"Caprica" 1.03 Recap: "The Reins of a Waterfall"

Remember last week when Amanda Graystone melted down on live, intergalactic television and told everyone in the 12 worlds that her daughter was the terrorist who blew up Maglev Tran Number 23? Yeah, that hasn't exactly been good PR for Graystone Industries.

Baxter Sarno of the talkshow Backtalk with Baxter is eviscerating Daniel every night; some of the Buccaneers are asking to be traded from his team; Amanda has been fired from her job at the hospital; and people are taking it in turns to throw beer bottles at, and beat the frak out of, Amanda and Daniel in every other scene.

Think Jay Leno, Paris Hilton and Balloon Boy’s parents rolled into one. Yep, that bad.

Sam Adama offers up the fiercest smackdown of all when he accompanies Joseph to Daniel's gym. Sam's goals are simply sucker punches: one for the niece and one for the sister-in-law he lost in the bombing. Joseph, on the other hand, wants to see the avatar of his daughter; plus, he wants Daniel to create one of his wife. And, I mean, I get that Joseph misses his family, but he's barely parenting the kid he has now.

Daniel agrees to let Joseph look for his daughter in the virtual world. If he were really clever, Daniel would upload the Caprican version of Lara Croft Tomb Raider and try to convice Joseph things are now just peachy for his virtual kick ass daughter. 

Daniel and Amanda show up at home, beaten and bruised, and he wishes she didn't tell the world Zoe was a terrorist, and she wishes she didn't tell the world Zoe was a terrorist, and Zoebot wishes she didn't tell the world Zoe was a terrorist. But not as much as Zoebot wishes she could close her eyes and cover her ears because her mom and dad decide to have a shag right in front of her.

Think how different things might be if Zoebot never saw this. Does anyone else think this might not mark the moment humanity was doomed? 

Daniel's other problem, besides the whole "getting attacked every five minutes" thing, is that he hates PR, but his company is on the verge of losing one gazillion Cubits if someone doesn't stop the press spiral.

On a side note, don’t you love the names sci fi shows give their fake money? Cubits sounds almost as silly as loonies, francs, and euros. Come on, we all know dollars are the only real money anyway, but if I were going to make up a fake currency, I’d call it Chocos and it would be made of delicious dark chocolate and wouldn’t everyone be happy then?

Of course, Daniel’s dollar, er, “cubit” problem is nothing compared to the problems he's going to have in the next episode because the cops just scored a search warrant to get inside his house to investigate the bombing. Plus, Daughter Adama Avatar escaped from her virtual box, and now that Joseph has tasted revenge, he doesn't want to brush his teeth.

When he's not bullying Daniel or asking his brother to bully Daniel, Joseph is bribing judges. Somewhere between the high road and the low road Daniel got lost — and he must have also suffered a concussion, because he literally seems to have forgotten that he has a son.

Over at the other end of Low Road, Sister Clarice Voldemort is still trying to coax Lacy into telling her where to find Avatar Zoe. Lacy is a little less alone in her resistance, though, because Zoebot has learned to use a holoband, so she and Avatar Lacy can hang out at the Club of Teenage Hedonism.

There they find Joseph's daughter's avatar in a closet in the club, and they're completely weirded out about why Daniel has her locked in his own private room. They help her escape and then make their own plans about getting Zoebot to Gemenon.

Thank gods for Gay Uncle Sam, right? He's like the only voice of reason on this whole planet.