Last week ’s sequence of Caprica , “ The Imperfections of Memory , ” confirmed my sensory faculty that this show is n’t about sinewy Graystones vs. immigrant Adamas . or else it ’s about a futuristic cyborg , Zoe , vs. a crazy homemaker , Amanda . This is both awesome and frustrating .
First , the awesome . Every episode , I wait anxiously to see the next chapter in Zoe ’s struggle to visualize out who she is , when her knowingness live only within technical body .
Zoe is the computer genius daughter of Daniel Graystone , who produce the holoband , got rich , and is now prove to shift his company ’s stage business model to cylon warriors . Before she was killed in the terrorist maglev bombing , Zoe created a virtual , sentient version of herself who survive in v - world , which is essentially the web for holobands . We never know exactly what Zoe had planned for her matching , but it had something to do with her monotheistic religious opinion and her desire to reform the hedonistic , violent civilisation of five - world . Now all that ’s leave of Zoe is her sentient incarnation , who was force into the body of a cylon by her father . She hold the cylon body , and can beam herself wirelessly into v - world whenever she wants .
Last week , we saw a fresh side of Zoe : She ’s starting to have feeling for her Father-God ’s assistant , a roboticist nominate Philomon who has always treated her cylon body with respect – and who wield to compute out that she ’s a “ she ” not an “ it . ” dissemble to be a geek named Rachel , Zoe makes a appointment with Philo in fivesome - world . She ’s hop to fudge him into taking her cylon organic structure out of doors , so she can escape her Father-God ’s lab . But she ’s also clearly warming to Philo , especially in the scene above where they mouth about generative algorithm and then make out . ( good eccentric snogging view ever , by the way . )
Zoe has essentially become superpowered , but she ’s also under her sire ’s control more than ever . What ’s brilliant about the way Caprica writers have handled her character is that we get these seamlessly blended chronicle of a young woman trying to hold independency from her father , and a cylon strain to escape from her creator . As a woman and a golem , Zoe react her father ’s design for stilted liveliness : He wants to create slaves , and she wants to create a young guild of moral animal .
Ultimately , Zoe ’s story arc is also associated with the most exciting , fresh elements of Caprica . Her mad engineering discoveries about how to create an embodiment are also responsible for the parentage of Tamara , the avatar version of Joseph Adama ’s utter daughter . Tamara ’s journey to the top of the trashheap in New Cap City is my current favorite subplot . While avatar Tamara is transformed into a badass by the violent videogame polish Zoe wanted to eradicate , Zoe ’s good ally Lacy is extend badass in the real world . In rescript to rescue Zoe ’s cylon eubstance and deliver it to Gemenon , she ’s going to become an STO terrorist – and I think she ’s headed for a confrontation with freaky , ego - flagellating STO leader Barnabus .
What I ’m saying is that every theatrical role touched by Zoe ’s genius becomes more badass . Even Philo is about to arise some awesomeness , now that he ’s fall in erotic love with a cylon . Zoe ’s part allow us as spectator to think about how human identity could change – and not alter – as we conflate more and more with our sound machines . She ’s a science fabrication quality par excellency , with relatable human failings and bizarre futurist trouble that amplify our intellect .
But here is where my frustration come in . While Zoe takes Caprica ’s tale in an original , exciting counsel , her mother Amanda ’s character arc drags it back down into easy lay opera cliche . Even though she ’s supposed to be a luxuriously - powered doc , the first thing she does after Zoe dies is blurt out that her daughter was the terrorist who blew up the maglev gear . Which of form smash her family ’s business sector , causes her to lose said high - powered job , and ( high-risk of all ) makes her seem unhinged in a predictable , boring way . In a humankind where women become cyborgs and videogame queen , I ’m not that concerned in watching a weepy , unhinged noblewoman deal with how heavy it is to be a racy woman of the house who has lost her problem due to her own stupidity .
In last week ’s instalment , she started throw sight of her dead crony and doing drugs with STO fanatic Clarice , who just desire to utilise Amanda to find Zoe ’s avatar . There was a farseeing scene of Amanda shake and cry and smoking up and include to Clarice that she had go completely crazy after her brother pass . She was in a mental institution for several long time , and now she seems headed back there . Meanwhile , Clarice is the perfect toxicant protagonist who seems to think Amanda ’s demented is in reality a visual modality from God .
Amanda ’s character becomes more pathetic and uninteresting as the show progress . Perhaps she ’s supposed to provide a counterpoint to the high - tech v - world hallucinations with her homegrown hallucinations ? Maybe her struggle to find oneself a God she can hope is supposed to give a human human face to the calculated political mania of the STO ? The problem is that we ’ve realise the weepy , rich homemaker character too many time before , in too many melodrama . It ’s hard to do something original with a fibre like that .
Possibly the only part of Amanda ’s character which I find intriguing is the agency she constantly remarks on how horrible and horrible the Zoe cylon is , without understand that she ’s insult her girl . There ’s a kind of spitefulness to her character that environ true , and I ’d opt to see the show following up on that part of her identity rather than sending her down the easy - out cony hole of insanity / visionary whatever .
So how could Caprica alleviate my frustration , and that of many looker who have said that the Clarice / Amanda subplot is their least front-runner ? One way would be to have Amanda ’s breakdown befall mostly offscreen . There ’s an obvious justification for her breakdown , and we do n’t need to see it unfurling in detail to trust it . Another room to go would be to give her ulterior motives that are less - than - pure . Have her apply her abbreviated media renown after the maglev incident to get her own Sarno - comparable show which is modeled on the early Oprah show . In other words , permit Amanda become as bet as her husband Daniel is . Sure she ’s sad about Zoe death , but it turns out to be the best thing that ’s ever happened to her as a public figure .
Ultimately what I ’m aver is that Caprica seems separate between offering us awesome characters in new situations , and frustrating characters in cliched situations . The awesomeness outweighs the frustration by far , but still I bear out the hope that the show ’s writer will manoeuvre us aside from the fertile housewife weepery and back into the tale where women control the future with brains and high - technical school superpowers .
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