End of Line

Last night was the last new Caprica episode for several months, and was mostly a strong one. But the main thing that didn't work about it -- other than the "can we please retire the XX Hours Earlier cliché from television writing for a while?" plot structure -- was that it was overstuffed. You see that a lot on television too; Caprica is hardly alone in it. They want to leave as many open threads for their cliffhanger as possible, so the writers slow down the pacing of the plot for a few episodes leading up to that ultimate episodes, and then find themselves with more than a mere 45 minutes can hold. Most of the weaknesses in the plot lines this week were a consequence of not having enough time to let them breathe.

It's a weird place to start, but since I mentioned "leaving as many open threads as possible," let me begin by saying that I'm honestly surprised they showed Clarice Willow alive and well outside her car after the bomb detonated, as opposed to trying to play the "is she dead?" beat. Even though obviously, she wouldn't be dead, this understanding that the audience is smarter than "that" doesn't always keep TV writers -- even the good ones -- from trying to play such beats.

Actually, I'm interested to see where they pick up this thread with Sister Clarice upon the series' return, because it seems to me the most rich scenario, from a writing perspective, is to say that she stopped and got out of the car, while her husband in the passenger seat did not, and is now dead. I think it would be fascinating to show how people in a group marriage deal with the death of one of the spouses, and particularly interesting to see where it takes the character of Clarice.

But then, perhaps the writers chose not to leave us in doubt about Clarice's fate because they'd rung that narrative bell plenty when it came to Amanda and Zoe. In regards to Amanda, I know I said just a few weeks earlier that it felt natural to learn she'd had mental problems. Paradoxically, it felt to me that learning this week that she'd been suicidal was just a writing convenience to get us to the final moment. The quick flashes of her former suicide attempt were a nice bit of visual poetry, but I feel they would have been more effective and "earned" if they'd been peppered in an episode or two in advance of now, when they were needed. I can accept pushing Amanda to attempt another suicide for narrative reasons, and I think I accept it as part of the character too; I just feel like maybe that knowledge that this was where the character was heading could have better informed what we saw of Amanda over the whole season thus far. It could have made the impact here stronger.

It sucks being Zoe. She finally comes clean with Philomon about her true identity, but (understandably) he doesn't live up to his pledge that "what she looks like doesn't matter." And then? She accidentally kills him! I'd even go so far as to say it was her only real connection, because while Lacy knows her secrets too, the two aren't really sailing smoothly themselves at the moment. Zoe wasn't enjoying any relaxing moments on a floating virtual bed with Lacy -- and I don't even mean anything romantic or sexual about that. Philomon was the one person with which Zoe came closest to relaxing and enjoying herself, despite her predicament, and she killed him. Rough times for her.

Plus the whole exploding van thing at the end.

The Lacy plot was a bit of a mixed bag. That final conundrum where she was forced to commit an assassination or watch her friend be executed before being murdered herself -- that was pretty good (though I feel the real trauma of that situation might have been a bit beyond the actress' skills to fully portray). But with only one past episode featuring the Barnabas character, I don't think the feud between him and Clarice was really earned. I have no idea why they hate each other so much, or what they're truly fighting over. In fact, my memory may be failing me, because I don't even remember seeing that weird flier with the infinity bike chain in a previous episode. I think it was a cut scene, wedged into the re-cap when the creators realized, "hey, we actually shouldn't have cut this after all; we kind of need it now." This plot line will grow stronger if they round out Barnabas as they've rounded out Clarice. Until then, it's just generic mustache twirling.

Daniel honestly didn't get much to do this week. His timetable got pushed up on him, but this wasn't really done to play any new character moments with him; it was simply to give the "why all this must happen NOW" to this week's escape attempt by the Zoe robot. Still, Daniel had very strong material in the last couple episodes, and as I said -- this hour was overstuffed. Somebody had to sit out, I suppose.

That leaves Joseph Adama. He only really had one scene, but it was a big one. He found his daughter, only to lose her all over again. And in a pretty horrible way, too -- she "killed herself" right in front of him. Worse, even if he should have some reason to doubt her death, he's now dead himself in the "New Cap City" game; he can't go back in to look for her again. We didn't get to see the really meaty stuff -- the fallout of all this. Still, it will be a good place to pick up Adama's story when the show returns.

So there we leave it. I have to say that Caprica isn't amazing me at this point as Battlestar Galactica was by halfway through its first season, but perhaps that's an unreasonably high standard. I am enjoying it overall, and certainly don't think Stargate Universe (even though it is stronger than Atlantis, which it replaced) is going to be a good substitution while Caprica is on break.

Maybe I'll (gasp) read a book instead.