Review

This riveting finale is a nearly perfect conclusion to one of the best television series I've seen in years. There are only two issues with the story. The first is the disappointing direction the writers went in with Willie's character. But the much more important disappointment is that the story ends here. While this episode does offer adequate closure to function as a series finale which is an unfortunate necessity as a consequence of the show's cancellation, it was clearly meant to be a season finale. There is much more to this story and I wish there would have been a second season in which to tell the rest!

First, let's talk about Willie. This episode reveals that Willie really did die in the previous episode, something many of us assumed was yet another fake-out of a cliffhanger when the previous episode ended. It's revealed that the Bill Adama we knew from BSG was in fact not the Willie Adama we've come to know on Caprica. The Bill Adama we knew from BSG was in fact born during this episode's vast cuts through time, the son of Joseph and Evelyn Adama. He was named both after both his dead grandfather and after his dead older half brother.

The writers were careful to work out the timeline in such a way that the birth dates of either of the two William Adamas were within a range reasonable enough to have grown up to be the admiral on BSG. That way we would watch this series with no reason to doubt that fake Willie was the real thing so that when they did the bait and switch we could realistically believe that the new, younger Bill was instead the real thing, since either birth date falls within the reasonable range.

Regarding those birth dates specifically, had the older one been the one we knew from BSG, he would have been about 29 years old at the end of the first Cylon War. This is surprisingly old, but not unbelievable. There could have been a good reason why he stayed out of the war until he was pushing 30. As such, we, the fanbase, accepted this supposed fact after Caprica's pilot and moved on with the story. On the other hand the younger Bill Adama established in this episode would have been about 16 years old at the end of the first Cylon war. This is surprisingly young, but there's no reason to assume military enlistment couldn't have begun at age 14 or something given the circumstances of the war.

That said, while the timeline is reconcilable, it is only just barely so. The actor who played young Bill Adama during his first mission in the flashbacks during in BSG: Razor looked too old to be 16 and too young to be 29. It was clear that the writers at the time meant the character to be somewhere in his early twenties. As such, the big, gigantic fake-out that was the Willie Adama from this series is a contrivance of the highest order, all to pull the wool over the audience's eyes to manufacture some cheap drama at the expense of the authenticity of both the storytelling and the coherence of its continuity. Once again, Caprica lies to its audience thinking that this is good storytelling.

Setting aside wonky Willie, the Adama subplot was highly effective. I must say I quite enjoyed seeing the Guatrau finally get what was coming to him. Seeing his daughter in on the assassination plot was the perfect choice and having her ascend to the status of Guatrau in his place was fitting. There's little to say about the primary plot of Daniel and Amanda working to thwart Clarice's terrorist attack other than that it was incredibly well executed. Daniel using Cylons as his own personal army was both terrifying and thrilling. The only real problem with this plot thread is that it demanded more substance.

I'm left wondering about the details behind all the time they cut across. How did Daniel vindicate himself? How did he prove he was really thwarting a terrorist attack and not actually committing one? After all, Cylons shooting people in the audience of a C-Bucs game sounds kinda suspicious to me. Why did Lacy decide to become the Blessed Mother and lead the STO rather than use her position of power to disband it? Did Lacy become a willing architect in Clarice's plans to start a Cylon uprising, thereby, presumably beginning the first Cylon war? And what of Zoe? We see her in a human-like body attending one of Clarice's sermons to the Cylons... What's that all about?

The ambiguity surrounding Zoe, Clarice, and Lacy is in effect the cliffhanger of the finale. It appears as though they are working together in some fashion to free the Cylons from their slavery, which would presumably start the first Cylon war. What's more, Zoe's physical resurrection into a human-like body and apparent role in leading the Cylons into an uprising against their masters would seem to be in conflict with established continuity that the Cylons did not possess resurrection or human-like bodies until the arrival of the 13th tribe, which ended the first Cylon war. Somehow Daniel's resurrection inventions must have been lost or destroyed along with Zoe herself most likely at some later time just before or during the war.

The apparent resurrection technology anachronisms are likely an unfortunate consequence of Caprica's cancellation. In all likelihood, the second season would have dealt with this and properly contextualized the continuity of resurrection technology. It's clear that this episode as written functions better as a season finale than a series finale. Many of these lingering questions would have been perfect plot lines to explore had the series been given a second season.

In a certain sense, the Caprica series has come full circle. The finale, like the pilot, raises more questions than it answers. But at the same time, like the pilot, the finale also gives us just enough to work with that we can certainly imagine what the beginning of the first Cylon war must have been like. It certainly would have been more enjoyable to actually see the beginning of the first Cylon war with a second season rather than be forced to settle for a story that merely sets it up and then ends, but it's clear that the Caprica series, if given more time, certainly would have gotten to that. Perhaps even with only two seasons to its entire lifespan.

But I cannot review the finale based on what a second season might have been like. This is Caprica's series finale and despite its shortcomings with regards to tying up the Zoe, Clarice, and Lacy story, the episode is surprisingly effective as a series finale. In this reviewer's opinion, the Caprica series was the best thing on television since the first season of BSG and since HBO's Rome. Even if we are never graced with what would be a well deserved continuation of this fantastic television series, it at the very least certainly will have ended well, which is more than I can say for BSG.

That said, if you're interested in taking in all the creative glory that a second season of Caprica could have been, then have a look at my article analyzing the topic entitled the shape of things which should have been to see why I believe Caprica could have risen beyond even BSG as a storytelling masterpiece.