The first episode of Caprica the series picks up roughly a month after the events of the pilot. Zoe-A, Zoe’s self-realized virtual Avatar, is inside the prototype Centurion model, causing all sorts of technical problems for her father’s company. I was actually rather shocked that Daniel wasn’t piecing two and two together in this case. At one point it almost seemed like a light went off in his head, and he looked at the Centurion with a sense of dawning understanding, but then he was distracted and never went back to that thought process.
With his failure to reproduce the results of the Zoe Centurion (Zoe-R) in other models, Daniel hands her over to some subordinates of his to deal with and run tests on. One views her as a piece of machinery (Drew), while the other feminizes her (Philomon). It’s an interesting duality throughout the Zoe-R scenes–half the time we’ll see her as the Centurion and the other times we’ll see the petite form of her Avatar self. It’s also a little comical as the one technician, Drew pokes and prods the Centurion body, but we see Zoe’s expressions. Torresani has a very expressive face and conveys her disgust, outrage and discomfort at his impersonal handling of her “person.”
Amanda Graystone, unsettled after the accusations Agent Durham made in the pilot and seeking to find answers about her daughter, turns to old home movies and pictures. Like Daniel, Amanda has no idea what her daughter is really like. In the videos she is happy, vibrant, and always smiling. When Agent Durham arrives to ask questions about Zoe’s boyfriend, Ben Stark, Amanda’s shock and distress is visible. Amanda doesn’t want to admit that Zoe would keep such a huge secret, would keep any secrets, though clearly her husband knows differently (not that he told her, so secrets are a big part of this family, obviously).
Lacey, Zoe’s best friend and current co-conspirator with Zoe-A, is infinitely more interesting in this episode. She’s still very timid and unsure of herself, but she has flashes of defiance and attitude. When she tells Amanda about the “new family” on Geminon waiting for them, or later at Sister Clarice’s house when she meets Clarice’s multiple wives and husbands, especially. Lacey is also the one who, whether in awe or shock, names what the new Zoe/Avatar/Centurion is–a trinity, three facets of the same being.
Sister Clarice continues to be very shady. Even her husbands and wives question why she brought Lacey over for lunch–is she looking for a new wife already?–and in a roundabout way accuse her of using Nestor (the young, gorgeous, and shirtless wonder husband) to seduce the girl. I have supreme doubts that she wants Lacey for wife, but the speculative gleam in her eye when she saw Nestor and Lacey interact raised the alarms. Her hanging at an opium den doesn’t exactly speak well of her character, either.
On the Adama side of things Sam, Joseph’s brother, shows Willie around “Little Tauron” and after receiving a call introduces Willie to what some of his job entails. We learn a little more about the Ha’la’tha (Tauron mafia, basically), and Willie learns a lesson from his Uncle that he never forgets–if you give up the little things, they’ll never see the bigger things. Young Willie is just as wiley as his older counterpart and uses this advice to his advantage later on when Joseph confronts him about missing school.
Things come to a head at the Memorial service for the month anniversary of the bombing. Amanda meets Zoe’s supposed boyfriend’s mother, and sees a piece of jewelry she recognizes as a symbol of the Soldiers of the One and goes off the deep end. She either doesn’t care, doesn’t realize what she is saying, or lord knows what, when she gets up to the microphone. Daniel, meanwhile, is fighting off Joseph, who wants to see Tamara’s avatar again. Daniel is in the middle of blowing him off when he hears his wife and realizes what she is saying. As the two rush off we see that Sister Clarice, Ruth (Josef’s mother in law) and Zoe-R were all watching the broadcast with vastly different expressions.
Some questions are answered, but a whole host more are proposed. If Sister Clarice didn’t instigate the bombing as part of her own STO agenda, who did? What will Zoe-A do now that she is stuck inside the centurion model and has limited freedoms? At the moment it seems like Caprica is tossing plot threads out there willie-nillie with a lack of cohesive bond. Still, the fall-out from Amanda’s announcement promises to be spectacular.
