"There is another sky"

[chani]

First off, flist, if you don't watch Caprica you should, it's the best thing you can find on tv these days, period. Not many shows are that ambitious and creative. And there are pretty men!

As for "There is another sky", I don't know where to begin for there's so much to review, so I will just say that the episode rocked big time. The title was beautifully chosen, the acting was perfect, every scene was flawless and powerful. We didn't get much Graystone goodness, but when we did, it was superb. All the reservations I had before, I didn't have this time, perhaps because the things that didn't quite work for me (the STO stuff mostly)was left out here. Also I think that Zoe is good for me in small doses only...

My only complaint is about the sequence with the characters introducing themselves before the opening scene, instead of the usual "previously on...". I could live without that.


The A-plot was about the Adamas and their coming to terms with what happened in the pilot, the death of Shannon and Tamara. Depressed Joseph didn't want to, but his brother made him realise that he had to, for his son, so he went the Tauron way eventually, doing what was expected...a traditional funeral. The B-plot was about the Graystones and the aftermaths of Daniel's anouncement on Sarno's.

First I must say that I found extremely smart and daring that the scene about Graystone Industry board and Daniel saving his professional life thanks to the U-87 was done that way (I will go back to that wonderful yet chilling and horrifying scene) and as a B-plot, given that this is the beginning of the end, the source of the Cylon war and therefore a turning point for the twelves colonies. It's a major event if you consider the big picture, but most of the episode focused on a  private matter with the Adama family.

So there were two levels in the episode, the intimate one and the "big picture"one ...or even three, if we count the virtual world and the game world of New Cap City. Of course those three levels are parallel in the episode, yet sort of intertwined (hence the ambiguity of the Graystone scenes) and somehow connected, especially the family one and the virtual one.

So Willie was skipping school again, and Joseph was sleeping on the couch or trying to, unwilling to get up and go on with his life. He has reached the bottom of depression. He didn't want to wake up and get a grip, perhaps prefered to try to dream of his dead girls. Sam told him to wake up, a recurring theme in the episode. On a shallow note, I found that Esai Morales in his robe was very very pretty!
 
Sam also said "this isn't business, this is family!" a key line, that resonates in the B-plot with Daniel Graystone at Graystone Industry, which seems to be all about business, except that the Graystone family is the core of it too.  And there's the virtual business run by the mysterious woman named Vesta. But in ancient Rome Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home and family. That Vesta seems more interested in money though...
 
While Joseph is trying to reconnect with his defiant son, little wannabe-Tauron-gangster William, Tamara-A is looking for an exit, in the V-world where Zoe and Lacy left her, two episodes ago, because she wants to go home. So of course, she goes to see Vesta. They both think that she is just a "sleeper" and must be woken up in the real world in order to get out.
 
The last time we saw her I feared that she might disappear for good if she were shot, but looks like she can't be erased, unlike the other avatars. I understood the logics: since her spirit doesn't have another place to go, the avatar is permanent, it can't stop being. The show is telling us here Lavoisier's rule, or at least that there is always something left somewhere.

Tamara's journey is a wonderful and original way to revive the ghost/undead theme. I also loved the style of New Cap City, so retro so Blade Runner-like, very film noir. I wasn't sure about Tamara's storyline until now, but I love what they are doing with the character. In one episode they turned the avatar into a mixing of Luc Besson's Nikita, Bonnie from Bonnie & Clyde (I will call Tamara's partner Clyde from now on, for I didn't get his name)and Neo from The Matrix. The heist, the burgeoning romance, the epiphany about her being dead in the real world and the final kickass-style awakening did work, and the final shot of Tamara walking alone on her high heels in the deserted virtual city was beautiful. "I'm awake" she says, and we suddenly see that Tamara is the real badass in the Adama family (she already came across as a strong-willed girl in the pilot, as she was chatting with her mother just before her death). Her journey in the virtual world with Vesta's group also echoed what was said on Sarno's last week, about lost teenagers that needed values and points of reference. Clyde is one of those lost kids, taking refuge in the virtual world to be someone who matters, addicted to the feelings he got in there, afraid to take off his holobands and living out there. Of course it's a way to talk about our culture too and our kids that are addicted to computer games to the point of losing their touch to reality (I especially think of those Japanese kids who hide away in their bedroom, quit going out, quit interacting with their parents; I believe there's a special Japanese word for that pathology but I've forgotten it). Also it echoes Joseph's depression.

I loved the connections between Tamara's journey and Joseph's awakening. It's like the V-world was a sort of meta-text. Tamara and Clyde stole Chiron's money in New Cap City, it was a sort of test for Tamara and she passed it. In the real world, Joseph realised that William was getting out of control and followed Sam's advice (again Sam was the good adviser, like Amanda to Daniel), he set a proper funeral service, according to Tauron's rites, in order to bid their farewell to the dead, reconnecting with the living in grief and community rites, so they could move on and he could be a father to his son. The rites were very Greek-like, apart from the tattoes, with both Joseph and Willie handing out a coin to pay Shannon's and Tamara's passing. Finally Joseph and Willie bonded.

In the V-world, Tamara passed Vesta's test indeed, and got to another level (computer game vocabulary) thanks to Chiron's coins (I loved the vacuum-like device they used to grab the coins!)and the name of the fat guy is significant. In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman of Hades, carrying the souls of the newly deceased across the Styx and the Acheron. A coin was placed in or on the mouth of the dead person to pay Charon for the passage, which sort of is what Joseph and Willie did. Only heroes (like Heracles, Odysseus, Aeneas) could take a journey in the underworld and return still alive, conveyed by Charon's boat, so in a way Clyde is a hero since he obeyed Tamara and returned to the real world to deliver her message. The funeral scene was moving and I loved the final chant on the Adama's theme (I haven't read Bear Mcraery's blog yet though), it was lovely. It was also tragic to see Joseph bidding his farewell and letting Shannon and Tamara go at last because we knew that Hermes Clyde was on his way to deliver Tamara's message.
I'm joking about Hermes, but it was Clyde's role in the episode. Besides being a messenger, Hermes was, in Greek mythology, a psychopomp; his responsability was to escort newly deceased to the afterlife which is exactly what Clyde did, he escorted Tamara to New Cap City wherein her afterlife is. He used her ability to fool Chiron but was also her guide, even though she didn't end up in peace but walking on high heels alone with a gun in a deserted city. In a way New Cap City is a new way to represent limbo. There is another sky indeed. 

So now Tamara knows that she is dead and indestructible at once, and she can erase other avatars in the V-world. She is pure code (spirit?)and she can manipulate other codes. Methinks that a god complex is on its way!

Now that I think about it, what if Tamara was actually the Cylons' god we have been talked about in BSG? I also seem to recall something similar in the last part of Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos but I am not sure, it's been a while since I read them (btw I read that a movie is about to be made in Hollywood, I fear the worst!).


The B-plot provided four scenes, one between Daniel and Cyrus in which Daniel understands that he might lose his company; one between Daniel and Amanda; the climax one as Daniel gets his mojo back and shows his Cylon to the board; and the last scene between Cyrus and Daniel again after the vote. 

I've always loved scenes between Daniel and Cyrus. Cyrus Xander is an interesting character, I wish we had more of him on screen. The scene with Amanda carried on the "not sleeping/not being awake quite" theme. Once again they were adorable together. Amanda wakes up and finds her husbands wide awake sitting at the edge of the bed. He tells her what worries him and she reminds him of who he is, what he is capable of, mentioning the story of his first success during hard times as she was pregnant with Zoe. I love that couple! Their chemistry is unbelievable.

On the following day, Daniel has found his spirits back (just like Joseph does at the end of the rituals). As Cyrus and Pryia are trying to defend him on his absence during the emergency meeting, against shareholders that want his head, Daniel strolls in followed by the giant Cylon. The scene is simply awesome and reminded me of Six showing up to meet and kiss the human delegation in the opening sequence of the BSG pilot.

Daniel presents his Cylon to his board, saying that the holoband is over anyway (his speech was really interesting and not without connection to the current issue of illegal downloading!) and that they must move on to the future instead of spending coins cubits on a sinking ship, the future being embodied in the U-87. Daniel is bright and convincing, ordering the Cylon to walk around and take a look at those "fine folks" (I loved the way Eric said it )around the people which amuses Zoe a lot and is a bit threatening (he even asks them if they feel uncomfortable); he glows speaking of his creation as a "new race" that would walk besides human beings, arguing that this is no fancy robot but artificial sentience, a sentient life; if Amanda was pregnant with Zoe when he started his career, he now is pregnant with the cylon race! I loved the ambiguity of the scene, with Daniel showing his fatherly pride "there is a brilliant mind in here"  and Zoe feeling touched by the compliment, almost beaming at her daddy! Her face is pure bliss then (good work Alessandra!). It's business of course, Daniel is selling something that would sell to convince the board to keep him as CEO, but there is a real connection between the man and the robot as if Daniel unconsciously knew that the essence of his daughter was in the cylon. Then Daniel goes on (and the music becomes more agressive like after he captured the code in the pilot) and it becomes nauseating and perfect. It will sell because the cylon will be a tireless worker that wouldn't need to be paid but would obey any order, that would have no rights...in other words, slaves! Here I couldn't help thinking of the Greeks again (I know, I know...), and of the parts about slavery in Aristotle's Politics. Another brilliant mind who didn't have any problem with the idea of sentient life being considered like convenient items(I think he compared slaves to furniture and machines in the text). 

Concerning the big picture, the list that Daniel makes to sell his product sums up the reasons the Cylons will rebel, it's the source of the war and the fall of the colonies. It starts there exactly.When Daniel commands U-87 to rip its own arm off to prove its point, it's simply incredible. Zoe can't believe it, she stares at her father, but he commands again, and she can't refuse without giving her presence away so she starts tearing off her arm. The giant robot finally mutilates itself violently and throws its arm on the table (loved the reaction of the people around the table!) and Daniel notes, smiling, that it "looked painful"!  It was all about business for him at the end of the day, not about family for he didn't know that Zoe was in there, and he had to point out that the identification people would have with the robot would make it sell even more because the "need to connect is powerful". It was horrible and wonderful at once that the show went there.

"and the world's just changed" Daniel said. There is another sky and we know it will bring on war, pain and death...

In the last short scene, the characters are shot from afar (a fine shot) Cyrus comes to tell Daniel that he got the vote and that he'd better be right. He won. We don't see Daniel's face, but he remains alone in the office as Cyrus goes out, and he looks like the loneliest person in the world with a city full of lights behind him.

ETA1: I'm reading Bear's blog now and looks like Clyde's name was...Herecles!!!! 

ETA2: There's a poetry meme going on that I saw on prophecygirrl 's journal:

If you see this, and are of a mind to, post a poem in your LJ.

So here's "There is another sky" by Emily Dickinson:

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields—
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

Hee, I just found out that The Caprican had a post, a few days ago, on Vesta and the new popular virtual game called New Cap City. It's like Syfy wanted to set the rules of the game before the episode was on!

Comments

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

Wonderful review. I've just finished watching the episode .

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

But it is a wonderful show, isn't it? I'm so excited! Is it next week yet?

Hey are you the anonymous person who gave me virtual balloons?

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

Oui c'est une excellente série . Un grand plaisir à savoir qu'un nouvel épisode nous attend dans une semaine.

Hey are you the anonymous person who gave me virtual balloons? Am not! But if I were , I wouldn't tell you.;)

Very lovely poem you added.

[dragonlit.livejournal.com]

Brilliant review of the episode. (And I will say here that I too found Joseph/Morales very pretty with his emotion worn so openly.)

As I did not actively follow BSG, some of what you have said, the links to it are lost on me but still, this is such a compelling story on its own.

Thank you for providing Clyde's name. I could not remember if he had actually been named. Your analysis of his character and the link to today's teen losing themselves in a virtual world was spot on.

I don't remember Tamara's character from the first episode other than a brief glimpse and found her to be unimpressive when we saw her originally in the V-World. This episode made me love her. She has developed so much and your comment that she was the real badass of the Adama family is spot on.

Your ties to the Greek were excellent. Next week should be great!!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I don't think that the charcater was named on screen but I may have missed it(I'm French and I watch the show without subtitles so there's also stuff that I don't get). Anyway if Bear says that it's Herecles it must be...and it fits in my connections to Greek mythology! ;- )

Daniel is my favourite character but both Joseph and Daniel are very pretty, each in his own unique way. It's part of Caprica's charms and one of the reasons I'm alreeady addicted. That darn show is making me read fanfiction while I thought I had quit for good!

BTW I've just read a J/D fanfiction that fueled my imagination:

http://community.livejournal.com/capricaslash/1417.html?view=393#t393

[dragonlit.livejournal.com]

That ff you rec'd is a good one. I do love that pairing and they are also my favorite characters on the show, not just for the pretty. ;) The whole dynamic between the two is made for stories like that.

[candesgirl.livejournal.com]

Yay, my fic fueled your imagination! That makes me happy :) And that you mentioned it to one of my favorite ladies in the world makes me smile that much more :)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Pure coincidence and good timing!

I read your fic just before I answered her comment and I was still...moved.

[candesgirl.livejournal.com]

Hi, butting in, you should be used to this by now :)

I agree that Tamara was unimpressive when we saw her originally in the V-world, but after watching it again and then again, I gotta say, I think that we're meant to find her unimpressive, like that we wouldn't expect her to be so badass or her story to become so compelling.

[dragonlit.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely agree. It came as such a pleasant surprise really that her story is unfolding like it is. My original feel when Zoe led her to the V-World, that there was a possibility that she would eventually become a Cylon too, but would be Zoe's minion. That, I can't see happening now. Still think Joseph will somehow convince Daniel(and you can write how he's going to convice him as I doubt the idea I would like to see would be in canon - heh)to find Tamara's consciousness and put her in a Cylon body but Tamara will be her own force. I have all kinds of ideas as to where this story is going to go and love it when it takes a different turn from what I expected. :) And now I shall stop because I could go on and on.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

No untrue. The character was intentionally downplayed before "There is Another Sky".

Besides in the previous episode showing her in the V-world she was in shock, but slowly her personality emerged. For instance she obviously enjoyed the heist despite her fears at the beginning. In the pilot she came across as an exhuberant child and she had very little screen time, but if you remember her conversation with her mother she also sounded like someone who wouldn't submit.

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Oh OH! I see why the meme fit this entry so well! :D

Lovely lovely poem.

I'll be back once I've watched!

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Enjoy it!

[kitsu84.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, wonderful review. I love how you pointed out all of the parallels in this particular episode. It shed some new light on all of the underlying themes of the series, and I feel compelled to go back and re-watch this episode yet again because of it.

Also:
I especially think of those Japanese kids who hide away in their bedroom, quit going out, quit interacting with their parents; I believe there's a special Japanese word for that pathology but I've forgotten it.

The word you're looking for is, "otaku". Or, in the case of computer geeks, "pasokon otaku". ;)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the kind words. I guess I was inspired by the show's brillance. I love tv shows that give you food for thoughts and make you want to analyze them, you know.

No I wasn't looking for "otaku" because I don't think that all Japanese geeks are depressed kids. Actually it's the "Hikikomori" phenomenom (I've just recalled it) I was thinking of. I saw a documentary about it once, and they made connections between that condition and video games.

[elisi]

I don't watch the show (never watched BSG at all), but this vid was rec'd on my flist, and I know that the vidder is AMAZING. So, in case you haven't seen it, I point you in its direction:

Brand New You're Retro by hollywoodgrrl.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

No I hadn't seen it. Thanks!

You need to watch Caprica! It's a fabulous show, and you on't have to know BSG to watch it.

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Well, I've just finished it, and it was everything you say here. Amazing in every way. I got chills from Tamarin's
"I'm awake" -- it was a seminal moment. It was enhanced, rather than watered down, but the other "awakenings" in the episode.

I find it fascinating that someone as likable as Daniel Graystone can have such a dark side as to create a race of slaves in one fell swoop. It's certainly not implausible, but it says things about humanity as a whole that are chilling. I am loving at how well, and especially, how subtly, they are weaving the tragedy here. Just wonderful writing.

And this review? Was wonderful, detailed, and thoughtful as always. Is it Friday yet? :D

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Oh you're inspiring me new thoughts to post!

I think that there was two men speaking through Daniel's mouth, first the scientist who was thrilled about creating an artificial sentience, a "new race" as he said, and then the businessman who didn't want to lose his company, who was determined to fight and win, and who knew exactly what to say to convince the board, so he pushed the profit button.

He is a complex man with many layers. I love the character!

[bsg-stardust.livejournal.com]

Great review!

if you don't watch Caprica you should, it's the best thing you can find on tv these days, period.

This. =)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

And according to the rumour, there should be a second season!