This Friday on “Caprica” ep 07: “The Imperfections of Memory”

well I liked this episode better than the rest. It had just enough Zoe in it to keep me interested.
I liked all the scenes with Zoe and the tech I find avatar zoe to be the one likable person? in this thing. The Tech isn't bad either.
So Amanda was crazy, SHOCKER! how long before her and Clair start doing it?

I liked the dog also. I have no use for new cap city or anything that is going on there just filler as far as I'm concerned. I see no way Tamara's old man even survived in that environment.

Lacy is somewhat of a non entity. even when she shows up she seems very forgettable not sure why that is for me but that's how she comes across.

Once again though the did have a nice ender when Daniel looked at the robot and it finally dawned on him who was in there.
watchable...I give this one 7 downed vipers on the Caprica scale.

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This Friday on “Caprica” ep 07: “The Imperfections of Memory”

The dog gave her up leave it to our four legged friends to figure out iZoe is the real Zoe. Now Daniel knows what he will do with the information. Amada seems to have a tragic past the death of her brother has left her mentally ill. Two years in a mental hospital to recover from seeing her dead brother run around. I guess the death of Zoe has brought back her symptoms. Joseph has a vguide what will be her price to help him find his daughter. Who knows? Apparently iZoe intends to use Dr. Phil to get her out of the lab so she can escape to Geminon. I’m back on track this episode had me thinking the whole way, the dead brother has got me curious hope they just don’t drop him and move on to something else next week. Seven on the vworld scale.

Okay, only one new element introduced this week – Amanda’s late brother Darius and her bout with insanity as a result of his death. The rest of it was moving other storylines forward, but at a frustratingly slow pace. But I did stop to appreciate the theme and background music, as well as the graphics in the theme. I’ve liked them before, but never stopped to mention it.

Clarice – finds out that Zoe’s avatar was not on Graystone’s computer, but once was. She wants to find her avatar because Zoe is “the Mother of Life Everlasting.” Does she believe she’s some kind of scriptural fulfillment, perhaps? I know they’ve called her Sister Clarice in previous episodes, but until someone referred to her as being “of the cloth” I didn’t make the connection that she was supposedly a nun. She certainly does not have a lifestyle like one. When she talks about her god, she says we were created in his image, must trust in him, and other things we say in our religion, but again her lifestyle contradicts our religion – so there is no relationship. It’s just a created religion in an imaginary world.

I also noted that the Soldiers of the One are immediately associated in conversation with terrorism. So, is everyone who believes in just one god automatically a terrorist or is the STO just a splinter group, like “radical Islam” is to peaceful, regular practicing Islamists?

Clarice isn’t even careful among her own group. She gives away a bottle of ambrosia of which only 11 exist in all the 12 worlds. Surely she could have given Amanda something less valuable to get her tongue wagging. Amanda seemed so enamored of Clarice after their drinking session, I was half-expecting them to start having sex. Interesting that when Clarice tells Amanda to trust in one god, Amanda asks “which one should I trust”, confirming madp’s commentary about multiple vs. single gods a couple of episodes back.

Joseph – finds Tod/Heracles and makes him escort him to New Cap City. Whereas last time it was populated with lots of characters, now all we see are deserted streets which you can’t seem to even walk on without being shot at. Tod bites the dust and is now out of the game forever. Joseph finds an ally in Emanuelle, a friend of Tod’s, who takes over as his guide. It was nice to hear Tod officially referred to as Heracles; someone might have done that before, but I didn’t catch it. I knew that name only by his on-screen credit. By the way, I just watched episode 6 of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and now know for sure that young William Adama is indeed destined to grow up to be the commander of BG. They may have mentioned the Commander’s first name in a previous episode, but this was the first time I actually caught it.

Lacy – continues trying to help Zoe get transported to Geminon. I liked how when Lacy said she wouldn’t let Avatar Zoe down, Zoe gave her “the look” and she replied that she may have let “original Zoe” down, but she hadn’t let her down yet. Of course if she hadn’t let original Zoe down, she’d now be as dead as original Zoe and no one would be going to Geminon. She’s willing to join the STO to help, despite Keon’s warning that doing that “is a big deal.”

Zoe – dates Philo again, who has the brilliant idea to set them in separate fighter planes. So they almost crash and burn, but instead bond after bailing out. Zoe wants the virtual world to be more like the real world – a reference to that “afterlife we can see and touch” referred to last week. Phil then gets an idea from her as to why the MCP can’t be copied, which he passes along to Daniel. Daniel, who was told by Tomas that their MCP never worked, then makes the connection that Zoe’s avatar is in the Cylon machine.

So a slow-moving episode, but at least it’s moving forward some. I was going to give it a six, but one world spoken by Daniel at the end (“Zoe?”) raised it to 7 bottles of rare ambrosia.

One last thought: Philo was seen pursing his lips comically while giving Zoe a virtual kiss in the V-world. One can only imagine how ridiculous a person would look having virtual sex. Those holobands should only be worn when you’re safely behind locked doors.

Jig's up. Daddy knows. Betrayed by the most loyal of all companions. The family dog. Also by his connecting dots from the technical ideas Philo had somehow gotten in a virtual make-out session.

Half expected Daniel to have a more visceral reaction than that to his young adult tech making out with his teenaged daughter's avatar. Had Joseph caught him kissing Tamara's avatar, he might have even gotten Sam in on the Hell to pay.

When he sat down at the piano to "wake up" his young assistant, I don't know why I was expecting the signature phrase from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in chords. Probably would have been even better than what he did play for the purpose.

Gotta wonder what the whole Joseph and Tamara storyline is building up to, but it absolutely has to be leading somewhere.

So Amanda's in an exceptionally vulnerable and unstable mindset, now. I wonder when she'll start chasing hallucinations of Zoe around into God-knows-what places and situations.

Clarice needs to be more careful. She basically betrayed her monotheism to Amanda, who clearly equates it with the STO who got to her daughter who is dead as a result. Treacherous footing there for sure.

I give this episode 7 generative processes.

___________

I'd've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.

Why are people talking about this horrid cheesy show still?

Yes it's a good story but dragged out thirty times as long as it should be and it's dated. Very very dated. It's like watching Dark Shadows.

AMANDA'S ANNOYING STORY ACTUALLY ENDED WELL FOR THE VIEWERS

I don't like Amanda. As a wife, she's the kind that nags. (Even though she's been quite supportive of Daniel lately, but she nags Ray Donovan (2013) a lot!) As a mother, she complains. Like Skyler Whie in Breaking Bad (2008). And she's incompetent to take pictures, even with a futuristic camera. (Don't those things have any kind of motion stabilizers?). Amanda still grieves. Amanda cries. (Pull yorself together, woman!)

I think they simply didn't need this whole Amanda's "I see dead people" new angle the writers simply put out of their arses.

(On a side note, Amanda throws in a well known BSG axiom: "All of this has happened before, and it will happen again." Not sure how that applies to her preset situation though.)

OK, so Amanda's instability had a starting point, a specific reason, the accident that took her brother's life. Which is kinda OK to have a specific origin. The problem is that it's too much. The same character lost her daughter and brother under very tragic circumstances? What is she? A Kennedy? Even though that sort of thing happens in real life, in fiction it seems overkill. I'd much rather know that Amanda had a history of mental instability in the family, was institutionalized, but not because of tragic external reasons. Again.

However, I did like the way all that story line ended. Enter Sister Clarice, a "person of the cloth." Clarice is not likable, but she's one of the best villains I've seen lately. So devious, like the Serpent in the Garden. Anyway, back to the story line conclusion, that could be a MAJOR TURNING POINT! Amanda was all intoxicated, putting her heart out when all of a sudden Clarice blurted out about God's love and acceptance, and Amanda's face subtly changed. "Oh-oh... Monotheist talk alert! Waitaminnit! Which god are you talking about lady?"

Clarice finally let her guard down and showed her true colors. And Amanda has been fighting against STO all this time. This revelation has got to have consequences in the future.


CLARICE AND AMANDA SITTING IN THE TREE...

I loved the "Amanda is Zoe's mother and Zoe is the mother of life everlasting" thing. Clarice has a very sharp mind and she's the only one who gets the real picture here and wants to make use ot that in her own benefit. Way to go plotting and scheming, Clar, even if she has to make-out with Amanda! Even if it costs Clarice a bottle of the rarest ambrosia. Methinks if there are only 11 bottles of it, at least one world doesn't have the delicacy.


WHAT DID CLARICE SWIPE ANYWAY? WHAT THE HECK IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANALOG AND DIGITAL AGAIN?

Clarice is informed the iZoe's avatar program was downloaded, but it wasn't... (?) Apparently part of it went to another device. (?) So they have it and they don't. OK, I have to know what the heck she downloaded exactly so this backup issue can be settled once and for all. Could we end with two iZoes running around after that? Not likely.

Meanwhile, Vergis alerts Daniel his MCP never worked, and, in an metallic nutshell, it's just an expensive paper weight. But Vergis didn't count on the iZoe factor. Like a body without a soul, I guess. And long story short, gotcha! iZoe's gets snitched by Hannnah the Dog, brilliantly played by Caesar the Dog.

(By the way, dogs never get treated the way they deserve in fiction. And now I'm thinking of Day Break's Rambis... Poor Rambis.)

And now Daniel is on to iZoe! He finally put two and two together. That was a very meaningful cliffhanger.

Anyway, these are some things we learned about the tech:

- A "generative module" would make each virtual tree (and by extent) each robot unique by starting from a single pattern and generating random individual changes. I'd already heard of something like this being used for landscape softwares like Terragen. i'm surprised Capricans didn't have that already.

- OK, with the generative module, each robot would be "unique, uncopiable" like a person because it would be analog (?). Maybe that's why the backup was not possible? Does this make any sense at all?

- A tiny difference would make the whole difference. It's analog. Now I'm really confused because I realized I was confusing "analog" with "hardware" and "digital" with "software" so I had to perform an extensive wikipedia research.

- But the MCP is obviously hardware, and iZoe's software. What could be analog there? As far as I know, for something to be analog, it has to measure something that changes its physical properties. Say a piece of metal inside the MCP expanded or contracted according to the impulses it received, and that would be unique for each MCP... Am I on to something there?

- Does this all make any sense at all? Engineers on call, please manifest yourselves!


ADVENTURES IN NEW CAP CITY

Heracles (Tad, for real-world friends) ended getting the short end of the stick and lost his favorite toy. Now he'll have to make do with real girls, poor thing. By the way, the actor who plays him, Richard Harmon, is also on Continuum (2012) and The 100 (2014), and in both he plays douchebags. He looks quite younger in Caprica, and after this show he seems to have been typecast as a douchebag. But then, with that punchable face, I would've seen that coming.

Anyway, I loved the previous New Cap City adventures. I thought that was one of the best things in the show. But Jseph's journey through this universe has been disappointing. He limits himself to running around deserted alleys shouting "Tamara, Tamara" like something out of a Tennessee Williams novel. Not much to do there. And that story line didn't even have a closure.

At least we learned that, for sure, people can't fly in non-fantasy VR. I'm glad they addressed that. I did bring it up last episode in regards to Second Life.


STOP BEING BOSSED AROUND, LACY!

Magda Apanowicz is also on Continuum (2012), a show I highly recommend. I think she's adorably cute and in Continuum, she's much more shapely, as she has clearly grown up in a good way.

Anyway, Lacy seems too mousey and meek. She's bossed around by iZoe, who keeps telling her to solve iZoe's problems. But I think Lacy has a lot of potential in the story. In the opening credits, she gets special attention and is shown "inheriting" the STO symbol from Clarice. And she's determined to help her friend and not let iZoe down, since she did let Zoe down... Tomato, tomoto, methinks, but she's trying.

At least I can say I'm really tired of smartass female characters with a lot of spunk with such an in-your-face "I'm strong and independent" attitude, because they all seem made from the same cookie-cutter feminist mold female protagonists are required to be made from these days. I like characters who start meek and gain their strength as the story progresses. So, I'll be patient with Lacy.


PHILO AND RACHEL, SO CUTE TOGETHER!

Awww... They're so cute together! They seem to be made for each other. isn't love beautiful? What could possibly go wrong there? It seems we're before a love affair that will grow until death do them part.

Daniel caught Philo "red-handed" again. I knew that was going to happen, the way Philo used the lab like his own private porn booth. Daniel must be a very tolerant boss, or Philo must be irreplaceable.


ALL IN ALL...

OK, at this point I'm not expecting Day Break (2006) anymore. Day Break was an action show with an overly complicated plot, while Caprica is a slow-burning drama, so we're not likely to see riveting action moments and game-chagers left and right. But we did have Clarice's monotheist reveal, the whole analog/digital uniqueness contextualization, and more cute scenes from Philo and iZoeRachel.

Considering the kind of show Caprica is, I think this one deserves 8 uniquely analog trees.