By Jacob
How much Lacy and Clarice in this episode? Zero. Zero much. No Nestor, shirt-wearing or otherwise. No Philo, dancing or otherwise. One scene of Amanda, where she's giving Daniel a pep talk. One scene of Zoë, which we'll discuss in a sec. So what happened in this episode? Lots of special effects, mostly, and Adamas mourning/turning awesome, the resolution of the "Willie Is Led Astray" arc, and Daniel pulling yet another clutch move.
Tamara has spent however long wandering around the Matrix looking for a way out of there, and rumor brings her eventually to this totally intense old lady-mobster who loves Russian Roulette and playing New Cap City, which is essentially GTA crossed with a cartoon FDR world. She and her cute young helper guy use Tamara's inability to die to win cash in the game, but after a heist goes wrong and Tamara learns that she can control the Matrix with her magical brain, she sort of stops doing what people tell her and becomes way awesome instead.
After Joe finally finds out about Willie's new Thug Life -- and sees his dear little son brain some guy's face in with a huge rock for acting racist -- he pull it together long enough to give Tamara and Shannon their funeral, and thus their family the closure that they need. There's a really beautiful Tauron ceremony involving tattoos. But since it's Joe Adama, who will never once get a break, that scab is immediately yanked once again by Tamara's gamer BF, who shows up at the house ranting about how Tamara needs help and then runs off the second Joe explains to him the obvious truth, that she's dead.
Meanwhile, Daniel is in huge trouble with the board for his stunt on Sarno, but after a rallying convo with Amanda, ends up with a whole new business plan: Instead of manufacturing holobands for entertainment, why not create a slave race of Cylons that will do your total bidding and never get tired? What begins as an adorable father/daughter act becomes just incredibly sad when Daniel orders Zoë to rip her own arm off. Yeah, I can't imagine how doing shit like that for grins would ever lead to the total apocalypse.