End of the Line: Thoughts on the "Caprica" Mid-Season Finale

I'm curious to know what people thought of Friday evening's spring finale of Syfy's Caprica, the last episode that will air until the series returns this fall.

While the episode ("End of the Line"), written by Michael Taylor, offered some closure to several storylines (at least for now, anyway) and contained the series' most exciting sequence to date (as armed forces attempted to stop a runaway Cylon prototype), it also was structured around a number of cliffhangers, each designed to hold our interest--or at least our curiosity--until the series returns.

But the problem was that I didn't really care which of the characters lived or died. And that's a major problem for a series that itself lives or dies based on the strength of its characters and the audience's innate connection with them.

Caprica has been a mixed bag so far this season: a heady brew of ideas and themes that are, at times, executed with the awkwardness of a robot taking its first steps. It's exciting at times, yes, but you also don't want to be standing near it when it inevitably falls down.

Part of the problem for me is that the numerous storylines and characters are so completely separate, creating the sense of narrative fragmentation. Thematically, they might be linked but each of the characters--Amanda, Clarice, Lacey, Daniel, Joseph, and Zoe--seems to be in their own series most of the time, with very little crossover or connection between them. That disconnect might be intentional and might have been implemented to reflect the disconnect in their own hedonistic and tech-savvy society but it doesn't necessarily make for compelling television.

This was especially true in the spring finale, where our main characters spent precious little time in scenes together, instead embarking on individual storylines that didn't really come together in any meaningful way. Joseph's quest to find his missing daughter Tamara in the V-world lead to a reveal of just who his guide Emmanuelle was in the real world: and--not surprisingly--it was his lovestruck assistant whose name I can't even remember. Joseph's addiction to amp and his obsessive quest to find the Tamara avatar could have been a thrilling story arc for his character but I found that I cared less and less about Adama as the season wore on as he descended into a husk of a man who spent more time in the virtual world than living in the real one.

Likewise, Amanda has retreated into her memories and (possible) madness, seeing the ghost of her dead brother and reflecting on a suicide attempt made before she met her future husband Daniel. While Daniel has all but forgotten about Amanda (just where is he while she wastes days away in their bedroom), except for chopping some vegetables for a dinner that never happens, Amanda slips further and further away from reality, finding herself atop a bridge as she decides whether or not to leap to her death. This should have been a pivotal moment for the series but I found that I didn't care whether she lived or died, whether she jumped or caught herself in time.

Given that she is a major character, I'd be surprised if the writers kill her off. Far more likely is that her instincts as a doctor kick in when she sees the nearby explosion--a car bomb unknowingly planted by Lacey at the behest of Barnabas--that doesn't kill its intended target, Sister Clarice Willow, but will likely instead claim the life of Clarice's husband Nestor, the brutally underused Scott Porter.

The other extinguished life is that of research scientist Philomon, accidentally murdered by Zoe in the body of the Cylon prototype, seconds after revealing her true self to her would-be boyfriend. While the death is not intentional, it's the most shocking element of the finale... and speaks volumes about the audience's investment in the series when a tertiary character has more an impact than the leads.

I didn't quite get Zoe's master plan to use Philomon to escape Greystone Industries and then meet up with Lacey to be shipped to Gemenon or why she needed him to help her do something that she could have done several times over at this point. Considering that the Cylon unit spent the majority of the season downstairs in Daniel's lab at the Greystone house, I don't know why Zoe didn't just walk out at any point during the season. Or call Lacey to come get her since the house seemed deserted most of the time. Color me confused.

Likewise, I don't know that Daniel would be so quick to order the MCP scrubbed either, considering that he knows that it's the only working one (Vergis was never able to make it work, after all) and that it might still contain Zoe's avatar on it, even after his numerous tests failed to force the avatar to show itself.

Ideally, I'd love to see the individual storylines begin to come together more closely, to overlap less in terms of theme and more in terms of plot. The series, to me, feels more like a grouping of semi-related characters than a true ensemble. I'm hoping that the writing staff can find a way of making these characters pop more and keeping the audience invested in these storylines. There's still a certain iciness to Caprica that desperately needs to thaw out and we need to feel the heat of empathy and connection with these characters if we decide to return to this world.

Otherwise it might just be the end of the line for me with this series.

But I am curious to know: what did you think of the season finale and of Caprica's season itself so far? Will you tune in again this fall when Caprica returns? Discuss.

Caprica will return will return with the second half of its freshman season this fall on Syfy.