Vendetta
Days in Marking Hell are not fun but fortunately I take many short breaks. I eat cakes, drink tea, drop by on LJ to comment or post entry; or I watch tv shows on my laptop (not so short breaks then). Today I started with Caprica 1x06. Once again, the show didn't disappoint. I enjoyed immensely "Know Thy Enemy " even though I'm sure that many people would prefer the virtual action of "There is Another Sky". As usual, there was much suff in the episode.
The plot thickens, there are new players--and they are intriguing characters! --and ramifications that make everything more complicated than what it seemed, but what I prefer in the episode was the scenes filled with tension and the relationships between our grey characters. There was the obvious and the less obvious. It was a very good episode in terms of characters study. And for the first time I found Sister Clarice to be really interesting. And we got a lot of Daniel !!! What a precious show!
There's a rumour saying that a second season is in pre-production, if it's true I do hope that Eric Stoltz will stay aboard as Daniel for Caprica wouldn't be the same without him.
"Know thy enemy" introduced Clarice's foe, or rather her rival in the STO organization, Barnabus Greeley. BTW there's a conclave and many heads but the master tree isn't clear yet. We'd need a menu, unlike Joseph in the holoband world or so he says! :- )
It's interesting to see that there are already competing trends in that monotheism.
Clarice and Barnabus don't meet, but Keon takes Lacy to see the zealot played by James Marsters. Can we get rid of Keon now? I mean it's a boring character, or at least the actor is terrible at playing that minor character. I'm afraid that he will stick around though, since Barnabus asked him to find out about Lacy's mysterious cargo. Lacy is a good character but the more I see Keon the more I like Philomon!
The irony is that what Barnabus has refused to do, is exactly what Clarice would like to do, except that none of them knows it!
The Barnabus scenes were short but JM was good and made me want to know more about the new character. There was an interesting parallel between his self-mutilated arm (punk version of a cilice?)and what Daniel made the U-87 do last week. I'm sure that Keon thought that it looked painful! By the way the link was clearly suggested since the Greeley 's scene happened just after Daniel told Philomon to re-examine the Cylon's arm.
This B-plot was echoing the A-plot, the meetings and confrontation between Daniel Graystone and Tomas Vergis. Business is like war!
Somehow Vergis has found out that Daniel had the MCP stolen and it's vendetta time. He obviously doesn't know the part played by the Adama brothers. I guess he had an informant at Graystone Industry that told him that Daniel didn't have a MCP a few weeks ago, so when he discovered that his technology had been stolen and he heard about the defense contract he simply did the maths. I am still not convinced that Vergis cracked that technology on his own though...
I loved the museum scene opening with a moment of grace in the sunlight (Daniel and Amanda dancing, joking together about the C-Bucks' victory or her not being called "Terror Mom", smiling) and then turning dark as Daniel made out Vergis and left his wife to join him in the shadows. The shooting was excellent. Vergis' threatening presence gave the tone of the episode, foreshadowing the verbal threats/oath he would make in the ending scene.
Every Vergis/Graystone meeting was brilliant, conveying the tension between competiting businessmen while showing the contrast between the two men. They are both kind of ruthless but in very different way. Daniel is an aristocrat, slender and sophisticated, whereas Vergis does look like someone who can be the Gautrau's friend (the fact that I'm reading Ellory's A Quiet Vendetta is a nice coincidence). He behaves like a dangerous predator. On Sarno's he was charming like as a snake and his smiles and smoothness when talking to Daniel were snake-like too, but he is physically impressive. He is like a constrictor boa, or an anaconda. If we forget the carnivorous side, he mostly reminded me of a black buffalo. Buffaloes scare me. I loved the shot of him smoking in front of the window, while we could see ads in the buildings outside (very Blade Runner-ish!) showing Daniel Graystone. Daniel's face was smaller because of the perspective and it looked like Vergis was blowing him out along with the smoke.
Caprica is really stylish which I enjoyed. By the way the scene in which Daniel is haunted by the murders (pictures he imagines), that allowed him to get the MCP, was beautiful. It was perfect for a character who is always in control, so restrained, but whose imagination is vivid. And Eric knows how to chop vegetables (although I don't think it was his hands in the last shot, they can't risk the star's precious fingers)!
The meal Graystone and Vergis had together was also significant. The way Vergis eats meat was chilling. He looks civilized but he likes to eat with his fingers. There's something bestial and primal in that man. Daniel has always been seen eating fruits or vegetables (I know that Eric Stoltz is a vegntarian so that must be the reason but I think it's also meaningful that the two adversaries are on different diet). It echoed the way grandma Adama treated meat in previous episodes! And they say that Taurons are dirt eaters!
The actor playing Vergis was really good at fleshing out Daniel's enemy, but above all, I found Eric Stoltz even more impressive than before. His acting is just so nuanced and versatile. He makes Daniel so real, so human. And that pretty face of his (almost 50 he is)!
I especially loved to bits the Daniel/Joseph scenes. Firstly there was the funny scene in which Joseph tries on the holoband he has bought (seeking Tamara in a virtual world he knows nothing about), after struggling against the packaging(little details are everything) and found himself in front of an avatar of Daniel. It was a lot of fun. Joseph was suprised and a bit afraid first but realised it was just an illusion and sort of mocked himself (Esai did that very well) and couldn't help going back to Daniel's kingdom. Eric was perfect again, playing a digital image whose only purpose is to greet new users and guide them through the menus. Joseph is clueless, until he is brought back to reality by the real Daniel who suprises him a second time! Can the old lady who very kindly let Daniel in be grandma Adama? No frakking way!
I just adore Daniel and Joseph together. The verbal fight they have was wonderful, and how they both stared at Willie when he opened the door! They just looked like an arguing married couple a kid walked on. Don't tell me that there isn't sexual tension between those two! Oh and the way Eric said "You set me up!', it wasn't cold at all but filled with hurt feelings. Daniel never loses his self-control like that with anyone but Amanda and Joseph (not even with Cyrus whom he rather trusts though). Okay that's official I totally 'ship Daniel and Joseph.
And what does Daniel do in the following scene? He chops penis-shaped vegetables! LOL
Later in the episode, Daniel surprises someone else, interrupting a sort of romantic relationship (and if I were all about parallels I would say that one romance does echo the other!). It's Philomon the geek having "a moment" with the U-87. I loved the way Daniel walks on him...there's a bit of "Don't touch my daughter!" in his attitude. It's very ambiguous even though Daniel still doesn't know about Zoe's being in the Cylon. It's like what he said last week about the brilliant mind in there. He does have a fatherly attitude towards the Cylon.
Philomon is more than embarrassed and then Daniel smiles, perhaps remembering his own youth (Philomon is a sort of Daniel junior, which says a lot about Zoe's daddy issues, and Vergis later will recall young Daniel as a geek)and it's over, even though Daniel, all bossy, reminds the rules to Philomon "there is no smoking in the lab, doctor".
Bad Philomon for smoking in the lab and surfing on virtual dating sites while at work! But again, compared to Keon, Philomon is cool. The V-club scene wasn't the best thing in the episode but it was kinda cute, and a counterpoint to the tensed scenes going on in the real world.
It was light, just like the short scene between Joseph and Evelyn, another possible pairing in progress.
As for the Willow pack. It seems like Clarice's two youngest husbands are STO people too. The dynamics is weird. Not sure who is using whom, but there are things they obviously don't share and Clarice takes refuge in drinking and smoking. I liked the Serge/Clarice scene and Amanda butting in "Ignore him!" I suddenly realised that Daniel's avatar was the Serge of the holoband world! Except that I guess that Serge is probably more complex. Clarice was so out of place in the Graystone estate...it was a bit like Joseph being clueless in the holoband world.
Oh Amanda! You did it again! How many mistakes like that are you going to do. Daniel told you to be careful.
But Amanda didn't recognize the enemy, she doesn't know it. She let her in the sanctuary.
Amanda looked like she was easily fooled by Clarice but I guess that she is upset because of Daniel's work, and that she unconsciously knew what she was doing. Clarice cajoling her and the ambrosia from Scorpio just helped her to settle her accounts. She knows that Daniel is keeping things for himself ("you'll tell me the rest when you are ready"), she is jealous of the U-87, so letting a stranger in the lab wasn't just a mistake, it was a sort of revenge. Of course Amanda being jealous of the Cylon and calling it a "frakking ugly monster" and a killer requires another reading since Zoe is in the Cylon. Her Electra complex (most of her drawings from childhood show daddy and his flamboyant red hair!) can live on! Despite falling for Clarice's deception, perhaps Amanda does know her enemy actually.
Will the Cylon kill Amanda?
Oh the irony of Clarice using the Cylon as a diversion "Oh scary thing" to hack Daniel's computer, not knowing that the precious thing she's looking for was precisely in the U-87!
Also, I can't help thinking that Clarice was flirting with Amanda. When the pilot was released there were rumours about Amanda's unfaithfulness but they seem to have given up the idea. I wonder if her possible cheating on Daniel will show up later. If so my money is either on Vergis (he looks like a womanizer and he wants to take everything that Daniel loves)or on Clarice Willow. In a wa,y Amanda has already started deceiving her husband.
Poor Daniel. No matter the part he played in the upcoming Cylon disaster, I can't help felling sorry and falling(!) for him and wanting to take him in my arms (or throwing him into Joseph's!). Vergis' media manipulation ("we are Capricans" was sooooo reminiscent of Kennedy's famous worlds about Berlin, or of the post 9/11 media coverage), as Daniel watched the screen with his glasses on, was spot on. The way Vergis lied between his teeth, called him Danny...the confrontation went on without them being in the same room!
In their last meeting, Daniel thinks he has his enemy figured out, but he actually doesn't understand the way Vergis works. He still thinks it's a business matter, a sort of game. "My dream is to tear up your dream" isn't something that Daniel expected. He doesn't understand the tattoes --and again with the parallels and counterpoints Joseph bared his skin to show his new tattoo to Evelyn and it was a sort of seduction while Tomas showed his to Daniel as a threat--he doesn't get the Tauron's ways "blood for blood". Vergis was a ruthless bastard but there was also something religious in his last words.
Faith not love.
So Clarice completed her mission, but she went to get high afterwards, seeking oblivion in artificial paradises, or maybe she was looking for redemption? Daniel was feeling guilt too, his dreams were filled with blood and screams. But it's nothing compared to what is yet to come. Nice close-up on Eric's big blue eyes btw...What would Daniel feel if he knew that the Cylons he created will commit a genocide?
Is it wrong that I'm totally rooting for Daniel on this show?
I like that the characters are so different than the ones we have seen on BSG. They are just as grey and morally challenged (except Helo who was really a good man always doing the right thing, and I loved that someone like Helo existed on BSG) and yet completely different. Complicated but not screwed-up, and it makes sense for this happens prior to the Cylon war that broke so many dreams. These characters are shaken by little tragedies but the big one hasn't ocurred yet.
I like that Caprica has its own groove and isn't following a formula.
ETA: Bear McCreary blogs on the final scene : HERE.
The plot thickens, there are new players--and they are intriguing characters! --and ramifications that make everything more complicated than what it seemed, but what I prefer in the episode was the scenes filled with tension and the relationships between our grey characters. There was the obvious and the less obvious. It was a very good episode in terms of characters study. And for the first time I found Sister Clarice to be really interesting. And we got a lot of Daniel !!! What a precious show!
There's a rumour saying that a second season is in pre-production, if it's true I do hope that Eric Stoltz will stay aboard as Daniel for Caprica wouldn't be the same without him.
"Know thy enemy" introduced Clarice's foe, or rather her rival in the STO organization, Barnabus Greeley. BTW there's a conclave and many heads but the master tree isn't clear yet. We'd need a menu, unlike Joseph in the holoband world or so he says! :- )
It's interesting to see that there are already competing trends in that monotheism.
Clarice and Barnabus don't meet, but Keon takes Lacy to see the zealot played by James Marsters. Can we get rid of Keon now? I mean it's a boring character, or at least the actor is terrible at playing that minor character. I'm afraid that he will stick around though, since Barnabus asked him to find out about Lacy's mysterious cargo. Lacy is a good character but the more I see Keon the more I like Philomon!
The irony is that what Barnabus has refused to do, is exactly what Clarice would like to do, except that none of them knows it!
The Barnabus scenes were short but JM was good and made me want to know more about the new character. There was an interesting parallel between his self-mutilated arm (punk version of a cilice?)and what Daniel made the U-87 do last week. I'm sure that Keon thought that it looked painful! By the way the link was clearly suggested since the Greeley 's scene happened just after Daniel told Philomon to re-examine the Cylon's arm.
This B-plot was echoing the A-plot, the meetings and confrontation between Daniel Graystone and Tomas Vergis. Business is like war!
Somehow Vergis has found out that Daniel had the MCP stolen and it's vendetta time. He obviously doesn't know the part played by the Adama brothers. I guess he had an informant at Graystone Industry that told him that Daniel didn't have a MCP a few weeks ago, so when he discovered that his technology had been stolen and he heard about the defense contract he simply did the maths. I am still not convinced that Vergis cracked that technology on his own though...
I loved the museum scene opening with a moment of grace in the sunlight (Daniel and Amanda dancing, joking together about the C-Bucks' victory or her not being called "Terror Mom", smiling) and then turning dark as Daniel made out Vergis and left his wife to join him in the shadows. The shooting was excellent. Vergis' threatening presence gave the tone of the episode, foreshadowing the verbal threats/oath he would make in the ending scene.
Every Vergis/Graystone meeting was brilliant, conveying the tension between competiting businessmen while showing the contrast between the two men. They are both kind of ruthless but in very different way. Daniel is an aristocrat, slender and sophisticated, whereas Vergis does look like someone who can be the Gautrau's friend (the fact that I'm reading Ellory's A Quiet Vendetta is a nice coincidence). He behaves like a dangerous predator. On Sarno's he was charming like as a snake and his smiles and smoothness when talking to Daniel were snake-like too, but he is physically impressive. He is like a constrictor boa, or an anaconda. If we forget the carnivorous side, he mostly reminded me of a black buffalo. Buffaloes scare me. I loved the shot of him smoking in front of the window, while we could see ads in the buildings outside (very Blade Runner-ish!) showing Daniel Graystone. Daniel's face was smaller because of the perspective and it looked like Vergis was blowing him out along with the smoke.
Caprica is really stylish which I enjoyed. By the way the scene in which Daniel is haunted by the murders (pictures he imagines), that allowed him to get the MCP, was beautiful. It was perfect for a character who is always in control, so restrained, but whose imagination is vivid. And Eric knows how to chop vegetables (although I don't think it was his hands in the last shot, they can't risk the star's precious fingers)!
The meal Graystone and Vergis had together was also significant. The way Vergis eats meat was chilling. He looks civilized but he likes to eat with his fingers. There's something bestial and primal in that man. Daniel has always been seen eating fruits or vegetables (I know that Eric Stoltz is a vegntarian so that must be the reason but I think it's also meaningful that the two adversaries are on different diet). It echoed the way grandma Adama treated meat in previous episodes! And they say that Taurons are dirt eaters!
The actor playing Vergis was really good at fleshing out Daniel's enemy, but above all, I found Eric Stoltz even more impressive than before. His acting is just so nuanced and versatile. He makes Daniel so real, so human. And that pretty face of his (almost 50 he is)!
I especially loved to bits the Daniel/Joseph scenes. Firstly there was the funny scene in which Joseph tries on the holoband he has bought (seeking Tamara in a virtual world he knows nothing about), after struggling against the packaging(little details are everything) and found himself in front of an avatar of Daniel. It was a lot of fun. Joseph was suprised and a bit afraid first but realised it was just an illusion and sort of mocked himself (Esai did that very well) and couldn't help going back to Daniel's kingdom. Eric was perfect again, playing a digital image whose only purpose is to greet new users and guide them through the menus. Joseph is clueless, until he is brought back to reality by the real Daniel who suprises him a second time! Can the old lady who very kindly let Daniel in be grandma Adama? No frakking way!
I just adore Daniel and Joseph together. The verbal fight they have was wonderful, and how they both stared at Willie when he opened the door! They just looked like an arguing married couple a kid walked on. Don't tell me that there isn't sexual tension between those two! Oh and the way Eric said "You set me up!', it wasn't cold at all but filled with hurt feelings. Daniel never loses his self-control like that with anyone but Amanda and Joseph (not even with Cyrus whom he rather trusts though). Okay that's official I totally 'ship Daniel and Joseph.
And what does Daniel do in the following scene? He chops penis-shaped vegetables! LOL
Later in the episode, Daniel surprises someone else, interrupting a sort of romantic relationship (and if I were all about parallels I would say that one romance does echo the other!). It's Philomon the geek having "a moment" with the U-87. I loved the way Daniel walks on him...there's a bit of "Don't touch my daughter!" in his attitude. It's very ambiguous even though Daniel still doesn't know about Zoe's being in the Cylon. It's like what he said last week about the brilliant mind in there. He does have a fatherly attitude towards the Cylon.
Philomon is more than embarrassed and then Daniel smiles, perhaps remembering his own youth (Philomon is a sort of Daniel junior, which says a lot about Zoe's daddy issues, and Vergis later will recall young Daniel as a geek)and it's over, even though Daniel, all bossy, reminds the rules to Philomon "there is no smoking in the lab, doctor".
Bad Philomon for smoking in the lab and surfing on virtual dating sites while at work! But again, compared to Keon, Philomon is cool. The V-club scene wasn't the best thing in the episode but it was kinda cute, and a counterpoint to the tensed scenes going on in the real world.
It was light, just like the short scene between Joseph and Evelyn, another possible pairing in progress.
As for the Willow pack. It seems like Clarice's two youngest husbands are STO people too. The dynamics is weird. Not sure who is using whom, but there are things they obviously don't share and Clarice takes refuge in drinking and smoking. I liked the Serge/Clarice scene and Amanda butting in "Ignore him!" I suddenly realised that Daniel's avatar was the Serge of the holoband world! Except that I guess that Serge is probably more complex. Clarice was so out of place in the Graystone estate...it was a bit like Joseph being clueless in the holoband world.
Oh Amanda! You did it again! How many mistakes like that are you going to do. Daniel told you to be careful.
But Amanda didn't recognize the enemy, she doesn't know it. She let her in the sanctuary.
Amanda looked like she was easily fooled by Clarice but I guess that she is upset because of Daniel's work, and that she unconsciously knew what she was doing. Clarice cajoling her and the ambrosia from Scorpio just helped her to settle her accounts. She knows that Daniel is keeping things for himself ("you'll tell me the rest when you are ready"), she is jealous of the U-87, so letting a stranger in the lab wasn't just a mistake, it was a sort of revenge. Of course Amanda being jealous of the Cylon and calling it a "frakking ugly monster" and a killer requires another reading since Zoe is in the Cylon. Her Electra complex (most of her drawings from childhood show daddy and his flamboyant red hair!) can live on! Despite falling for Clarice's deception, perhaps Amanda does know her enemy actually.
Will the Cylon kill Amanda?
Oh the irony of Clarice using the Cylon as a diversion "Oh scary thing" to hack Daniel's computer, not knowing that the precious thing she's looking for was precisely in the U-87!
Also, I can't help thinking that Clarice was flirting with Amanda. When the pilot was released there were rumours about Amanda's unfaithfulness but they seem to have given up the idea. I wonder if her possible cheating on Daniel will show up later. If so my money is either on Vergis (he looks like a womanizer and he wants to take everything that Daniel loves)or on Clarice Willow. In a wa,y Amanda has already started deceiving her husband.
Poor Daniel. No matter the part he played in the upcoming Cylon disaster, I can't help felling sorry and falling(!) for him and wanting to take him in my arms (or throwing him into Joseph's!). Vergis' media manipulation ("we are Capricans" was sooooo reminiscent of Kennedy's famous worlds about Berlin, or of the post 9/11 media coverage), as Daniel watched the screen with his glasses on, was spot on. The way Vergis lied between his teeth, called him Danny...the confrontation went on without them being in the same room!
In their last meeting, Daniel thinks he has his enemy figured out, but he actually doesn't understand the way Vergis works. He still thinks it's a business matter, a sort of game. "My dream is to tear up your dream" isn't something that Daniel expected. He doesn't understand the tattoes --and again with the parallels and counterpoints Joseph bared his skin to show his new tattoo to Evelyn and it was a sort of seduction while Tomas showed his to Daniel as a threat--he doesn't get the Tauron's ways "blood for blood". Vergis was a ruthless bastard but there was also something religious in his last words.
Faith not love.
So Clarice completed her mission, but she went to get high afterwards, seeking oblivion in artificial paradises, or maybe she was looking for redemption? Daniel was feeling guilt too, his dreams were filled with blood and screams. But it's nothing compared to what is yet to come. Nice close-up on Eric's big blue eyes btw...What would Daniel feel if he knew that the Cylons he created will commit a genocide?
Is it wrong that I'm totally rooting for Daniel on this show?
I like that the characters are so different than the ones we have seen on BSG. They are just as grey and morally challenged (except Helo who was really a good man always doing the right thing, and I loved that someone like Helo existed on BSG) and yet completely different. Complicated but not screwed-up, and it makes sense for this happens prior to the Cylon war that broke so many dreams. These characters are shaken by little tragedies but the big one hasn't ocurred yet.
I like that Caprica has its own groove and isn't following a formula.
ETA: Bear McCreary blogs on the final scene : HERE.