The Imperfections of Memory

The Imperfections of Memory is an episode of the 2009 TV series Caprica.
== Plot ==
=== Teaser ===
Amanda Graystone wakes up from a dream where she is chasing a man down a hospital ward. After getting up, she looks at a letter addressed to her from Delphi Convalescent Institute. Meanwhile, Clarice Willow is woken up by Olaf, who has spent all night with Nestor going through the information stolen from Daniel Graystone's computer. The Avatar Program is not there, but leftover data suggests it was downloaded to another device before its deletion.
Later in the morning, Amanda begins her usual routine of paying her respects to the Maglev bombing memorial wall. There, she finds the city council has ordered its scrapping so work can begin repairing the Maglev system. Though the contractors insist the wall's pictures are going to a permanent memorial at Apollo Park, Amanda continues stalling their work and they finally leave. Having planned her route to coincide with Amanda, Clarice finds her staring off into a crowd of onlookers visibly confused and taking photographs. She admits in private to having just seen her brother Darius, who died some time ago.
Zoe-A meets with Lacy Rand in V-World, where she warns her about Clarice's attempt to go into her father's computer. Fearing time is running out, she is preparing to go on another date with Philomon to further her escape plans. Lacy isn't sure she can offer the help she needs, but is urged to go back to Barnabas Greeley and secure a means of shipping the U-87 prototype to Gemenon.
In the real world, Joseph Adama tracks Tad Thorean to his work and corners him in the alleyway while throwing away food. He insists that Tamara and the avatar Tad encountered are the same person and he must find her, and enlists Tad in guiding him through New Cap City. 
=== Act 1 ===
Returning home from the memorial wall, Amanda rushes to the computer window and pulls up the photographs she took. They are too blurry from shaking, and she cannot tell for sure she saw her brother there.
Tad meanwhile brings Joseph down a sewer access tunnel in New Cap City, which serves as a lobby for entering the game proper. The two look different from their real personas, wearing vintage suits to fit the game's noir style. Tad warns him about the game's main rule - that people are free to do whatever they like, but if they die in the game they are permabanned. Taking advantage of the Holoband technology, there is no way to create an alternate account to get back in, should Joseph's character be killed before meeting Tamara-A. Tad readies a handgun and leads Joseph up to the surface while explosions ravage above.
Back on her walk, Amanda is startled by a car crash. Though she offers aide, another doctor takes her place and she can go back on her walk. While turning away, she spots the man again, and they begin a chase towards a parking garage. Amanda loses the man, but instead takes notice of a poster for the Caprica City Museum of Contemporary Art, recognising a bridge in the painting photographed.
At the Willow residence, Olaf catches Clarice rummaging through Desiree's things. She needs a reason to go back to Amanda, and tells him about Amanda's experience. Believing Zoe to be a messianic figure, Clarice thinks Amanda must be seeing an Angel and this is all part of the One True God's plan.
Joseph and Tad finally get out to the surface after moving through a subway. As this is not a fantasy game, they must run or drive to find Tamara-A. Joseph finds the game's concept boring, and can't understand why it would be popular, but Tad explains it gives people to chance to live out their fantasies without repercussions, whether it's murder or sex.
=== Act 2 ===
Clarice heads back to the Graystone residence, where she presents a bottle of Scorpion Marsh Genuine Ambrosia, a brand Amanda is familiar with. Amanda confides in Clarice her experience of seeing her brother at the crash, and thinks how Darius himself died in a car crash she was a passenger in. She then shows Clarice a picture displayed in the poster she took, which is of the very place the car crash happened.
At Atlas Arena, Tomas Vergis drops by the VIP suit to confront Daniel once more while he watches the Caprica Buccaneers game with Cyrus Xander. Vergis mocks Daniel over his inability to duplicate a working MCP chip and reveals Vergis Corp's project ended in failure. Daniel and Xander are confused by Vergis' remarks, as the U-87 prototype they have works perfectly. Passing this off as gaslighting, Xander reminds Daniel they cannot duplicate the two more prototypes needed by the military, and they should really consider selling the team to get more development money. Daniel is adamant that never happen, and instead insists on finding a solution on his own.
After school, Lacy starts to develop a relationship with Keon, who is investigating her on Barnabas' orders. He explains that Barnabas is not willing to go through the trouble to help a Monotheist move to Gemenon to be happy, and needs more than that. She offers to join the Soldiers of The One so she has a reason.
At the request of "Rachel", Philomon enters V-World on another cyberdate, and end up in a flight simulator. The two are flying Caprican Air Force Vipers, but as Zoe-A is not experienced she crashes the plane. Bailing out into the water, she swims ashore, and is asked by Philomon how she could be so bad. She explains her avatar has been set to real world standards - she cannot just casually flick switches and pull the throttle of a plane in V-World and it be fine. As they talk about V-World, Zoe-A talks about her hopes that V-World would become something other than a place for people who don't care about life to socialise, and become something more. When Philemon brings up how she doesn't seem like much of a computer geek, she shows to him how V-World was made with limitations that make it look fake if noticed, like the same model of tree appearing in different places. She devises a system that would allow for infinite variety of "tree-like trees" to make the place more lifelike. Finally, Philemon reveals he is on a top-secret military project to create robots, and the two make-out. Meanwhile, Joseph and Tad are caught up in a street attack by plane-flying users, leading to Tad being shot and de-rezzing. The two take off their Holobands, with Tad visibly upset about how he has died.
Daniel returns home to see the Buccaneers have lost their game with the Stallions. Amanda offers him a drink of the Scorpion ambrosia, and he heads upstairs while Amanda phones up Clarice. Still on the holoband, Philemon heares more of Zoe-A's ideas on programming; she suggests a process to make robots better able to explore the world as a pretext for her being let outside the lab, but he takes more notice of her accidental implication of an analogue-based programming with significant variables that would make each program unique. Daniel catches Philemon on the holoband, and he re-rezzes and explains his new theory of the MCP being analogue. Graystone is intrigued and sends him home, still suspicious Zoe-A has something to do with it.
At his apartment, Joseph Adama puts his Holoband on once more. He is observed closely by Tamara-A. Trying to hide in a building, he meets a woman named Emmanuelle, who is a friend of "Heracles", sent into the game to find him so he can complete his quest to find Tamara. 
===Act 4===
Amanda meets with Clarice at the drug den. She takes out her letter from Delphi requesting a donation, seeing it as part of the same pattern of events, quoting scripture with "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again" . She was admitted to the psychiatric hospital three years after the car crash and stayed there for two and a half years. She reveals she dropped out of university, because of delusions of her brother being everywhere. Clarice delivers a sermon to Amanda about the power of God.
Joseph comes with Emmanuelle, but is scared, as being killed in New Cap City risks never seeing his daughter again.
Back at the lab, Daniel observes how the family dog Caesar wants the U-87 to play ball, evidently seeing the robot as a living person and not a fixture to the wall. Daniel's attention is drawn to the robot, and he calls it 'Zoe'.
==Production==
=== Writer ===
"The Imperfections of Memory" represented the complete change in story-telling method, with much of Season 1.0's episodes becoming a jumbled mess of plot-points. Around the time this episode was ready for filming, the earlier episodes were re-edited to create a more cohesive story structure that would not inundate the audience with information that would not be important until later. This move to a suspense-driven semi-episodic series moved past the original selling point, which was for Dallas in a futuristic world.
The idea of Amanda Graystone having an affair with Tomas Vergis was cut out of the Pilot due to concerns it would make the character totally unredeemable. When the idea arose again during Season 1.0 that there be a strain in the Graystones' relationship, this led on to the suggestion of a possible affair between Amanda and Clarice, particularly how well the actors worked together.
=== Directing ===
Wayne Rose was a recurring director for Battlestar Galactica, directing "The Resistance", "Dirty Hands", the "Razor" flashbacks, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?", "Face of the Enemy" and "Blood on the Scales".
Rose took attention to having Richard Harmon essentially play two different characters: Tad Thorean and Heracles. Treated in the script as a disaffected youth clinging to video games, Richard gave a more awkward performance of Tad against his more confident and authoritative as Heracles.
=== Editing ===
An idea was made early on for Keon and Lacy to develop a relationship, but it was reduced during editing as the two actors had little chemistry, and focus was kept on she and Zoe-A becoming involved with men to complete their respective objectives. Zoe-A and Philemon's respective actors had better chemistry having done more episodes together.
Principal photography for the scene where Zoe-A's plane crashes took place without any thought to include insert shots of Zoe-A at the throttle. Stock footage from Scar was inserted instead.
==Cast==
Actor 	Character
Eric Stoltz 	Daniel Graystone
Esai Morales 	Joseph Adama
Paula Malcomson 	Amanda Graystone
Alessandra Torresani	Zoe Graystone
Magda Apanowicz 	Lacy Rand
Polly Walker 	Clarice Willow
John Pyper-Ferguson 	Tomas Vergis
Alex Arsenault 	Philo
Leah Gibson 	Emmanuelle
Hiro Kanagawa 	Cyrus Xander
Liam Sproule 	Keon
Feguins Toussaint 	Bodyguard Sean
Panou 	Olaf
Richard Harmon 	Heracles / Tad
Chris Shields 	Louie
Jesse Haddock 	Darius
Johnson Gray 	Darius
Rif Hutton 	Rhetoric Host #1
Paul Pape 	Rhetoric Host #2
Steve Elliott 	Doctor
Sean Campbell 	Construction Worker
Hannah 	Caesar the Dog
Jim Thomson 	Serge (voice) (uncredited)
==Further notes==
* Deleted scenes:
** Joseph gets dressed while looking at images of Tad Evelyn was able to get.
** Joseph and Tad having a conversation while walking through the passage to New Cap City, which he refers to as "New Crap". He takes offense at being called 'Joe' rather than 'Mr. Adama', and takes off his holoband. They return, and he accepts Joseph. Joseph takes notice that Tad has a different personality within V-World, and asks if Tamara is any different. 
** Extended version of the first drinking sequence. Amanda welcomes Claire into her house and is presented with a bottle she got from a pawn shop in Sedgewick, which is Scorpion ambrosia brewed by Henry Pittner. Amanda is sure it must be a fake, then comments she shouldn't be drinking when on strong medication, but drinks anyway.
** The GDD's new camera technology is implemented at the Buccaneers game. It leads to a positive ID on Nigel Hightower, a man convicted of an STO shopping mall bombing twelve years prior, and released six years ago after completing his sentence at Marathon Prison. However, as the computer determined this to be a 75% match and not a 95% match, Agent Duram's department does not believe it is close enough to justify an arrest, but it goes ahead with it.
** Extended scene of Lacy and Keon. Lacy suggests an STO affiliation would let her go to Gemenon, before revealing she believes Keon to be behind the recent Holocafe bombings. He offers a propagandist explanation for that, being that by causing terror at the cafes people will understand it is wrong to engage in such horrendous behaviour online. To get to Gemenon, Lacy is willing to bomb empty buildings in the night. He tries to talk her out of it as she may be psychologically scarred.
** Another scene of Hightower, with police entering a restroom to make the arrest.
** After de-rezzing, Tad tries to explain more of V-World to Joseph. He brings up pop culture with Catman, who gets a feeling when trouble is brewing; he compares him with Joseph, who's failure to see New Cap City as anything other than a game.
** The Hightower investigation concludes with a positive ID. The man changed his citizenship and went through a nose job. Duram suggests the GDD go beyond the normal rule of law to prevent the STO bombings becoming the major attacks they were a decade prior, and wants to be able to interrogate him for associates.
** Additions to the drug den scene, with Amanda giving examples of where she would see Darius.
** Another addition, where Amanda is left wondering which god Clarice is talking about. Clarice realises she is close to revealing her Monotheism, and names the god as Zeus. Amanda responds that she now feels all these gods are the same.
==Sources==
== External links ==
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Category:Caprica episodes