"It's one thing to write code, but what Zoe's done where, well, it's closer to what the gods did in the old creation myths."
REVIEW: Everybody's coming after everybody in Caprica's penultimate episode. In the VR world, the Graystones are looking for Zoe, who's getting them lost with her Matrix powers and sending literal dragons after them. Sam is also there, and admits he's on the trip so he can destroy the abominable Tamara avatar. There's a reason Daniel spiraled over the course of the show, and it's because Amanda wasn't an equal partner in his dealings - either he kept things from her, or she had left him - as evidenced by how important she is to his success here. First, she shoots Sam out of the game when he makes threats. Then, she's the one who makes Daniel change tack and let Zoe come to them of her own free will. And while the reunion is filled with resistance - Zoe makes a good point that she's diverged from Original Zoe - Amanda takes the abuse, and we can draw a straight line between her and Zoe rejoining the family at the end (fear and tremble at what she and Daniel might create together).
At the same time, the Willows have invaded the Graystone home, shot Serge (oh no!), and locked the senseless couple in a panic room. They've come for their stolen holoband, but it's not there, so there's much tension to be gotten from what they might do to the Graystones when they reach them, and indeed whether it will interrupt their reunion with Zoe. Clarice has a strong moment with Amanda, playing the betrayed would-be lover, and while Nestor is killed in ensuing events, she and Olaf do escape the wrath of Zoe in her old U-87 body, come to rescue her parents from the terrorists. Daniel must have been feigning conversion real loud for them not to hear the creaky robot though.
Sam being incommunicado inside VR for a time may have led to a cul-de-sac, but it also creates tension on the Adama side of things. Fidelia - who calls the Guatrau "father" while he only considers the Adama boys "like sons", so it must be a blood bond - gets consent to have Joseph and Sam killed on the sly. Joseph's home, and he's sort of ready for SOMEthing, but not THAT, and he almost gets killed. His truly horrifying mother-in-law Ruth puts a clever in the assassin's back and like that, the whole family is on the run. The fact that they can't get in touch with Sam until late in the game (but did they call his husband at all?!) makes things more desperate, and when there's a shoot-out, it's Willie who is killed. Oh you thought he would grow up to be Bill Adama? Well so did everyone! It's obviously a tragic moment, but we're distracted from the emotion of the moment by this confusion. Just when did they decide Willie WASN'T the Adama we knew? Even as late as the top of THIS episode, Willie was making comments as if he would become the Admiral of BSG (see All This Has Happened...). Did events diverge too much from Bill's later recollections? Was Willie always meant to be a decoy? I don't know, but it's kind of bizarre. Good thing Evelyn is there to help Joseph beget another William.
And finally, the STO is coming after Lacy before her magic robot control causes problems for the leadership. She and Odin have a little truant circle to whom she admits that, though she is a believer, she does not think the Church is necessarily doing God's will. Odin is seen to betray her, but it's a trick to turn the tables on the STO assassins and perhaps escape Gemenon. If it's to stand up to scrutiny, we have to see it as a series of improvisations, however. There's no way Odin knew he would be given the mission as a loyalty test when he went to Diego - he was probably just getting verbal confirmation that Lacy was a problem for then. They also took a big risk delivering Lacy to them, here again guessing they'd make Odin to the deed. He shoots them instead, but the gun's not loaded - it's a test - though you'd think these kids would be trained to handle weapons better. So in any case, good thing two friends were added to the smokers' club to ambush the bad guys. The problem is, when your scenes need to lie to the audience to sustain tension, you're going to cause plot holes. And at the end, the kids DON'T escape, but instead it seems like Lacy is going to take the Church with her Cylon army. She's really gone up in the world since she was the shy, retiring school girl who didn't want to get on the maglev.
CAPRICANADA: Behind Goldie's is an alley south of Alexander, west of Gore, in Vancouver. It's really wet in New Cap Forest because, well, it's British Columbia!
ALL THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN: Willie says he wouldn't mind being on a ship for years on end as per Evelyn's history lesson, which his brother BILL will go through late in his life. There are two clues to the fact Evelyn is Admiral Adama's mother, one being that she enjoys building model ships as he will, and the other the mention of her brother on Tauron, which matches the uncle Adama mentions in Sometimes a Great Notion. When the Graystones discuss giving Zoe a body with skin, she coins the term "skin job", which will be used for the humanish Cylons. If we wanted to, we could think of her reanimation of the U-87 as the first Cylon "resurrection" to occur in the Colonies (of course, the Final Five did it back on Cylon Earth long before).
VERSIONS: A deleted scene on the DVD has Clarice blame God for Mar-Beth's death and taking the moral high ground and disculpating herself.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - A lot of tension and strong thematic underpinnings.
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