Things We Lock Away

This week, Caprica continued its frustrating blend of good and bad, satisfying and just plain confusing.

In the plus column was that fantastic final confrontation between Daniel and Vergis. Vergis' speech about choosing death was chilling, and him forcing Daniel to wield the knife was a great cap to the episode.

Another great scene came only a bit earlier as Amanda and Clarice had their conversation at the Graystone house. It was fun to see and hear both of them cloaking their hidden agendas -- Amanda to try and get an invitation to Clarice's house, Clarice to try and get Zoe's missing pendant. Isn't subtext fun?

I also liked the thwarted expectations over the long-anticipated reunion of Zoe and Tamara. Not a happy moment at all; why wouldn't Tamara be enraged at Zoe for her current hellish predicament? And speaking of hellish, it was powerful to see the brutal beating of Zoe in the arena. The inability to die was hardly a blessing in that situation.

But then there were moments of confusion which detracted from the whole. Wasn't Clarice's husband Nestor killed in that car bomb in the mid-season finale? Okay, I'll give you the bait-and-switch with Amanda being alive when it seemed she was dead, but to do it again with this other character? Particularly when that character's death might have served to explain a little of why Clarice has gone so ballistic lately? Or am I completely misremembering things from that mid-season finale? (It has been nearly eight months, after all.)

Then there was the flashback showing the real Zoe working on her program to create the Avatar Zoe. That might have been a fun moment, except that I found it rather hopelessly muddled by the decision to have her inspiration come from the previously unseen "Imaginary Friend Zoe." I mean, I get that there were three separate incarnations of Zoe in these scenes. But was there no better narrative technique to more deftly tell the story besides piling doppelgangers on top of doppelgangers? Who literally talks to themselves when they talk to themselves?

And still, when is Joseph Adama going to become a meaningful presence on this show again?

I don't find myself liking Caprica any less from week to week, but neither am I pulling any closer to it. It remains steadfastly shy of being great, but just interesting enough to keep me watching. I wish it were otherwise.