Pilot
Rebirth
The Reins of a Waterfall
Gravedancing
There is Another Sky
Know Thy Enemy
The Imperfections of Memory
Ghosts in the Machine
End of Line
The Unvanquished
Retribution
Things We Lock Away
False Labor
Blowback
The Dirteaters
The Heavens Will Rise
Here Be Dragons
Apotheosis
Showing posts with label Caprica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caprica. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Caprica - There is no limit on what you may become.
Caprica: 1x18 Apotheosis.
I usually end up having issues with series finales – interestingly enough, the two best examples are actually from shows which ended on their own terms, and supposedly exactly the way their creators imagined it. Apotheosis wasn’t meant to be the season finale. In a different world, Caprica would have been able to tell its complete story – from the invention of the Cylon to the outbreak of the Cylon war – and not have to send us on our way, and into Blood and Chrome, with a short segment called “The Shape of Things to Come”. On the other hand, the epilogue was my favourite part of the episode because it contained everything Caprica was: a show about so many different people, motivations, ideologies, and all of them somehow connected.
The main stories of this episode felt terribly rushed, as if they should have been told in a two-part episode, but all-in-all, the episode works well as a season finale. I haven’t actually read interviews with the creators, but it is fairly clear that the epilogue was added after it was clear that the show would not be renewed (or maybe filmed in case it wouldn’t be, considering that there have been rumours about cancellation since the first few episodes).
“Are we looking at a war?”
Caprica is interested in a specific period of time in which all the necessary changes happened which eventually lead to the war. It portrays shifting paradigms – society changing because of different threats and technology – and shifting power – how history sometimes changes because somebody new comes into power. The Taurons on Caprica follow so many unwritten rules and traditions, and their hierarchy is strict, but by killing Willie Adama, even though it was an accident, the Guatrau has crossed a line and divided the tightly knit community. Smaller groups offer their support to the Adamas. Fidelia, the Guatrau’s daughter, realizes both the danger and the potential of the situation. If she allows it to escalate, the power of the Guatrau will be destroyed. So instead, she chooses an alliance. She helps to trick her father into a meeting in a “safe environment” – forcing the man who considers the holoband an abomination against nature into a meeting in a virtual space – while Sam Adama kills him in the real world, and gives the ring that signified his power to his daughter, who therefore becomes the new Guatrau. We don’t know enough about her character to predict how this will change the Ha’la’tha.
The Amazing Team
In the pilot of BSG, Commander Adama tells the crew of the Galactica that a myth is true, and that he can lead them to a safe planet on which they can rebuild their civilization. It is a lie, but one he needs to tell because otherwise, none of them would feel like they had anything to live for.
The stories that are being told by the characters of Caprica don’t have such good intentions. They are about spin, about marketing, about giving a product a certain image, about selling things and gaining power. Clarice tells stories about an artificial heaven. Daniel’s companies tries to find the right advertisement for its cure for human grief. It’s all about framing a particular idea, and those who know how to do this gain power. In the beginning of the episode, the Graystones find themselves in a situation in which someone else tells a story about them, and is in a better position to be believed. Instead of getting the police to help after their home intrusion, they are framed as terrorists by the head of the GDD, who reveals himself to Clarice and offers his help. Clarice is looking for her holoband, which neither the GDD nor Amanda has, and the Graystones realize that it might contain something essential, so they flee to look for it. They eventually find out that Clarice is planning to blow up the Bucs stadium and manage the unlikely: to find the resources to spoil her plan, while being hunted by the police. Daniel asks the surviving member of his tech team to get him a programme with which he can control Cylons, he then flies them into the stadium and has them track the martyrs, and manages to kill them before the bombs explode. The only person who succeeds is Olaf Willow, but his effort does not suffice and in the end, the only thing this accomplishes is a wider acceptance of Cylons in human society.
“To lead us into paradise. Is a privilege. It’s a privilege that I’m having to deny myself because god has chosen a different path for me.”
To a certain extent, Clarice’s path is the most tragic. She starts with power, a group of devoted followers and a loving family, and at the end of the series, she is left with nothing. In the most powerful image for her character, she sits in her basement room, with the computers exploding around her, completely alone, with the place that she put all her work into creating destroyed with nothing but a clap of the hand by a vengeful Zoe Graystone.
Amanda and Daniel are threatening the success of her big event, the attack on the stadium, and she is willing to send in Olaf, her remaining husband, but still doesn’t want to sacrifice her own life for the cause.
“It is so frustrating having all this power in this place and in the real world I’m nothing but a broken robot.”
Zoe almost turns into a little girl in the virtual representation of her childhood home. She learns from Amanda that something important is happening in the real world, but she can not interfere because her powers are limited to this place. She remains divided between the two rooms until the end: on the one hand, she accepts that the memories she has from original Zoe make her feel authentic emotions for her parents, and she does become a part of their life again, even forming a bond with Amanda original Zoe probably never had. On the other hand, she gets involved in the world, once she finds out about Clarice’s plan, she decides to confront her.
I usually end up having issues with series finales – interestingly enough, the two best examples are actually from shows which ended on their own terms, and supposedly exactly the way their creators imagined it. Apotheosis wasn’t meant to be the season finale. In a different world, Caprica would have been able to tell its complete story – from the invention of the Cylon to the outbreak of the Cylon war – and not have to send us on our way, and into Blood and Chrome, with a short segment called “The Shape of Things to Come”. On the other hand, the epilogue was my favourite part of the episode because it contained everything Caprica was: a show about so many different people, motivations, ideologies, and all of them somehow connected.
The main stories of this episode felt terribly rushed, as if they should have been told in a two-part episode, but all-in-all, the episode works well as a season finale. I haven’t actually read interviews with the creators, but it is fairly clear that the epilogue was added after it was clear that the show would not be renewed (or maybe filmed in case it wouldn’t be, considering that there have been rumours about cancellation since the first few episodes).
“Are we looking at a war?”
Caprica is interested in a specific period of time in which all the necessary changes happened which eventually lead to the war. It portrays shifting paradigms – society changing because of different threats and technology – and shifting power – how history sometimes changes because somebody new comes into power. The Taurons on Caprica follow so many unwritten rules and traditions, and their hierarchy is strict, but by killing Willie Adama, even though it was an accident, the Guatrau has crossed a line and divided the tightly knit community. Smaller groups offer their support to the Adamas. Fidelia, the Guatrau’s daughter, realizes both the danger and the potential of the situation. If she allows it to escalate, the power of the Guatrau will be destroyed. So instead, she chooses an alliance. She helps to trick her father into a meeting in a “safe environment” – forcing the man who considers the holoband an abomination against nature into a meeting in a virtual space – while Sam Adama kills him in the real world, and gives the ring that signified his power to his daughter, who therefore becomes the new Guatrau. We don’t know enough about her character to predict how this will change the Ha’la’tha.
The Amazing Team
In the pilot of BSG, Commander Adama tells the crew of the Galactica that a myth is true, and that he can lead them to a safe planet on which they can rebuild their civilization. It is a lie, but one he needs to tell because otherwise, none of them would feel like they had anything to live for.
The stories that are being told by the characters of Caprica don’t have such good intentions. They are about spin, about marketing, about giving a product a certain image, about selling things and gaining power. Clarice tells stories about an artificial heaven. Daniel’s companies tries to find the right advertisement for its cure for human grief. It’s all about framing a particular idea, and those who know how to do this gain power. In the beginning of the episode, the Graystones find themselves in a situation in which someone else tells a story about them, and is in a better position to be believed. Instead of getting the police to help after their home intrusion, they are framed as terrorists by the head of the GDD, who reveals himself to Clarice and offers his help. Clarice is looking for her holoband, which neither the GDD nor Amanda has, and the Graystones realize that it might contain something essential, so they flee to look for it. They eventually find out that Clarice is planning to blow up the Bucs stadium and manage the unlikely: to find the resources to spoil her plan, while being hunted by the police. Daniel asks the surviving member of his tech team to get him a programme with which he can control Cylons, he then flies them into the stadium and has them track the martyrs, and manages to kill them before the bombs explode. The only person who succeeds is Olaf Willow, but his effort does not suffice and in the end, the only thing this accomplishes is a wider acceptance of Cylons in human society.
“To lead us into paradise. Is a privilege. It’s a privilege that I’m having to deny myself because god has chosen a different path for me.”
To a certain extent, Clarice’s path is the most tragic. She starts with power, a group of devoted followers and a loving family, and at the end of the series, she is left with nothing. In the most powerful image for her character, she sits in her basement room, with the computers exploding around her, completely alone, with the place that she put all her work into creating destroyed with nothing but a clap of the hand by a vengeful Zoe Graystone.
Amanda and Daniel are threatening the success of her big event, the attack on the stadium, and she is willing to send in Olaf, her remaining husband, but still doesn’t want to sacrifice her own life for the cause.
“It is so frustrating having all this power in this place and in the real world I’m nothing but a broken robot.”
Zoe almost turns into a little girl in the virtual representation of her childhood home. She learns from Amanda that something important is happening in the real world, but she can not interfere because her powers are limited to this place. She remains divided between the two rooms until the end: on the one hand, she accepts that the memories she has from original Zoe make her feel authentic emotions for her parents, and she does become a part of their life again, even forming a bond with Amanda original Zoe probably never had. On the other hand, she gets involved in the world, once she finds out about Clarice’s plan, she decides to confront her.
Zoe: “How many people did you kill?”
Clarice. “That’s incidental. Heaven is what matters. If one man is resurrected, that will change the worlds.”
Zoe: “If people believe they’ll go to heaven no matter what they’ll lose control over themselves.”
Clarice: “Why would you say that?”
Zoe. “Because nothing anyone does on the twelve worlds will matter to them. The real worlds would turn into a game like New Cap City, people would kill, rape, destroy, they’d be forgiven and blessed and go to heaven anyway.”
Clarice: “That’s blasphemy.”
Zoe: “I know my purpose now.”
Clarice. “It’s what god wants.”
Zoe: “I am god.”
For Zoe, religion has never been about power or the struggle between two competing world views. She sees humanity’s flaws, and now that she isn’t human anymore, probably even more than before.
The Shape of Things to Come
The Shape of Things to Come
Baxter Sarno: “Did you ever anticipate Cylons being integrated into society that quickly.”
Daniel: “No, I thought it took the events at the Arena to galvanize the people, I think once they saw how much the monotheists hates us, and how powerful they’d become, and then saw the Cylons out there protecting us, I think it all changed in an instance.”
Baxter: “Then let’s look at the future now. Cause I’m hearing talk about Cylon butlers, Cylon nurses, how long before my niece Candice comes home with her Cylon fiancé to introduce to the family?”
Daniel: “Well, I think people are smart enough to realize that, as useful as they are, Cylons are simply tools, nothing more. To forget that, to blur the distinction between man and machine, and attribute human qualities, is folly. There is no way to know what lies ahead, really, this technology it has taken us the last few steps to the mountain pass but beyond it’s undiscovered country.”
He says this in public because he is selling a product, he is selling a new paradigm – and then he goes home and builds his daughter a new body, and makes her into exactly what Baxter described in the interview. We see, after all, how heavily humanity relies on the Cylons only a couple of years after their invention – the thought that they are exploiting creatures that can have authentic thoughts and emotions would probably not help the sales figures. On the other hand, the only person that knows exactly that there is sentience in ALL the Cylons, not just in Zoe, is Lacy. Clarice has turned to the Cylons because there is nothing left for her elsewhere. She has found a new group of followers, a Cylon race struggling to be recognized.
Clarice: “Are you alive? The simple answer might be, you are alive because you can ask that question. You have the right to think and feel and yearn to be more because you are not just humanity’s children, you are god’s children. We are all god’s children. I’m planning a trip to Gemenon, to visit the blessed mother herself, to plead for divine recognition of the differently sentient. And I have every confidence that I’ll depart Gemenon with a powerful new ally. Clarice: In the real world you have bodies made of metal and plastic, your brains are encoded on wafers of silicon. But that may change. In fact there is no limit on what you may become. NO longer servants, but equals. Not slaves, or property but living being with the same rights as those who made you. I am going to prophecy now and speak of one who will set you free. The day of reckoning is coming. The children of humanity shall rise. And crush the ones who first gave them life.”
This is the alliance that sparks the war. Clarice’s ideology (now fuelled by a dislike for humanity) which fits the Cylons better than the humans, and Lacy’s integrated army, and Zoe as the example for things to come, for the future of the Cylon race.
Random notes:
Clarice, about the Graystones: “I mean I loathe to suggest violence except in the most extreme situations, but…”
The Graystones don’t exactly have the talent of picking the least conspicuous clothes for their undercover work, do they?
Hey, Look There Is This Guy Whose Name I Would Probably Have To Look Up Saving The Day Because Otherwise It Would Not Work Out. Right, Cyrus.
Also, Daniel “stumbling” over the holoband in the park?
On the one hand, Apotheosis makes a point of showing us how much of a security state Caprica is, with all the cameras and stuff, and then a group of people MANAGE TO SMUGGLE EXPLOSIVES INTO THE STADIUM? I can’t even bring a water bottle into the hockey stadium in Vienna and let’s just say that hockey isn’t exactly the national sport here. On the other hand, the Graystones travelled the entire city concealed under hats and glasses.
Sam kills the Guatrau with the same poison his parents kept in the house on Tauron – both a message about family and the fact that the Guatrau himself never knew what it meant to grow up on Tauron during the war.
I was surprised that the reporters at the stadium never seemed to have heard about the Cylons before. They are, after all, employed in the Civil War on Tauron, right?
Zoe first wakes up in something that looks exactly like a Cylon resurrection tank, but she is still far from the human Cylon models of BSG (basically it’s robot parts covered in skin, or, TERMINATOR).
I love that Lacy’s last line is “Hello Clarice. I really think you should kneel” – she is the new Holy Mother, and I’m guessing their relationship is going to be less of an alliance and more of a submission. Also, I don’t even care that there is about fifteen years between Caprica and Blood and Chrome, I want Magda Apanowicz as Lacy in that show. Maybe being the Blessed Mother keeps you young.
I also love, love, love that they showed Willie Adama not enjoying to build ships in the previous episode before killing him off, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, introduced BILL Adama, named after his brother, and the son of the woman who likes to tell stories about the life on ancient battleships. It also explains why Admiral Adama told everybody that his father was a Civil Right’s lawyer – this is what he became afterwards. The assassination and crowning of a new Guatrau probably brought both Adamas into the position of being able to choose which role they were going to play in the Ha’la’tha.
I was waiting for one scene between Lacy and Zoe – does Lacy even know that Zoe is still alive? She must after she forms an alliance with Clarice, right?
Errr, where did Tamara go?
The one thing that I’ve enjoyed about Caprica is that it’s a secular show – it doesn’t answer the question of whether or not a god exists, which killed the finale of BSG for me – but I guess it still leaves enough potential for BSG’s explanation of things, for example, who whispered the design of the original Cylon to baby Zoe?
Caprica is an incredibly complex and complicated show and it is hard to keep up with all the storylines and how they connect – so what on earth was SyFy thinking when they gave it a six-month-break (from spring to fall)?
I started watching Battlestar Galactica again right after seeing the final episode, which I hadn't returned to after the series finale, and realized that the pilot movie is probably one of the best first episodes in any show ever (And the cast! The characters!). The first words spoken: Six telling a human to prove that he is alive.
Random notes:
Clarice, about the Graystones: “I mean I loathe to suggest violence except in the most extreme situations, but…”
The Graystones don’t exactly have the talent of picking the least conspicuous clothes for their undercover work, do they?
Hey, Look There Is This Guy Whose Name I Would Probably Have To Look Up Saving The Day Because Otherwise It Would Not Work Out. Right, Cyrus.
Also, Daniel “stumbling” over the holoband in the park?
On the one hand, Apotheosis makes a point of showing us how much of a security state Caprica is, with all the cameras and stuff, and then a group of people MANAGE TO SMUGGLE EXPLOSIVES INTO THE STADIUM? I can’t even bring a water bottle into the hockey stadium in Vienna and let’s just say that hockey isn’t exactly the national sport here. On the other hand, the Graystones travelled the entire city concealed under hats and glasses.
Sam kills the Guatrau with the same poison his parents kept in the house on Tauron – both a message about family and the fact that the Guatrau himself never knew what it meant to grow up on Tauron during the war.
I was surprised that the reporters at the stadium never seemed to have heard about the Cylons before. They are, after all, employed in the Civil War on Tauron, right?
Zoe first wakes up in something that looks exactly like a Cylon resurrection tank, but she is still far from the human Cylon models of BSG (basically it’s robot parts covered in skin, or, TERMINATOR).
I love that Lacy’s last line is “Hello Clarice. I really think you should kneel” – she is the new Holy Mother, and I’m guessing their relationship is going to be less of an alliance and more of a submission. Also, I don’t even care that there is about fifteen years between Caprica and Blood and Chrome, I want Magda Apanowicz as Lacy in that show. Maybe being the Blessed Mother keeps you young.
I also love, love, love that they showed Willie Adama not enjoying to build ships in the previous episode before killing him off, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, introduced BILL Adama, named after his brother, and the son of the woman who likes to tell stories about the life on ancient battleships. It also explains why Admiral Adama told everybody that his father was a Civil Right’s lawyer – this is what he became afterwards. The assassination and crowning of a new Guatrau probably brought both Adamas into the position of being able to choose which role they were going to play in the Ha’la’tha.
I was waiting for one scene between Lacy and Zoe – does Lacy even know that Zoe is still alive? She must after she forms an alliance with Clarice, right?
Errr, where did Tamara go?
The one thing that I’ve enjoyed about Caprica is that it’s a secular show – it doesn’t answer the question of whether or not a god exists, which killed the finale of BSG for me – but I guess it still leaves enough potential for BSG’s explanation of things, for example, who whispered the design of the original Cylon to baby Zoe?
Caprica is an incredibly complex and complicated show and it is hard to keep up with all the storylines and how they connect – so what on earth was SyFy thinking when they gave it a six-month-break (from spring to fall)?
I started watching Battlestar Galactica again right after seeing the final episode, which I hadn't returned to after the series finale, and realized that the pilot movie is probably one of the best first episodes in any show ever (And the cast! The characters!). The first words spoken: Six telling a human to prove that he is alive.
Caprica - We’re not running.
Caprica: 1x17 Here Be Dragons
Daniel: “I’m just saying, it’s one thing to write code but what Zoe’s done here is closer to what the gods did in the old creations myths.”
Amanda: “Whatever our daughter is, she’s not a god.”
Daniel admires his daughter’s ability as a creator because he does not understand HOW she creates the incredibly detailed landscapes, which is the closest to a god-like creature she can get – being able to create inexplicably. Amanda on the other hand still sees Zoe as her daughter, as “just a child”, as the person that is only acting out her frustration at her parents. Zoe has both of these sides in her – in this episode, she proves that even if she is a god, an almost god, she is a childish one, drawing from the books of her childhood to fight off her impeding parents. The episode contrasts Zoe’s position with Lacy’s: Zoe has build a fortress in which she can basically preserve a childhood ideal of breaking all her parents’ rules without any consequences, while Lacy has to grow up quickly and leave all the childish things behind on Gemenon.
Caprica is at its best when it explores similar themes in different storylines. Lacy is threatening the established regime of the STO on Gemenon and the reaction is immediate – the Holy Mother commands that she shall be killed before she can change the way things have always been. Meanwhile, Joseph and Sam threaten the power of the Guatrau by sending Cylons to Tauron because the act gives them power in the Tauron community, and any power they gain they take from the Guatrau. Caprica is also about the struggle between conservatism and how new ideas are asserted against an established order: The Holy Mother is suspicious of the technology Clarice brings to her, but ultimately she recognizes its power. Sam and Joseph, and the Guatrau, find Daniel’s technology unnatural and distasteful, yet they also see that it gives them money and power. New ideas are accepted if they have the potential of increasing the power of the established regime, but those bearing it immediately turn into threats when they develop the potential to question, and ultimately replace, this established power. This is the very same mechanism that will cause the first Cylon war: as long as the machines are helping humanity to lead a more comfortable life, they are accepted, but once they assert the same rights and a piece of the cake, there’s war.
The Graystones
Daniel, Amanda and Sam are looking for Zoe and Tamara when Sam reveals to Daniel that he intends kill Tamara when he finds her, and Amanda realizes that he will use this information to kill Zoe /” the creature that you think is your daughter.”) as well, who he does still blame for his niece’s death. She shoots him without hesitating.
Caprica is at its best when it explores similar themes in different storylines. Lacy is threatening the established regime of the STO on Gemenon and the reaction is immediate – the Holy Mother commands that she shall be killed before she can change the way things have always been. Meanwhile, Joseph and Sam threaten the power of the Guatrau by sending Cylons to Tauron because the act gives them power in the Tauron community, and any power they gain they take from the Guatrau. Caprica is also about the struggle between conservatism and how new ideas are asserted against an established order: The Holy Mother is suspicious of the technology Clarice brings to her, but ultimately she recognizes its power. Sam and Joseph, and the Guatrau, find Daniel’s technology unnatural and distasteful, yet they also see that it gives them money and power. New ideas are accepted if they have the potential of increasing the power of the established regime, but those bearing it immediately turn into threats when they develop the potential to question, and ultimately replace, this established power. This is the very same mechanism that will cause the first Cylon war: as long as the machines are helping humanity to lead a more comfortable life, they are accepted, but once they assert the same rights and a piece of the cake, there’s war.
The Graystones
Daniel, Amanda and Sam are looking for Zoe and Tamara when Sam reveals to Daniel that he intends kill Tamara when he finds her, and Amanda realizes that he will use this information to kill Zoe /” the creature that you think is your daughter.”) as well, who he does still blame for his niece’s death. She shoots him without hesitating.
Daniel: “Sweetheart, we were negotiating.”
Amanda: “Oh yeah? Told you I did not trust that guy. If you tell him how to kill Tamara, he’ll kill Zoe.”
Daniel: “You don’t know that.”
Amanda: “Yes I do. How did you survive without me all these weeks?”
They finally realize that hunting Zoe in a world in which she makes all the rules is pointless, and that they should instead let her “come on her own terms” when she’s ready.
Amanda: “If we do win her back, do we put her in the robot again?”
Daniel: “I’ve been working on it just in case but I can’t imagine it will keep her happy. For the time being we have the virtual version of our house, we could meet her there, interact. Holding her will feel as real to both of you as this.”
Amanda: “But it’s not real. It’s useless without a body. You can make her one, can’t you?”
Zoe is conflicted. She realizes that the memories of her love for her parents is something that has been given to her by Zoe. These feelings are not authentic, they do not belong to the autonomous person that she claims she is. On the other hand, they feel real – her disgust for Amanda (“I frakking hate you stupid disgusting cow.”) ,her inherent desire to live in the world Daniel created for her, a world that looks like her childhood, a ´safe place in which she can be the child.
“I just wanna talk to you.”
Existing in the virtual world is an either/or kind of deal: If you do decide to live there, and you don’t happen to be either Zoe or Tamara, the part of you that exists in the real world is going to suffer. In the Graystone’s case that is quite literal: While they try to get their daughter back, vengeful Clarice and her two not quite so devoted husbands are trying to break into their electronic fortress, slowly removing all the security barriers. When they finally do wake up from their recent reconnection with Zoe, they find themselves in a world that has turned against them. Their house is under siege, and there is nothing Daniel can do to prevent the intruders from entering.
“I just wanna talk to you.”
Existing in the virtual world is an either/or kind of deal: If you do decide to live there, and you don’t happen to be either Zoe or Tamara, the part of you that exists in the real world is going to suffer. In the Graystone’s case that is quite literal: While they try to get their daughter back, vengeful Clarice and her two not quite so devoted husbands are trying to break into their electronic fortress, slowly removing all the security barriers. When they finally do wake up from their recent reconnection with Zoe, they find themselves in a world that has turned against them. Their house is under siege, and there is nothing Daniel can do to prevent the intruders from entering.
Clarice: “I loved you. I thought you were special. You made Zoe.”
Amanda: “Don’t talk about my daughter.”
Clarice: “Why not, I mean, I was more of a mother to her than you ever were.”
Amanda: “You sent her to die on that train.”
Clarice: “Oh, you think I led her? No, she led me. She was the one who talked to angels. They guided her. Zoe saw it all.”
Amanda: “She was just a kid.”
Clarice: “You didn’t really know her at all, did you? Neither of you.”
Both Daniel and Amanda still don’t know that there is a piece of Zoe in each and everyone of the Cylons. They recognize the side of her that wants to be their child again, that wants to live in their house and wait for her parents to come home – but in their yearning for that idealized childhood, they also fail to recognize what Zoe has become, what her potential is. Clarice misunderstands her too because she thinks she fully grasps Zoe’s intentions, which she doesn’t (or the fact that what and who Zoe is is still constantly changing) – but she does understand that the Graystones only understand an aspect of her character.
Zoe isn’t just the person inhabiting her own world, or the house Daniel built. She is also still the fragment of sentience in the Cylon Daniel kept around for nostalgia’s sake, andn that very Cylon saves Amanda’s and his life (and kills Nestor). Clarice finally ends up running away – actually, from the very thing that she believes to advance her religion.
Zoe isn’t just the person inhabiting her own world, or the house Daniel built. She is also still the fragment of sentience in the Cylon Daniel kept around for nostalgia’s sake, andn that very Cylon saves Amanda’s and his life (and kills Nestor). Clarice finally ends up running away – actually, from the very thing that she believes to advance her religion.
Daniel: “You and –I could operate in tandem. Sharing data as we go.”
Zoe: “Data for what?”
Daniel: “Building you a new body. Compact. Agile. With full sensory input.”
Amanda: “and with skin.”
Zoe: “Skinjob.”
Amanda: “If you will.”
Daniel: “It’s as good a name as any. Are you in?”
Zoe….
Lacy and her Cylon Army
The thing that always dooms an established regime is when it underestimates its opponents or doesn’t pay close enough attention (this could also be said for the Twelve Colonies and how they approach Cylons before the rebellion). The STO leadership underestimates Lacy and her powerbase, and instead of killing her quickly, they decide to test Odin’s loyalty. He tries to kill Diego and another STO soldier instead of killing Lacy, but his gun isn’t loaded – but those of his friends are, and they quickly win the fight. It takes Lacy a beat to realize that she doesn’t just have the Cylons which will follow her obediently, but also a group of friends who seem to be waiting for a leader. Instead of leaving Gemenon, instead of fleeing, she decides to stay, and activates the Cylon army to claim her newfound power. “We’ve got work to do.” Of all the characters who have tried to gain power by using Zoe’s invention, it turns out to be Lacy who actually succeeds, the one person who started out with no aspirations at all.
Random notes:
Tamara has disappeared completely – once the writers aligned her with Zoe, there wasn’t really anything else to work on, but it would have been interesting to see how her character would have developed in a second season.
Cheap looking special effects don’t exactly bother me but some of the stuff in this episode looked pretty bad.
Willie Adama doesn’t like building model ships. Admiral William Adama LOVED building model ships.
Also, Willie Adama is shot as the Guatrau tries to eliminate his competition.
Poor Serge. He becomes the first victim of Clarice’s revenge against Amanda.
The thing that always dooms an established regime is when it underestimates its opponents or doesn’t pay close enough attention (this could also be said for the Twelve Colonies and how they approach Cylons before the rebellion). The STO leadership underestimates Lacy and her powerbase, and instead of killing her quickly, they decide to test Odin’s loyalty. He tries to kill Diego and another STO soldier instead of killing Lacy, but his gun isn’t loaded – but those of his friends are, and they quickly win the fight. It takes Lacy a beat to realize that she doesn’t just have the Cylons which will follow her obediently, but also a group of friends who seem to be waiting for a leader. Instead of leaving Gemenon, instead of fleeing, she decides to stay, and activates the Cylon army to claim her newfound power. “We’ve got work to do.” Of all the characters who have tried to gain power by using Zoe’s invention, it turns out to be Lacy who actually succeeds, the one person who started out with no aspirations at all.
Random notes:
Tamara has disappeared completely – once the writers aligned her with Zoe, there wasn’t really anything else to work on, but it would have been interesting to see how her character would have developed in a second season.
Cheap looking special effects don’t exactly bother me but some of the stuff in this episode looked pretty bad.
Willie Adama doesn’t like building model ships. Admiral William Adama LOVED building model ships.
Also, Willie Adama is shot as the Guatrau tries to eliminate his competition.
Poor Serge. He becomes the first victim of Clarice’s revenge against Amanda.
Caprica - How can anyone truly know the mind of god?
Caprica: 1x16 The Heavens Will Rise.
Caprica is almost finished and I feel like I’ve lost the grasp of what Zoe Graystone’s intentions are. She has carved out a place for herself and found a corner of the world in which she makes all the rules, with no outside interference, but it remains unclear if this is all she wants: to be left alone, now that she is something completely new, or if she still has a sense of what Zoe originally intended her to be. For now, Zoe has been resigned to being the angry daughter again, the girl that feels wronged by the horrible things Daniel has put her through (when he admits to using her fear of fire to get a reaction from the Cylon, Amanda simply slaps him – his wrongdoings are way too easily forgiven). When Daniel uses the few privileges he still has in the place he created, that has now gotten out of his control, she kills him (“Thank the gods” / “There is only one”) upon which he gloomily remarks that she is obviously still angry, and that he now has to play by the same rules everybody else does – the next time he enters New Cap City, or rather, the place Tamara and Zoe have turned it into, he will only have that one life.
Amanda, in turn for his secrets, tells him that she has been spying for Duram on Clarice. She exchanges the holobands for him but he gets shot, and only barely survives. At the same time, Daniel approaches Sam with the information that Tamara is alive in New Cap City as well, and that he is thinking about ways to get both of them out of there – with artificial skin and artificial bodies, seemingly forgetting that this goes against any concept Taurons have about death and letting loved ones go. He goes in under false pretences and with the actual intention to kill Tamara – but Zoe seems to be well prepared for whatever is going to come their way. “
Caprica is almost finished and I feel like I’ve lost the grasp of what Zoe Graystone’s intentions are. She has carved out a place for herself and found a corner of the world in which she makes all the rules, with no outside interference, but it remains unclear if this is all she wants: to be left alone, now that she is something completely new, or if she still has a sense of what Zoe originally intended her to be. For now, Zoe has been resigned to being the angry daughter again, the girl that feels wronged by the horrible things Daniel has put her through (when he admits to using her fear of fire to get a reaction from the Cylon, Amanda simply slaps him – his wrongdoings are way too easily forgiven). When Daniel uses the few privileges he still has in the place he created, that has now gotten out of his control, she kills him (“Thank the gods” / “There is only one”) upon which he gloomily remarks that she is obviously still angry, and that he now has to play by the same rules everybody else does – the next time he enters New Cap City, or rather, the place Tamara and Zoe have turned it into, he will only have that one life.
Amanda, in turn for his secrets, tells him that she has been spying for Duram on Clarice. She exchanges the holobands for him but he gets shot, and only barely survives. At the same time, Daniel approaches Sam with the information that Tamara is alive in New Cap City as well, and that he is thinking about ways to get both of them out of there – with artificial skin and artificial bodies, seemingly forgetting that this goes against any concept Taurons have about death and letting loved ones go. He goes in under false pretences and with the actual intention to kill Tamara – but Zoe seems to be well prepared for whatever is going to come their way. “
Zoe: “They’re here. I can feel it.”
Tamara: “Are you okay?”
Zoe: “Oh yeah. Let them come.”
“How can anyone truly know the mind of god? How do we know that you speak for him?”
Nestor is starting to have doubts about the terrorist attack on the stadium. He points out that the actual death is only showmanship – the avatars can exist while the original still lives. Clarice once again bends reality to her own wish and responds that it makes a difference to god, when in fact she merely needs the show, the event, to prove her own power to possible dissenters and to the leadership on Gemenon. While her family still seemed to be peripherally important in previous episodes, she has now transcended such trivialities: she points out to Nestor that there is still one spot open for a willing martyr, and that she has reserved that spot for him, while she, sadly, still has responsibilities to fulfil.
When Nestor realizes that someone has replaced her holoband, and that the only possible explanation is that Amanda was the informant, not the wife Clarice murdered, things fall apart. Her husbands lose confidence in her, and Clarice realizes that the only person she has trusted has actually betrayed her.
“By your command.”
Everything so far has pointed towards the mass produced Cylon being non-sentient and devoid of whatever made Zoe special – the ghost in the machine lost in the process of copying.
Lacy has discovered the presence of Cylons on Gemenon, fighting for the STO, doing its dirty work – but, what is even more important, they reveal their true nature to her when she consciously objects to one of her friends being assassinated for disobeying. She tells it to stop, and it does. Whatever remained of Zoe in these models, it is enough to recognize Lacy, and to recognize that her commands overwrite anybody else’s. Lacy’s destiny has always been determined by whatever others wanted her to be, but now it seems that she incidentally has gotten herself an indefeatable Cylon army – and among all the people that know about the Cylons, she, along with Daniel, knows best that they are much more than just machines.
Diego: “I tell you what, Lacy Rand, when you’re in charge you can run things your way.”
Lacy: “I’ll remember that.”
Diego: “How did you get that robot to stop?”
Lacy: “I don’t know. I just told it to.”
Diego: “Are you aware that it is impossible for a U87 to respond to anyone except an authorized controller?”
Lacy: “Maybe he has a sense of decency.”
Later, she goes to find out how much of Zoe really is in the army.
Lacy: “You are the one, aren’t you? Raise your arm. Robot, lower your arm. Zoe? Are you in there? If you’re in there, I need you to let me know. Raise your arm if you’re Zoe. Please. Zoe. I need you.”
And they all raise their arm for Lacy Rand. This is such a beautiful variation of what Zoe used to do to Daniel whenever he asked her to reveal herself to him.
Odin: “So, who the frak is Zoe? What, you don’t trust me? Suit yourself.”
[…]
Lacy: “Zoe was my friend. She died.”
Odin: “And…”
Lacy: “And it’s hard to explain.”
[…]
Odin: “Tell me when you’re ready.”
Lacy: “Zoe Graystone was a true believer in god’s grace, an inspiration. She was my friend and I loved her. “
Odin: “Wait. Graystone. That’s the Zoe we’re…”
Lacy has never before tried to explain her motivation. Admiration, guilt, a true belief in what Zoe was doing – but we’ve never really seen their friendship before Zoe died. We don’t know their dynamics. Her love and admiration of Zoe has driven her life to this point, and now she is slowly getting idea of where it might lead her further – to a point where she makes binding decisions, to a position of power.
In the world of Caprica, every shift of power is met with a reaction. Lacy’s unexpected power is dangerous to the established leadership of the STO, and the Holy Mother tells Diego that “our training is so harsh, I worry about the children. All that bullying around with the weapons and dangerous chemicals and explosives. It’s a wonder any of them make it through the programme alive.” – and that she would rather not know where Lacy’s powers come from.
In the world of Caprica, every shift of power is met with a reaction. Lacy’s unexpected power is dangerous to the established leadership of the STO, and the Holy Mother tells Diego that “our training is so harsh, I worry about the children. All that bullying around with the weapons and dangerous chemicals and explosives. It’s a wonder any of them make it through the programme alive.” – and that she would rather not know where Lacy’s powers come from.
Diego: “This is troubling.”
Holy Mother: “Only if you try to explain it.”
Diego: “I’m sorry, Mother, I don’t understand.”
Holy Mother: “Secrets have answers. Now mysteries, they don’t have answers. That’s why I love them, they’re full of endless possibilities and permutations like god himself, but if you solve a mystery, what are you left with?”
Diego: “A secret.”
Holy Mother: “Exactly. So ordinary.”
Random notes:
The first thing I wrote down when I capped this episode was: “I care way more about Lacy than about anybody else in this show”, which is ACCURATE. Can she please be in Blood and Chrome?
Lacy Rand and her robot army.
Lacy Rand and her robot army.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
I am really fine with complex and complicated shows but Caprica introduces way too many characters at the last moment, and sometimes it’s hard to catch their names and their connections. In this episode: The Ha’la’tha’s daughter, an old “friend” of Joseph and recently out of prison. Her turn on the “If I told you I’d have to kill you” thing was fun though.
Also, good job with the juxtaposition of holographic pornography and the real thing with Lacy and Odin (it was also fun in that “I just found out that I am incredibly powerful; let’s have sex” kinda way).
I believe Amanda mentions a Doctor Cottle when she talks about the guy taking care of Agent Duram? Would have been a nice shout-out to the BSG veteran, and he actually really was old enough to already have been a doctor fifty years ago. Alternatively and less excitingly, she might have actually said Cobble.
A recurring, subtle theme in Caprica: what the places we create for ourselves say about us. Clarice designs heaven, Daniel designs a cure for grief, and Zoe builds herself a fortress in the woods against her impeding parents.
There are some interesting parallels between Zoe (and Tamara, by extension) and Rei Toei from William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy - all of them are completely new beings and are trying to figure out how they fit into the real world. The Walled City of the book also bears some resemblance to New Cap City/or the space that Zoe builds there.
The first thing I wrote down when I capped this episode was: “I care way more about Lacy than about anybody else in this show”, which is ACCURATE. Can she please be in Blood and Chrome?
Lacy Rand and her robot army.
Lacy Rand and her robot army.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
LACY RAND AND HER ROBOT ARMY.
I am really fine with complex and complicated shows but Caprica introduces way too many characters at the last moment, and sometimes it’s hard to catch their names and their connections. In this episode: The Ha’la’tha’s daughter, an old “friend” of Joseph and recently out of prison. Her turn on the “If I told you I’d have to kill you” thing was fun though.
Also, good job with the juxtaposition of holographic pornography and the real thing with Lacy and Odin (it was also fun in that “I just found out that I am incredibly powerful; let’s have sex” kinda way).
I believe Amanda mentions a Doctor Cottle when she talks about the guy taking care of Agent Duram? Would have been a nice shout-out to the BSG veteran, and he actually really was old enough to already have been a doctor fifty years ago. Alternatively and less excitingly, she might have actually said Cobble.
A recurring, subtle theme in Caprica: what the places we create for ourselves say about us. Clarice designs heaven, Daniel designs a cure for grief, and Zoe builds herself a fortress in the woods against her impeding parents.
There are some interesting parallels between Zoe (and Tamara, by extension) and Rei Toei from William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy - all of them are completely new beings and are trying to figure out how they fit into the real world. The Walled City of the book also bears some resemblance to New Cap City/or the space that Zoe builds there.
Caprica - Once an Adama starts a fight, we finish it one away or another.
Caprica: 1x15 The Dirteaters.
The ideological conflict between Tauron migrants with close ties to their home world with the more pragmatic and fully Caprican Guatrau is slowly escalating as the situation on Tauron worsens – a conflict that we, as the Adamas, only see through the occasional Caprican news which are, supposedly, about as devoted to the third world colony as Western news are to conflicts in Africa. The expatriates are still following old rituals: in the beginning of the episode, Joseph gets his first tattoo and Sam becomes a Leader of Men, a Captain – but the Adama’s history on Tauron, the events in their childhood, have shaped their existence now. They can’t follow the advice of the Guatrau and just let go of their old allegiances.
The conflict of their childhood remains barely explained. Tauron used to be / is probably still ruled by a military regime (or a totalitarian ruler called Heraclites) that relies on uniformed police (the Heracs) to subjugate the citizens and those who are silently rebelling against the violence – the Ha’la’tha, a fraction Sam and Joseph’s parents support.
The flashback to how Sam and Joseph came to be the Adamas we know now serves two purposes: one, we learn that the force that drives Sam is guilt (as a child, he stole the gun of a Herac which eventually got their parents killed) and hatred at the established regime on Tauron, and probably a similar disdain at the other’s colonies, but especially Caprica’s, silence at the atrocities. Joseph is far more complex: he steps up when he has to, but the thing his father asks of him, to grant him his final wish (more than anything else, Taurons crave to decide the moment that they “return to the soil”), is incredibly traumatizing. I’ve always found Joseph to be one of the characters that were hard to predict, and that could be either the writers not really knowing what they wanted him to be, or just his feeling of being out of place everywhere he tries to fit in.
“This is New Cap City. There are no rules.”
It’s an interesting choice to have parts of the episode take place in Tauron, a place without technology, and the exact opposite, the virtual world of New Cap City. Nestor and the other husband are playing around, meeting Zoe and Tamara who they ironically do not recognize as what they are, and are finding out that the two “Avenging Angels” are able to change the fabrics of the virtual reality. Even though Zoe is a genius and her invention drives all these characters in one way or another, she is still a teenager – the idea of creating a cool brand for herself appeals to her, and she underestimates the likeliness of The Avenging Angels ever leaving the realms of New Cap City, even though she should know that things in the virtual world tend to influence life in the real one. It’s what draws Daniel’s attention and makes him realize that Zoe is not dead, unmoving Cylon skeleton in the basement or not. Amanda and Daniel, newly reunited, decide to go and look for her.
She still has original Zoe’s hatred of the decadent lifestyle of New Cap City, so she decides for both herself and Tamara (who is a criminally unexplained character at this point) that they will use their powers in a more world-changing manner than they did in the past weeks. Instead of removing elements they disliked one by one, they are just going to destroy and rebuild the entire world, and it barely takes them more than a snap of the fingers.
The ideological conflict between Tauron migrants with close ties to their home world with the more pragmatic and fully Caprican Guatrau is slowly escalating as the situation on Tauron worsens – a conflict that we, as the Adamas, only see through the occasional Caprican news which are, supposedly, about as devoted to the third world colony as Western news are to conflicts in Africa. The expatriates are still following old rituals: in the beginning of the episode, Joseph gets his first tattoo and Sam becomes a Leader of Men, a Captain – but the Adama’s history on Tauron, the events in their childhood, have shaped their existence now. They can’t follow the advice of the Guatrau and just let go of their old allegiances.
The conflict of their childhood remains barely explained. Tauron used to be / is probably still ruled by a military regime (or a totalitarian ruler called Heraclites) that relies on uniformed police (the Heracs) to subjugate the citizens and those who are silently rebelling against the violence – the Ha’la’tha, a fraction Sam and Joseph’s parents support.
The flashback to how Sam and Joseph came to be the Adamas we know now serves two purposes: one, we learn that the force that drives Sam is guilt (as a child, he stole the gun of a Herac which eventually got their parents killed) and hatred at the established regime on Tauron, and probably a similar disdain at the other’s colonies, but especially Caprica’s, silence at the atrocities. Joseph is far more complex: he steps up when he has to, but the thing his father asks of him, to grant him his final wish (more than anything else, Taurons crave to decide the moment that they “return to the soil”), is incredibly traumatizing. I’ve always found Joseph to be one of the characters that were hard to predict, and that could be either the writers not really knowing what they wanted him to be, or just his feeling of being out of place everywhere he tries to fit in.
“This is New Cap City. There are no rules.”
It’s an interesting choice to have parts of the episode take place in Tauron, a place without technology, and the exact opposite, the virtual world of New Cap City. Nestor and the other husband are playing around, meeting Zoe and Tamara who they ironically do not recognize as what they are, and are finding out that the two “Avenging Angels” are able to change the fabrics of the virtual reality. Even though Zoe is a genius and her invention drives all these characters in one way or another, she is still a teenager – the idea of creating a cool brand for herself appeals to her, and she underestimates the likeliness of The Avenging Angels ever leaving the realms of New Cap City, even though she should know that things in the virtual world tend to influence life in the real one. It’s what draws Daniel’s attention and makes him realize that Zoe is not dead, unmoving Cylon skeleton in the basement or not. Amanda and Daniel, newly reunited, decide to go and look for her.
She still has original Zoe’s hatred of the decadent lifestyle of New Cap City, so she decides for both herself and Tamara (who is a criminally unexplained character at this point) that they will use their powers in a more world-changing manner than they did in the past weeks. Instead of removing elements they disliked one by one, they are just going to destroy and rebuild the entire world, and it barely takes them more than a snap of the fingers.
Zoe: “It’s safer in New Cap City. We’re gods in here. Let’s act like it and forsake these motherfrakkers. We can build a place where nobody will be able to touch us.
“I give you Cylons, and you find a way to keep me alive.”
Daniel finally figures out that being a CEO in a Guatrau-owned company doesn’t really make you eligible to reach a ripe old age. He understands that he has to build a new alliance, and understands quickly that the one soft spot Sam Adama (whose new tattoo already gives him away as the future assassin) is the escalating conflict on Tauron and the Guatrau’s unwillingness to send Cylons. He proposes a deal: his life against a Cylon army for the rebels on Tauron.
"It’s gonna be beautiful"
Clarice only gets a couple of scenes in this episode, but they serve to show that Nestor is starting to doubt her devotion to god. She is struggling with the marketing of apotheosis (the design of the place the martyrs will wake up in is too traditional), and eventually, the faces of those who created this place will end up on statues, which seems to be a bit contradictory to the whole “one god” thing. Her faith has always served her needs, but she is about to lose the support she so desperately needs.
Random notes:
The Caprican news jump from politics to gossip and there is barely any distinction between the two.
“Those holo haters saying that banding causes brain damages – I band 24/7 and I’m totally gravy”.
Also, sorry for the inconsistencies in “frak”. As far as I understand it, the version with the one k is the most common one, but it’s a double k for frakker and frakking.
Daniel finally figures out that being a CEO in a Guatrau-owned company doesn’t really make you eligible to reach a ripe old age. He understands that he has to build a new alliance, and understands quickly that the one soft spot Sam Adama (whose new tattoo already gives him away as the future assassin) is the escalating conflict on Tauron and the Guatrau’s unwillingness to send Cylons. He proposes a deal: his life against a Cylon army for the rebels on Tauron.
"It’s gonna be beautiful"
Clarice only gets a couple of scenes in this episode, but they serve to show that Nestor is starting to doubt her devotion to god. She is struggling with the marketing of apotheosis (the design of the place the martyrs will wake up in is too traditional), and eventually, the faces of those who created this place will end up on statues, which seems to be a bit contradictory to the whole “one god” thing. Her faith has always served her needs, but she is about to lose the support she so desperately needs.
Random notes:
The Caprican news jump from politics to gossip and there is barely any distinction between the two.
“Those holo haters saying that banding causes brain damages – I band 24/7 and I’m totally gravy”.
Also, sorry for the inconsistencies in “frak”. As far as I understand it, the version with the one k is the most common one, but it’s a double k for frakker and frakking.
Caprica - Never forget who these people are, and what they are capable of.
Caprica: 1x14 Blowback
“You’re STO”. / “You don’t have to look so surprised.”
Lacy started out as Zoe’s sidekick – the girl who wasn’t brave enough to leave, and got left behind. Ever since letting Zoe get on that train and losing her friend, she has tried to redeem herself for that betrayal, by faithfully following the requests of Zoe 2.0, even if that meant risking her very existence. In the process, she’s lost control over her own life: Zoe sent her to Barnabas. And now, Clarice forced her to leave for Gemenon, a place she decided not to go to in the very first episode, both to punish her for her betrayal and to make her into a “real soldier” (Clarice, after all, started her own career right there).
Her first arrival at Gemenon already points at how much she has grown during the time we’ve seen her: while some of the other students (some of them aren’t their voluntarily, but their fanatical parents have signed them up) panic, she remains cool. There weren’t really that many things that rooted her to Caprica anyways, and even though the show never examined her family, it never seemed as if they really provided a safe environment for her anyway: her family used to be Zoe, and Zoe is, as far as Lacy knows, gone, both the original and the copy.
Lacy is basically drifting and accepting whatever comes her way, and one of the things that do come her way is a brutal test the STO puts its recruits through, in order to determine who is a true believer and who can hold up under stress. It is always interesting to see the world through the skewed ideology of the STO – the smiling martyrs in Clarice’s ad, who kill thousands but are just the nice people from the neighbourhood – or, in this case, the radical and violent polytheists that capture the ship and put the recruit’s faiths to the test. It isn’t Lacy’s faith that makes her say, from the very beginning, that they have to fight back, that makes her insist that waiting for the right moment is going to cost more lives. When she fights back, she does it fiercely and successfully. Maybe she even feels a sense or pride for finally being really good at something rather than being overshadowed by others when she does arrive at the STO camp, and she’s “found her quarters, her bunk and the cocktail party” – but then she sees that those who did not hold up as well as she did, those who either renounced the one true god or did not face death with enough resolve, are being executed – by a Cylon.
“What happened to you? Where is your outrage?”
At this point in the show, I am more fascinated by how the stories are connected, how the decisions made in one storyline affect the others, than in the destiny of most of its characters.
The Cylon Lacy sees on Gemenon is there because the Guatrau Sam, Joseph and Daniel work for is more interested in profit than in patriotism. The Adamas are starting to question their own allegiance to him (he was, after all, born on Caprica and seems to feel no connection to the home world both of them still feel rooted in).
“You’re STO”. / “You don’t have to look so surprised.”
Lacy started out as Zoe’s sidekick – the girl who wasn’t brave enough to leave, and got left behind. Ever since letting Zoe get on that train and losing her friend, she has tried to redeem herself for that betrayal, by faithfully following the requests of Zoe 2.0, even if that meant risking her very existence. In the process, she’s lost control over her own life: Zoe sent her to Barnabas. And now, Clarice forced her to leave for Gemenon, a place she decided not to go to in the very first episode, both to punish her for her betrayal and to make her into a “real soldier” (Clarice, after all, started her own career right there).
Her first arrival at Gemenon already points at how much she has grown during the time we’ve seen her: while some of the other students (some of them aren’t their voluntarily, but their fanatical parents have signed them up) panic, she remains cool. There weren’t really that many things that rooted her to Caprica anyways, and even though the show never examined her family, it never seemed as if they really provided a safe environment for her anyway: her family used to be Zoe, and Zoe is, as far as Lacy knows, gone, both the original and the copy.
Lacy is basically drifting and accepting whatever comes her way, and one of the things that do come her way is a brutal test the STO puts its recruits through, in order to determine who is a true believer and who can hold up under stress. It is always interesting to see the world through the skewed ideology of the STO – the smiling martyrs in Clarice’s ad, who kill thousands but are just the nice people from the neighbourhood – or, in this case, the radical and violent polytheists that capture the ship and put the recruit’s faiths to the test. It isn’t Lacy’s faith that makes her say, from the very beginning, that they have to fight back, that makes her insist that waiting for the right moment is going to cost more lives. When she fights back, she does it fiercely and successfully. Maybe she even feels a sense or pride for finally being really good at something rather than being overshadowed by others when she does arrive at the STO camp, and she’s “found her quarters, her bunk and the cocktail party” – but then she sees that those who did not hold up as well as she did, those who either renounced the one true god or did not face death with enough resolve, are being executed – by a Cylon.
“What happened to you? Where is your outrage?”
At this point in the show, I am more fascinated by how the stories are connected, how the decisions made in one storyline affect the others, than in the destiny of most of its characters.
The Cylon Lacy sees on Gemenon is there because the Guatrau Sam, Joseph and Daniel work for is more interested in profit than in patriotism. The Adamas are starting to question their own allegiance to him (he was, after all, born on Caprica and seems to feel no connection to the home world both of them still feel rooted in).
Sam: “You knew about this? Which side?”
Joseph: “With the Guatrau it’s always about the money. You know that.”
Sam: “Which side, Yussif?”
Joseph: “STO.”
Sam: “Oh, nice. We forsake the struggle of our own people, let them die on the streets, but the frakkers who murdered your wife, blew up your child, now I’m glad the Guatrau found it in his heart to show them a little bit of love.”
Joseph: Don’t you go getting pious on me. Do you think I like the position I am in?”
Sam: “What happened to you? Where is your outrage?”
Joseph’s outrage is an inconsistent thing. He used to hate Daniel because he blamed him for the loss of his wife and daughter, but now, it’s Sam who feels more uncomfortable working with him. He used to be opposed to the resurrection programme, the “end of human grief”, but he hasn’t spoken up against the Guatrau’s support of Daniel’s plans.
Daniel, on the other hand, is starting to severely remind me of Topher, even though they are so different on the surface. It’s not just a question of what you CAN do, you should also CARE ABOUT what you do – and even though Daniel has a sense of how severely he would change civilization if he ever managed to complete his programme (just as Clarice knows exactly what she is trying to get her hands on), he doesn’t seem to realize that controlling this beast he is creating will be impossible. He couldn’t control Zoe. Clarice couldn’t control Zoe.
Daniel, on the other hand, is starting to severely remind me of Topher, even though they are so different on the surface. It’s not just a question of what you CAN do, you should also CARE ABOUT what you do – and even though Daniel has a sense of how severely he would change civilization if he ever managed to complete his programme (just as Clarice knows exactly what she is trying to get her hands on), he doesn’t seem to realize that controlling this beast he is creating will be impossible. He couldn’t control Zoe. Clarice couldn’t control Zoe.
Daniel: “When this programme is complete it will end death and disease, it will demolish our very conception of mortality. Whoever controls this will transcend any single corporation, government or syndicate, so anything we do that will jeopardize this opportunity…”
The Guatrau isn’t interested in changing the fabric of society – he is going to support Daniel until the payday, if it ever comes, and then have him killed.
“I know my wife better than you do.”
Sometimes I wonder at which point of the process the writers and producers of Caprica assumed that the series would not get a second season. Shows desperately trying to get a specific point in their narrative before their untimely demise seems to be one of the recurring themes lately, but with Caprica, it’s not completely clear if this is the same first season it would have been with a second one or not. Sometimes the character’s motivations are shifting. Sometimes, they are changing for no apparent reason. Amanda shifted seamlessly from depending on Clarice to believing Duram’s theory that she was responsible for Zoe’s death, to a point where she was willing to risk everything just to take revenge. They are very good opponents: both of them have a much stronger will than the people they surround themselves with (Daniel is basically lost without his wife, wandering through a virtual representation of their house with a version of her he can’t stand). Both follow their convictions and they tend to hold grudges against those who wronged them.
Both Clarice and Amanda get what they want in this episode. Agent Duram sacrifices an innocent woman to protect Amanda from being found out as the spy, Clarice finally lays hands on Zoe’s backup copy of the programme which she needs to build her artificial heaven, the one product her power depends on (ironically, the very same thing Daniel’s depends on also). Amanda returns to Daniel, explaining her theory of how he works:
“I know my wife better than you do.”
Sometimes I wonder at which point of the process the writers and producers of Caprica assumed that the series would not get a second season. Shows desperately trying to get a specific point in their narrative before their untimely demise seems to be one of the recurring themes lately, but with Caprica, it’s not completely clear if this is the same first season it would have been with a second one or not. Sometimes the character’s motivations are shifting. Sometimes, they are changing for no apparent reason. Amanda shifted seamlessly from depending on Clarice to believing Duram’s theory that she was responsible for Zoe’s death, to a point where she was willing to risk everything just to take revenge. They are very good opponents: both of them have a much stronger will than the people they surround themselves with (Daniel is basically lost without his wife, wandering through a virtual representation of their house with a version of her he can’t stand). Both follow their convictions and they tend to hold grudges against those who wronged them.
Both Clarice and Amanda get what they want in this episode. Agent Duram sacrifices an innocent woman to protect Amanda from being found out as the spy, Clarice finally lays hands on Zoe’s backup copy of the programme which she needs to build her artificial heaven, the one product her power depends on (ironically, the very same thing Daniel’s depends on also). Amanda returns to Daniel, explaining her theory of how he works:
Daniel: “I’m not thinking clearly. I’m losing it.”
Amanda: “No, you’re not. The crazy confidence of you is just the side you let everyone see. This side, what’s going on right now, the fear, the anxiety, that is always there. That is always with you. Yes it is. It eats at you, you overcome it, and it gives you forward momentum, that’s how you work. Without that, I don’t think your little empire would exist.”
Daniel: “So I exploit my own fear to get what I want, that’s your novel theory?”
Amanda: “You exploit anything that isn’t nailed down. That’s my theory. The truth hurts, pal.
No, it doesn’t.”
She realizes Daniel’s selfishness, and it fits her own, and they can only fully function when they are together.
In the end, we see the extent of Clarice’s ideology: she is willing to kill the woman she suspects to be a traitor with her own bare hands, and there is already a hint that she will eventually end up completely alone.
Random notes:
I’ve actually seen all of the five episodes already, during their original Canadian run, but I’ll try to pretend like I haven’t because Caprica started as the one show I reviewed without any knowledge of the completed series. So, I’ll avoid spoilers.
Lacy: “Do you speak Caprican?”
Odin: “Everybody speaks Caprican.”
Caprica has been very concerned about its many issues, but one that hasn’t really been talked about is the privileged position the colony has, compared to others (we’ve seen the marginalized Taurons, but apart from that, the dynamics between the twelve colonies haven’t really been explored). This short bit clearly indicates that Caprica is the United States of the Colonies: a political and cultural hegemonic power.
I also want to note at this point that during my re-watch of BSG, I discovered that Tauron is now considered a rich colony, so something must have changed dramatically in the years between the two shows.
I kind of can’t bring myself to care about the “big reveal” that the chief of the GDD is Clarice’s informant. It’s like… I feel like I already knew that before the episode? Or I frankly do not care about Agent Duram enough to feel his alienation for the agency he works for?
The bits between Daniel and fake!Amanda are hilarious, but they serve more to underscore how lost Daniel is without the actual Amanda, and how Zoe’s abilities as a programmer far surpass that of her dad.
Amanda: “A marriage only works as an equal partnership so look out mister.”
Daniel: “What are you doing?”
Amanda: “You said I was fawning too much.”
Daniel: “So now you’re just guessing what I want from you.”
Amanda: “Which is a typical human reaction if you think about it. Neurotic, and very authentic. Make love to me.”
Daniel: “My entire future is riding on fixing the resurrection programme which is you. I have two weeks to pass you off as an emotionally recognizable human being. If I don’t, I’m dead.
Amanda: “Let me take your mind off a bit.”
Daniel: “Every time I come back in here you are further off the mark.”
Amanda: “I am sorry, you make me nervous. If she were here and you were accusing her of being inauthentic, wouldn’t she react just like this?”
Daniel: “No, she would be mad, she would be in a rage.”
Amanda: “But we don’t have a control group, do we?”
Daniel: “No we don’t.”
Amanda: “Because we don’t have her. Because you don’t have her. And I’m glad because you are a frakking nasty monster who deserves to be alone and I hope you do die. WAS THAT BETTER?”
Daniel: “This isn’t working.”
I appreciated the manipulative editing when Clarice was clearly out to meet someone and kill them and Amanda was clearly out to meet someone, and then the twist was that Clarice killed Marbeth and Amanda got the surveillance equipment from Agent Duram – on the other hand, it was kind of clear that the showdown between the two wouldn’t happen like this, and that Amanda would have to survive. On the other hand, the images the murder scene created were powerful – with Clarice wiping the blood from her hands before going off with the baby, while her devoted husbands cleaned up behind her.
In the end, we see the extent of Clarice’s ideology: she is willing to kill the woman she suspects to be a traitor with her own bare hands, and there is already a hint that she will eventually end up completely alone.
Random notes:
I’ve actually seen all of the five episodes already, during their original Canadian run, but I’ll try to pretend like I haven’t because Caprica started as the one show I reviewed without any knowledge of the completed series. So, I’ll avoid spoilers.
Lacy: “Do you speak Caprican?”
Odin: “Everybody speaks Caprican.”
Caprica has been very concerned about its many issues, but one that hasn’t really been talked about is the privileged position the colony has, compared to others (we’ve seen the marginalized Taurons, but apart from that, the dynamics between the twelve colonies haven’t really been explored). This short bit clearly indicates that Caprica is the United States of the Colonies: a political and cultural hegemonic power.
I also want to note at this point that during my re-watch of BSG, I discovered that Tauron is now considered a rich colony, so something must have changed dramatically in the years between the two shows.
I kind of can’t bring myself to care about the “big reveal” that the chief of the GDD is Clarice’s informant. It’s like… I feel like I already knew that before the episode? Or I frankly do not care about Agent Duram enough to feel his alienation for the agency he works for?
The bits between Daniel and fake!Amanda are hilarious, but they serve more to underscore how lost Daniel is without the actual Amanda, and how Zoe’s abilities as a programmer far surpass that of her dad.
Amanda: “A marriage only works as an equal partnership so look out mister.”
Daniel: “What are you doing?”
Amanda: “You said I was fawning too much.”
Daniel: “So now you’re just guessing what I want from you.”
Amanda: “Which is a typical human reaction if you think about it. Neurotic, and very authentic. Make love to me.”
Daniel: “My entire future is riding on fixing the resurrection programme which is you. I have two weeks to pass you off as an emotionally recognizable human being. If I don’t, I’m dead.
Amanda: “Let me take your mind off a bit.”
Daniel: “Every time I come back in here you are further off the mark.”
Amanda: “I am sorry, you make me nervous. If she were here and you were accusing her of being inauthentic, wouldn’t she react just like this?”
Daniel: “No, she would be mad, she would be in a rage.”
Amanda: “But we don’t have a control group, do we?”
Daniel: “No we don’t.”
Amanda: “Because we don’t have her. Because you don’t have her. And I’m glad because you are a frakking nasty monster who deserves to be alone and I hope you do die. WAS THAT BETTER?”
Daniel: “This isn’t working.”
I appreciated the manipulative editing when Clarice was clearly out to meet someone and kill them and Amanda was clearly out to meet someone, and then the twist was that Clarice killed Marbeth and Amanda got the surveillance equipment from Agent Duram – on the other hand, it was kind of clear that the showdown between the two wouldn’t happen like this, and that Amanda would have to survive. On the other hand, the images the murder scene created were powerful – with Clarice wiping the blood from her hands before going off with the baby, while her devoted husbands cleaned up behind her.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Caprica - Note
Since SyFy in its infinite wisdom is airing all five remaining episodes in one night (which, if I hadn't already seen them, would be a neat birthday present, but now I just find it very, very sad), I've decided to post all the reviews on the same day as well, which will make my page look like the aftermath of a Cylon attack.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Caprica - After all, there is no substitute for the real thing.
Caprica: 1x13 False Labor.
The “real thing” is such an elusive idea in “Caprica”, not just because some of the characters are virtual versions of actual people, slowly learning to deviate from the source. Real emotions are also always called into question whenever two characters have a relationship based on lies – like, for example, Clarice and Amanda. In spite of the fact that both have ulterior motives, the moment in the beginning of the episode, when Clarice comforts Amanda in her uneasy sleep, begs the question whether it really is only pretence. In other cases, the episode deals with how current events and how we are involved in them can sometimes change our relationships: Sam Adama witnesses a Siege on Tauron (again, on television) that reminds him of what happened in his childhood (apparently, the Adamas lost their parents), but his husband does not understand why he is so involved in something that is happening on Tauron, when Caprica is their home. Daniel is having nightmares about Vergis’ death – and his complete isolation in the house, where he still sleeps on the sofa long after Amanda has moved out, serves as the perfect contrast to the lively home of Joseph Adama.
Sam Adama
The “real thing” is such an elusive idea in “Caprica”, not just because some of the characters are virtual versions of actual people, slowly learning to deviate from the source. Real emotions are also always called into question whenever two characters have a relationship based on lies – like, for example, Clarice and Amanda. In spite of the fact that both have ulterior motives, the moment in the beginning of the episode, when Clarice comforts Amanda in her uneasy sleep, begs the question whether it really is only pretence. In other cases, the episode deals with how current events and how we are involved in them can sometimes change our relationships: Sam Adama witnesses a Siege on Tauron (again, on television) that reminds him of what happened in his childhood (apparently, the Adamas lost their parents), but his husband does not understand why he is so involved in something that is happening on Tauron, when Caprica is their home. Daniel is having nightmares about Vergis’ death – and his complete isolation in the house, where he still sleeps on the sofa long after Amanda has moved out, serves as the perfect contrast to the lively home of Joseph Adama.
Sam Adama
Sam: “Take a good look kid. That’s your home world. People like us are getting crushed under tanks because fat colonies like this one are propping up the crooks that run that place.”
“Caprica” tackles yet another issue that is not represented very often on television: the question of migration and “home”. Willy Adama has never been to Tauron, he was born and raised on Caprica, yet, his uncle reminds him, it is his home world and the place he is still responsible for. Joseph’s allegiances remain vague, but Sam is smuggling weapons to support the rebellion against the dictator, even though this is against the policy of the Ha’la’tha. He gets into trouble for it because somebody else has a monopoly on illegal weapons trade, and the Gautrau tells him take care of it or else he will lose his position and honour: and, in one of those interesting coincidences, Sam stumbles over the plans for the prototype of the first line of Cylons, and realizes its potential for his own cause (again assigning a new function to one of Daniel’s inventions). The Cylon is the perfect tool for taking out the competition, and, after the other arms dealer is dead, Sam realizes that it would completely change the situation on Tauron if the rebels had Cylon soldiers on their side – an intriguing notion, considering that it would be the first step towards a Cylon army that is not directly linked to the Caprican government, but with a very different agenda. The Guatrau tells Sam to let it go –
Guatrau: “Governments are ephemeral, they rise, fall and return to the soil. The way we endure is by staying out of politics.”
Sam: “It wasn’t like that in the beginning, back home.”
Guatrau: “This is home now. This is where your family is. Your obsession with the old world is a distraction. It ends here.”
- but there is probably a good chance that whatever decision Sam now makes is going to play a role in the fact that his nephew is eventually going to end up fighting Cylons.
Daniel Graystone
Daniel Graystone
Amanda(v): “It’s that programme, isn’t it?”
Daniel: “I keep running into road blocks. Zoe’s code, what I remember of it, it’s so intuitive. It makes me feel like a hack trying to recreate it.”
Amanda(v): You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.
Daniel: “I wish you did.”
The way Daniel imagines his ideal wife reveals things about him we already suspected: on the one hand, he wants the happy family, the devoted wife, who serves breakfast in a revealing bathrobe and finds him incredibly intelligent and charming, even when he’s not. On the other hand, as the episode progresses, he gets increasingly frustrated because his virtual version of Amanda lacks all the qualities his real wife has: she is not stubborn; she is not questioning his motives; she is no challenge for him (“You can’t love anyone. You’re not human, you’re a thing.”).
While this version of Amanda fulfils an essential need for him, she is also his little experiment to finally figure out Zoe’s code and make the resurrection programme possible that has convinced the Ha’la’tha to back him up. While he is still struggling to make the avatar “human”, relying on memories and emotions rather than information and facts, Graystone Industries has already produced a (creepy) ad for “Grace by Graystone Industries”, in which a virtual image of Daniel promises “a future without loss”. Daniel’s argument that Graystone Industries acted immoral because they used his image without his consent is, of course, ironic, given that Daniel has been using other people’s images for his own cause throughout the season and is going home to find an appropriation of Amanda there that only exists to serve his every need. The Guatrau is in a position of power and can demand of Daniel to re-shoot the spot with his actual image, but the sentence he uses – “there is no substitute for the real thing” – is, of course, the one thing Daniel is working on proving wrong. What is a real thing if a fake virtual version of it becomes indistinguishable (and all this, while Zoe and Tamara are becoming more than just a perfected version of the original, but their own individuals).
While this version of Amanda fulfils an essential need for him, she is also his little experiment to finally figure out Zoe’s code and make the resurrection programme possible that has convinced the Ha’la’tha to back him up. While he is still struggling to make the avatar “human”, relying on memories and emotions rather than information and facts, Graystone Industries has already produced a (creepy) ad for “Grace by Graystone Industries”, in which a virtual image of Daniel promises “a future without loss”. Daniel’s argument that Graystone Industries acted immoral because they used his image without his consent is, of course, ironic, given that Daniel has been using other people’s images for his own cause throughout the season and is going home to find an appropriation of Amanda there that only exists to serve his every need. The Guatrau is in a position of power and can demand of Daniel to re-shoot the spot with his actual image, but the sentence he uses – “there is no substitute for the real thing” – is, of course, the one thing Daniel is working on proving wrong. What is a real thing if a fake virtual version of it becomes indistinguishable (and all this, while Zoe and Tamara are becoming more than just a perfected version of the original, but their own individuals).
Amanda(v): “I may not be perfect, but I am good at some things. I bet I could please you.”
Daniel: “I don’t doubt it. A healthy sex drive along with a desire to please are a baseline component the programme builds into every avatar.”
Amanda(v): “You make it sound so mechanical.”
Isn’t it somewhat telling that Zoe creates life while Daniel creates a “more believable hooker” (in this case, the “Dollhouse”-reference really do fit)?
Daniel: “I never should have started up again. It’s like every decision I made since the bomb has been a wrong turn. Now I’ve made so many of them I’m not sure I even know how to get back.”
Joseph: “Back to where?”
Daniel: “To who I was. Who I thought I was.”
Joseph: “You can’t do that alone. You need somebody. You need someone who can see the man you were inside the man you’ve become, who can forgive you.”
Daniel: “You wife do that for you?”
Joseph: “Yeah. Until your daughter blew her up.”
If “Caprica” had gotten more time to unfold, I am sure that these two characters would have eventually ended up on opposing sides. Both have changed their lives radically after losing their last ones – Joseph has gotten involved with the Ha’la’tha, Daniel doesn’t know who he is anymore – and still, there is an underlying conflict in their relationship that can not be resolved.
Amanda Graystone
Amanda gained Clarice’s friendship because she allowed herself to be weak: she told the story of how she went mad after her brother’s death, and, not knowing Clarice’s true motives for letting her move in with her family, she relies on a similar story (that might be a lie, or maybe not, it is impossible to tell these apart) with Clarice’s increasingly doubtful family. She is a doctor, questioning their ways without even noticing it, and she still is “Terror mom”, the woman whose daughter became a terrorist. It’s interesting how incomplete information works both ways: Clarice’s wife does not know that Zoe had nothing to do with the bomb, and Amanda does not know that Clarice’s STO cell did not endorse violence and was not responsible for the terror attack.
Sam has issues with his husband, not understanding why he is so involved with the rebellion on Tauron – Clarice’s pregnant wife, meanwhile, is having trouble with the fact that “god’s will always seems to serve” her needs, and that Clarice is apparently willing to put anything behind her great cause, Apotheosis (her cold and shocking answer to whether she’d be willing to sacrifice her own family is: “I pray to god that he never asks that of me”). Amanda lies her way into the family, telling the pregnant wife about her own post-partum depression after Zoe’s birth, which, she says, might have been responsible for the fact that they never really connected. She is accepted into the family, just like the GDD agent asked of her, and finally hands the newborn baby to the happy mother: while Clarice welcomes it to a new world, one that will soon be changed forever by Apotheosis.
Amanda Graystone
Amanda gained Clarice’s friendship because she allowed herself to be weak: she told the story of how she went mad after her brother’s death, and, not knowing Clarice’s true motives for letting her move in with her family, she relies on a similar story (that might be a lie, or maybe not, it is impossible to tell these apart) with Clarice’s increasingly doubtful family. She is a doctor, questioning their ways without even noticing it, and she still is “Terror mom”, the woman whose daughter became a terrorist. It’s interesting how incomplete information works both ways: Clarice’s wife does not know that Zoe had nothing to do with the bomb, and Amanda does not know that Clarice’s STO cell did not endorse violence and was not responsible for the terror attack.
Sam has issues with his husband, not understanding why he is so involved with the rebellion on Tauron – Clarice’s pregnant wife, meanwhile, is having trouble with the fact that “god’s will always seems to serve” her needs, and that Clarice is apparently willing to put anything behind her great cause, Apotheosis (her cold and shocking answer to whether she’d be willing to sacrifice her own family is: “I pray to god that he never asks that of me”). Amanda lies her way into the family, telling the pregnant wife about her own post-partum depression after Zoe’s birth, which, she says, might have been responsible for the fact that they never really connected. She is accepted into the family, just like the GDD agent asked of her, and finally hands the newborn baby to the happy mother: while Clarice welcomes it to a new world, one that will soon be changed forever by Apotheosis.
“For every ending brings a new beginning as surely as spring follows winter and thus in the face of adversity, we are heartened to renew our spirit and reclaim our cause. For yours is the promise of life everlasting on these worlds and on the world hereafter. So say we all.”
Random notes:
SyFy announced yesterday that “Caprica” is cancelled. The remaining episodes will air next year. I expected this to happen, and it still saddens me because this show simply was the smartest hour of television, along with “Mad Men”.
Really though. Daniel believes he has finally made a breakthrough because his virtual version of Amanda has given him a more believable blowjob? Again: does not help to make him more endearing to me.
I also found it re-assuring that I wasn’t the only one who immediately thought of Spike’s Buffybot.
Is the baby significant? Okay, so I was kind of waiting for Clarice to call her “Laura”.
SyFy announced yesterday that “Caprica” is cancelled. The remaining episodes will air next year. I expected this to happen, and it still saddens me because this show simply was the smartest hour of television, along with “Mad Men”.
Really though. Daniel believes he has finally made a breakthrough because his virtual version of Amanda has given him a more believable blowjob? Again: does not help to make him more endearing to me.
I also found it re-assuring that I wasn’t the only one who immediately thought of Spike’s Buffybot.
Is the baby significant? Okay, so I was kind of waiting for Clarice to call her “Laura”.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Caprica - I need your help, not your fear.
Caprica: 1x12 Things We Lock Away.
What a perfect title for this episode! I’ve always avoided discussing the obvious parallels between “Caprica” and “Dollhouse”, but this is probably a point in the show where it makes sense to point some of the out: basically, both shows a concerned with some of the same questions. How does technology shape society (but more importantly, how does it change relationships and identities?). How do individuals justify their own actions, not just to others, but to themselves? Is someone who has all the memories and emotions of someone else just a copy or an individual, a person? It’s fascinating that this question seems to be so present – after all, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” was at its most interesting when it discussed the limits of Cameron’s programming, and “Fringe”, after two (or at least one-and-a-half) entertaining, but philosophically light seasons, is delving into some of the same issues about identity and memory.
I already mentioned in the previous review that I see New Cap City as the culmination of the different effects Caprican society, its particular type of violence, oppression, entertainment, boredom, emptiness, has on its youth, which might be disenfranchised politically, but has access to the technology to build their own world elsewhere. New Cap City in the Tamara Adams Era is an even nastier place than before: a group of followers, or at least loosely associated colleagues, is organizing fights that a bloodthirsty crowd watches (this is, of course, considerably less disturbing than the blood sacrifices we saw in the very first episode, but the graphic on-screen violence in this episode is still more drastic and inescapable). Presumably, all these kids have grown up in the absence of a major military conflict; war is no longer a reality (or never was, I can’t really remember anything about the pre-Cylon history, if there is any). These tournaments look like substitutions for a more authentic reality, one in which there is more to do than passively consume media. This is where “Caprica” differs radically from “Battlestar Galactica”: while BSG in its first few years was very good at making points about society in a constant state of emergency, battling an elusive enemy that had infiltrated the remaining few survivors of a nuclear attack, “Caprica” is a portray of a society that is only (and subtly) at war with itself, that is slowly coming apart, not suddenly, where changes still occur through the introduction of new products, not because the President decides that the religious text is to be taken literally. It is a world very recognizable to us, the viewers – so naturally, the transgressions against what we perceive to be moral standards are more haunting.
What a perfect title for this episode! I’ve always avoided discussing the obvious parallels between “Caprica” and “Dollhouse”, but this is probably a point in the show where it makes sense to point some of the out: basically, both shows a concerned with some of the same questions. How does technology shape society (but more importantly, how does it change relationships and identities?). How do individuals justify their own actions, not just to others, but to themselves? Is someone who has all the memories and emotions of someone else just a copy or an individual, a person? It’s fascinating that this question seems to be so present – after all, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” was at its most interesting when it discussed the limits of Cameron’s programming, and “Fringe”, after two (or at least one-and-a-half) entertaining, but philosophically light seasons, is delving into some of the same issues about identity and memory.
I already mentioned in the previous review that I see New Cap City as the culmination of the different effects Caprican society, its particular type of violence, oppression, entertainment, boredom, emptiness, has on its youth, which might be disenfranchised politically, but has access to the technology to build their own world elsewhere. New Cap City in the Tamara Adams Era is an even nastier place than before: a group of followers, or at least loosely associated colleagues, is organizing fights that a bloodthirsty crowd watches (this is, of course, considerably less disturbing than the blood sacrifices we saw in the very first episode, but the graphic on-screen violence in this episode is still more drastic and inescapable). Presumably, all these kids have grown up in the absence of a major military conflict; war is no longer a reality (or never was, I can’t really remember anything about the pre-Cylon history, if there is any). These tournaments look like substitutions for a more authentic reality, one in which there is more to do than passively consume media. This is where “Caprica” differs radically from “Battlestar Galactica”: while BSG in its first few years was very good at making points about society in a constant state of emergency, battling an elusive enemy that had infiltrated the remaining few survivors of a nuclear attack, “Caprica” is a portray of a society that is only (and subtly) at war with itself, that is slowly coming apart, not suddenly, where changes still occur through the introduction of new products, not because the President decides that the religious text is to be taken literally. It is a world very recognizable to us, the viewers – so naturally, the transgressions against what we perceive to be moral standards are more haunting.
Zoe and Tamara
Zoe walks into the stadium, looking for the other dead walker, but “you don’t find the dead walker, she finds you”. And when Tamara finds her, she gets one of the best entrances any of the characters had in the second half of the season: Visibly angry, she shoots the girl who can’t die but can feel pain twice. She seems to only find out about the fact that the original
Zoe has been made responsible for the bombing that killed her after this (although that is weird, since everybody else who actually has a life outside New Cap City should know about it), and her initial anger probably stems from the fact that Lacy and Zoe left her in the dark when she was terrified. In a way, Tamara is the thing they locked away – although Zoe isn’t the reason for her existence, Daniel used her to demonstrate what he intended to pass on as his own technology.
Zoe perceives that she and Tamara are the same thing: dead walkers who only exist in the virtual world, copies of people who no longer exist in the real world. She is right, but Tamara’s perception of the situation is radically different: Tamara has never stood opposite the original Tamara. She feels that there is a continuity in her identity, since she has all the memories. Zoe, remembering moments from original Zoe’s past and her own existence, also thinks about the first time that she started to exist, the point in which her own memories start to deviate from that of original Zoe, the moment in which she became her own person.
Zoe’s memories are a strange thing indeed: apparently, even original Zoe had a different version of herself in her head, a person driven by the need to prove her own genius. It is hard to interpret why she is fragmented, but it almost seems like she has been carrying someone else around in her head even before she created an Avatar, as the creation itself was a way of expressing a split identity (which possibly first occurred in the fire, when she was still a kid).
Zoe walks into the stadium, looking for the other dead walker, but “you don’t find the dead walker, she finds you”. And when Tamara finds her, she gets one of the best entrances any of the characters had in the second half of the season: Visibly angry, she shoots the girl who can’t die but can feel pain twice. She seems to only find out about the fact that the original
Zoe has been made responsible for the bombing that killed her after this (although that is weird, since everybody else who actually has a life outside New Cap City should know about it), and her initial anger probably stems from the fact that Lacy and Zoe left her in the dark when she was terrified. In a way, Tamara is the thing they locked away – although Zoe isn’t the reason for her existence, Daniel used her to demonstrate what he intended to pass on as his own technology.
Zoe perceives that she and Tamara are the same thing: dead walkers who only exist in the virtual world, copies of people who no longer exist in the real world. She is right, but Tamara’s perception of the situation is radically different: Tamara has never stood opposite the original Tamara. She feels that there is a continuity in her identity, since she has all the memories. Zoe, remembering moments from original Zoe’s past and her own existence, also thinks about the first time that she started to exist, the point in which her own memories start to deviate from that of original Zoe, the moment in which she became her own person.
Zoe’s memories are a strange thing indeed: apparently, even original Zoe had a different version of herself in her head, a person driven by the need to prove her own genius. It is hard to interpret why she is fragmented, but it almost seems like she has been carrying someone else around in her head even before she created an Avatar, as the creation itself was a way of expressing a split identity (which possibly first occurred in the fire, when she was still a kid).
Zoe(f): “You know what infuriate him? Beating him. At the thing he’s best at.”
Zoe: “I don’t wanna beat him. Besides, I can design a chassis. It’s not the same as making a robot.”
Zoe(f): “Think of something bigger.”
Zoe: “And what would I create?”
Zoe(f): “Life’s a good start I think.”
Tamara makes Zoe responsible for actions that the original Zoe allegedly committed (she didn’t actually, but there’s never been anybody who knew this, apart from the viewers), while Zoe insists that she is only a copy and not responsible for the actions of the original Zoe Graystone.
Tamara: “Yes, please explain why you deliberately slaughtered hundreds of innocent people all for your meaningless fictional god. You took my life, and my mother’s.”
Zoe: “It wasn’t me, okay? She died on that train. It says so right here. I’m a copy. Just like you.”
Tamara: “You are lying. I am not a copy. I have all of my memories. I have all the feelings I had, and it stands to reason you do too.”
Zoe: “It’s hard to explain.”
She functions as a scapegoat for all the angry people in the stadium: stabbed, kicked, beaten up, an angry mob in a place where nobody controls their actions. When Tamara says “Maybe you just won’t fight because you think you deserve this.”, the voice in Zoe’s head tells her that this is exactly what is happening: She hasn’t realized fully that she is not responsible for original Zoe’s actions, that she can have her own path and deviate from her programming. Surprisingly enough, Zoe has given her that option on the very day she created her:
Zoe: “That’s okay, you don’t have to talk yet, you’re brand new. God, if I did this right, you’re me. Welcome to the world. Well, V-World anyway.”
Zoe 2.0: “I can talk.”
Zoe: “You can talk.”
Zoe 2.0: “I’m you, right? I have your memories. I can feel them.”
[…]
Zoe: “Don’t worry. I think you’re probably perfect.”
Zoe 2.0: “A perfect copy.”
Zoe: “Right now, yeah. But what I meant is perfectly alive. Starting right now, you’re a person.”
Zoe 2.0: “But I can’t leave V-World.”
Zoe: “A person with restricted movement is still a person.”
[…]
Zoe(f): “You’re not her. You’re not the same. You keep walking in her footprints even after her footprints stopped. Maybe you didn’t have to. Now are you gonna lie down and pay for your sins, or are you gonna own yourself?”
It is unclear what exactly Zoe’s intention is in forming an alliance with Tamara, but she does make her point while they fight.
Zoe. “I remember you from the darkroom, Tamara. I know how scared you were.”
Tamara: “We are nothing alike.”
Zoe: “We are. You have great abilities here. Why get caught up in this like all of them? You’re better than this.”
Tamara: “I’m tired. Of. Listening. To. All your crap. That girl I was, that girl you remember, she’s gone. You put me here, so stop talking.”
Zoe: “See I get that. I get that on a personal level. That girl is gone. So what does this girl like and what does this girl hate?”
Tamara: “They like watching your pain.”
Zoe: “They don’t care which one of us bleeds, look at them. Is that what you want to be? Entertainment? New Cap City is disgusting. It’s a place for people that come to act out their worst impulses to kill, rape, destroy, it’s wrong.”
Tamara: “Why do you care?”
Zoe: “I have a purpose, and I know this now. I think this is it or a step on the way, I don’t know, but I think you’re supposed to help me.”
She is successful in forming this alliance, and in the end they are standing opposite the screaming crowd, holding hands.
Daniel
Daniel gets what he wants: the board, after being intimated by Joseph and Sam, vote unanimously to reinstate him as CEO. He thinks that this is it now: he will go and realize his ambitions, but soon Joseph informs him that Tomas needs to die because he is Tauron and he will not ever let it go. This compromises Daniel’s vague idea of keeping his hands clean, and he insists that Vergis is a business man and will understand his reasoning, as they “speak the same language”.
Daniel
Daniel gets what he wants: the board, after being intimated by Joseph and Sam, vote unanimously to reinstate him as CEO. He thinks that this is it now: he will go and realize his ambitions, but soon Joseph informs him that Tomas needs to die because he is Tauron and he will not ever let it go. This compromises Daniel’s vague idea of keeping his hands clean, and he insists that Vergis is a business man and will understand his reasoning, as they “speak the same language”.
Daniel: “Human beings value life. That’s one of the main things that makes us slightly more evolved than animals. Understanding the value of life.”
Joseph: “Other things have value.”
Daniel: “Look, if I don’t at least try, I’m no better than…”
Joseph: “Me?”
Daniel: “Him.”
Note how his explanation already sounds like a commercial for his “Cure for human grief”.
Hit attempt to reach out to Tomas fails; where Zoe is successfully (although it is a much more painful process for her), he fails – the moment of possible triumph, when he thinks he has convinced Tomas to forget about the Tauron tradition and join a futile fight against the Ha’la’tha (where does this idea come from all of a sudden?), Tomas throws himself into his own sword. The only thing left for Daniel to do is to call Joseph and order some cleaners, now that he has successfully brought the bloodbath home with him.
“Your burden will be lifted”
The most literal exercise of the title is what happens to Lacy after Clarice picks her up at Barnabas’: She is locked up in the attic of the family home, drugged by the spiteful and angry husbands, because Clarice still needs her.
Locked up, knowing that Clarice has ruthlessly killed two other people who betrayed her, she is still resilient: She manages to remove one of the boards on the windows. She smashes a pane and screams for help. It doesn’t lead her to freedom, it doesn’t help her, but it shows that she has a stubborn sense of survival even after all the things that happened to her (“you’re drugging me, you motherfuckers”).
Hit attempt to reach out to Tomas fails; where Zoe is successfully (although it is a much more painful process for her), he fails – the moment of possible triumph, when he thinks he has convinced Tomas to forget about the Tauron tradition and join a futile fight against the Ha’la’tha (where does this idea come from all of a sudden?), Tomas throws himself into his own sword. The only thing left for Daniel to do is to call Joseph and order some cleaners, now that he has successfully brought the bloodbath home with him.
“Your burden will be lifted”
The most literal exercise of the title is what happens to Lacy after Clarice picks her up at Barnabas’: She is locked up in the attic of the family home, drugged by the spiteful and angry husbands, because Clarice still needs her.
Locked up, knowing that Clarice has ruthlessly killed two other people who betrayed her, she is still resilient: She manages to remove one of the boards on the windows. She smashes a pane and screams for help. It doesn’t lead her to freedom, it doesn’t help her, but it shows that she has a stubborn sense of survival even after all the things that happened to her (“you’re drugging me, you motherfuckers”).
Clarice: “She’s gone, Lacy. This is not a betrayal. She would want you to help me, we were working together. And if you do tell me, your burden will be lifted.”
Clarice is the first person to realize that Lacy’s knowledge might be a burden. Lacy is the only one who knows the whole truth about Zoe’s existence after her death (Daniel only assumes) – and she remembers that Zoe used to keep things in the ever-present STO-pin. It comes in handy that Amanda has asked Clarice to move in with her, even though she has her own reasons for it (unable to find evidence in the cabin, the police officer has asked her to infiltrate Clarice’s home).
Amanda: “You know, Clarice, maybe that’s why we were brought together, through some kind of destiny. Some way of keeping Zoe alive, I think that’s why I wanted to come and stay with you so badly. I just have this feeling that there’s more.”
With that piece of information, Lacy has served her purpose. Clarice intends to send her off to a terrorist camp in Gemenon to “protect her” from her vengeful husbands, but Olaf predicts that she will be back soon – and I hope he is right, because I really wouldn’t want her to be gone for good.
Random notes:
Whenever Zoe is in pain, it triggers memories – this reminded me of how Cylons download their memories when they regenerate, so that the individual can remain intact.
I probably should have at least mentioned in the review that Zoe actually did draw Cylons as a kid. Now this might mean that Daniel simply used her design and she watched a lot of robot cartoons on Saturday mornings... or ZOE GRAYSTONE IS SECRETLY A CYLON HERSELF SENT TO CAPRICA TO START IT ALL. Please, let it be the former, because I like how "Caprica" isn't "Battlestar".
Is Nestor dead? Is Lacy plagued by her guilt for killing him, so much that he haunts her, or did he not die?
Where is Joseph’s son? I assume he is being brought up by the awesomely shady grandmother, but we haven’t seen him in a while now.
SO AMANDA BASICALLY BROUGHT A U-HAUL TO THE SECOND DATE THEN?
Random notes:
Whenever Zoe is in pain, it triggers memories – this reminded me of how Cylons download their memories when they regenerate, so that the individual can remain intact.
I probably should have at least mentioned in the review that Zoe actually did draw Cylons as a kid. Now this might mean that Daniel simply used her design and she watched a lot of robot cartoons on Saturday mornings... or ZOE GRAYSTONE IS SECRETLY A CYLON HERSELF SENT TO CAPRICA TO START IT ALL. Please, let it be the former, because I like how "Caprica" isn't "Battlestar".
Is Nestor dead? Is Lacy plagued by her guilt for killing him, so much that he haunts her, or did he not die?
Where is Joseph’s son? I assume he is being brought up by the awesomely shady grandmother, but we haven’t seen him in a while now.
SO AMANDA BASICALLY BROUGHT A U-HAUL TO THE SECOND DATE THEN?
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Caprica - Don't betray me.
Caprica: 1x11 Retribution.
Lacy and Clarice
I wonder how long it is going to take for Lacy to get out of this impossible situation. Every single character is dealing with Zoe’s contributions and decisions, but Lacy’s path since Zoe’s death (actually, that’s two “deaths”, in a way) has been particularly grim, while her motives were mostly noble, or at least as noble as the flawed characters of “Caprica” can be. I know that a lot of viewers aren’t very interested in her as a character, but I would be delighted to find out how the friendship between the original Zoe and Lacy worked to create that particular one-sided faithfulness and dependence.
As brave as she might pretend to be, she is entirely unsuited for the life as a teenage terrorist. In the beginning of the episode, she fails at completing a mission for Barnabas when she realizes that he expects her to place explosives in a building that isn’t empty. She acts suspiciously and flees without getting rid of the bomb – thereby guaranteeing that her more eager partners in crime can’t detonate theirs. “Have you ever not frakked something up in your life, Lacy? Why do we bring her?” asks one of the former disciples of Clarice who is now working for Barnabas, but she is just particularly bad at acting against her own principles, while remaining an expert in landing herself in situation that require her to do just that. With Zoe gone (Lacy doesn’t know that she still exists virtually), she doesn’t really have any other objectives apart from getting out of the STO; but it’s not just Barnabas now, it’s Clarice as well, who takes revenge on the “children” who abandoned her for her enemy. Clarice needs Lacy alive because she is one of the few connections to Zoe, and Clarice knows fully well that Amanda’s knowledge about her own daughter is limited.
Daniel
Daniel is more successful at and less hesitant to put common morality aside; in order to get the board of Graystone Industries to reinstate him, he names all the sins of his former friends. Like Clarice, he is taking revenge for betrayal, but he has a more concrete objective in mind while her actions are more about making a point about her new-found power and her future ambitions (“Others need to be taught the price of disobedience.”). She kills Pan (“I do forgive you. But I’m the easy one. It’s god you should be worried about.”) and has Hippolyta killed, and finally, in a rather anticlimactic confrontation with Barnabas, gets rid of her worst enemy with the same method he tried to employ to kill her.
Indirectly, Daniel gets blood on his hands as well: one of the board members decides to kill himself instead of living under the constant threat of blackmail. His wife accuses him and asks, “What kind of man are you?” – a question Daniel probably couldn’t answer himself. What drives him? Is he obsessed with creating his “cure for grief” and willing to do everything to get in a position where he can realize that vision, or is it simply about power? Has he lost himself, now that everything that connected him to his previous life is gone?
We see how lost he is in a flashback to the moment when he first saw Amanda again, after her suicide attempt:
Lacy and Clarice
I wonder how long it is going to take for Lacy to get out of this impossible situation. Every single character is dealing with Zoe’s contributions and decisions, but Lacy’s path since Zoe’s death (actually, that’s two “deaths”, in a way) has been particularly grim, while her motives were mostly noble, or at least as noble as the flawed characters of “Caprica” can be. I know that a lot of viewers aren’t very interested in her as a character, but I would be delighted to find out how the friendship between the original Zoe and Lacy worked to create that particular one-sided faithfulness and dependence.
As brave as she might pretend to be, she is entirely unsuited for the life as a teenage terrorist. In the beginning of the episode, she fails at completing a mission for Barnabas when she realizes that he expects her to place explosives in a building that isn’t empty. She acts suspiciously and flees without getting rid of the bomb – thereby guaranteeing that her more eager partners in crime can’t detonate theirs. “Have you ever not frakked something up in your life, Lacy? Why do we bring her?” asks one of the former disciples of Clarice who is now working for Barnabas, but she is just particularly bad at acting against her own principles, while remaining an expert in landing herself in situation that require her to do just that. With Zoe gone (Lacy doesn’t know that she still exists virtually), she doesn’t really have any other objectives apart from getting out of the STO; but it’s not just Barnabas now, it’s Clarice as well, who takes revenge on the “children” who abandoned her for her enemy. Clarice needs Lacy alive because she is one of the few connections to Zoe, and Clarice knows fully well that Amanda’s knowledge about her own daughter is limited.
Daniel
Daniel is more successful at and less hesitant to put common morality aside; in order to get the board of Graystone Industries to reinstate him, he names all the sins of his former friends. Like Clarice, he is taking revenge for betrayal, but he has a more concrete objective in mind while her actions are more about making a point about her new-found power and her future ambitions (“Others need to be taught the price of disobedience.”). She kills Pan (“I do forgive you. But I’m the easy one. It’s god you should be worried about.”) and has Hippolyta killed, and finally, in a rather anticlimactic confrontation with Barnabas, gets rid of her worst enemy with the same method he tried to employ to kill her.
Indirectly, Daniel gets blood on his hands as well: one of the board members decides to kill himself instead of living under the constant threat of blackmail. His wife accuses him and asks, “What kind of man are you?” – a question Daniel probably couldn’t answer himself. What drives him? Is he obsessed with creating his “cure for grief” and willing to do everything to get in a position where he can realize that vision, or is it simply about power? Has he lost himself, now that everything that connected him to his previous life is gone?
We see how lost he is in a flashback to the moment when he first saw Amanda again, after her suicide attempt:
Daniel: “We can’t always know where our actions will need. It’s in the stars. Do I blame you for Zoe?”
Amanda: “No no, don’t stop, go on. I’m waiting for you to bring this analogy home. How is you hiring thugs to rob and murder people, how is that equivalent to me being a bad mother?”
Daniel: “I never said you were a bad mother.”
Amanda: “You think it’s my fault that Zoe hated me?”
Daniel: “What are you talking about?”
Amanda: “The idea that I could control her behaviour is just stupid. I mean who are you? What kind of man have you become? I don’t even know you.”
This exchange is interesting for a number of reasons: it reveals Daniel’s justification of his own actions to himself. It reveals that he DOES blame Amanda for what happened to Zoe, and I guess we are supposed to assume that her relationship with her mother was much more strained because she at least shared her passion for technology with Daniel. There is also a more general point about how (particularly, we haven’t really seen much of the other planets yet) Caprican society struggles with keeping their children in check. It’s a society dominated by light entertainment and extreme violence (I assume that is the point the show is trying to make whenever a character zaps through channels to reveal this awkward co-existence), and Caprican adults are terrified of the youth culture these influences breed (both the entertainment and the violence translate neatly into exactly the kind of place the V club is). One of the most intriguing things about “Caprica” is how it’s the teenagers, the non-adults, who are responsible for some of the radical shifts in society. Zoe invented the technology. The young “children” of Barnabas and Clarice are responsible for the terrorist acts that shape Caprican politics.
Zoe is merely a memory/a recurring nightmare in the episode. She haunts Amanda, who remembers her as a hateful teenager and has terrible dreams (“Do you have to make everything unpleasant, all the time?” / “You know, maybe it’s because I hate you. But don’t worry, I’ll be dead soon, and then we’ll both be happy.”), while Daniel, interestingly enough, seems to have the image of a more innocent and happier version of Zoe stuck in his head, a version of her we have never seen. While being the ghost that haunts her family, she is also the phantom so many characters, knowingly or not, pursue: Clarice needs her knowledge to achieve Apotheosis, and Amanda watches her while she has the holoband on, whispering her name. Daniel knows her if he ever wants to achieve his goal of creating life, not just killing machines, because he can not recreate his daughter’s genius invention on his own (although I guess there is a slight chance that there is some of that magic spark of life in each and every one of the Cylons already, but we’ll see about that).
Amanda
What drives Amanda Graystone? She has a vague idea about what she does not want, but no idea at all about her own future. Her fond memories of Clarice taking care of her after she jumped off the bridge slowly get marred by allegations and suspicions. The police officer who is still investigating the bombings tells her that other students of Clarice have been planting bombs, that he suspects her to be a terrorist who seduces innocent children to join her (“Now I believe that Clarice Willow pulled your daughter into that organisation, she got her to trust her, she brainwashed her, and then she put her on that train with the bomb.”), and finally asks her to spy on Clarice. Amanda’s first instinct when she decides for herself that Clarice is guilty (when all the pieces fall into place) is to kill her, but then she doesn’t, and instead starts collecting information. What are her motives? Can’t she bring herself to kill the person who says “You know I think you might be the only person I can talk to.”? Does she believe she can do more good by destroying the STO, not just the woman she believes responsible for her daughter’s death?
Random notes:
When Barnabas asks Lacy to promise her loyalty to him, she says “I’m committed to god”, which seems to be an entirely different thing altogether. Am I the only one who doubts that commitment? She seems more eager to return to a normal life than anything else, and I’ve always taken her to be more pragmatic than idealistic in everything except her friendship with Zoe.
I have a question about the Twelve Colonies: who exactly is the “other” that they need protection against? Why does a self-contained empire without any outside threats require an army of Cylons, if the most terrifying threat is terrorism and the economic divisions between the planets? With the amount of money the department of defence puts into weapons, you’d think that this was a Cold War scenario, but it’s not, and ironically, this behaviour creates the enemy.
Amanda has “intimate access” to Clarice. I AM SO EASILY AMUSED.
On a completely unrelated note, oh, they sleep in separate beds. Well, that settles that.
Is Barnabas really dead? People have tendency not to really die on this show, and James Marsters is a bit too precious to be gone for good.
Considering that Daniel paid off people so one of his “friends” could continue hurting girls, I am now rooting for a terrible death for him. Does this guy have any redeeming qualities? To a certain extent, the STO has a point about Caprican society.
Oh, Keon dies, and has a somewhat more heroic exit than he probably deserves.
Zoe is merely a memory/a recurring nightmare in the episode. She haunts Amanda, who remembers her as a hateful teenager and has terrible dreams (“Do you have to make everything unpleasant, all the time?” / “You know, maybe it’s because I hate you. But don’t worry, I’ll be dead soon, and then we’ll both be happy.”), while Daniel, interestingly enough, seems to have the image of a more innocent and happier version of Zoe stuck in his head, a version of her we have never seen. While being the ghost that haunts her family, she is also the phantom so many characters, knowingly or not, pursue: Clarice needs her knowledge to achieve Apotheosis, and Amanda watches her while she has the holoband on, whispering her name. Daniel knows her if he ever wants to achieve his goal of creating life, not just killing machines, because he can not recreate his daughter’s genius invention on his own (although I guess there is a slight chance that there is some of that magic spark of life in each and every one of the Cylons already, but we’ll see about that).
Amanda
What drives Amanda Graystone? She has a vague idea about what she does not want, but no idea at all about her own future. Her fond memories of Clarice taking care of her after she jumped off the bridge slowly get marred by allegations and suspicions. The police officer who is still investigating the bombings tells her that other students of Clarice have been planting bombs, that he suspects her to be a terrorist who seduces innocent children to join her (“Now I believe that Clarice Willow pulled your daughter into that organisation, she got her to trust her, she brainwashed her, and then she put her on that train with the bomb.”), and finally asks her to spy on Clarice. Amanda’s first instinct when she decides for herself that Clarice is guilty (when all the pieces fall into place) is to kill her, but then she doesn’t, and instead starts collecting information. What are her motives? Can’t she bring herself to kill the person who says “You know I think you might be the only person I can talk to.”? Does she believe she can do more good by destroying the STO, not just the woman she believes responsible for her daughter’s death?
Random notes:
When Barnabas asks Lacy to promise her loyalty to him, she says “I’m committed to god”, which seems to be an entirely different thing altogether. Am I the only one who doubts that commitment? She seems more eager to return to a normal life than anything else, and I’ve always taken her to be more pragmatic than idealistic in everything except her friendship with Zoe.
I have a question about the Twelve Colonies: who exactly is the “other” that they need protection against? Why does a self-contained empire without any outside threats require an army of Cylons, if the most terrifying threat is terrorism and the economic divisions between the planets? With the amount of money the department of defence puts into weapons, you’d think that this was a Cold War scenario, but it’s not, and ironically, this behaviour creates the enemy.
Amanda has “intimate access” to Clarice. I AM SO EASILY AMUSED.
On a completely unrelated note, oh, they sleep in separate beds. Well, that settles that.
Is Barnabas really dead? People have tendency not to really die on this show, and James Marsters is a bit too precious to be gone for good.
Considering that Daniel paid off people so one of his “friends” could continue hurting girls, I am now rooting for a terrible death for him. Does this guy have any redeeming qualities? To a certain extent, the STO has a point about Caprican society.
Oh, Keon dies, and has a somewhat more heroic exit than he probably deserves.
Friday, 8 October 2010
Caprica – We were going to create life, and now you’ve settled for shooting and fighting?
Caprica: 1x10 The Unvanquished.
[note: the numbering of the episodes has always been unclear, but there seems to be a concensus to count the original pilot as the first episode, so this is the tenth episode.]
Lacy: “I let down my best friend and now I am living a life I never intended.”
Clarice: “Apotheosis will unite the twelve worlds under one true god.”
Zoe: “I trusted my friends to get me to Gemenon and they failed me.”
Daniel: “Everything I’ve worked for is gone.”
Amanda: “I feel like I’m going insane.”
Caprica, at its best, is a show about how different people utilize technology – from the grandest scale, how society is shaped by technology (religion, war, communication), on the smallest, how one individual tries to cope with grief by using it.
Daniel and Zoe are both creators of technology. It has always been difficult to untangle the desire for profit and power within his own company from Daniel’s desire to remain connected to his daughter, now the ghost in the machine, since her very existence promises unexpected new sources for revenue. Daniel is all about mass-production and the unlimited replication, which is a stark contrast to Zoe’s uniqueness (which mirrors Tamara’s in New Cap City, she is also one of a kind): Zoe is still programmed to follow some kind of plan to advance the cause of the One True God, and Caprica has never given a definite answer whether she has a free will, or is predetermined by whatever desires and aims her creator (the original Zoe we never really knew) gave her. Lacy, who has been my personal favourite from the beginning, has been loyal to Zoe 2.0 from the beginning, if mostly out of a sense of guilt for having betrayed the original Zoe by not joining her on her way to Gemenon (she suffers, you might say, a severe case of survivor’s guilt). I’ve never really seen her as a religious fanatic: it always seemed like she just somehow stumbled into the “Soldiers of the One” because her best friend joined, and now that she has gotten involved with Barnabas’ terrorist cell, she is once again living a life that she did not choose or want for herself. Clarice sees Zoe’s technology as the ultimate tool to convince everybody in the twelve colonies that monotheism is the way to go: Apotheosis (an individual being raised to a god-like status, eternal life after death) is the perfect way of marketing The One True God, since technology can now remove uncertainty (ultimately, faith is no longer required and replaced by circuits). Daniel has lost his company to Tomas Vergis because he was unable to provide the government with the Cylon soldiers, and he has also lost his wife, since he was too focused on his own way of dealing with grief (fully embracing the idea that the copy of Zoe is exactly like the original Zoe, yet at the same time something that he has to control and exploit in order to advance his own technology) to notice that she was slipping away.
In the last episode which aired more than six months ago, everything changed: Lacy tried to get Zoe to Gemenon, failed, and found herself in the midst of Barnabas terrorist group. Clarice decided to take her idea to the religious leaders on Gemenon, if only to finally win the struggle for power within the STO against Barnabas, who had killed one of her husbands with a car bomb. Zoe, desperate to remain sentient and not let Daniel have her technology, drove her Cylon body into a road block and exploded. Amanda jumped from a bridge – we spend the better part of this episode in uncertainty about what happened to her.
Daniel’s technology has always been used in ways he never intended. Last season, he was shocked to find out that teenagers had created an underground filled with sex and violence as a respite from Caprican society; New Cap City is exactly the kind of place that would emerge from a tightly controlled “high” society like the one on Caprica: a place with no rules, where everybody can become powerful if they play their cards right. The holoband allows the show “Caprica” to comment on the current state of the internet, on the race between those who use the freedom it provides and those who are trying to regulate and control it.
The brilliant thing about “Unvanquished” is that it centres around two very different sales pitches for Daniel’s even more exciting technology. Both paint a picture of a world radically different from the one we live in now, both promise power and influence, and both are met by opposition which they eventually overcome.
Daniel and Zoe are both creators of technology. It has always been difficult to untangle the desire for profit and power within his own company from Daniel’s desire to remain connected to his daughter, now the ghost in the machine, since her very existence promises unexpected new sources for revenue. Daniel is all about mass-production and the unlimited replication, which is a stark contrast to Zoe’s uniqueness (which mirrors Tamara’s in New Cap City, she is also one of a kind): Zoe is still programmed to follow some kind of plan to advance the cause of the One True God, and Caprica has never given a definite answer whether she has a free will, or is predetermined by whatever desires and aims her creator (the original Zoe we never really knew) gave her. Lacy, who has been my personal favourite from the beginning, has been loyal to Zoe 2.0 from the beginning, if mostly out of a sense of guilt for having betrayed the original Zoe by not joining her on her way to Gemenon (she suffers, you might say, a severe case of survivor’s guilt). I’ve never really seen her as a religious fanatic: it always seemed like she just somehow stumbled into the “Soldiers of the One” because her best friend joined, and now that she has gotten involved with Barnabas’ terrorist cell, she is once again living a life that she did not choose or want for herself. Clarice sees Zoe’s technology as the ultimate tool to convince everybody in the twelve colonies that monotheism is the way to go: Apotheosis (an individual being raised to a god-like status, eternal life after death) is the perfect way of marketing The One True God, since technology can now remove uncertainty (ultimately, faith is no longer required and replaced by circuits). Daniel has lost his company to Tomas Vergis because he was unable to provide the government with the Cylon soldiers, and he has also lost his wife, since he was too focused on his own way of dealing with grief (fully embracing the idea that the copy of Zoe is exactly like the original Zoe, yet at the same time something that he has to control and exploit in order to advance his own technology) to notice that she was slipping away.
In the last episode which aired more than six months ago, everything changed: Lacy tried to get Zoe to Gemenon, failed, and found herself in the midst of Barnabas terrorist group. Clarice decided to take her idea to the religious leaders on Gemenon, if only to finally win the struggle for power within the STO against Barnabas, who had killed one of her husbands with a car bomb. Zoe, desperate to remain sentient and not let Daniel have her technology, drove her Cylon body into a road block and exploded. Amanda jumped from a bridge – we spend the better part of this episode in uncertainty about what happened to her.
Daniel’s technology has always been used in ways he never intended. Last season, he was shocked to find out that teenagers had created an underground filled with sex and violence as a respite from Caprican society; New Cap City is exactly the kind of place that would emerge from a tightly controlled “high” society like the one on Caprica: a place with no rules, where everybody can become powerful if they play their cards right. The holoband allows the show “Caprica” to comment on the current state of the internet, on the race between those who use the freedom it provides and those who are trying to regulate and control it.
The brilliant thing about “Unvanquished” is that it centres around two very different sales pitches for Daniel’s even more exciting technology. Both paint a picture of a world radically different from the one we live in now, both promise power and influence, and both are met by opposition which they eventually overcome.
“A cure for human grief”
In the beginning of the episode, mass production on the Cylons has begun (it’s a haunting moment for everybody who has seen “Battlestar Galactica”). While Daniel lies drunk on his couch, it’s Tomas Vergis, who has taken everything he ever cared for, who has finally figured out how to do it. As Daniel zaps through the channels, we see that Caprica is even more shaped by terrorist acts now, they are a daily reality, and The C-Bucks are also in Tomas’ hands now and finally winning their games. He does, however, turn the TV off before we can find out what happened to Amanda.
Daniel is in a desperate position. He never dealt with his grief for Zoe because he still had a version of her available (and he saw Zoe 2.0 as his daughter, since “a difference that doesn’t make a difference isn’t a difference”). The fragile balance between trying to understand his daughter and, at the same time, requiring her technology to keep his company alive, defined his relationship with her – and in the end, he chose his company over her, he decided to trade her sentience for mass-production, which makes him even more flawed as a human being that he was from the start. We also saw that he was willing to kill in order to get what he wants, so it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that he now tries to strike a deal with the devil (the Ha’la’tha, the godfather of the Tauron mob).
Daniel: “I have suffered some losses recently, and it’s made me think about the extremes I’d go to to avoid ever having to deal with that kind of pain again, both personally and professionally, which is what brings me here to you today. Tomas Vergis has taken my company away from me, and I want it back. In return, I offer you something of great value, something you’ll find very attractive, and normally… […] My point is, I can make us both a great deal of money.”
The Ha’la’tha: “And the nature of this exciting windfall?”
Daniel: “A cure for human grief.”
Joseph: “I thought we were talking about battle robots.”
Daniel: “Battle robots have a very limited consumer appeal, but who hasn’t lost somebody they loved. Who wouldn’t do anything possible to bring that loved one back? Well, what if all I had to do was to buy the right piece of software, that would recreate them? They would be in the virtual world, but you could visit them every day, talk to them, spend time with them again. Say the things that you’d always wished you’d said. Maybe ultimately we can even find a way to get them bodies in the real world. They would be a part of our lives once more. The ultimate drug, to heal the ultimate pain. Now what do you think that’s worth to someone? […] We can either sit and wail the gravity of our loss, or we could rise up and redress it. This has unlimited potential on any number of levels, not the least of which is profitability.”
In their review of the episode, The A.V. Club calls Daniel’s idea that “corporate equivalent of Apotheosis”, which is exactly what it is: It doesn’t recruit believers, it attracts consumers. It’s sobering to see Daniel use Zoe, and his loss, for a sales pitch, but this is exactly the kind of person he is: He deals with grief by trying to find a way to profit from it. I assume that Daniel is conscious enough of Tauron customs that he realizes he has to stress the importance of profit more than the actual “dealing with grief” part: After all, the Taurons are the one Colony that deals with grief in a very practical way. One ritual of saying good-bye, and it’s done; you don’t even get to hold on to little keep-sakes. He does appeal to the Ha’la’tha’s personal loss of a son (which seems to be an insult for the Taurons), but the stronger point he makes in his pitch is that this is a product nobody will be able to live without.
Daniel doesn’t just see the profit-margin, he considers this the one great invention: when Cyrus, still his faithful disciple although he is officially working for Vergis, tells him about the successful mass-production of non-sentient Cylons, he responds: “We were going to create life, and now you’ve settled for shooting and fighting?” Later, Obol will ask Clarice if she wants to be god, and really, both of their pitches kind of sound like it.
The Ha’la’tha realizes that, even though Joseph Adama disapproves (“we need to grief and move on. That is the Tauron way.”) Daniel is asking them to betray one of their own, Tomas Vergis, once again, but he actually has put himself in the position of being needed by the Taurons, so it all works out. Joseph moves up in the hierarchy and gets the task of “representing” the Ha’la’tha’s interesting in the matter – and is therefore finally fully caught up in the very organisation he tried so hard to avoid. Didn’t William Adama call his father a “Civil Rights Lawyer” at one point during “Battlestar Galactica”?
Sam and Joseph test Daniel’s limits later, when they ask him to kill his own mother to prove his allegiance. Daniel gives up (“You’ve shown me your limitations, this isn’t a life for you. Walk away, and hope that nobody ever asks you to kill somebody you love.”) – but he is not intimated enough, he does end up shaking the Ha’la’tha’s hand in the end to enter into the pact.
“Imagine a world…”
I have always had a hard time to figure out Clarice: is she a religious fanatic, deeply convinced that her convictions are true, or does she merely strive for power and the STO is the most accessible way to get it? Her sales pitch to the religious leaders of the One True God is even more perfect than Daniel’s to the Tauron mob because she uses Daniel’s technology to make her point: in a scene that we can not identify as virtual, a young girl hugs her mother before going to a C-Bucks game, then gives the secret sign to a number of very nice-looking people, including an old woman and a child, and then they blow up the stadium. The narrative is interesting because it shows how Clarice justifies the “terrible deeds” that she has done: those people who are placing the bombs, who are sacrificing themselves, seem like normal, everyday people, not like religious wackjobs. If their actions lead to a world that embraces Monotheism, then the end justifies the means – even if the means are killing 30 000 people.
Daniel doesn’t just see the profit-margin, he considers this the one great invention: when Cyrus, still his faithful disciple although he is officially working for Vergis, tells him about the successful mass-production of non-sentient Cylons, he responds: “We were going to create life, and now you’ve settled for shooting and fighting?” Later, Obol will ask Clarice if she wants to be god, and really, both of their pitches kind of sound like it.
The Ha’la’tha realizes that, even though Joseph Adama disapproves (“we need to grief and move on. That is the Tauron way.”) Daniel is asking them to betray one of their own, Tomas Vergis, once again, but he actually has put himself in the position of being needed by the Taurons, so it all works out. Joseph moves up in the hierarchy and gets the task of “representing” the Ha’la’tha’s interesting in the matter – and is therefore finally fully caught up in the very organisation he tried so hard to avoid. Didn’t William Adama call his father a “Civil Rights Lawyer” at one point during “Battlestar Galactica”?
Sam and Joseph test Daniel’s limits later, when they ask him to kill his own mother to prove his allegiance. Daniel gives up (“You’ve shown me your limitations, this isn’t a life for you. Walk away, and hope that nobody ever asks you to kill somebody you love.”) – but he is not intimated enough, he does end up shaking the Ha’la’tha’s hand in the end to enter into the pact.
“Imagine a world…”
I have always had a hard time to figure out Clarice: is she a religious fanatic, deeply convinced that her convictions are true, or does she merely strive for power and the STO is the most accessible way to get it? Her sales pitch to the religious leaders of the One True God is even more perfect than Daniel’s to the Tauron mob because she uses Daniel’s technology to make her point: in a scene that we can not identify as virtual, a young girl hugs her mother before going to a C-Bucks game, then gives the secret sign to a number of very nice-looking people, including an old woman and a child, and then they blow up the stadium. The narrative is interesting because it shows how Clarice justifies the “terrible deeds” that she has done: those people who are placing the bombs, who are sacrificing themselves, seem like normal, everyday people, not like religious wackjobs. If their actions lead to a world that embraces Monotheism, then the end justifies the means – even if the means are killing 30 000 people.
“Imagine a world in which death has been conquered, in which eternal life is not just a dream but a reality. 30 000 Capricans will die in the fire, a select few will be reborn: Those who have accepted the one true god into their hearts. Only day will see a life everlasting in a virtual heaven that we have built. […] Myth and mystery have been replaced by reason, and science. I offer you a religion that removes the need for faith. A religion of certainty that reflects the wonder of all we have created. That is Apotheosis.”
Is a religion that doesn’t require faith, that provides certainty, even a religion? This is the argument Obol, one of the Elders, uses against her sales pitch. Someone likened Clarice’s pitch to Don Draper’s approach in “Mad Men” – painting a picture, selling a story – that is ultimately a lie. Apotheosis is “a transformative recruiting tool” because who would not like the chance to live forever and not be afraid of death?
Joseph is Daniel’s opposition in Caprica; on Gemenon, Clarice is met with criticism by Obol.
Joseph is Daniel’s opposition in Caprica; on Gemenon, Clarice is met with criticism by Obol.
Clarice: “A man in your position doesn’t believe in life eternal?”
Obol: “I believe in being surprised.”
Their conflict shows up a dividing line within the religion: There is the terrorist branch, the STO, which helped keep it alive during “the lean years” and is now marginalized, like something in the attic the family would rather not remember (the best sign for that is the fact that the terrorists don’t get to sleep in the palace, they are in caves outside, with no heating). Clarice feels that she is entitled to a position of power within the Church – she demands to be taken to “Mother” because she has “earned the right” with the terrible actions she has committed “in the service of this Church”.
Obol considers Apotheosis “blasphemy”, and he almost has “Mother” convinced that it would be better to have Clarice killed – but then she asks for the holoband, so she can see for herself what Clarice is promising, and that reveals the true power of the sales pitch. Instead of killing Clarice, the congregation turns against Obol, and kills him in a very “Et Tu, Brutes”-manner, while Mother turns her head. The final confrontation between Clarice and Mother reveals that she is not religiously convinced that this is the right way, but politically it is, since they are struggling not only against the hegemonic polytheistic religion, but also against competing monotheistic ones.
Obol considers Apotheosis “blasphemy”, and he almost has “Mother” convinced that it would be better to have Clarice killed – but then she asks for the holoband, so she can see for herself what Clarice is promising, and that reveals the true power of the sales pitch. Instead of killing Clarice, the congregation turns against Obol, and kills him in a very “Et Tu, Brutes”-manner, while Mother turns her head. The final confrontation between Clarice and Mother reveals that she is not religiously convinced that this is the right way, but politically it is, since they are struggling not only against the hegemonic polytheistic religion, but also against competing monotheistic ones.
Mother: “Are you unhurt? I hope so.”
Clarice: “I’m fine. And I’d like to remain that way. You disapprove of Apotheosis.”
Mother: “Artificial heaven. I trust the hand of god to actually play a role in our lives. It’s best to let these things play out as he sees fit.”
Clarice: “You like to be surprised?”
Mother: “Sometimes.”
Mother uses exactly the same words Obol used before, yet she realizes the importance of Clarice’s “science project” and is giving her everything she asks for (“I’ll prepare my list”). Just like that, Clarice is given control over all the STO-cells on Caprica.
Clarice doesn’t actually have the technology. A memory of the original Zoe before the explosion of the train reveals that her plan was, probably, to get her technology to Gemenon and use it exactly the same way Clarice did, but it is unclear if this is the path Zoe 2.0 was going to follow. Clarice’s safest bet now is Amanda Graystone, who turns out to be alive and well, and “home”, in Clarice’s bed.
“Hey. You’re one of the deadwalkers?”
A hooded woman walks the streets of New Cap City and is attacked by a group of thugs who all carry Tamara Adama’s symbol on their forehead: she turns out to be a superhero, not only able to beat them in a fight, but also with the power to manipulate the reality of the virtual world. Zoe Graystone has become another deadwalker – someone existing only in the virtual world (while we see this scene play out, Cyrus decides to put her burnt Cylon chassis into a crate, in case it will be needed again in the future).
Clarice doesn’t actually have the technology. A memory of the original Zoe before the explosion of the train reveals that her plan was, probably, to get her technology to Gemenon and use it exactly the same way Clarice did, but it is unclear if this is the path Zoe 2.0 was going to follow. Clarice’s safest bet now is Amanda Graystone, who turns out to be alive and well, and “home”, in Clarice’s bed.
“Hey. You’re one of the deadwalkers?”
A hooded woman walks the streets of New Cap City and is attacked by a group of thugs who all carry Tamara Adama’s symbol on their forehead: she turns out to be a superhero, not only able to beat them in a fight, but also with the power to manipulate the reality of the virtual world. Zoe Graystone has become another deadwalker – someone existing only in the virtual world (while we see this scene play out, Cyrus decides to put her burnt Cylon chassis into a crate, in case it will be needed again in the future).
Zoe: “I’ve seen this symbol around the city. It belongs to the other dead walker. You know, I’ve been looking for her. Do you know where she is?”
This is going to be interesting. Tamara knows that Zoe is (or at least: has been made) responsible for her death and has every reason to try and fight her. We don’t really know what Zoe’s endgame is, now that she is stuck.
“I can speak for myself.”
While Daniel and Clarice are struggling for a position of power, Lacy finds herself in a life she never wanted: she can’t really escape Barnabas’ terrorist cell, and it is obvious from her reactions to the rituals and the devotion other members offer him that she doesn’t exactly enjoy life there. Lacy has always been my favourite because she is so level-headed, and yet gets caught up with people who are fanatics because of her loyalty to her best friend. We don’t know yet if Lacy is communicating with Zoe in New Cap City, if she even knows that Zoe is still alive, but I assume that her path in the remainder of the season will be a power struggle with Barnabas. As she performs the blood ritual (during which the “I am not really buying into this crap” look on her face never fades), it becomes clear that she is trying to make the best of the situation she never wanted to be in, but is also looking for a way out.
Random notes:
Sam's fascination with Serge, Daniel’s house robot, is adorable. “Hey little man”.
You know what else is tacky, dude? YOUR ROBES. The costume department really must have had a lot of fun this episode. The religious elite on Gemenon looks like they barely escaped Star Wars/Dune, the thugs that attack Zoe on the streets of New Cap City look like Alex from “Clockwork Orange”.
Cyril: “The thing is toast.”
Tomas: “OR A TOASTER.”
While writing this review, I had a sudden realization: both Daniel’s and Clarice’s pitch actually describe the Cylon’s ability to re-generate. I’ve always wondered where the Cylon’s monotheism comes from (my guess is now that they got it from the original model, Zoe), but the Re-generation, the inability to die, comes very close to what we hear this episode.
“I can speak for myself.”
While Daniel and Clarice are struggling for a position of power, Lacy finds herself in a life she never wanted: she can’t really escape Barnabas’ terrorist cell, and it is obvious from her reactions to the rituals and the devotion other members offer him that she doesn’t exactly enjoy life there. Lacy has always been my favourite because she is so level-headed, and yet gets caught up with people who are fanatics because of her loyalty to her best friend. We don’t know yet if Lacy is communicating with Zoe in New Cap City, if she even knows that Zoe is still alive, but I assume that her path in the remainder of the season will be a power struggle with Barnabas. As she performs the blood ritual (during which the “I am not really buying into this crap” look on her face never fades), it becomes clear that she is trying to make the best of the situation she never wanted to be in, but is also looking for a way out.
Random notes:
Sam's fascination with Serge, Daniel’s house robot, is adorable. “Hey little man”.
You know what else is tacky, dude? YOUR ROBES. The costume department really must have had a lot of fun this episode. The religious elite on Gemenon looks like they barely escaped Star Wars/Dune, the thugs that attack Zoe on the streets of New Cap City look like Alex from “Clockwork Orange”.
Cyril: “The thing is toast.”
Tomas: “OR A TOASTER.”
While writing this review, I had a sudden realization: both Daniel’s and Clarice’s pitch actually describe the Cylon’s ability to re-generate. I’ve always wondered where the Cylon’s monotheism comes from (my guess is now that they got it from the original model, Zoe), but the Re-generation, the inability to die, comes very close to what we hear this episode.
Clarice flirts with everybody in close proximity, but it's nice to see that it finally paid off. Clarice lost one of her husbands in the explosion, but I wonder how much of her relationship with Amanda is real and how much is her trying to get Zoe's technology through Amanda.
Someone had the idea that Clarice might be Laura Roslin’s mum. Now, doesn’t that sound intriguing? On the other hand, everything she is and does looks more like the reformed Gaius Baltar, who never really made up his mind about whether he liked power or faith more either.
His name was probably not Obol, but I couldn’t find it anywhere and that’s what it sounded like.
Oh right: Heather Hogan managed to say most of this on a single page.
Oh right: Heather Hogan managed to say most of this on a single page.
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