Ghosts in the Machine

Synopsis: Adama's still tracking Tamara through New Cap City, which leads him to a cabaret where the crossdressing MC might have information on her whereabouts. Except that it ends up being a dead end and we basically waste another episode. But Adama learns to kill in the virtual world (after asking Sam the awkward question, "How do you kill people?"), and he starts seeing graffiti that suggests Tamara had been there. Graystone is driven to near madness with his obsession to discover if Zoe is truly inside the robot. He subjects her to several torturous experiments in hopes that she will reveal herself. As the episode ends, she's afraid of what she'll do to him if Lacy doesn't get her to Geminon soon.

Amanda is still kind of crazy and obsessing about her brother, and this still isn't really going anywhere. But Vergis showed up at the house and told her that her husband stole his MCP, which she has a hard time believing.

It's so frustrating to spend so much of an episode in New Cap City and still get nothing out of it. It was all basically a dead end. Yes, he learns that people think she's part of the game since she can't die, but we knew that already. And how rude of them to tantalize us with a riddle and not reveal the answer!

The stuff with Graystone and Zoe-bot is much more interesting. We learn more about the house they used to live in, which was mentioned in a previous episode. Apparently there was a fire and Zoe was trapped for a long period of time. It seems this has left her with a fear of fire. Graystone then goes forward with an insidious experiment to lure Zoe out: he'll set a fire around the robot, and expects Zoe to walk out of it. He's also ordered the robot to stay, so if it moves it's because of Zoe. This episode is essentially a game of chicken between Zoe and her father, as each stubbornly maintains their position. Alessandra does a lot with just silent facial expressions in these scenes; it's really nice.

One thing that bothers me is the final test with Zoe, when we see her she's got her hands on her hips. But the robot's hands are by its sides. Why is this different? It's just odd to me. Then comes the final test: shoot your beloved dog. I hate dogs, so I was kind of hoping it would die. Zoe-bot does indeed fire, but it seems Graystone is not that cruel and the gun was loaded with blanks. That would have been fine, but then we get a follow-up scene where Zoe tells Lacy about it. She says the robot could sense right away that they were blanks. That really bothered me because it effectively killed the tension of the scene. If she knew they were blanks, then it was no test at all. They try to save the scene by saying if they hadn't been blanks, Zoe might have shot her father instead. But I wish they had just left it alone.

Anyway, all this is the only thing interesting about this episode. The rest is a lot of people talking or de-resing but we still aren't getting anywhere narratively. I'm almost at the half-way point of this season and I hope something happens soon.