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Ghost in the Machine
In which it is not a game. And don't die.
What Happened:
Joseph Adama goes back into New Cap City with the help of the mysterious Emmanuelle. After flailing around for a bit over whether or not to kill the imaginary people, Joe gets up in some guys face and manages to learn that Tamara has made herself at home in V-World, but no one is quite sure where.
Amanda continues to lean on Clarice for emotional support, while Clarice hints around the possibility of Amanda getting her a look at the Zoe Avatar. Vergis knocks on the door and Amanda - for some reason - lets him in. He tells Amanda about his two dead co-workers and how Daniel was responsible. She kicks him out of the house but remains troubled by the implications.
Daniel is determined that Zoe-A is inside the giant killer robot, so he decides to torture her until she talks to him. Zoe-A wasn't feeling the trust with Daddy to start and the emotional abuse does not help with her issues. Daniel finishes up by ordering the giant killer robot to shoot his dog, hoping that Zoe-A will override and put down the gun.
Later, Zoe-A explains to Lacy that she knew Daniel filled the gun with blanks, so she fired. Daniel remains depressed and confused, but not nearly as messed up as Zoe-A. She tells Lacy that if the gun had real bullets in it, she may well have been tempted to kill Daniel with it.
Ah. Family.
The Good:
- I suspect (like TWoP) that Emmanuelle is Evelyn. Sweet.
- Daniel was pretty clever with the psychological manipulation there.
- All Daniel's scenes with the robot were fantastic. Great performance from Eric Stoltz.
- Joe and Sam's talk. He managed to catch his brother completely off guard.
- And Zoe knew the gun was loaded with blanks. This isn't going to end well.
The Bad:
- Zoe is refusing to talk to Daniel until he shaves off that hideous soul patch.
- Amanda's flashback to the accident - heavy handed, unnecessary and boring. Not a good followup to last weeks Drama with her and Clarice.
- Sam's explanation for how he can be a killer. Ugh.
The Cliche:
- Repetitive tasks as an emotional break down mechanism.
- Druggies as a source of randomish information.
- "Avoid him" Emmanuelle tells Joe, so naturally Joe is the one who gets picked on.
- Flashy omni-sexual nightclub hosts who set riddles for the hero. At least Adama doesn't pull the answer out of his butt and impress everyone - though the show cannot convince me that he's really in any danger. And why did they not actually shoot him when he failed? Was he so pathetic that he wasn't even worth killing?
What Did I Think?:
Wow. That amped up the tension. And with so little flash and bang. It was mostly psychological between Daniel and Zoe, with just a bit of noise from Adama.
Just a couple beats that rang a bit off for me, the ending of Sam and Joe's conversation in particular. Now, the beginning was great, with Joe obviously throwing Sam completely off-balance with the question of how Sam feels when he kills someone. And I'm loving the irony of the guy who was trying to at least pretend his hands were clean was getting pulled into the mafia "game." Or the emotional pain of suspecting what his daughter is doing to survive.
Sam's whole "I pretend it's not real," however, just seems too obvious and fits too neatly into the episode arc. It's too easy a solution for Joe and too shallow a response from Sam, a character who has always been more interesting than that. I mean, we're obviously meant to be drawing these connections between V-World and the "real" world and the actions taken in each, but something in that answer rang wrong to me.
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