Character weaknesses and human nature seems to dominate this episode of Caprica. With the fallout from Amanda’s ill-conceived speech, citing Zoe as the possible terrorist who blew the train up, Daniel scrambles to work out a way to pull the family name out of the suds. Add to this Joseph demanding to see his daughter’s avatar again, and Daniel is just not having a good week at all.
Other surprises await, however. Zoe-R figures out a way to connect with a holo-band so that her Zoe-A self can still tour around V-World and meet remotely with Lacey. They stumble upon Tamara’s avatar, still crouched on the floor and desperately frightened by the fact the world disappeared and she can’t hear her heartbeat. Zoe-A’s solution? There’s the door, use it. She has no idea that her dad created Tamara, isn’t sure what to think of her, really, and decides to help her. She’s rather protective of Tamara, actually, protesting when Tamara wants to go her own way and find her way home.
It’s Lacey who convinces her to let her go, that they have more important things to worry about. I found it interesting that in V-World Lacey is a more assertive person, the hesitancy she displays in real life seemingly gone, leaving behind a hard, sharp shell. Lacey is, however, doubtful of Zoe-A’s plan to follow through with Zoe’s original plan to bring her to Gemenon, though neither of her girls quite understands what Zoe’s plans after that were. This is when I started to believe in Lacey as a character in her own right. She begins to question Zoe-A, but the residual faith she had for her dead friend has been transferred to Zoe-A. I think that more than her belief in the STO’s agenda she believed in Zoe’s agenda, and that coincided with the STO somehow.
It’s interesting that Daniel mentions Zoe disliking the holo-bands. Maybe because of the short time we saw the living Zoe to try and get a handle on her personality, we have a skewed view, but she didn’t seem to hate the technology so much as the fact it took up so much of her father’s time and energy. Plus she obviously used it quite a bit–as was evident in the Pilot–and had a knack for computer programming, herself (look at Zoe-A). With the fallout of his wife’s outburst, Daniel, I think, is trying to come up with a reason, any reason, that explains his daughter’s behavior. He insists the holo-bands, and by proxy the free reign people have within, are not to blame. A topic that is familiar to anyone born after video games became popularized and the media began to attack the “violent” aspects of the games as the reason kids were more aggressive and violent.
However Zoe was involved, she was involved, and that meant consequences. She was no longer just another victim of the Lev accident–she was the instigator, the person who perpetrated it. And since the public couldn’t blame Zoe for it, they blamed her parents. Stock in Graystone Industries plummeted, Amanda lost her job (or resigned?) at the hospital, plus was physically harassed, and Daniel was pummeled to a bloody pulp by Sam. Being beaten up by Sam was more than a wake up call for him. At that point I think the possibility of his daughter being part of the STO and their violent agenda became more real to him.
The Adamas had an interesting juxtaposition in this episode. On the one hand, you have Joseph desperately trying to reconnect with his lost daughter and wife, but so horribly neglecting his living son that he doesn’t even notice when his gangster brother begins to corrupt his impressionable young mind. Sam, on the other hand, is more in his element. Making people pay is what he did for a living. He lived outside the law, practiced “Tauron” justice (eye for an eye, blood for blood, etc., etc.) and was very good at his job. He took Willie under his wing because he cared about him and didn’t want to see him left forgotten in the corner during his father’s grief.
Joseph’s reaction to Tamara’s avatar going missing was possibly one of the few irrational and spur-of-the-moment decisions he has ever made. Unlike his brother, he’s made it his business to act as Caprican as possible. Though he owed his career and education to the Tauron mafia, the Ha’la’tha, he didn’t use their tactics to fight his fights. He believed in justice. That all went out the window thanks to Zoe-A’s mission of Helpfullness with Tamara’s avatar. Blood for Blood, his mother-in-law told him, and that’s what he requested of Sam.
Sam is quickly becoming my favorite character. I can see how a lot of what he teaches Willie bears fruit in the future, after the Fall, when civility is just a veneer. He is an interesting man; he obviously cares deeply for his family roots and his husband Larry, but he’s brutal and blunt. You can tell he’s trying to approach the subject of Joseph’s grief as delicately as possible, but is becoming fed up with him. Sam is Tauron; he’s proud, and he probably exemplifies what it means to be Ha’la’tha. He knows who and what he is–now if he could make that rub off on his brother…fewer problems.
