Caprica Recap - Episode 4

Things are starting to pick up in this episode. This one's my favorite so far. It was almost, dare I say it, exciting. Waiting an extra week might have helped as well. The episode begins with Sister Clarice in bed with her spouses, all comfy cozy, when her phone rings with a warning. The police are figuring out that someone is recruiting youngsters into STO and are trying to track down the recruiters. They're planning to raid the school and dump lockers to look for STO goodies, and the creepy Sister is barely able to warn her little minions in time. Apparently in Caprican schools you can get away with storing dynamite in your locker. Nothing is found, but Clarice is not very happy that she was so close to being found out.

A big chunk of this episode followed the Graystones as they got ready to go on a talk show to hopefully have a more rational debate about the situation. Well, Daniel is, Amanda is supposed to just be quiet for once. After the basics of what he'll say are gotten straight, Amanda berates him for going on television to talk against Zoe publicly. Again, she makes no sense, she's the one that started all of this by announcing her daughter was a terrorist all random-like. I actually really want Sam to kill her at this point, she's just annoying and screechy. I feel sorry for their robot. Daniel heads to the studio to get his battered face spackled and in the mean time Amanda tries to no avail to keep the police from searching her home. They manage to search Zoe's room and find the infinity thing that Amanda got from Ben's mom. Later, while Daniel is floundering on the talk show, Amanda busts out Jerry Springer style and actually kind of saves the day. Daniel slips up and lets out all the avatar making business, and mentions stuff about money from the Holobands going to charity, and they talk about their daughter and manage to seem less evil overall.

The parallel storyline was of Sam lurking around Amanda, trying to find a good time to kill her. Unfortunately, she's increasingly mobile and surrounded by people. Also working against this simple mission is Joseph's indecision. First he wants to kill her, then he's all nevermind don't do it. Joe's mother in law is surprisingly and amusingly cut-throat about it. She tells him that the dead aren't dead until they're avenged... whoa Gramma. You're a tad scary. The scene of her butchering the chicken talking about children's finger bones and killing Amanda with her bare hands cracked me up. She also chides William for skipping school and advises him to get a job doing something he likes. When he tells her about a job with the Pyramid team Daniel owns not working out she tells him ominously that her uncle can make things happen. Between her creepy glares and dark vaguely proverbial wisdom I think I'd listen to Grandma if I were him. Her doom face over Joe's shoulder while he frantically tried to call off Amanda's assassination was another nice touch.

Sam finally manages to use his Tauron tribal tattoo connections to get backstage and catch up with Amanda after the show, saying he was an available driver. Silly unquestioning her goes with him and he proceeds to drive her around in circles and scare the piss out of her after a guilt trip. It was a one-two punch of finding out people don't like her and may even wish her harm. Some time after Joe wakes up to Sam taking a bath in the sink, and asks him what he did. Sam tells him he took her to a restaurant and offed her, then is all just kidding. Joe's upset he was being sarcastic about it, but Sam comes back with Joe's being indecisive about killing someone being pretty lame. I think Sam wins, but I still wouldn't miss Amanda. Plus he calls Joe a Tauron in a Caprican's body, ha!

Other bits and pieces had to do with Lacy, who's trying to find a way to get the ginormous robot to Gemenon. She's still trying to get information out of Keon, the kid she tackled in a previous episode. She helps him fix his dirt bike and he agrees to help her. Zoe in the robot shows up in a couple of scenes with the lab guy, he's still messing with the robot in a creepy way. He dances with robot Zoe, and seems to need friends. The episode ends with Sister Clarice again, watching the interview. Then alive Amanda getting into bed and talking about her new-found awareness of people's anger. She seems more interested in the avatar of Zoe and why Daniel didn't tell her. Also, they both miss her and wonder why they didn't pay more attention to her when she was alive. They taunt one another in their ridiculously huge bed.

The best part of this episode was suspense, at long last. It was built up in the usual way, lots of hand wringing and commercial breaks. Close-ups of people's faces. I thought for sure Amanda was going to bite it after she saved the day, but I suppose this is better. She'll be around to cause trouble another day. This episode kept the same somewhat quick pace of the last by switching between events. It seems like more and more is happening in the same amount of time.