By Jacob
Sooo good! Okay, it's been some amount of weeks since they put Zoë in her robot body, and now everybody at Graystone is flipping out because they can't seem to duplicate the process with any other robot bodies. They have robots, but without that sparkle -- or the weird REM-cycle RoboCop shit she's been going through while getting control of herself. Among those troubled by this are two hot Graystone hobbits, one good and one evil, who are totally fascinated by the Zoëbot and one of whom might be mutually crushing on it. Daniel takes her home to work on her, but can't make much headway, and Amanda talks about how ugly she is. Oh, and she bites off one hobbit's finger Gollum-style for getting too familiar with her body, which is totally satisfying.
And all of which is a lot more interesting if you know that visually, she's Zoë most of the time, as far as we can see. It starts as a subjective little trick, moves through overused device, and right on into awesome conceit, with some really striking visuals in there -- like Lacy embracing Zoë and being hugged in turn by her giant killer robot self, or the hobbits tying down a thrashing robot who becomes a little girl. It's super intense both ways, and works in ways you probably never considered.
Meanwhile, just about everything goes batshit insane. Gay uncle Sam takes Willie skiving off on Tauron schul so that he can teach him the way of the gangsta, how to be generally awesome and dick the cops over, what people get when they don't pay their protection money, and also how to sociopathically manipulate his dad. That part was the most shocking and the most awesome.
Lacy goes to lunch at Sister Clarice's house, where we learn that she is married to about six other people, men and women, who include Scott Porter, who played my favorite character (and second favorite Six ever) on Friday Night Lights. The rest of us live on Caprica, but Clarice is inventing Amsterdam all on her hot MILFy own. There's some kind of agenda there that seems really creepy and complicated, but all I know is that the husband, Nestor, is way too hot to be that close to a borderline tween like Lacy. The family agrees, accuses her of trying to seduce Lacy through their college-age hubbie, and so Clarice heads off down to the hookah bar, where she gets her opium on and watches the big memorial service for the victims of the bomb.
Where Amanda Graystone, heretofore mostly a stoic figure, realizes that all of Agent Duram's not-so-sensitive questions about Zoë's boyfriend Ben (whom Amanda never knew about) and Zoë's total being a terrorist in a cult (which Amanda would prefer not to know about) are pretty on target. So good old Amanda looks around herself and says, "You know what this public mourning ceremony is really lacking is me throwing a fucking riot" and then screams about how her daughter was in a cult and a terrorist and killed everybody's family that is there, causing everybody to flip out. And just like that, Amanda Graystone became amazing.
Watch full episodes and video clips, then check back soon for Jacob's full detailed recap.