The Final Five
After a productive day, I've decided to rewatch the final five episodes of Caprica for SyFy finally airs them today and I'd like to discuss them with readers who have waited for them to be showed on American tv.
First off, I'm reposting links to reviews I posted in November when I watched the 4 episodes, prior to the finale, that aired on SPACE channel, and I'm adding a few thoughts on ep 16 that, for some reason, I didn't review at the time...
"Blowback".
I have changed my mind about the Daniel/Amanda scene. They are just so cute and I am not sure anymore the scene was supposed to have us fooled. If you compare it to the previous scene in V-world between Daniel and the Amanda he made up, the actors' acting is very very different, Paula Malcomson's of course (her out-of-nowhere "make love to me" is perfect!) but also Eric Stoltz's. He doesn't talk to the avatar and doesn't look at it the same way he does when it's real Amanda in the end. He's incredibly softer in the last scene, from the first line when eh says he needs her with him, to that last bed-eyeing he gives her; he is not in science-mode at all then, he si not watching her, observing her, he just asks for her help. Despite everything that happened between them, you can feel the complicity between the Graystones, and the tenderness. They embody what marriage is supposed to be.
"The Dirt Eaters"
"The Heavens Will Rise"
So...there's trouble in the flowery paradise Zoe and Tam have built...because Daniel made the holoband and as an omniscient creator his eyes are everywhere so he can track our Avenging angels. Besides he knows a backdoor. Despite his confession to Amanda ("I did worst") Daniel hasn't run out of tricks. He kidnaps Tamara!
But Zoe strikes back, stabbing her daddy out of the backdoor. "She's still mad" Daniel says. Daniel can't use his tricks anymore. "Access denied" so he has to follow the game rules of New Cap City, like any other mortal. This is the end of Daniel the God of the V-world and the beginning of Goddess Zoe, so, while she's stabbing him, her "there's only one" come-back to his "thank the gods" is more meaningful than a mere monotheist's profession of faith; she reminds him that she is the only god in the v-world and that his time is over.
At least, after some violence(first Amanada slapped Daniel in the face, then Zoe stabbed him!) the Graystones are reunited now, and it's Amanda's turn to confess her extra-curricular activites for Agent Duram.
Meanwhile in the Willow house, Nestor has second thoughts while Olaf remains faithful...Hmmm.
On Gemenon, Lacy is in badass mode again foreshadowing Starbuck from BSG again, as she refuses to submit to discipline. Also turns out that Lacy can control the U-87! Probably a leftover of Zoe's consciousness that passed into the other models. A true ghost in the machine! I didn't expect that one at the time! Great scene between Lucy and Diego. "Maybe it has a sens of decency"!!! I really liked Diego again.
Enters Fidelia, the Guatrau's daughter...who according to her name is a faithful one! Seems like a mirror to Zoe/Daniel. And Daniel shows up again in the mob's bar to talk to Sam. He spills the beans about Tamara. I still don't understand the reason Daniel needs Sam in the v-world, except maybe for diversion? It doesn't make any sense...
Anyway it's a bad move for Sam is oldschool, worst than Joseph and probably not as weak when it comes to Tamara; the idea of an artificial Tamara doesn't please him. Also I didn't like the fact that Daniel went behind Joseph's back.
The theme of confession is carried on when Agent Duram tells Amanda about the Mar-beth thing, her death and his role in it. His arguments about Mar-beth being "hardly innocent" reminded me of Sam's arguing with Joseph about Daniel and saying that Graystone knew what he went into. I liked the fact he repeated "you've done a great service to the people of caprica" while Amanda had already left, as if he wanted to convince himself. And as he's holding Clarice's holobands, Duram is shot by some mysetrious guy, and Amanda remembers she is a doctor.
The scene in the Adama house shows that Daniel isn't the only one to go behind Joseph's back. Sam told Evelyn and Grandma (still playing with her meat cleaver) about Daniel's offer, and the three of them have a hidden agenda. It's the second time Evelyn goes behind Joseph's back. It's all for Joseph's own good, of course...
But Joseph isn't an innocent either...the next scene reveals that he wasn't a faithful husband to his wife Sharon, and while she was still alive and Evelyn was probably already mooning over him, he was having an affair...Fidelia. But no more of that, he won't cheat on Evelyn. He doesn't want to resume his affair with Fidelia, who suspected something about the U-87 Sam and he send to Tauron.
Odin/ Lacy was such a predictable couple. I have nothing to say about that.
I liked that Daniel was still working on his U-87 ! Also I found him very informal with Sam (the way he says "sam" as if they were pals)...but at the same time, you can tell it isn't the same relationship than the one he has with Joseph: there's no bond, just a partnership for the occasion, in which every partner thinks they are using/playing the other.
Eventually The Graystone holding hands was cute, but I am not sure I understand while they all ended up riding a horse in Zoe's virtual world. I mean, men on horses are sexy, for sure, but apart from that????.
"There Will Be Dragons"
I had forgotten Daniel's line "I assume you're not checking out his ass" LOL. And Sam who seemed to voice my opinion (and common sense) when he said he didn't know what they need him for! And when Daniel goes into geek mode, marvelling at Zoe's v-world, Amanda says "Now I remember why we put the lab in the basement" Those lines and scenes in the v-world remind us who those characters are deep down! Daniel is a dreamer; Amanda, when she is not insane, saves the day, just like she did once upon a time on Sarno's.
Daniel and Amanda in the lab, unaware of what was going on in their house, looked like statues. BTW I liked the fact that Daniel taking Amanda's hand in his echoed, in the v-world, what their hand-holding in the real world, and at the same time the v-world seemed more real because they seemed much more alive in it, not statue-like.
When Amanda says that "it's useless without a body" and looks at her husband, full of hope, adding "you can make her one, can't you?", it seems like she has faith in him again, something Daniel has waited for, since "Unvanquished". It's quite nice because it's just their avatars kissing, yet it's nothing like the scenes Daniel had with A-Amanda. Daniel/Amanda is the best married couple I have seen in a tv show, along with Hank/Marie from Breaking Bad. Their relationship is just so real, it's touching.
And now I'm posting my reactions to the finale, "Apotheosis", I wrote down after it aired on SPACE:
First I made a spoiler-free post that said: "I've just seen the finale of Caprica, "Apotheosis". I'm neither disappointed nor blown away. I'm rather in the middle, noticing some bad stuff here and there or the lack of some good stuff I tended to associate with Caprica, and yet spotting a few neat things, acknowledging the effort and a certain achievement in bridging Caprica and BSG. Let's just say that it is a real finale. It is action-packed, rushed and even botched up in places (but how could it not given they had only 42 minutes to do so ?!), not the quality and depth that Caprica had often showed (you know all the moral and philosophical stuff that some viewers found boring and dull), but they did wrap the series up, providing resolution for several storylines, which makes me think that, although there's some material left out, a second season has never really been expected..."
Then I wrote something I kept for my eyes only...until now.
Bad or poor stuff
- the CGI during the arena scene. Badly done... It looks like a video game! It was unworthy of Caprica and looked like a "Star Wars Attack of the Clones" rip-off.
- in the Zoe vs Clarice scene in the virtual Heaven, Alessandra Toressani wasn't good at all. The fist clenching made my eyes roll
- Daniel's idea of disguise...sure nobody would recognize him! I mean, the fact he thought that just wearing a cap and sunglasses was good enough a disguise is fine (Daniel is clueless, he doesn't know how to fit in, no matter how much he wants to), but the fact it did work and people didn't recognize him, the most famous man on Caprica? Just bad writing. Frankly the whole thing seems a bit too easy and contrived.
- Also since when did the U-87 cylons get so smart and skillfull? What happened to the fact that the other U-87s weren't as sentient as the one Zoe!A was inside of (it's what Cyrus said in "Unvanquished")? Last time we saw the robots on Gemenon they didn't look as evolved as the ones in the arena! I know that Daniel was controling them, and he's supposed to be super-smart and a fast-thinker, but there were many of them and they seemed to have thinking of their own and to be organized according to a sort of hierachy...
- the false twist/suspens about Lacy being the new Blessed Mother. Given that she hadn't been seen during the episode, it was obvious she was still on Gemenon and had used her Cylon guard to take Meg Tilly's place. Her "Clarice you should kneel" was cool, but I am not sure this is what I wanted for Lacy Rand.
- How stupid and careless was Singh? I assume he is the one who shot Agent Duram. If not who did it? Anyway the shooter couldn't have not seen the holoband that Duram was holding and was about to give Amanda? And yet he left without coming back to pick it up? Convenient.
- Daniel didn't look for it very long before he found it. How convenient again. Oh yes, I know, he had to find it quickly because there were only 15 minutes left before the end of the episode!
- I love the Graystones, and I certainly didn't want Daniel to be killed, but they both were a bit too white, too heroic in that episode...
The episode seemed rushed. That's my biggest problem with it. I wish they had 3 hours for the last two episodes instead of 84 minutes so they could have taken the time to polish things;
Also I'm sad that thye kept Joseph and Daniel apart in the finale. I would have liked to know how their relationship evolved, gievn that it was the core of the pilot, but the coda didn't reveal it.
Neat things:
- The final coda, Shape of Things To Come was pretty cool. I liked seeing Baxter Sarno interviewing Daniel, and how Clarice found new students/followers. That woman is resilient and knows an opportunity when she sees one! BTW I think it's head!Zoe we saw in the church among the cylons. BTW "Are you alive?" the same question Six asked at the beginning of the BSG miniseries!
- Cyrus!!!! I knew he would be loyal to Daniel to the end. It's normal, he is a Xander. :- ) I would have liked to know more about his background, given what he hinted at when he was taking aim at Singh.
- Which lawyers did Cyrus call? "All of them!" Here I couldn't help thinking "BETTER CALL SAUL !!!!" but only Breaking Bad fans would understand why...
- I liked how A-Zoe kept speaking of "Zoe" the real one who made her and died in the explosion, as a different person. It questions again the matter of identity.
- the idea of having Centurions in the arena! Hey it makes sense, a kinda twisted wink at Roman times! And I liked that the commentator first commented their moves as if it were a show for the audience!
- Oh the irony of having the Cylons be considered "protectors", sort of angels (they even came from the sky!)...given what is to come. It was perfect.
- I liked the parallel between Joseph and Clarice. Both had to kneel before a new female boss, Fidelia the new Guatrau for Joseph, Lacy the new Blessed Mother for Clarice. It's funny to think that it's the same cylons that ruined Clarice's terror project that allowed Lacy to be the new boss. Again with the parallel, Fidelia got to become the new Guatrau thanks to Joseph's revenge, but it was her idea to kill the Adamas, she was the one who talked her father into the hit! Fidelia did what Zoe couldn't do after all, she had her father killed and took his place.
- the conversation between Daniel and that young doctor who (haha), I believe, is the lab tech whose thumb was cut off by U-87!Zoe. I loved his "today I'm a terrorist but tomorrow". Eric did deliver that one! I loved his attitude, the way he was sitting. That's my Daniel Graystone!
- Zoe!A saying "I'm god" and yet behaving like a little girl for most of the episode, especially in the last five minutes. She was quite regressing to an infant, in her mother's virtual arms, until she was born again in her techno-crib, like a Messiah, or a god made into flesh. I liked how they connected it to the BSG mythology with something more deeper...every teenager thinks they are god, yet at the same time they are still kids.
- The parallel between the Graystones and the Adamas was still there in the end. Daniel has blood on his hands and it was his call this time (he controlled the killing cylons in the arena); same with Joseph killing the Guatrau. Both men made a choice, willingly taking others' life. Both gave life again too. Daniel and Amanda worked together on making a skin job so Zoe!A could live in the real world, while the Adamas sort of remade the dead through young Bill (something that I have foreseen in the previous episode), William's anniversary becoming Bill's baptism, as he was named after his brother. Family men first and foremost, until the end, Daniel and Joseph remade themselves a family, Joseph by following the old ways, the Tauron ways; Daniel thanks to his genius' skills. So now we have a new young William Adama, with the right age and the right eye colour (blue like Edward James Olmos' eyes) and Evelyn as his mother. Future Admiral Bill Adama is on his way towards the Galactica.
BTW, I suddenly realised that the William/Bill thing was a nice echo to the Earth thing on BSG;
SPOILERS for BSG (some Caprica viewers haven't seen it yet!) below
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Laura Roslin named the new planet they finally found, Earth, but Bill told her that it wasn't Earth since the real one, that they had reached before (at the mid-season finale), had been nuked a long time ago...yet the final Earth, Laura's Earth, became the true Earth, our Earth, the only one, just like Bill Adama is our William Adama, the only one, while at the beginning he was just William Number Two (or rather number three if we count Joseph's father). Earth was hope, and so is Bill Adama!
So Daniel really is the father of the Twelve Colonies' cylons since he created both the centurions and the first skinjob, well sort of. Clarice and Lacy turned the Centurions into monotheists. Zoe!A had the projection thing going on for her and might have passed it to the future skinjobs. At the end of the day, the Final Five only provided resurrection technology, their own DNA (the seven models we know and the cylons from Earth shared the same DNA) and a certain design for the 8 models...
There's still unexplained stuff:
What happened to Tamara? I guess we'll never know...unless Blood & Chrome addresses the issue.
How did the Graystones' work on skin job end up in the Final Five's hands so they would make the 8 models? I guess that the Centurions somehow seized Daniel or his program, and tried to emulate his work , hence the hybrids, but failed because it took human beings to make real organic skinjobs (the new Zoe rather seemed to be like a Terminator, a robot inside, skinjob outside), and basically that's what the Final Five were, humans.
Farewell show, I loved you so.
ETA: It crossed my mind this morning In the end, Daniel and Amanda made a daughter who would never grow up, never change, never have sex.... Isn't that some sort of twisted parents' fantasy?
First off, I'm reposting links to reviews I posted in November when I watched the 4 episodes, prior to the finale, that aired on SPACE channel, and I'm adding a few thoughts on ep 16 that, for some reason, I didn't review at the time...
"Blowback".
I have changed my mind about the Daniel/Amanda scene. They are just so cute and I am not sure anymore the scene was supposed to have us fooled. If you compare it to the previous scene in V-world between Daniel and the Amanda he made up, the actors' acting is very very different, Paula Malcomson's of course (her out-of-nowhere "make love to me" is perfect!) but also Eric Stoltz's. He doesn't talk to the avatar and doesn't look at it the same way he does when it's real Amanda in the end. He's incredibly softer in the last scene, from the first line when eh says he needs her with him, to that last bed-eyeing he gives her; he is not in science-mode at all then, he si not watching her, observing her, he just asks for her help. Despite everything that happened between them, you can feel the complicity between the Graystones, and the tenderness. They embody what marriage is supposed to be.
"The Dirt Eaters"
"The Heavens Will Rise"
So...there's trouble in the flowery paradise Zoe and Tam have built...because Daniel made the holoband and as an omniscient creator his eyes are everywhere so he can track our Avenging angels. Besides he knows a backdoor. Despite his confession to Amanda ("I did worst") Daniel hasn't run out of tricks. He kidnaps Tamara!
But Zoe strikes back, stabbing her daddy out of the backdoor. "She's still mad" Daniel says. Daniel can't use his tricks anymore. "Access denied" so he has to follow the game rules of New Cap City, like any other mortal. This is the end of Daniel the God of the V-world and the beginning of Goddess Zoe, so, while she's stabbing him, her "there's only one" come-back to his "thank the gods" is more meaningful than a mere monotheist's profession of faith; she reminds him that she is the only god in the v-world and that his time is over.
At least, after some violence(first Amanada slapped Daniel in the face, then Zoe stabbed him!) the Graystones are reunited now, and it's Amanda's turn to confess her extra-curricular activites for Agent Duram.
Meanwhile in the Willow house, Nestor has second thoughts while Olaf remains faithful...Hmmm.
On Gemenon, Lacy is in badass mode again foreshadowing Starbuck from BSG again, as she refuses to submit to discipline. Also turns out that Lacy can control the U-87! Probably a leftover of Zoe's consciousness that passed into the other models. A true ghost in the machine! I didn't expect that one at the time! Great scene between Lucy and Diego. "Maybe it has a sens of decency"!!! I really liked Diego again.
Enters Fidelia, the Guatrau's daughter...who according to her name is a faithful one! Seems like a mirror to Zoe/Daniel. And Daniel shows up again in the mob's bar to talk to Sam. He spills the beans about Tamara. I still don't understand the reason Daniel needs Sam in the v-world, except maybe for diversion? It doesn't make any sense...
Anyway it's a bad move for Sam is oldschool, worst than Joseph and probably not as weak when it comes to Tamara; the idea of an artificial Tamara doesn't please him. Also I didn't like the fact that Daniel went behind Joseph's back.
The theme of confession is carried on when Agent Duram tells Amanda about the Mar-beth thing, her death and his role in it. His arguments about Mar-beth being "hardly innocent" reminded me of Sam's arguing with Joseph about Daniel and saying that Graystone knew what he went into. I liked the fact he repeated "you've done a great service to the people of caprica" while Amanda had already left, as if he wanted to convince himself. And as he's holding Clarice's holobands, Duram is shot by some mysetrious guy, and Amanda remembers she is a doctor.
The scene in the Adama house shows that Daniel isn't the only one to go behind Joseph's back. Sam told Evelyn and Grandma (still playing with her meat cleaver) about Daniel's offer, and the three of them have a hidden agenda. It's the second time Evelyn goes behind Joseph's back. It's all for Joseph's own good, of course...
But Joseph isn't an innocent either...the next scene reveals that he wasn't a faithful husband to his wife Sharon, and while she was still alive and Evelyn was probably already mooning over him, he was having an affair...Fidelia. But no more of that, he won't cheat on Evelyn. He doesn't want to resume his affair with Fidelia, who suspected something about the U-87 Sam and he send to Tauron.
Odin/ Lacy was such a predictable couple. I have nothing to say about that.
I liked that Daniel was still working on his U-87 ! Also I found him very informal with Sam (the way he says "sam" as if they were pals)...but at the same time, you can tell it isn't the same relationship than the one he has with Joseph: there's no bond, just a partnership for the occasion, in which every partner thinks they are using/playing the other.
Eventually The Graystone holding hands was cute, but I am not sure I understand while they all ended up riding a horse in Zoe's virtual world. I mean, men on horses are sexy, for sure, but apart from that????.
"There Will Be Dragons"
I had forgotten Daniel's line "I assume you're not checking out his ass" LOL. And Sam who seemed to voice my opinion (and common sense) when he said he didn't know what they need him for! And when Daniel goes into geek mode, marvelling at Zoe's v-world, Amanda says "Now I remember why we put the lab in the basement" Those lines and scenes in the v-world remind us who those characters are deep down! Daniel is a dreamer; Amanda, when she is not insane, saves the day, just like she did once upon a time on Sarno's.
Daniel and Amanda in the lab, unaware of what was going on in their house, looked like statues. BTW I liked the fact that Daniel taking Amanda's hand in his echoed, in the v-world, what their hand-holding in the real world, and at the same time the v-world seemed more real because they seemed much more alive in it, not statue-like.
When Amanda says that "it's useless without a body" and looks at her husband, full of hope, adding "you can make her one, can't you?", it seems like she has faith in him again, something Daniel has waited for, since "Unvanquished". It's quite nice because it's just their avatars kissing, yet it's nothing like the scenes Daniel had with A-Amanda. Daniel/Amanda is the best married couple I have seen in a tv show, along with Hank/Marie from Breaking Bad. Their relationship is just so real, it's touching.
And now I'm posting my reactions to the finale, "Apotheosis", I wrote down after it aired on SPACE:
First I made a spoiler-free post that said: "I've just seen the finale of Caprica, "Apotheosis". I'm neither disappointed nor blown away. I'm rather in the middle, noticing some bad stuff here and there or the lack of some good stuff I tended to associate with Caprica, and yet spotting a few neat things, acknowledging the effort and a certain achievement in bridging Caprica and BSG. Let's just say that it is a real finale. It is action-packed, rushed and even botched up in places (but how could it not given they had only 42 minutes to do so ?!), not the quality and depth that Caprica had often showed (you know all the moral and philosophical stuff that some viewers found boring and dull), but they did wrap the series up, providing resolution for several storylines, which makes me think that, although there's some material left out, a second season has never really been expected..."
Then I wrote something I kept for my eyes only...until now.
Bad or poor stuff
- the CGI during the arena scene. Badly done... It looks like a video game! It was unworthy of Caprica and looked like a "Star Wars Attack of the Clones" rip-off.
- in the Zoe vs Clarice scene in the virtual Heaven, Alessandra Toressani wasn't good at all. The fist clenching made my eyes roll
- Daniel's idea of disguise...sure nobody would recognize him! I mean, the fact he thought that just wearing a cap and sunglasses was good enough a disguise is fine (Daniel is clueless, he doesn't know how to fit in, no matter how much he wants to), but the fact it did work and people didn't recognize him, the most famous man on Caprica? Just bad writing. Frankly the whole thing seems a bit too easy and contrived.
- Also since when did the U-87 cylons get so smart and skillfull? What happened to the fact that the other U-87s weren't as sentient as the one Zoe!A was inside of (it's what Cyrus said in "Unvanquished")? Last time we saw the robots on Gemenon they didn't look as evolved as the ones in the arena! I know that Daniel was controling them, and he's supposed to be super-smart and a fast-thinker, but there were many of them and they seemed to have thinking of their own and to be organized according to a sort of hierachy...
- the false twist/suspens about Lacy being the new Blessed Mother. Given that she hadn't been seen during the episode, it was obvious she was still on Gemenon and had used her Cylon guard to take Meg Tilly's place. Her "Clarice you should kneel" was cool, but I am not sure this is what I wanted for Lacy Rand.
- How stupid and careless was Singh? I assume he is the one who shot Agent Duram. If not who did it? Anyway the shooter couldn't have not seen the holoband that Duram was holding and was about to give Amanda? And yet he left without coming back to pick it up? Convenient.
- Daniel didn't look for it very long before he found it. How convenient again. Oh yes, I know, he had to find it quickly because there were only 15 minutes left before the end of the episode!
- I love the Graystones, and I certainly didn't want Daniel to be killed, but they both were a bit too white, too heroic in that episode...
The episode seemed rushed. That's my biggest problem with it. I wish they had 3 hours for the last two episodes instead of 84 minutes so they could have taken the time to polish things;
Also I'm sad that thye kept Joseph and Daniel apart in the finale. I would have liked to know how their relationship evolved, gievn that it was the core of the pilot, but the coda didn't reveal it.
Neat things:
- The final coda, Shape of Things To Come was pretty cool. I liked seeing Baxter Sarno interviewing Daniel, and how Clarice found new students/followers. That woman is resilient and knows an opportunity when she sees one! BTW I think it's head!Zoe we saw in the church among the cylons. BTW "Are you alive?" the same question Six asked at the beginning of the BSG miniseries!
- Cyrus!!!! I knew he would be loyal to Daniel to the end. It's normal, he is a Xander. :- ) I would have liked to know more about his background, given what he hinted at when he was taking aim at Singh.
- Which lawyers did Cyrus call? "All of them!" Here I couldn't help thinking "BETTER CALL SAUL !!!!" but only Breaking Bad fans would understand why...
- I liked how A-Zoe kept speaking of "Zoe" the real one who made her and died in the explosion, as a different person. It questions again the matter of identity.
- the idea of having Centurions in the arena! Hey it makes sense, a kinda twisted wink at Roman times! And I liked that the commentator first commented their moves as if it were a show for the audience!
- Oh the irony of having the Cylons be considered "protectors", sort of angels (they even came from the sky!)...given what is to come. It was perfect.
- I liked the parallel between Joseph and Clarice. Both had to kneel before a new female boss, Fidelia the new Guatrau for Joseph, Lacy the new Blessed Mother for Clarice. It's funny to think that it's the same cylons that ruined Clarice's terror project that allowed Lacy to be the new boss. Again with the parallel, Fidelia got to become the new Guatrau thanks to Joseph's revenge, but it was her idea to kill the Adamas, she was the one who talked her father into the hit! Fidelia did what Zoe couldn't do after all, she had her father killed and took his place.
- the conversation between Daniel and that young doctor who (haha), I believe, is the lab tech whose thumb was cut off by U-87!Zoe. I loved his "today I'm a terrorist but tomorrow". Eric did deliver that one! I loved his attitude, the way he was sitting. That's my Daniel Graystone!
- Zoe!A saying "I'm god" and yet behaving like a little girl for most of the episode, especially in the last five minutes. She was quite regressing to an infant, in her mother's virtual arms, until she was born again in her techno-crib, like a Messiah, or a god made into flesh. I liked how they connected it to the BSG mythology with something more deeper...every teenager thinks they are god, yet at the same time they are still kids.
- The parallel between the Graystones and the Adamas was still there in the end. Daniel has blood on his hands and it was his call this time (he controlled the killing cylons in the arena); same with Joseph killing the Guatrau. Both men made a choice, willingly taking others' life. Both gave life again too. Daniel and Amanda worked together on making a skin job so Zoe!A could live in the real world, while the Adamas sort of remade the dead through young Bill (something that I have foreseen in the previous episode), William's anniversary becoming Bill's baptism, as he was named after his brother. Family men first and foremost, until the end, Daniel and Joseph remade themselves a family, Joseph by following the old ways, the Tauron ways; Daniel thanks to his genius' skills. So now we have a new young William Adama, with the right age and the right eye colour (blue like Edward James Olmos' eyes) and Evelyn as his mother. Future Admiral Bill Adama is on his way towards the Galactica.
BTW, I suddenly realised that the William/Bill thing was a nice echo to the Earth thing on BSG;
SPOILERS for BSG (some Caprica viewers haven't seen it yet!) below
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*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*.
Laura Roslin named the new planet they finally found, Earth, but Bill told her that it wasn't Earth since the real one, that they had reached before (at the mid-season finale), had been nuked a long time ago...yet the final Earth, Laura's Earth, became the true Earth, our Earth, the only one, just like Bill Adama is our William Adama, the only one, while at the beginning he was just William Number Two (or rather number three if we count Joseph's father). Earth was hope, and so is Bill Adama!
So Daniel really is the father of the Twelve Colonies' cylons since he created both the centurions and the first skinjob, well sort of. Clarice and Lacy turned the Centurions into monotheists. Zoe!A had the projection thing going on for her and might have passed it to the future skinjobs. At the end of the day, the Final Five only provided resurrection technology, their own DNA (the seven models we know and the cylons from Earth shared the same DNA) and a certain design for the 8 models...
There's still unexplained stuff:
What happened to Tamara? I guess we'll never know...unless Blood & Chrome addresses the issue.
How did the Graystones' work on skin job end up in the Final Five's hands so they would make the 8 models? I guess that the Centurions somehow seized Daniel or his program, and tried to emulate his work , hence the hybrids, but failed because it took human beings to make real organic skinjobs (the new Zoe rather seemed to be like a Terminator, a robot inside, skinjob outside), and basically that's what the Final Five were, humans.
Farewell show, I loved you so.
ETA: It crossed my mind this morning In the end, Daniel and Amanda made a daughter who would never grow up, never change, never have sex.... Isn't that some sort of twisted parents' fantasy?