Battlestar Galactica #123: Things We Lock Away

"You keep walking in her footprints even after her footprints stopped."

SO SAY WE ALL: Graystone gets his company back. Zoe finds Tamara. Lacy is kept in an attic.

REVIEW: Whether the showrunners knew they would only get this last half-season or not, I can see why people lost faith in Caprica. These last couple of episodes are a good example of the show's re-positioning of characters, advancement of a sort, but changing goals is not the same as completing goals. I think of Lacy, for example, who worked hard to get Zoe to Gemenon, failed, struggled in a terrorist cell subplot that was extinguished when Clarice showed up. She spends this episode being brainwashed, drugged and brow-beaten in Clarice's attic before being sent to Gemenon for "training" once she's given up a useful tidbit. (Strange moment too, where she describes Zoe's pin in which might be secreted the avatar program and doesn't seem to know it's the STO's symbol.) Amanda and Clarice will then attempt to play each other, one to get the pin (from the GDD through the mother), the other to get information (FOR the GDD).

Graystone lost his company, now he gets his company back. Instead of being steeped in blood in the abstract as the creator of the Cylons, it's more literal. The Ha'la'tha need to Vergis dead because you can't trust Taurons not to continue the cycle of revenge. Worse, Vergis knows it's coming and wants Daniel to do it himself. There's a well-acted moment when Vergis gets teary-eyed at Daniel's idea that they team up to destroy the Ha'la'tha - in another show a great out for the protagonist - but then he tricks his Caprican counterpart into stabbing him with his own knife. He dies on his own terms, when, where and by which hand he chooses, like a Tauron. Great scene. But speaking of Taurons, at this point, Adama is just an enforcer and explainer of Tauron things. He's just subservient to Daniel's plot and has none of his own, which is deeply disappointing. In a way, Daniel's downward spiral IS Adama's long-sought revenge, but that's small comfort, and not experienced from his point of view.

The other revenge is Tamara's, who, confronted by Zoe, wants revenge for human Zoe's act of terrorism. As far as she's concerned, she's not a copy, she's real, and her soul is trapped into this hell because of her. The denizens of New Cap City who want revenge for the Maglev attack have at it and Zoe lets them, until she gets a visit from, well... If you've never watched Battlestar, you might think Zoe had a split personality ever since that childhood fire, a personality that inspired her to create the avatar, a literal doubling of the self, as if to give her other personality flesh. The fact that this other Zoe appears as a teenager to the little girl, helped her escape the fire, looks over her and eventually plays a role in the creation of the avatar tells a different story in the context of the overall franchise. This is Head-Zoe, an Angel, just like the Six that haunted Baltar and the Baltar than haunted Caprica-6. Clarice was right. God has a plan and it includes Zoe's frankly divine inspiration. As a child, she actually DREW Cylons, which her father may or may not have copied. Was it insight into the future? Something she was directed to do by her Angel? And now that Zoe is dead, the Angel visits the Zoe avatar and puts her on the path, telling us there is a link between Cylon A.I.s and Apotheosis. Once she accepts that she is her own person, at has her own destiny, there's some brutal fighting before she convinces Tamara to join her, and the characters are, yes, re-positioned once again.

ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: For the first time in Caprica, we see an Angel/Messenger guiding humans and Cylons' fate.

VERSIONS: Deleted scenes include interactions with Clarice's kids, Lacy apologizing to Nestor about the car bomb, and more of Clarice and Lacy's conversation (but not a lot more).

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Though I do think the show needs to pick its plot lines and bring them to term more, I can't say there's no character movement. And in this case, an interesting revelation.

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