Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Three Faces Of Dawn
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 18 | Aired on 01.04.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Clarice and Olaf hoof it away from the debacle at the Graystones' house, running into GDD Director Singh and learning that he's their mole. That must make you feel great -- you think you're all super-stealth at avoiding the FBI and then the FBI is like, "I've been changing your diapers this whole time." Anyway, onward to Apotheosis, martyring several folks and murdering hundreds of thousands more just after tip-off at Atlas Arena. Olaf is shocked, somehow, to learn that yeah, Clarice and God have had a little talk and it turns out blowing herself up is actually not on the menu.
Fidelia comes by Willie's wake to apologize for killing a child, and Sam pistol-whips her because that's how he rolls, but then somehow Joe and Fiddy come up with a plan to meet with her dad the Guatrau in the Matrix, where they'll both be safe from further recriminations. Um, except Fiddy is actually in on the plan to kill the Guatrau because of his shitty politics, and in fact everybody is in on this plan except of course her dad, but so now she's the new Guatrau.
Singh frames the Graystones for the maglev bombing, but when he comes to arrest them Cyrus pulls a gun on him so they can go on the lam wearing fabulous outfits. (Amanda continues to bond with Zoë in the Matrix whenever she gets a spare second or two.) They find the Resurrection holoband in the park where Jordan dropped it mid-dying, and Daniel figures out the whole Apotheosis plan in like five seconds, so then they run around trying to warn everybody while being on the run themselves, and Singh keeps Porky Pigging all over their shit.
The Graystones track down Mean Sexy Hobbit from the Philomon days and get Daniel control over a squadron of Cylon Marines. Which he sets down in the middle of the Atlas Arena, where they start shooting guns into the crowd to take out the STO martyrs. It is B-A-N-A-N-A-S and in the end, everybody decides that the Graystones and Cylons are pretty awesome after all, compared to the Monads, and then Jar-Jar Binks authorizes an army of clones or whatever and so now everybody has Cylon servants.
Zoë has fucking had it with Clarice's bullshit so she just randomly decides to go destroy Heaven, reasoning that if people know they'll automatically go to Heaven they won't ever learn self-control (aka The Gaius Baltar Guide To Teenage Popularity). Clarice is super happy to see her, but also distracted because she's in Heaven and has no idea how Cylons are in her arena killing her d00dz, so she's like, "I'm so glad you're here to see how awesome I am being right now." Zoë does her clenching Neo thing and pretty soon Heaven looks a lot like the inside of a volcano and Zoë is screaming awesome shit like "I AM GOD!"
Then the screen goes THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, and everything is super intense as you see basically the entire show that should have happened, from here to skinjobs, and what's up. Firstly there is Evelyn's son Billy Adama, named after his dead brother -- Taurons! Are! Gross! -- and wearing some fake-as-hell blue contacts. The Drs. Graystone spend years working on a Terminator-type nearly human metal body for Zoë, which provides for some neat Resurrection tub imagery, and all over the Twelve Worlds there are Cylon butlers and dogwalkers and nannies. It's kind of cute except for how everybody is gonna die in about a hot minute.
The Cylons also go to church, and just guess who is in charge of Cylon Church calling them "the differently sentient" and asking very meaningful-to-us questions like, "Are you alive?" I think that's where I started crying, anyway. Clarice, finally embracing her destiny as the Sarah Palin of Cylons, visits the new Blessed Mother -- Lacy Rand! -- for an alliance in the name of Cylontology, in which Zoë is also involved and which is sort of a terrible idea in that all movements that cater to the "you're so downtrodden" crowd end up with a bunch of guaranteed bullshit somewhere on a spectrum from Jesus to Hitler. No news on Tamara or whatever happens to Zoë in the end, but once Clarice starts preaching about how the Cylons should totally revolt and kill all humans you sort of just want to get the hell out of there.
Excellent series, excellent finale, and a wonderful coda. Can't really ask for more, I guess. Except for people to be less lazy about their television viewing, but I realize that's asking a lot. And hey, there's always Battlestar Galactica: Explosions & Tits to look forward to.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Team Willow is having a collective conniption, after the bloodbath that was Operation Graystone. Now they've lost Nestor and the holoband is still inside. They fight well into the night, afraid to go home. Nestor keeps the mainframes in their fishtanks, so they don't overheat. They can come to the computers and figure something out. Even without the avatar program, they still have to do something. Don't they? Gara Singh approaches, like a thief in the night, scaring the daylights out of them until he tells them his true name: Arvo, the confessor.
"We'll be wearing these heart monitors in the arena," Olaf explains once they're home. "When the explosion cuts the circuits, the avatars will automatically upload into the Heaven construct." Which might work, if the Graystones don't blow their spot with the demo they've got on the holoband. Singh doesn't care if the GDD notices he's rerouted anything with the keywords Graystone and Atlas Arena to his phone: He'll be well offworld by the time the game begins.
Clarice suggests that he go ahead and murder the Graystones before he leaves, since she couldn't quite manage it -- between her love of Amanda, Daniel's insane conversion speech, and the attack by a giant robot -- but he tells her to chill and stop telling him how to do his job. "I have 4,712 agents who would throw themselves under a bus if I commanded it. The world believes Zoë Graystone blew up the Maglev train. Well, it turns out she was taking orders from her parents." Clarice is impressed. It's an uncomfortable look on her.
Daniel's got all of Graystone cleaning up the place, logging and scrubbing and reconfiguring; Cyrus doesn't want to call the cops until the lawyers arrive. Which ones did he call? Oh, all of them. Cyrus, that sense of humor he's got. Daniel's very touchy when they get close to the robot, of course; the other main thing going on is that he is going entirely after the STO, buying their companies and politicians and lobbies and assets. "I want every toy they own bought, stolen, or smashed." About time you brought the hammer, smartest and richest guy in the Twelve Worlds. Tomas would be proud.
In the dreamhouse Amanda and Zoë try to figure out why the Willows were so all about the holoband, but it's no good. "Whatever it is, original Zoë didn't want me knowing about it. I have these holes in my memory, these gaps. The day I was created, she said that I had a destiny separate from hers. I think she was trying to protect me from whatever she was planning." She gets very nervous and apologetic, this new and darling daughter, but Amanda is terribly sweet with her. "It's just so frustrating, being in this place and having all this power, and then in the real world I'm nothing but some stupid, broken robot?" Amanda holds her new daughter tight, to chase her tears away. "It's not your fault. Sweetheart, without you, your dad and I would be dead. Come on."