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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Caprica 1.9: Zoe at Large

Well, in the cliff hanger ending of the half-season finale of tonight's Caprica - episode 1.9 - Zoe's almost at large, that is, out there in the world, out of Daniel's laboratory and clutches, and here's how that came to be:

The military is putting pressure on Daniel to deliver his sentient robots - putting pressure in the form of a tough-ass female colonel, who is also playing footsie with Vergis.   Desperate, Daniel decides to take apart his one prototype sentient robot - aka Zoe, the first Cylon - who maybe now regrets that she outsmarted her father last week into regretfully concluding that the robot was not really Zoe, after all (though, in the BSG/Caprica land, you never really know - maybe Daniel is so far gone that he doesn't give a damn any more about Zoe, precisely because she tried so hard to delude him).   Zoe in Cylon clothing is also desperate - she reveals her true identity to Philomon, who is starting to fall in love with Zoe in V-world.   Zoe pleads with Philomon to help her escape.  Philomon says he will - but calls security instead.  Zoe hurls him across the room, in a fury, which kills him.   We've seen the first human dead at the hands of a Cylon, although mostly unintentionally.

Zoe makes off in a van, and the police/military are after her.   She pulls a Terminator move, and crashes through impossible barricades.   If she's anything like BSG Cylons, she'll survive, but we don't know that, yet.

Meanwhile, Amanda jumps off a bridge (but we don't know if she lived or died).  Clarice steps out of her car to look at Amanda, just in time to save her, Clarice's, life from a car bomb that Lacy ignites (she's forced to do this by Barnabus).  Jason Street from Friday Night Lights almost certainly dies.

The only really possibly good outcome for a character in tonight's episode was Joseph's.   He's finally seen his daughter Tamara in V-world, thinks she's now dead there, too, and may be giving up the holoband and the drugs for a better life back in the old analog world.   He even has a woman - the real world woman behind his avatar partner - who seems to love him.   But given that Tamara is indeed still alive in V-world, this part of the Adama story may not be over yet, either.

I think Caprica has really come into its own in the past few episodes, as a series powerful and intriguing even if it wasn't BSG's prequel.  I'm looking forward to the second half and more.


5-min podcast review of Caprica

See alsoBattlestar Galactica Caprica: Exquisite, Flawed Copies ... 1.2:  Dawn of a Different Machine ... 1.3:  Daughters, Missing and Present ... 1.5: Adama's Daughter ... 1.6: The Chip and its Roots
... 1.7: The Cylon and the Dog ... 1.8: The Metaphysics of Flesh





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1 comment:

sffan12 said...

Yeah, after the pilot it started out slow (an online pen pal joked it should be called Caprica: The Phantom Menace) but kicked into gear with the intro of the New New Caprica VR world.

I don't usually make predictions, but, based on the promo that aired following the ep's close I'm thinking the following:

Amanda is toast, and I base this on two facts..first, if the blast from the exploding van didn't get her, the fall will. And second, we see a bearded Daniel in said promo, and I doubt he'd let himself go like that if something traumatic hadn't happened.

Clarice's and Barnabas' power play will begin in earnest with Lacy caught in the middle.

The second half of the season will probably me more Clones-esque as the seeds of the human-Cylon conflict are planted, if not the conflict itself.

Only thing I'm not certain on is the fate of Zoe-A inside the Cylon shell. My guess is the shell itself will still be intact at least. (It'd have to be, of course.) Not sure about Zoe-A, though..

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