Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Love Is The Last Light Spoken
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 01.04.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Well, that's proof that great direction and acting can redeem bad writing. Even terrible writing. Even writing from the WGA-nominated team that brought you Tomb Raider. And to be fair, the tone-deaf dialogue itself smoothed out about halfway through. But I have never been able to understand why it is that people on science fiction shows always talk like they're on science fiction shows. Or why this show, which is usually so much better than that, doesn't mind lowering the bar every now and again.
Anyway, fun episode, with as many twists and turns as we've come to expect. Olaf, Clarice and Nestor are like 24 hours away from their plan to blow up that stadium, which apparently was a serious plan. Since they're the only ones with Zoë's program currently, I guess it makes sense to move forward. Of course now that Jordan's got burnt by the Agency, he has nothing to lose, and sends Amanda in with a fake holoband.
Of course Amanda has no idea trading them will put her in possession of Apotheosis/Grace, but Jordan gets shot by a GDD sniper -- and she takes him to see DOC COTTLE -- she knows it's only a minute before they notice the traded bands it's about five seconds to realize that Amanda was the mole, Mar-Beth was innocent, and they are all wife-killers. Killers of wives. Of course Clarice and Amanda are both super conflicted about the fight they're about to have, but when crazy meets crazy only awesome can result.
An old terrorist buddy -- And one-time Joseph mistress! Named Fiddy Cent! -- reappears to comb the Graystone Ind. books for possible Cylon-skimming, confirming that the Guatrau is blatantly supporting the Playboy Dictator. Looking for other ways to help the cause (and remove the threat of Tamara-A and the very famous Avenging Angels to Joe's shaky sanity), Sam agrees to help Daniel and Amanda -- in their best shearling Brokeback gear -- get to Tower Avenging, where Tamara has just installed a possible dragon. (Also, the best McCreary since Amanda's Theme, recalling "Violence & Variations" and the Opera House variations.)
Meanwhile, over on Gemenon -- which appears to be closer to Caprica than our moon is to us -- Lacy interrupts materiel training to prove she's the Dragonlady of Pern apparently. All the robots are in love with her and would rather listen to her than even the people they're programmed to obey. Odin -- interrupted mid-climax during a Tantric session with pretend-Lacy, if you're not squicked enough yet -- goes with her to visit her new army of killer friends, smokes her out with his ingenious fake-pistol pipe, and then they make out and it's awesome. Too bad Pope Meg has decided that Lacy needs to die. On the other hand: Robot army. Maybe she'll get to see Heaven after all.
Next week: No idea, silly. I'm writing this last November.
What are people saying about your favorite shows and stars right now? Find out with Talk Without Pity, the social media site for real TV fans. See Tweets and Facebook comments in real time and add your own -- all without leaving TWoP. Join the conversation now!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We're going to overlook the ass-horrible dialogue in this episode because I don't have time to get angry right now. Suffice to say that when science fiction starts sounding like science fiction, I -- and much of the rest of your fellows in neurotypical America -- check the fuck out. But hey, good thing all that whoring to the lowest common denominator got the show renewed, huh?
Anyway, the Angels are putting the finishing touches on the former NCC, which is now paradise. All it needs -- apparently -- is a castle and a dragon. No, I'm not kidding. An actual dragon*. Try and get a teenage girl to do a God's job and you will be putting up with some dragons, I suppose.**
*(Which even though it's Tamara's idea here, it'll later be ascribed to Zoë, because she was a Pern fan, which is an intense in-joke having to do with Ron Moore's history of development hell but also about every single one of us, don't lie, and which series was on Caprica called Dragonfighters Of Kobol. Which in my opinion would have been funnier still if they'd followed BSG conceit and it were called something like "Pernion," or "Pernprica," or my pernsonal*** favorite, "Pernis." I'm sure all of these were discussed and ruled out, because they didn't have time to follow up on this horribly absurd idea, because they were too busy having people say queer bullshit like, "Our fortress is complete!" and "I tried to flush her out by exploiting her fear of fire!")
**(And ain't that shit the truth.)
***(Sorry.)
Daniel's got the beasts purring down in his lab, showing off the "digital architecture of New Cap City," to which of course he has backdoor access because he is Bill Gates and has access to your personal shit and also to "any virtual worlds" that might be created within it. "My eyes are everywhere!" he says, and then notes some moving Neocode where Zoë (and Tamara, not that she exists from this point forward as far as we're concerned, not even in the coda) is messing with nature and building castles and your whatnot.
The Graystones muddle about protesting that each of them was more abusive to their daughter than the other; Amanda's all upset because she slapped her the day she blew up, and Daniel kind of stammers and talks about the time he tortured the robot with fire and it was super gross, and way worse than the slapping. (Which we all know she deserved.) It's nice to hear him admit how awful that was, because it was maybe the nastiest thing that's happened on this show, but he leaves out the part where it was a pissing contest that Zoë pretty much totally won, which made it also kind of awesome. With their daughter's dead burnt robot body lying on a table across the room, Amanda bitchslaps him in turn and he's like, "Valid." I love these two so very much.