick’s love is at once romantic and detached, almost strategic in nature. Because Charlotte is Maverick’s teacher, they must be careful about how they play out their romance. Additionally, both of them are technically minded and competitive people, eyeing one another with guarded glances as if to say, “Your move.” Their hidden but steamy dynamic is typified by their moment in the elevator, neither one of them able to say exactly what they mean on Top Gun premises, but each wearing a knowing smirk.
While Maverick’s recklessness pays off romantically and he wins over Charlotte with his hot-headed foolhardiness, it begins to impede his progress as a naval aviator. In class, Maverick talks back to Charlotte’s criticism of his maneuver with the MiG by saying, “If you think you’re dead.” When he goes out flying and, against everyone’s advice, chooses to leave his wingman and go after Viper, he learns, humiliatingly, that sometimes not thinking is more of a liability. For the first time in the film, Maverick is humbled by his experience in the air, and he begins to realize that some of his impulsivity is just stupid.
