Things We Got in the Fire
It’s that little voice in the back of our heads that never quite goes away; tinged with shades of guilt, fear, shame, and regret, we hide the things that remind us that we are fallible. We lock away the things that make us human. We transform, grow and stretch-we become-and we hide the traces of who we were. Desperate to be clean, we compartmentalize the worst and call ourselves civilized.
Clarice, still clinging to the one idea that she ever had (not, I would add, unlike Joe Adama from earlier in the season), chases after Zoe for all the wrong reasons. What Clarice doesn’t know-and will probably never understand-is that Zoe has already become a face of God. (The avatar has allowed her to achieve eternal life, but this is, as we know, not the same thing.)
Ultimately, the universe of Battlestar Galactica and Caprica has only ever really taught us one thing with respect to salvation: God is love. The rub, however, is that we must learn to love as God loves: without question and without discrimination; we must learn to love all of ourselves, which is, after all, the greatest love of all.