Caprica - Time after time it’s the same old story. (and I want you to shoot the dog)

Caprica: 1x07 Ghosts in the Machine.

Chasing ghosts

This episode title has been a long time coming; it’s just a surprise that at this point in the story, there is more than one ghost in a machine. Zoe is the sentient girl in the Cylon body, torn between the adolescent rage and desires of Original Zoe and what she perceives to be her most important goal: finding out about the destiny her creator (the very same girl) has endowed upon her. Tamara is the dead girl haunting New Cap City, the one thing that can’t die in a “game” that mirrors reality to perfection, to the extent that it only is meaningful because you stay dead, instead of getting to try again.
“Ghosts in the Machine” isn’t actually about the ghosts themselves (Tamara at least doesn’t even show up, we only see the marks she left all over New Cap City) – but those who chase them, and what their inability to let go makes them. In the beginning of the episode, Joseph Adama barely resembles the man we met at the beginning of the series: he doesn’t leave his apartment anymore and spends his days in New Cap City, learning how much it actually resembles the real world (with performance-enhancing drugs that are addictive), while his new-found guide Emmanuelle tries to teach him the skills he needs to stay alive.
Daniel, now convinced that Zoe is inside the Cylon because it’s the only way that Philomon’s theory makes any sense, is trying to get a human reaction from the Cylon body.

Daniel: “OK, so it’s not that you can’t talk to me, it’s that you won’t talk to me. I can’t imagine what the last few weeks have been like for you. This certainly wasn’t what you were expecting. It must have scared the crap out of you. But you have to  understand that this was always a temporary place, just so we could get you back into our lives, and if you can’t handle it, you just let me know, and I will take you out of this and find you a way to make you a more human body.”

For once, it’s incredible how selfish Daniel comes across the entire episode, and that was a strange feeling because so far, I always felt less inclined to sympathize with Amanda. Basically here he is saying: I trapped you because I couldn’t deal with the loss. Second, the notion of a “more human body”: wouldn’t it be interesting if “Caprica” just forgot about all the explanations given for skin jobs and the final five in “BSG”, and go a different route here (“Dollhouse” comes to mind. Having already seen the next episode as I am writing the review, I´m not sure whether the theory is still viable, but is the idea of Zoe’s mind being transferred into a different body something the show will explore?).
Daniel’s “you’re giving me the silent treatment, huh? OK, this might be hard on you, but it’s going to be all for the best.” Is quite stunning as well, because he is so clearly talking, lecturing, his teenage daughter here, using one of those phrases we’ve all heard in our youth at some point, and is completely disregarding the fact that his daughter is long past parental control and authority, and not quite a teenager at all anymore. In a way, Daniel partly even realizes that, because the methods he uses to enforce his authority and to discipline Zoe match the Cylon body, not the girl inside.
Zoe explains to Lacy (who, by this point, is trying anything to not be the only one responsible) why she can’t share the truth with her father:

“Lace, the man lied to me when he put me in the robot. If he really thought of me as his daughter he would have never done the things that he did. But it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day he just used me to save his fat military contract. Business first, same old Daddy. And you know what, if I were to tell him that I was in there now, he would use me again, maybe even in ways that were even worse. So you know what, he can’t know.”

Zoe the Avatar sounds very much like Original Zoe in the pilot episode, harbouring resentment against her parents’ decisions and way of life, but there is also the essential conflict between “making the chip work for mass production” and “finding Zoe”, especially now that both goals are hopelessly entangled.

Daniel: “Why are we still playing this game? I know it’s you. But if you wanna keep hiding behind a quarter ton of metal, fine. Just don’t kid yourself, don’t think for a second it’s because of anything I did, because I kept my side of the bargain. I took you out of a virtual playground and brought you into the real world. But I guess you can’t handle that, huh. However brilliant you may be, maybe deep down inside you’re still the same scared little girl you always were. Was it really easier to blow up a train of innocent people than to face up to your own biggest fear, which, let’s face it, is life itself, isn’t it. Cause life is scary, and brutal, and unpredictable, and you have to make choices like that, and sometimes you make the wrong ones.”

It’s difficult to reconcile the Daniel who is recognizing his own daughter, or at least believes he does, inside the Cylon, with the man who decides the best way to draw her out is to have her face her worst fear, fire. He is calling her out on acting like an adult with the political gesture (how both he and Amanda just accepted the fact that Zoe was the one blowing up the train – it’s strange that we don’t see Zoe’s reaction to that, but then again, she doesn’t really know that Ben was the one who did this without her approval – nobody knows, right?), but when he talks about “wrong choices”, he must realize that he isn’t talking about the terrorist attack, but about his own decision to have the chip stolen that is now threatening his future.
The final scene…in a way, I now feel that Daniel is a character that won’t be able to redeem himself, although his desperation, and how much he clings to the idea that Zoe is still somewhere in there, is palpable (“So here’s the deal. I love my dog, but I love my daughter even more, and if there’s even a slight chance that some small part of her is tangled up in your alloy skeleton I have got to know.” – these must be the among the most heartbreaking words heard on television in quite a long time). He asks her to shoot the dog, and she does, which leaves no doubt in his mind that this can’t be his little girl (only that we find out later that Zoe knew she was shooting blanks because the Cylon body registered the slight difference in weight) – meanwhile, Vergis is doing exactly what he said he’d do, taking away everything Daniel cares for, by telling Amanda that her husband had two of his men killed.

The object of the game

“Well, there’s no rule-book in life, right? You ask me, that’s what keeps it interesting. Gotta figure out for yourself what’s important.” –Emmanuelle

The idea that New Cap City is a game and every game must have an object, a way of winning, is basically the dream that everyone INSIDE the game is chasing, and Emmanuelle and Joseph walk right into a place where an ominous “host” capitalizes on the idea, offering a glimpse at the truth at a high prize (you die if you can’t answer the question). These almost religious promises of “the ultimate prize”, “the ultimate award”, “a privileged peak into the mystery how to win this crazy game” probably reveal more about Caprican society, unhinged (“before the fall”), with people desperately clinging to meaning and turning to terrorist groups like the STO, or the holoband, in order to find it. In the end, the host, the charlatan, reveals that probably he did glimpse a tiny fraction of truth when he saw Tamara get shot but survive:

“We discovered she had the power to transcend life and death. It was quite a show. Maybe she found the answer everyone’s searching for, or maybe she is the answer.”

Here, the host talks about Tamara in exactly the same way Clarice does about Zoe.

Sam is the one who looks at New Cap City from the other side: when he tells Joseph about what it feels like to kill someone, he isn’t saying that New Cap City is like the real world; he is making the argument that he is thinking of reality as a game sometimes in order to do his job right.

Sam: “I’m only telling you this, because if you need to know, you better know. You tell yourself it’s not real, and then, then they’re not people shooting at you anymore, they’re targets´, and the whole thing becomes just a game.”

With this episode, we understand that both these “ghosts” are being understood as potential messiahs for a world that is slowly falling apart. We know that Zoe is desperate to find out what her calling is, but Tamara remains a great mystery.

Random thoughts:

I just love that the Tauron way of dealing with loss is the exact opposite to what we’ve seen for a couple of episodes now: Sam says “You give the ferryman the coins, you send her on her way.” – and you let go of all the little memories and keep-sakes.

Zoe really only figures out what Daniel is trying to do while she is talking to Lacy in the V Club? I thought that bit was awkward; she would have caught on way before that. Cause she’s, like, clever.