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Season 2 Episode 1: Samson and Delilah The episode begins immediately where What He Beheld left off. The first five minutes are set to a cover of Samson and Delilah by Shirley Manson. Like the Man Comes Around sequence in What He Beheld, this is also a pretty good scene. It features Cameron re-activating in the wrecked jeep interspersed with slow motion cuts of John and Sarah being assaulted by Sarkissian and one of his henchmen as they break into the Connor home. However, the slow motion feels like it overstays its welcome. I appreciate Summer Glau's ability to sell a slightly addled Cameron (CHIP INTEGRITY COMPROMISED, a sign on her HUD reads) and the symbolism of the lyrics of the song. The problem is, it doesn't work as perfectly as the use of When The Man Comes Around, but I'll touch on that at the end of the episode. Long story short, Cameron climbs out of the jeep and pulls a good eight inches of metal from the back of her cranial casing. Her chip has been damaged, and she is limping, but is otherwise intact. Inside the house, Sarkissian assaults Sarah and John while his man turns the house upside down, looking for the missing hard drive. Sarkissian knocks Sarah to the ground and begins to strangle her, screaming at her. Behind him, John makes a decision. There's a part of me that really likes how the most dangerous threat to the Connors so far isn't a Terminator or something like an FBI agent, it's a petty crime boss who has absolutely no idea what he's doing, and what he's threatening. There's probably a timeline where Sarkissian succeeds in killing the Connors and dooms the world to Skynet. Cameron kills Sarkissian's man, incidentally starting a fire that she spares no concern for. When she reaches the room that Sarah and John are in, Sarkissian is dead. From Cameron's POV, we see her identify Sarkissian, then John Connor. And a big red TERMINATE message blinks to life on her HUD. Cameron turns her weapon on John just as the house explodes. Cameron begins pulling herself up the broken staircase and Sarah and John dive out the second-story window, out of options. We see the sequence of Ellison staring death in the face and surviving and Charley just narrowly missing Cromartie. Later, more people have arrived to deal with the slaughterhouse. Charley looks grim and quietly determined. Ellison looks blank and lost. A member of the crime scene unit pulls the decaying body of George Laszlo from the apartment - Cromartie had obviously never thought to dispose of it. "That's your guy, right?" "Yeah, that's him," Ellison says, leaving his associate to wonder how he possibly killed all the officers. Ellison pins it all on Laszlo, apologizing to the corpse. Charley is incredulous, there's no way anyone'll believe that he killed all those people. But Ellison points out that they won't believe that a robot from the future did it either, and that this whole thing has to end here. Unfortunately, the bad day is only beginning for John and Sarah. John is catatonic in the front seat, looking furious. Sarah shouts at him, wanting to know if he's okay, and they crash into the back of another car. They flee the scene. Elsewhere, Cameron - limping, motions jerky - stalks the streets in pursuit. Charley overhears about the Connor house fire, much like how he heard about the FBI shootings. He heads there, finds out that Sarah and John must be alive because the only two corpses pulled from the fire are Sarkissian and his henchman. He spies the back of his ambulance, open and ajar, and finds Derek, who is climbing out of a bright yellow fireman's suit. They have a brief chat, catching Charley up on current events. "What's it do?" Charley asks, referring to the Turk. "Well, right now?" Derek asks, "Plays a mean game of chess. Couple years, it's gonna get really pissed off. Blow up the world." Another call over Charley's dispatch handset, referencing the car crash Sarah and John have just fled from, and the two boys are off. Meanwhile, we meet a new character, played by Shirley Manson. Catherine Weaver is a severe business woman all dressed in white. Her associate, Mister Walsh, has purchased the Turk and will be bringing it to her. Cameron wanders into a hardware store, endoskeleton shining through great wounds on her face. She cleans herself up with a set of baby wipes then staples the wounds on her face shut with a staple gun while a young man gawks from the other end of the aisle. This scene feels like a callback to the scene where the T-800 removes its eye in Terminator. In fact, this episode is littered with callbacks, something of an extended love letter to T1 and T2. Cameron also spies Charley and Derek. Sarah and John enter a Spanish church, asking for sanctuary. John's nursing a wounded leg and Sarah's arm might be broken - and both of them seem to be about two words from exploding. The priest grants them sanctuary, but only after they refuse an ambulance or a hospital. Both of them are still wanted fugitives, remember. Charley and Derek have a conversation at a red light. DEREK: So what are you gonndo when you find 'em? CHARLEY: Do? DEREK: Join the team? Think she's gonna go with you? Or let you take care of her? 'cause it's not gonna happen. She left you at the altar for a reason. CHARLEY: That's not what I want. DEREK: Really. CHARLEY: Yeah. I'm married. DEREK: So you say. CHARLEY: I love my wife. DEREK: So - you - say. CHARLEY: Look, I just wanna know they're okay, got it? DEREK: What if they're not? CHARLEY: Then I'll make 'em okay. Like I did for you. Meanwhile, Mr Walsh and Catherine Weaver finish their business. Weaver talks about computers and people, something which surmises her efforts later in this season, and of TSCC's approach to artificial intelligence in general. Walsh has no idea what she's talking about and leaps at the chance to get out of the room. WEAVER: They flow from street to street. At a particular speed and in a particular direction. Walk the block, wait for the signal, cross at the light. Over and over. So orderly. All day I can watch them and know with a great deal of certainty what they'll do at any given moment. But they're not orderly, are they? Up close. Any individual. Who knows what they're gonna do? Any one of them might dash across the street at the wrong time and get hit by a car. When you get up close, we never follow the rules. You give a computer a series of rules, and it will follow them till those rules are superseded by other rules. Or that computer simply... Wears down and quits. Computers are obedient to a fault. Do you know what's extremely rare in the world of computers? Finding one... That'll cross against the light. There's a slight problem with this, that I'll touch on in the next post, though. Back in the church, Sarah and John try to discuss what happened back at the house. SARAH: Are you all right? JOHN: You already asked me that. SARAH: I'm asking you again. JOHN: [distantly] I'm fine. SARAH: I think we need to talk about what happened back at the house. JOHN: No, I don't. SARAH: Maybe I need to talk about it. JOHN: Maybe you do, but I don't, so let's not. Please. [Pause] SARAH: Then we need to talk about her. Whatever happened with the explosion, it's flipped a switch. She's reverted or something. JOHN: She knows everything. SARAH: I know. JOHN: Bank accounts. Contingency plans. Weapons stash. SARAH: I know. JOHN: How we run, where we'll go. Who we've been, who we'll be. She's... Stronger and faster. SARAH: We have to kill her, John. JOHN: [shouting angrily] I know! [John stabs a butcher's knife into the tabletop.] JOHN: I know. Whatever happened in the house, it's more than Cameron going bad. Who killed Sarkissian, is the question here. The episode leaves it ambiguous and, of course, later, the truth is revealed that John is the one who killed him, which Sarah views as an immense failure on her part as his mother and protector. John Connor's birthday present from his mother was killing a man. Ellison finds himself in a meeting. Another agent asks him a bunch of questions about Laszlo and Ellison answers robotically. No, he didn't think Laszlo had it in him. No, he don't know who the bullet that killed him. No, he doesn't know who tear gassed the residence. No, he doesn't know who fired blindly into the apartment igniting the canisters. And, no, he doesn't know how he was the only survivor. Ellison is shoved onto six weeks paid leave. "So under possible penalty of perjury, as it relates to case file b1987004, do you, agent James Ellison, today attest that all that you've recorded and said, case file's accurate and factual as far as your recollection can warrant?" "Yes," Ellison perjures himself, just as robotically as before, "I do." Cameron has traced Sarah and John to the church, following the trail of blood John has left. The priest tells her that no one is there, but Cameron isn't so easily convinced, telling him she is going to look around as it is a matter of "life and death". She's looking for her brother and mother, you see. They were in an accident, they could be hurt. Sarah and John have counted on this, though, and they spring a trap on Cameron. They've planted something in the holy water and, when Cameron reaches for it, it is revealed to be an alarm clock. Having been spliced into the lighting cables, it blasts a jolt through Cameron and knocks her offline. I couldn't find a clip of the next sequence, but it is a wonderful display of tension. They have two minutes to pull Cameron's chip. "The knife isn't sharp enough!" John snaps, cutting into Cameron's scalp. Exposing her CPU port is easy, but the screwdriver he has is too big to pop open the casing, unable to actually do anything. "It's not the right size!" John gasps, irritated. Both he and Sarah are breathing like they've run a marathon, they're terrified. "Okay, okay, the knife, the knife..." but that doesn't work either, scratching and squealing against Cameron's metal, and then they've only got twenty seconds and Cameron begins to wake up and the Connors have to run for it. They do so. They sprint across two lanes of traffic and Sarah puts a knife to a man's throat, demanding his keys. They take his car, driving down into the LA canal system, which makes you wonder if John was having flashbacks to T2. Cameron steps out of nowhere and puts her weight into the speeding car, throwing it off balance and flipping it onto its roof. It's a bad crash. John can get out, but Sarah is dazed. She has enough of her wits about her to send her son running as Cameron advances on the vehicle. Sarah climbs out and, calling back to Terminator 2, Cameron tells Sarah to call to John. Cameron's voice usually has a certain tone and cadence, here it is all wrong, sounding almost pre-recorded, just a shade too chirpy to be monotonous. Where the T-1000 made a cold demand, it's like Cameron's behavior is all wrong. True to form, Sarah doesn't call out. Cameron plants her boot on Sarah's side, where she's bleeding (like Christ on the cross, anyone?) and twists. Sarah tries to get up and fight but Cameron effortlessly throws her down. John hears Sarah's scream of pain but keeps running, taking refuge inside a warehouse, Cameron hot on his heels. While John hotwires a truck, Cameron stalks the warehouse. She begins going through each truck, tearing open the cab doors. In the first one, she finds a wrench - just as John ignites the engine of his truck. It doesn't take. But it's loud enough for Cameron to hear. John redoubles his efforts, but it isn't enough. Cameron finds him and hurls her wrench at the windshield, shattering it. John narrowly avoids losing his teeth, or worse, by ducking below the dashboard. And then this happens. There's a lot to say about those two minutes, so, I'll cover that in another post. But, for now: Sarah arrives and pins Cameron against the truck. Cameron begs for her life, crying and telling John that she loves him and he loves her. John pulls her chip. Soon after, Derek and Charley arrive. They patch up Sarah. The hard drive they took from Sarkissian was totaled by the fire, putting an end to their lead on the Turk. Derek assumes Sarah killed Sarkissian and that a lot of John's angst comes from seeing his mom kill someone, as much as it does from the necessity of needing to destroy Cameron. What I do find interesting, though, is that Derek doesn't exactly gloat. He's been wanting Cameron gone since his first appearance in Season 1 but here, Derek isn't gloating or vindicated, but he's trying to make it easier for John. It's also our first real look at the kind of person Future John might be and our first time hearing the terse, growly voice that Thomas Dekker uses to signify John taking charge. John's barely keeping it together. JOHN: So, Charlie told me that Cromartie killed about twenty FBI guys today. He's still out there. He's here for me. They're dead because of me. DEREK: They're dead because some people refuse to accept the reality of the situation. JOHN: [terse] Which is what? DEREK: Which is that they carry death with them. JOHN: She was different. DEREK: No. JOHN: I made her. I sent her back. She's different. DEREK: She's not different. JOHN: [incredibly evenly] There's physical damage to her chip. Which means that she can be repaired, she- DEREK: John. JOHN: I need her. She saved my life. She saves my life! [Sarah approaches. Derek leaves. Sarah sits.] SARAH: I know what you saw today. I know what you did, and I'm... so proud of you. Maybe you could fix her. I know you want to try. But I can't let you. I just- I can't. [Sarah strokes at John's neck, he pulls away, eyes furious.] JOHN: So burn her. Let's get the hell out of here. In the back of the ambulance, Cameron lies on a stretcher, looking like a normal girl. John sits by her with a small tool and a small cloth, working on her chip. Lovingly? Out of respect? Anxiously? All of the above? Sarah tells him that everything Cameron told him was a lie. John, voice just about trembling, says he knows that. They build a makeshift funeral furnace for Cameron in an abandoned car. John folds her hands over her chest, placing her chip in her grip. "The flare," John asks, voice flat. "Where is it?" Charley brings it over, handing it to him. And then John says, "I'm sorry." He inserts Cameron's chip and then pulls a gun on Sarah, Derek and Charley. "Are you here to kill me, John?" Cameron asks, sounding like her usual self. "Are you here to kill me?" "No." "Promise?" John passes her the gun. Cameron takes it. On her HUD, TERMINATE flashes next to John Connor's face. She stares at him as he steps back, and then the order is overridden and she handles the gun back. "Promise." John throws the gun to Sarah and chucks the flare into the makeshift furnace. It burns brightly. On one side, stands John with the machine that tried to murder him. On the other, stands Sarah, Charley and Derek. Ellison arrives at home, late at night. There, he encounters Cromartie. "I'll never lead you to her," Ellison says. "So if that's why you left me alive, you might as well kill me right now. I'll never do the devil's work." "We'll see," Cromartie says, in that bland voice of his, and walks away. Meanwhile, Catherine Weaver calls an impromptu meeting of her company's research divisions. She's going to pull people from them all to work on Project Babylon, a project that will change the world. The lead of the AI division - Mister Tuck - is not happy about this.] In the church, Sarah is making peanut butter and jam sandwiches for dinner. Derek is surprised that Charley actually has a wife and Sarah is somewhat disappointed that he left. En-route to take John a sandwich, she runs into Cameron, who appears to be contemplating an icon of Jesus on the cross. CAMERON: Do you believe in the Resurrection? SARAH: What? CAMERON: The story of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection. Do you believe in it? SARAH: Would you if you'd seen what I've seen? CAMERON: Faith isn't part of my programming. SARAH: Yeah, well, I'm not sure it's part of mine either. CAMERON: Don't let him do that again. If I ever go bad again... Don't let him bring me back. John has locked himself in the bathroom. Sarah slumps against the door, almost coming to tears. She tells John that things happened as they did and nothing can be done to change it, but being alive is enough - even if he needs Sarah to give him more than that. John doesn't respond. "Can you hear me?" Sarah pleads, quietly. "Are you listening?" "Yeah," John says, standing in front of a mirror, having shaved his bangs down to a buzzcut. This is where the episode should have ended. The revelation of John growing up, the image of him cutting his hair, the reference to Samson and Delilah (even if it doesn't make perfect sense). But now. Then the episode goes and has a ridiculous scene that I'm just going to transcribe as-is. [Mr Tuck and another department head are in a bathroom. Tuck is really annoyed that Weaver is poaching so many of his people for a 'top secret torah study'. The other head laughs it off, obviously thinking Tuck is a self-important jerk.] TUCK: God, that bitch pisses me off. [Tuck urinates at a urinal, only for the urinal and the wall behind it to shift and flow and pull itself into a shimmering humanoid figure. It's Catherine Weaver.] WEAVER: I'm sorry that I piss you off, Mister Tuck. [She raises her finger it rapidly elongates, stabbing Tuck through the eye and out the back of his skull.] WEAVER: The feeling's mutual. Cheap jokes and a man pissing all over a woman. I try to do better but, honestly, a single emoticon perfectly sums up my thoughts on it:  As usual, I'll have another post coming to drill down into a bunch of things in this episode: the song usage, the big scene between John and Cameron, and a few other things. It's a good episode, all in all, and one of my favorites but the fingerprints of the Strike are all over it.
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Jan 25, 2017 06:39
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So, this episode is about John and Cameron. The title compares them to the Biblical figures of Samson and Delilah with the lyrics of the song having been altered slightly to fit the circumstances at the beginning of the episode ("tear this building down" to "burn this building down"). Returning to the knowledge of the Bible I gained from attending two Christian schools, Samson and Delilah are two of the more well-known figures from the Bible. Samson was a man gifted with incredible strength of God, able to perform phenomenal feats such as slaying a lion with his bare hands, killing thousands with a jawbone and bringing down a whole temple. However, he was only granted this strength under the condition that he never shaved or cut his hair. Eventually, Samson meets Delilah and falls in love with her. Delilah is offered a considerable amount of silver by Samson's enemies, the Philistines, to know the secret of his strength. Eventually, Samson gives into Delilah's nagging (it's the Bible, okay?) and tells her the secret of his strength - he has his power providing he never cuts his hair. Delilah cuts Samson's hair while he's sleeping and the Philistines capture him and blind him. They put him on display in one of their temples, with thousands of people coming to see him and mock him. Samson calls to God for deliverance and finds his power again, collapsing the temple and killing everyone in it, including himself. The symbolism is obvious. Cameron is the dark-haired threat to John's power. John is a mighty warrior who kills a lion (Sarkissian), but that's about it. The additional symbolism falls flat, and even Cameron as Delilah only works on the surface level. John cuts off his own hair. If anything, he has gained power at the end of the episode, not lost it. Cameron's betrayal of John doesn't deliver him to his enemies - in fact, it is hard to consider Cameron's issue a true betrayal. Cameron has certainly never truly seduced John, not attempted to weasel any secrets out of him. In fact, John tends to try and get secrets out of her. Delilah is tied up with notions of sex, like a Biblical femme fatale, and Cameron is practically asexual (maybe, Season 2 complicates things). It's a nice song and some elements of it are nice (it flat out tells you who killed Sarkissian, for example) but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, I find. From what I've seen around the net, the musical scene in What He Beheld was very well-recieved, so, maybe the production team wanted to capture that lightning again. If so, they didn't quite succeed. To return to the themes of angels and demons, though, I've said previously that the Terminators are associated with both. That's correct. Ellison views them as devils, because he is a deeply religious man. When examined, though, Terminators don't match to devils. Devils like to tempt and lie, Terminators aren't human enough to understand the idea. Terminators enact plans that normal people aren't aware of nor can they comprehend. The Terminators are divine messengers who use violence because it is the most direct route, because they have no concept of good or evil. They have a terrible innocence, as personified in Cromartie. It is humans who perform sadistic acts for pleasure, which Season Two points out during the Mexico arc. Project Babylon is, likewise, another Biblical reference. This one is, of course, the Tower of Babel, which is directed commented on later in the season. With Babel, Mankind built a tower to reach the heavens and God struck it down, causing humanity to be split into different tribes and languages. Obviously, Weaver's project is some immense undertaking which, if the reference holds, will bring about downfall to the human race. To the audience, it appears to be Skynet and I think, for a time, that is what the writers were thinking of, but they shift gears later in the season. Speaking of Weaver, her talk about wanting to find a computer that willingly goes against the grain falls flat. While, initially, the Turk is presented as 'choking' and making an error or deliberately 'throwing' the game because it is 'upset', we learn later that Dimitri actually programmed the Turk to lose. In that sense, the computer isn't walking against the light, to borrow Weaver's metaphor - it was programmed to walk into the nearest car moving at speed. But whatever, it's a minor issue, but these minor issues show up throughout Season 2, where it feels like the writers forgot certain parts of the story that had already been written (a lot of it applies to Cameron, I think, too). Now, let's talk about Cameron and John. This episode is one of the biggest moments in their relationship, second to the 'sex scene' in Born To Run. John defies everyone else in his life to take a chance on the murderous machine that says she loves him and that he loves her. The question is: was Cameron lying? My answer is: no. But in the sense of no, however. Cameron wasn't lying. Cameron loves John, even if it isn't the same love that John might have for her. Cameron's cognition is fundamentally different (indicated in Vick's Chip) but understands the same general ideas (indicated in Heavy Metal). She wants to get close to him and is evasive when asked why (painting her nails, for example). When she is crying, telling John that she's good and perfect and that she doesn't want to go, she's telling the truth. She's a perfect machine, doing what she was literally built to do. She certainly doesn't want to die. But it is highly likely at that stage that she would have killed John, even if she meant the words, had she gotten free. To use an analogy: if I tell my partner that she should take the trash out and that I love her, I don't not love her. It's still manipulation to get her to do something, though. I also feel that John was more surprised by Cameron's "And you love me!" than her admission of love for him. I think John believes that he's kept his admiration for her fairly secret, which is funny given that Sarah picks up on it, as does Charley (in a deleted scene). Either way, the fact that he lovingly tinkers with her chip later in the episode makes it quite clear that she was absolutely right, far more than the fact that he reboots her. As the series is though, it feels like something of a Hail Mary pass from Cameron because outside of one or two awkward moments, we don't get a good sense for the tension there. Samson and Delilah feels like Step 6 of a plan where we've only seen up to Step 3 and that things in between are just [SCENE MISSING]. It works, but it could work better. John ends up taking a chance that she won't kill him and he's proven right, with the exact reason for Cameron's programming not going through with it left unclear. At the end of the episode, John is positioned with Cameron against the three other members of his family, having crossed a point of no return by actually pulling a gun on his own mother. Which is why the Riley subplot is so maddening because, despite this, John promptly throws Cameron to the wind, too, and he spends a lot of time in Season 2 bouncing between being friendly with Cameron and seemingly hating her. It makes sense - after all, she did try to kill him and then he drove a wedge between him and his family over it - but is discordant at the same time. It isn't neat. See, if I have one big criticism of Samson and Delilah, it is that it depicts an absolutely momentous event that blows the doors off the plot. It is impossible to go back from this and the various choices that arise from it are, essentially, mandatory. The house burnt down, so they have to move. How do they explain the fire and the bodies and everything? How do they move into a bigger house with no jobs or finances? Hard to say, take John out of the school system and try to cut off the Connors from the world. I mean, it works, because Season 2 is very much about the breakdown of the Family Connor and the dark, isolated places all the characters get driven to (even Cameron), but I'm not sure if the story was ready to go pedal to the metal for such darkness yet. Like I said, it feels like a few steps were skipped. Like the car bomb came from an episode or two later than the original ending for What He Beheld. For example, what is John talking about when he says Cameron "saves" his life? This feels like a reference to a particular secret Cameron told him but we are not privy to. It's kind of the problem of Season 2 going forwards. Things make sense, in the sense that they are explained, but are also maddeningly bizarre choices where the explanation can feel weak or and only truly work if you squint, where a lot of characters and plot points fall into that mid to late 00s trap of shows like Heroes, Lost and Battlestar Galactica where mysteries are artificially induced and propagated through a series of strange developments to keep audiences guessing (culminating in trifecta of truly bad episodes towards the end of the season). Season 1 felt tightly plotted, perhaps too tightly plotted, and Season 2 sort of plods along, ambling here and there. But, for all the criticisms I level at the episode, the acting is top-notch and the tension is palpable. Glau nails a glitchy, confused Cameron. Dekker nails the despondency and anger of killing someone then needing to kill your crush despite your feelings. Both he and Heady nail the right emotional notes when they mess up their first attempt on Cameron. And Heady herself nails the genuine warmth and belief she has in her son's ability to fix Cameron's chip, along with the sad fact that it is far too dangerous to keep Cameron around now. Derek's casual bullying of Charley is fun, too, as is his casual 'poo poo happens' tongue-click when Sarah tells him John saw everything. One other thing about the episode I'm going to point out is how much Cameron's development is advanced. If she wasn't experimenting with self-actualization and reflection before, she certainly is now by seemingly ruminating on how the sacrifice of Jesus can apply to her circumstances. It echoes Sarah's earlier monologue about how machines don't have faith. Maybe they don't, but Cameron seems to have a new perspective of it. As Season 2 continues, Cameron exhibits more and more behaviors that are indicative of emotional responses or self-awareness, some of them seemingly beyond her ability to control. Of course, doesn't Cromartie also exhibit a certain sort of faith, with his belief that Ellison will lead him to the Connors? Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 09:22
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Oh, and it is actually pretty frustrating how Season 2 begins the same way Season 1 begins: the Turk is somewhere and we have no idea where it is or how to find it. Again, when the story is written involving a carbomb, a burning down house, and no time for the Connors to back-up the data, well, it happens... But still.
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Jan 25, 2017 11:04
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Milky Moor posted:Glau nails a glitchy, confused Cameron. Their idea of how a damaged killing machine would beg for its life is perfect. It moves from phrase to phrase, trying different ways to impact John, retrying or discarding them as it monitors his feedback, while smoothly ramping up the facial and vocal emotion like someone's turning a dial. It's not at all how a human would act in that situation but at the same time it really is, just more efficiently. I still listen to the cover of Samson and Delilah. haveblue fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 18:03
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haveblue posted:Their idea of how a damaged killing machine would beg for its life is perfect. It moves from phrase to phrase, trying different ways to impact John, retrying or discarding them as it monitors his feedback, while smoothly ramping up the facial and vocal emotion like someone's turning a dial. It's not at all how a human would act in that situation but at the same time it really is, just more efficiently. She tries every trick in the book. She tries commanding him at first, then moves on to appeal to John's morality, then tries putting him against Sarah, then his ability to self-determinate, and then begging and crying. It's a really good sequence. Like you said, Glau plays the emotional part of it by just slowly, consistently increasing from the first word (monotonous) to the last (shouting). quote:I still listen to the cover of Samson and Delilah. It's a good cover!
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Jan 26, 2017 03:39
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Milky Moor posted:It's a nice song and some elements of it are nice (it flat out tells you who killed Sarkissian, for example) but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, I find. From what I've seen around the net, the musical scene in What He Beheld was very well-recieved, so, maybe the production team wanted to capture that lightning again. If so, they didn't quite succeed. The "What He Beheld" scene was absolute gold, it's no surprise they might try again. But, I don't think you can carry a show with significant events told solely in montages with a soundtrack. The producers get a lot of credit for the genius in that scene. Think how much the scene cost the way they did it. Then think about how much actually showing the whole firefight would cost. A movie can do it ("Don't worry lady, there's 30 cops in this building." "29 !... 28, 27 !... 26 !...", they have the budget. That scene is sitting pretty in the producer's reel. Cromartie obviously has his learning chip enabled, unlike Arnie in T2.Cameron gets all the attention because of, y'know, Summer Glau, but they managed to make real chaacters out of several Terminators; Vick, Weaver, Cromartie, Cameron, and Depression-era Entrepreneur Terminator all showed personality and some personal growth. And John Henry of course. Mind you, Depression-era Terminator is on the list mostly as a joke.
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Jan 26, 2017 08:47
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mllaneza posted:The "What He Beheld" scene was absolute gold, it's no surprise they might try again. But, I don't think you can carry a show with significant events told solely in montages with a soundtrack. The producers get a lot of credit for the genius in that scene. Think how much the scene cost the way they did it. Then think about how much actually showing the whole firefight would cost. A movie can do it ("Don't worry lady, there's 30 cops in this building." "29 !... 28, 27 !... 26 !...", they have the budget. That scene is sitting pretty in the producer's reel. His relationship with Ellison is very interesting. Cromartie believes that Ellison will lead him to the Connors, and he is so sure of this that he even saves Ellison's life when Skynet decides to kill him. I am very thankful that they kept him on as John Henry because those scenes are some of the best in Season 2. I'm doing my prelimary stuff on Automatic For The People now. I liked it when I first watched it but, on this later viewing, it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because it falls into the Season 2 pit of disregarding things that're inconvenient to the plot and being the start of the endlessly recursive list of McGuffins. But it has some good points and some nice moments.
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Jan 26, 2017 09:15
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Episode 2: Automatic for the People So, this is a bit of a weird episode. I liked it when I first watched and I still think it is a good one. However, it is also pretty rough around the edges, including some aspects of the main plot. I'm also curious about the meaning of the reference Automatic for the People. I know it is an album by REM but I'm not familiar with their music nor could I quickly determine the meaning with some quick searching around. Anyone have any thoughts? So, the episode opens with a resistance fighter coming back into the present day. Much like Kyle Reese, he shows up naked in an alley and steals a homeless man's pants. Unlike Kyle Reese, however, he has been shot in the chest and is bleeding heavily, with the bullet inside his body during temporal transit and exiting as he enters the past. It's a neat visual. Who was trying to stop this man? Why? The episode picks up a day after Samson and Delilah. The Connors are still crashing in the church of the priest that helped them out. Sarah hasn't been sleeping, worried about their untrustworthy robotic 'guard dog', and Derek says he would have been praying to God. "She's outside his jurisdiction," Sarah comments. Meanwhile, John talks with Cameron. She isn't happy with him, saying that he can't be trusted. Dekker plays this comment interesting, he looks shocked and incredulous but he's also rather stern. He plays off Cameron's point that it was dangerous to risk fixing her, saying that "they", with a look to Sarah and Derek, will just have to "deal with it". He's trying to establish an ally in the aftermath of pissing off the other two members of his family. And Cameron shuts him down. "Not them," she says, wandering away. Sarah sends John back to school, mentioning that he could use something "boring". Sarah wants her son to try and forget the fact that Cameron just tried to kill him, their house burnt down, they've lost the Turk, and John just killed someone. And, when John does go back to school, he doesn't even make it to his first class. He lingers in the hall, utterly isolated and alone, detached utterly from the mundane world, and so he skips out. After English class, John is found by a new character - Riley. Now, look, Riley gets a lot of flak, and it's understandable why. She's forward, she's not waif-thin, and she's incredibly prickly. If there's one thing I think TSCC does really well consistently, it's female characters (Sarah's new neighbour Kacey, who we also meet in this episode, is also cool). But there's something about Riley that rubs me the wrong way. It could be a few things but I think most of it is that she is obviously a replacement for Cherie, the other strange blonde girl from the first season. This is made more awkward by Riley acting like she's seen John around in some classes, but we've never met her before, or ever seen in her a scene before. It might also be that she's a bit rough around the edges and incredibly forward, successfully getting twenty dollars from John on her first meeting. It could be that she feels weird and quirky, not quite fitting into John's world. I don't know, I don't think the character deserves the hate. It's not to say there aren't reasons for this. While we don't learn it for at least a few episodes, Riley is from the future. Some of these hints work really well: like her obsession with eating. Derek did the same when he got back to the past, after all. I like her weird slang, even if they could have linked her to Jessie by actually using proper Australian slang. For example, instead of "apples and oranges", an actual bit of Australian slang could be used: "she'll be apples". Same general meaning but one is authentic and one feels like a copy. Maybe they hadn't landed Jessie's actress yet (Stephanie Jacobsen). While John is meeting someone whom he assumes is normal, Ellison pays Charley a visit. Charley, the gentle paramedic, has acquired a gun. He's not handling the crazy events well. Sarah is checking out the place that the Connors will be renting for the foreseeable future. Here we meet Kacey and her and Sarah bond over being mothers. Cameron touches Kacey's pregnant belly, curious. With that done, Sarah takes five minutes to relax and the bleeding resistance fighter from the start of the episode bursts through the window and dies at her feet. "Stop Greenway", he says, "Serrano Point. Two Days." Derek offers to resolve it but Sarah shoots him down - no one is going to die if she can help it. Serrano Point is a nuclear plant. In the future, it is a vital Resistance facility. Derek has served there. Here is where the episode gets wonky. Sarah and Cameron work in and become temp workers immediately. How did this happen? I'm assuming nuclear sites have fairly strict requirements. It's a minor detail but a world like Terminator lives and dies on the minor details. This is a world that had a scene where school metal detectors showed up. But given that the episode just set up a 'two day' timer, it's not like the show can afford to take time on anything. Anyway, as Sarah and Cameron walk through the plant, Cameron saves images of the staff id cards and identifies Carl Greenway, their target. Meanwhile, Ellison and Charley explain the situation to Charley's wife. She doesn't believe the stories of genocidal robots, and certainly doesn't believe that Charley is no longer in love with Sarah. Much like Sarah before him, Ellison tells Charley to run for it. but Charley, knowing Judgement Day is coming, knows there is nowhere that could be considered safe. "Where is?" he asks, and Ellison doesn't reply. John and Riley are hanging out. John decides to bring Riley to come and look at the new Connor residence and Dekker sells it wonderfully - the slight pause and glance around makes it clear that he knows he shouldn't do this, and chooses to do it anyway. Another aside on Riley - she's very forward and direct, generally taking the lead when she's with John. I think this is also a point of contention for some people because it might be hard to understand why John, who has just taken a huge step for his Independence and leadership potential, is now going with whatever this new blonde girl is saying. But I think people misunderstand John at this point. I think John is happy to be led because, on some level, John doesn't want to be Future John, even if he's taken a big step down that path. Riley offers him a chance to be normal, or as normal as he thinks he can be, and so John is fine with being caught in her undertow. Unfortunately, this idea goes on for the entirety of Season 2 and keeps John's development on hold for all of it. Anyway, in the plant, Sarah susses information out of Greenway. The plant will be going online in a day or so. She tries to eavesdrop on another conversation but is spotted by an associate of Greenway's (the plant head boss, I think). But she does glimpse a heated conversation between the pair - something is going wrong at the plant, people are not happy. John and Riley wander the new house. John, of course, has never brought a girl home before. They find a room that'll probably be his - but it is loaded with stuff for a young kid. An allusion to Sarah's desire to protect John, in a way - and a reminder that john was forced to grow up real fast just the day before. He'll never go back to that innocence, if he even really had it at all. That night, at a bar, Sarah tries to get some information out of Greenway. In the process, she finds out that he has a very obvious scar on one arm. Cameron scopes out the bar until she spies some plant employees and hustles them at pool in order to get a close up look at their name-tags. Cameron plays the part of the innocent girl at the bar, showing off the personality she hasn't really demonstrated since the pilot. Outside, Derek raids Greenway's car to find his address. As Sarah talks to Greenway, she has a brief moment where she remembers Cameron's ominous warning of her future cancer and realises she's working in a nuke plant. She had assumed she skipped over it with the time jump, but was still taking precautions. Is her cancer, like Judgement Day, not truly preventable? Does the river always flow in one direction, even if you channel it here and there? When Derek enters the bar, Cameron is smiling as she counts the money she hustled from the plant employees. it's a nice blink and you'll miss it moment. Cameron gets a lot of understated development in this episode. Then, the core conflict of the plot is laid out. The plant will go online tomorrow. However, Greenway is worried that there is an issue that could lead to a meltdown. Cameron confirms that there is an issue, and it could be an issue that leads to a full meltdown. Derek, sharp as ever, points out the dilemma here - if the plant goes online, it'll blow up and Skynet wins; if it remains offline, the resistance can't utilise it and Skynet wins. Minor issue: I don't think Skynet would want a meltdown. Skynet always seems to exhibit care with altering the timeline too much, and potentially blowing up LA seems like it would not be something Skynet would want. Otherwise, Skynet could surely just send back a dozen Terminators and accomplish the same thing. John and Tiley are just about to have ice cream when Sarah, Derek and Cameron get home. Sarah and Cameron are immediately hostile towards Riley. When Riley greets Sarah, Sarah shoots her a glare that all but screams 'speak when I tell you to' and Cameron gets right up in Riley's personal space. Sarah and John have a brief argument. Sarah says it isn't the time for "this" and John rightfully (but in a churlish manner) points out that won't ever be a time for it. It strikes a chord with Sarah, who is visibly hurt and shaken as John retreats upstairs with Riley. Later, Sarah stands at the door and ponders entering John's room, but decides not to. like the previous episode, the imagery of Sarah standing at the door while John is doing things inside reminds me of a particular quote from Steinbeck. "There are some among us who live in rooms of experience we can never enter." Inside the room, Riley asks John the deeply ironic question as to whether he thinks about his future. John says he does, but doesn't associate it with freedom. The next morning, at the plant, Sarah follows Greenway's associate deep into the plant, past a sign indicating radioactive materials. What follows is one of the sequences of TSCC that sticks with me. Greenway's boss tells Sarah to go into the nuclear waste storage area to clean up a spill. Sarah gets in there and promptly has a subdued panic attack. She runs out of there and finds out she's been dosed with radiation. Sarah gets scrubbed down, decontaminated and humiliated. The scene is shot really well! And, later, it's all revealed to be a deliberate "hiccup", a ploy to scare the hell out of Sarah by the plant boss. it's up there as one of the most openly cruel things that transpires during the run of TSCC and it is also probably one of the most petty things, too. While that's happening, John and Riley wake up. Riley presents john with a robot she made out of Lego, to protect him. John sees the irony in it. When Riley asks if she can call him, John tells her about the secret passcode the Connors use to foil Terminator voice mimicry. Every time they start a phone call, they begin it with the date, month and year. Like a challenge and authentication process. A Terminator might be able to mimic the voice but it can't fool the ritual. Riley is, of course, aseptically but John establishes it as the rule to contact him. Ellison pays another visit to the Dixons. They're leaving town and he gives him a Bible. When Charley asks if Ellison is going to leave, or whether God has a plan for him, Ellison echoes the words he heard from Cromartie last episode: "We'll see". In the plant control room, Greenway is preparing the test. something is different about him, his voice is missing affect, and he's missing his scar, which Sarah picks up on, and calls Derek. Derek, who is just beginning to search Greenway's house - and finds him hanging from the rafters of his study. poo poo. Greenway's been replaced by a Terminator. I like the quiet but frantic worry in Derek's voice as he says: "Sarah, are you telling me that Greenway is there?" He doesn't need to say anything clumsy like he's dead or hanging from the rafters. The fact that he's asking Sarah something like that is more than enough to point out that Greenway is metal. I'm not a big fan of Skynet being able to send back Terminators to impersonate specific people, though. But, hey, minor issue, all things considered. Still, if Skynet can make this sort of play, it is definitely a drastic escalation of its capabilities and understanding of the timeline. Sarah rushes to find Cameron. She finds her scrubbing the floors. It takes Cameron several seconds to notice that Sarah is there, like she's locked in a scrub-floor runtime loop, and claims that she was "thinking about what to do" when pressured about it. Sarah is surprised by that, to say the least, but sends Cameron to repair the cooling pump that Greenway has damaged. It's a nice indicator of just how badly Cameron's chip was compromised by the carbomb, but also worrying: just how much gradual knocks and blows can Cameron sustain in the past before her effectiveness is drastically reduced? Greenway, for his part, is busy killing everyone in the control room. He finds Cameron attempting to undo his sabotage and the pair engage in a brawl. The fight is in his favor (maybe also indicating just how badly Cameron is doing after the explosion) until Sarah arrives and empties a magazine into his chest, giving Cameron an opening to shove him into a power generator, blowing him up. And then Cameron advances on Sarah, head twitching, and not saying anything. "Are you okay?!" Sarah demands. "I'm okay!" Cameron shouts, before she goes to get the cooling system back online. They dispose of Terminator-Greenway in the nuclear waste barrels. That night, a few conversations happen. SARAH: When we jumped through time, you told me I died of cancer. CAMERON: Yes, 2005. SARAH: Am I still gonna get sick? CAMERON: I don't know. SARAH: Is today how it happens? CAMERON: I don't know. SARAH: What am I supposed to do, just wait? Like a time bomb, am I just gonna go off someday? CAMERON: I don't know. Am I? [Inside the house, Cameron finds John in the kitchen, eating pizza.] CAMERON: You have a new friend. [John drops his pizza back in the box. He immediately closes up his body language.] JOHN: Her name is Riley. And you probably creeped her out. When you talk to people, don't stand so close. CAMERON: I was assessing her threat level. JOHN: Well? Am I safe? CAMERON: I don't know. Girls are complicated. JOHN: About what you said before, about not being able to trust me. CAMERON: Yes? JOHN: I don't have to prove anything to anyone. Anyone. Including you. [Cameron leaves, watching John over her shoulder as she goes.] Outside, as Sarah broods on whether today was the day that caused her terminal cancer, she spies blood on a wooden pillar. Following the trail, she finds dozens of words written on the basement wall in blood. One of them is Greenway. One wonders how the resistance soldier managed to run to find the Connors with a bleeding chest wound near his heart, then manage to write out the dozens of words, and then still have the strength to find Sarah. It's just... Again, minor, but enough minor issues and you're going to break the suspension of disbelief as much as you might with a major issue. The final scene of the episode is a representative of Automite Systems, delivering a speech. AUTOMITE REP: Because of this tragic incident, the owners of Serrano Point and six other power plants across the nation are entering into a partnership with my corporation, Automite Systems. New automated technology we've developed will be implemented in all control rooms. These sophisticated machines will eliminate the possibility of human error and prevent a major disaster. But, when he climbs into his car, he morphs into another figure - Catherine Weaver. The unspoken question is: despite everything the Connors did, did Skynet just win in the end? While later in the series, we'll learn that Weaver is more complicated than that, but the show was leaning very hard on the 'Weaver is Skynet' button here (as it did in the previous episode, too). It very much echoes what we know about Skynet, that it grew from systems implemented in military technology to remove human error. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jan 30, 2017 |
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Jan 30, 2017 04:59
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The reveal with Riley being from the future was a great payout IMO and made her character worth it. Another thing I liked too about the show was when Jesse comes into it and her and Derek figure out they were from two different futures. Suddenly you realize there are dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of different versions of Skynet and different versions of John Connor and The Resistance sending back Terminators and fighters/agents and they could be even working at cross purposes with each other. A terminator from timeline 352 gets sent back to 1974 and accidentally fucks up a mission for a terminator from timeline 363 who was sent back to 1973 and has been waiting to do something and this robot from a dead timeline is wrecking his poo poo. The same resistance fighter could be sent back numerous times, from different timelines. It was a cool idea and something they never really did in the movies. It can also be used to bring all the movies into canon--the various John Connors played by different actors who look so different can be explained away by Kyle coming back and impregnating Sarah at a slightly different time, even by a few minutes, different sperm hits the egg and you have a slightly different John, who is erased. You can also use that to have some timelines where there is no Derek (though bah gawd, if they ever made a new movie and put Brian Austin Green in I'd pretty much give them a pass for anything, forever.  )
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Jan 30, 2017 06:04
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The multiple futures thing was pretty nifty and it would have been interesting to have a second Derek or Jesse show up and be like "wtf."
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Jan 30, 2017 06:14
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Astroman posted:The reveal with Riley being from the future was a great payout IMO and made her character worth it. Rhyno posted:The multiple futures thing was pretty nifty and it would have been interesting to have a second Derek or Jesse show up and be like "wtf." It's one future that's constantly in flux. I'm not sure you could have a second Derek or Jesse by the rules that TSCC establishes (or seems to establish). I think one of the cool things they did with the idea is the Skynet collaborator that Derek and Jesse interrogate later in the season. Both have different idea of him because they came back to the past at different times.
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Jan 30, 2017 06:28
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I was working on a post than the database maintenance ate it. Oh well. So, Season 2 has a lot of great ideas. Some of them are realized well but I think it's fair to say that most of them are a bit rough in their implementation. I can't really fault Season 1 in the same way I fault Season 2. Season 1's real issue is that it is too tightly plotted whereas Season 2 likes to meander about. This works really well in some episodes but generally proves to be a bit boring. When Sarah says that boring might be the best thing for John, I don't think she also meant to bore the audience in the process. Of course, that's a hard line to walk. To borrow a line from T Bone Burnett about the song Please Mr Kennedy from Inside Llewyn Davis. quote:Because if you put bad music in a film, it's just bad -- then the film's bad. You can put good music in a film and say it's bad and the audience will believe it's bad, but it will still be good and they will still be entertained by it, even though they're told it's bad. 'If you put boring scenes in an episode, it's just boring - then the episode is boring.' The unfortunate part of Riley as a character is that, as interesting as she is, she barely gets any development. Where she is now, she basically remains, and he relationship with Sarah, Cameron and John basically remains where they are, too. This is, of course, not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is when multiple episodes keep showing us that the status quo is being maintained: "John wants to be normal with Riley, Sarah/Cameron disapprove, John gets reacts badly". There are some good scenes with Riley - the bear and the fish, her relationship with Jessie, her freak out about the future, the theft at the party, the stuff that John quotes back at Jessie - but ultimately those are fleeting compared to the boring scenes which try to make us care about the relationship between the pair. Yes, the argument can be made that it is deliberately boring because it is boring and unsuitable for John Connor, but I think it's a weak one. The other problem is that so much of John is tied up with Riley this season, denying more interesting development between him and Sarah, him and Cameron, or him and Derek. It's understandable, of course. At the start of Automatic for the People, we are made aware that Derek and Sarah are frosty with John over the fact that he saved Cameron. Then Cameron tells him it was a bad idea and that she doesn't trust him because of it. So, John goes his own way and, like i said, I think he's just happy enough to be led around by Riley and to play at being normal - partially to think that he is, partially to try and get away from the terrible events of Samson, and partially to thumb his nose at his mom and the robot he has confusing feelings for. John wants to go his own way. He is tired of being at the capricious whims of fate, as personified in his mother and his future confidante. He wants to be in control of his own destiny, which means he wants to fight against being the messianic John Connor. He wants to be John Baum, or at least believe he can be, so he happily goes along with the pretty blonde who strikes up a conversation with him, even if she's a bit weird. Maybe because she's a bit weird. But there must be more interesting ways to tell this story which aren't just talking with Riley. Like, does John understand how much danger he is putting Riley in? Does he even care? I think Riley becomes very interesting towards the end of her arc (towards the end of Season 2), as does her relationship with John, the problem is it just takes her so long to get there. And what's especially unfortunate is that it is her exit from the series which is the most interesting development she contributes to the overall story. There are other things that I found a bit grating about Automatic. Firstly, Sarah's argument that John should go to school and be normal is struck out in the very next episode where she, off-screen, decides John should be 'home schooled'. This feels odd. I've already mentioned that the schools have been established as safe zones. But there's also a point to be made that John needs to be socialised to learn leadership, which is something that Sarah would probably understand. And, in Season 1, Sarah did say that not going to school gets John 'noticed', which is bad because it invites the authorities to come poking around the Connor residence. Given that we never see Sarah try to home school John, I'm going to go with that it was an idea forced upon the production team - unable to get actors to be John's classmates, inability to shoot at the school, loss of sets, something. Two, I didn't mention in the recap that someone smashed the windscreen of Greenway's car while Derek is searching it. Who this person is isn't explained, nor the reason for it. It could assumed to be a disgruntled nuke plant worker, but given that it never comes to anything or is even mentioned, why include it in the first place? It's a cheap moment of tension. Three, the central nuke plant plot is a bit complicated and it's unclear if the Connors actually achieve anything at the end of it. As presented, the situation appears to be a Skynet victory regardless, but at leas they didn't let the city get a meltdown going on. Then Weaver comes in and cleans up. Despite this, I like it, because I like the idea of Skynet being able to set up no-win situations with temporal chess. However, the risk of a meltdown feels a bit extreme given that something like that could lead to sweeping changes that might prevent Skynet from ever coming into existence. This is ameliorated somewhat by an idea later in Season 2 with Skynet seemingly already being active in the past, albeit with reduced capacity and resources. If that's the case, then maybe Future Skynet can destroy LA and still guarantee Skynet coming into being. However, I still don't think Skynet being able to replicate specific people as Terminators really works. If Skynet can do that, why doesn't it replicate someone more important than a nuke plant tech? If such temporal gambits are possible then, in all honesty, Skynet should be running rings around the Connors and the wider world. Who knows, maybe it is. Season 2 has a lot of ideas. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Automatic for the People exemplifies this. Plenty of ideas in the episode, but not all of them land successfully. But the 'faulty Cameron' stuff is great, but we'll touch on more about Cameron later, when there's more to chew on.
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Jan 30, 2017 13:49
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Episode 3 coming tomorrow. Been inundated with stuff!
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Feb 6, 2017 08:44
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Episode 3: The Mousetrap So, this is a properly harrowing episode of TSCC, the sort of thing you expect from a show determined to explore the Terminator mythos. Compared to Episode 2, this one towers above it in terms of plot, stakes and characterization. In particular, Cameron and Cromartie are big winners when it comes to character development in this episode, but the two Dixons - Charley and Michelle - do well, too. So, let's begin. As we saw last episode, Charley and his wife are heading out from Los Angeles, intending to escape the nightmare they'd found themselves in. Charley pulls in at a petrol station, washing off the windshield and stopping to get a drink for his wife. He climbs back into the front seat but, a second too late, Michelle realises it isn't Charley at all. It's Cromartie, and he speeds of in Charley's car, as he chases behind, screaming his wife's name. And over it, a song plays: "If today the sun should set, and never rise again, if the world should turn upon me... but safe within your arms, I'd never feel the cold, but safe within your arms, I'd feel no cold." It is wonderfully ironic and haunting, sounding like something out of Fallout 3. Meanwhile, John is splicing Kacy's television - that's his neighbor - into the cable service, for free. On the television, though, there's George Lazlo, the late actor whom Cromartie has been impersonating, performing his incredibly b-film, Beast Wizard 7. As the reporter tells it, with George Lazlo inexplicably killing twenty members of a FBI team, the film has made six million dollars. John can't help but see Cromartie reciting cheesy lines and throwing a Conan-esque sword from hand to hand. It's obviously a love letter to Conan the Barberian. Kacy says: "A friend of mine from culinary school, did craft services on that movie. She liked the guy. He ate with the crew. This town can screw you up." Smash cut to Cameron standing very precisely over a certain point in the Connors' new living room. John enters then, and looks at Cameron incredulously. JOHN: What are you doing? CAMERON: This is the absolute center of the house. JOHN: Excellent. Good work. CAMERON: The house is moving. JOHN: What? CAMERON: Moving. The east by southeast section of the house is moving. JOHN: Really? Where's it going? CAMERON: Down. At a rate of 0.93 millimeters per year. JOHN: And what? Does that affect the security system, or sight lines for the night scope? How does this affect the safety of one John Connor? CAMERON: It doesn't. But next summer we're going to have to repaint. This is maybe the first time we've seen Cameron do something for nothing beyond what appears to be her own curiosity. It doesn't have anything to do with her mission, or her programming, but, for whatever reason, she has decided to do a bit of exploring. Summer Glau appears to have understood that something is going on with Cameron, or maybe it is something she brought to the character in Season 2, but Cameron is slightly more expressive with her face and her tone of voice often veers away from her bland matter-of-fact tone throughout this episode. And John, being the angsty teenager he is, just treats this unprecedented show of initiative on Cameron's part with sarcasm that's just about as acidic as Xenomorph blood. He's not mean but he certainly doesn't care. John finds Sarah in the kitchen. They talk. Evidently, John was only supposed to set up Kacy's television in the bedroom, not splice it into free cable. But John's a good kid, so, he did it anyway. JOHN: Nobody that pregnant should be forced to watch network television. It's bad for the baby. SARAH: You don't know anything about babies. JOHN: I know they grow up. Charley calls then. He's understandably desperate and frantic, spluttering out the day/month security code, but still takes a moment to hide his tears and crying from John. I love this interplay between Charley and Sarah. Charley is desperately reaching out to the woman he thought he knew, crying and begging, and finds only the tough-as-nuclear-nails warrior woman. CHARLEY: Sarah. He took my wife. Sarah: What do you want me to say, Charley? CHARLEY: Just hel- help me Sarah, please. We were just leaving town. And he just, he just- he just took her! SARAH: I mean, with John standing right here. What am I supposed to say? CHARLEY: Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know who else to call. Please. Please just help me, Sarah. Sarah: You shouldn't have called here, Charley. You were right to leave. I don't want to know where you are, In case I need you. I'm not going to need you. It's better for you if I can't find you. You understand? CHARLEY: Wait, hold on a sec- are you, um... Are you asking me where I am? SARAH: Yes, I am. CHARLEY: I'm just at some fruit stand. It's uh... It's just somewhere off the 14. Just um, south of the California City turnoff. I think. Please. I really need your help, Sarah. SARAH: Stay safe, Charley. And, just like that, Sarah cuts Charley loose. Meanwhile, Cameron has her head - and some of her body - wedged up into the fireplace chimney. "There's something alive up there," she comments. "It's a bird," she says, when Sarah asks if it can hurt them. "I'll kill it before it flies away." When Sarah tells her not to, Cameron asks, with something akin to quiet hope, "Maybe later?" "Maybe never," Sarah says firmly. She sends Cameron with John to go pick up some computer parts. "And don't touch that bird." It's an interesting sequence, reinforcing something I stated with Samson and Delilah. Cameron wants to do what she was built to do, and that is kill (specifically, kill John Connor). It is her reason to exist. It's the big difference between humans and machines. Where we stumble around, wondering to be or not to be, Cameron only knows to be. And, in her case, being matches to killing. It's important to stress that she's not a sadist but she's somewhat innocent. If John wanted to kill the bird as she does, it'd be a galling indictment of his character. For Cameron, it's just what she is. Maybe she can grow beyond it, or maybe that's how she'll always view the world. Outside, Derek is checking and loading his various weapons. Sarah lets him know what's happening - Cromartie has Charley's wife and Sarah has deceived John, so she can go to rescue without endangering him. "It's the absolute worst thing to do!" Derek points out, when Sarah says she's going to go walk into the lion's den, but comes with her anyway, gathering up his guns. The lion's den is a long abandoned structure of some sort. While Cromartie works on something involving mousetraps, Michelle frantically tries to reach her phone. John and Cameron gather up the computer equipment. Quite literally, in Cameron's case, as she hauls a massive box onto the back of their truck like it weighs nothing at all. JOHN: Hey, hey, hey! Whoa, Cameron, Cameron. Let me help you with that. CAMERON: [slightly offended] I didn't need any help. JOHN: Yeah, you did. [In the background, an elderly couple are staring at Cameron.] CAMERON: [as if realizing] Right. While Cameron finishes up with the hardware, John takes a phone call. It's Riley and she wants to hang out. John says he could be there in fifteen minutes but Riley says the world could end in fifteen minutes. It's an uncomfortable moment. "I'm going to vote I doubt it," mutters John. But he wants to go. He tries to trick Cameron into dropping him off at the Promenade, but she's well ahead of him. She asks if that was Riley but it seems pretty clear that she knows, and doesn't approve. John tries to weasel his way around it, but Cameron is resolute. Where John goes, she goes. JOHN: Just because my mother said it, Doesn't make it so. I'm not a child anymore. I could go to the store, or see a friend, or do whatever the hell else people like me do. CAMERON: There are no other people like you. JOHN: Just drop me off. And Cameron gives John a cool glance and turns away. As she does, John runs for it. John's managed to give his Terminator the shake, but Ellison can't shake Cromartie. He wanders his home in a funk, while Lazlo spouts cheesy b-movie lines on the television behind him. And, unknown to him, he's picked up a second - Weaver calls him, offering him an "opportunity". After some brief hesitation on his part, Weaver entices him with the idea that she knows "what actually killed your colleagues". Sarah, Derek and Charley meet up. Charley wants to know what to do, but Sarah has no idea - they have no idea where Cromartie is, which means they can't find him. Derek, ever pragmatic, has a wonderful moment where he cuts through the tension with: "Look, she won't tell you the truth, but I will. That thing took your wife to get to John. You think it gives a drat about her? Your wife's dead." But then Charley's phone rings and he stares Derek down, showing him the phone. "That's her, hmm!" "Make sure it's really her," Derek states. Which leads to another small but great sequence. Michelle is understandably beside herself and Charley wants to reassure her first and foremost, while Sarah and Derek state, again and again, that he has to make sure that Michelle is Michelle. So, Charley abruptly shifts gears and begins to interrogate Michelle about the night they first had sex, and she has no idea what is going on or what the point is. Can you imagine being abducted and calling your partner and they start grilling you about something like that? But that's the world now. In any case, Sonya Walger and Dean Winters do amazingly. Unfortunately for Michelle, though, Cromartie appears to have heard her phonecall. He begins setting up his trap and, as Michelle tries to beg with him, he fluidly stops his setup and tapes her mouth shut, almost as if he's responding to the irritation of it. It's of course part of his plan but later in Season 2, we'll see Cromartie respond negatively to people talking to him when he's working. As he works, Cromartie monologues: "In 1897, James Atkinson invented the mousetrap. The spring slams shut in thirty-eight thousandths of a second. It is a record that has never been beaten. It is hard to build a better one." Cromartie is an enigma. Why is he saying this? He obviously doesn't care to educate Michelle. He could be doing it to be unsettling, which is a possibility, but it reads more like admiration to me. Much like Cameron, Cromartie is flirting with self-awareness. We've never seen a Terminator concoct whatever plan this is before, if it is even related to John Connor. But he seems to admire the simplicity of the mousetrap. Does Cromartie see himself as the trap, or does he want to be the trap? Is his self-development helping him, or hindering him? Meanwhile, John tries a new form of self-development. He hangs out with Riley, talking about the magazine stand. "Some of us people aren't okay," Riley comments, off-handedly, unsure about the perfect, cult-like world the glossy covers are presenting. It's here where John comments that he's not coming back to school, that he's being home schooled by his mom. While I've mentioned this development before, it's interesting seeing Dekker say it. I get the impression that he's lying, that he just doesn't want to go back to school. Which is interesting but never followed up on. Their fun is cut short as Riley spots Cameron across the plaza, frowning at the pair. They run for it and Cameron strides off in pursuit. It's like some bizarre version of the typical Terminator plot. In the desert, the Connors track down Cromartie's hideout, a dilapidated building which a mobile tower looms over. They've come loaded for metal - Derek's packing a grenade launcher, Sarah with a heavy shotgun... and Charley with a small pistol. Inside, there's no sign of Cromartie, but Derek goes to make sure. This leaves Sarah and Charley to find Michelle, whom has been wired up to an intricate trap consisting of a chair, four mousetraps, a lot of wires, and a block of plastique. If she moves, she'll explode. Sarah sends Charley to get the bomb diffusing kit from the truck. She and Michelle trade words. MICHELLE: What are you doing here? I know he brought you. But you didn't have to come. SARAH: Yes, I did. MICHELLE: For Charley? SARAH: I just did. Frankly, I thought it'd be easier. I thought you'd be dead. Charley returns with the bomb diffusing kit, and some bad news: Cromartie has totaled their car, yanking out the ignition system. So he's here, but they have no idea where he is, or his plan. Sarah can't figure it out, but the cogs are turning. "It doesn't make any sense," Sarah wonders, "He messes with the car and not us. We're human. Not that hard to kill." She pulls the plastique from the bottom of the chair. It's molding clay. The whole thing is a setup. Cromartie's lured them away from his primary target and broken their only means to get back to him quickly. "I should have known when you weren't dead," she snaps to Michelle. Sarah calls John, who is still out with Riley, watching her try on elaborate dresses. John lies to his mother, saying that he's safe and with Cameron. Derek walks the house, finding what seems to have been Cromartie's HQ. He's got a laptop there, and what looks to be some sort of detonator wired to the mobile tower. Sarah's phone call plays over the speakers - he's listening in! Elsewhere, sitting in a car, Cromartie places a phone call. The mobile tower detonates, crashing down into the house. Everyone lives, but that doesn't matter - as Derek points out, Cromartie now knows all their tricks. And, without the mobile tower, they have no way of contacting John to let him know. As the Connors limp out of the hideout, Cromatie calls John and, using the passcode, convinces him to meet him at the pier. And while Cromartie speeds back to LA in a jeep, Michelle is bleeding. It might be bad, as Charley points out, and he's not willing to make her move or walk. But Michelle, in a moment that makes me wish we saw more of her, declares she can walk, even though it's obvious she's not in a good state. Ellison meets with Weaver in her office. Weaver knows what Ellison knows, and Ellison knows that she knows. Weaver puts her cards on the table. For over three years, she has been working to reverse engineer some strange objects that had been found in an air crash. Weaver seizes on the fact that Ellison isn't bewildered by the obvious Terminator arm and other components that were part of the air crash debris. "What do you want from me?" Ellison asks. Weave doesn't smile. "I want what you want, Mr. Ellison. I want answers. But more than that, I want you to help me find another one." Cameron intercepts Riley by her car as she finishes shopping, demanding to know where John is. Riley gives her a quizzical look. John, however, is at the pier, and Cromartie is right there with him. The Connors waylay a van on the highway, highjacking it and kicking the driver to the roadside. Sarah speeds back to LA but Michelle is not handling it well. In the back of the van, Michelle Dixon is very obviously dying, crying and moaning and making inchoate sounds. Charley shouts and begs for Sarah to stop the van so he can help her ("Sarah, you've gotta stop now, please!") and Sarah snaps, "You should've stayed away!" "I'm here now and she's here now!" Charley shouts, "You've got to stop! Now!" And Sarah slams on the breaks, much to Derek's agitation, running her hands through her hair while Michelle's breathing gets short, quick and shallow. The reality that John Connor is the most important person in the world seems so far away when someone is dying right there. John is important to Charley, but so is Michelle. At the pier, John spies Cromartie, who is looking the other way. John steals some clothes to try and disguise himself, but Cromartie spots him in the process, and the chase is on. John sprints blindly and Cromartie follows at the speed of slow inevitability. Also looking for John, Cameron pauses to watch a street performing doing the robot, all painted in silver. Obviously, Cameron is a robot who enjoys dancing. It brings to mind the question as to whether she has ever met a T-1000. She moves on quickly, after a curious tilt of her head. Cromartie walks the boardwalk, finding John fishing. Cromartie grabs him by the shoulder and thrusts his pistol in his face, not saying a word. But the man is too old and too fat to be John, and Cromartie slaps the man's sunglasses from his face - either to be absolutely certain, or because he's irritated. Either way, it's a nice part of physical comedy. The fisherman gets away with just a slap, because John - having traded clothes with the fisherman - runs for it again, and Cromartie gives chase. Without breaking stride or changing his expression, he mechanically pulls his gun and snaps off a series of shots at John, who leaps into the water. Cromartie jumps in right behind him. With a dense metal skeleton, Cromartie sinks like a rock as John makes for the surface. Cromartie snags John by his jacket, looking to drag him down with him, where the water will do his job for him, but John manages to wrestle his way out of the jacket and gets free. John breaks through the water to find Cameron, standing up on the boardwalk, looking down on him. "A little help?!" John demands. "I don't swim," Cameron retorts. Later, they pull up in an alley, and neither John nor Cameron say a word about what happened. But when John sits in the back of the van, he places his hand in some of the drying blood from Michelle. He doesn't know what's happened today, but he knows it's another bit of blood on his hands. And he, stupidly, was hanging out with Riley for it. He came within inches of death. And death itself, Cromartie, strides out of the waves and onto the sand. At the hospital, Charley weeps on a bench. Michelle didn't make it. John comforts him. Later, Charley attends Michelle's funeral. Ellison is there, but the Connors aren't. Disgusted, Charley hurls Ellison' bible into the grave. The Connors are at home, eating dinner but being utterly silent. Cameron stares out the window. John stares at the table. Derek sits, his hands clasped in front of his face. Sarah stares at her meal. A pretend family. Over it, a pastor speaks: "Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly, we are being renewed day-by-day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory, that far outweighs them all. We know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For God has given us the spirit as a guarantee. And as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight. And so fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary. What is unseen, eternal." But it is not inhumanity or a lack of compassion that prevents the Connors from attending, but the sheer reality of their situation. As Charley stalks away from the grave, Ellison watching after him, Cromartie stands some distance away, looking for any trace of the Connors. What is real - these fleeting lives, delusions of a normal life - is temporary. What is unreal - the war against the machines the fact that you can't ever go home again, can't ever unpierce the veil - is eternal.
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Feb 7, 2017 07:01
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Let's talk about this episode. First thing, the Dixons. Put yourself in Charley's boots. Sarah walked out of your life and, in the doing, turned out to be a terrorist. Yet, some part of you still loves her, even if she's come back as this tough and possibly unhinged warrior woman. You listen to her, you want to help her, but you don't really understand it. Sure, you know enough to be wary of Cameron and that the robots are actually real, but you don't understand the true extent of it. You don't understand that reality is now a war and the machines will come at you without warning. Unlike Ellison and Silberman - the true believers who've come out of it unhinged at worst or existentially displaced at best - you still think that maybe, just maybe, it isn't as bad as Sarah says it is. That it isn't a war fought on a temporal scale and with methods that are beyond imagining. So, you let your guard down by going to get a coke from the vending machine, turning your back on your wife. So, you let yourself be human and indulge in a meaningless fight about who-still-loves-who. And, just like that, Cromartie strolls in and abducts your wife, like he's having a pleasant afternoon walk. You're too busy thinking about half a dozen things to see that the Terminator only thinks about one: getting to John Connor. You're not even a target to him. You're just something he can manipulate so you'll bring him to his real target. So, you make a phone call you know you shouldn't ever make. You're scared and desperate and if anyone can help you rescue your wife, it'll be the people who the machine is after in the first place. You think you'll make it through. After all, Michelle manages to call you and prove that it's really her, perhaps the machine can make mistakes. But it doesn't. Everything it did it did for a reason. It doesn't think so much as it calculates. Sarah figures out it's a trap, but a killing machine wouldn't have a trap that is thwarted by something so simple as realising its existence. Michelle gets severely wounded, by pure chance, and Sarah is forced to choose between your wife, whom she knows you care about, and her son, who must live or the robots will win. So, simple calculus ensures that your wife dies. One life against countless others. And while you understand the necessity of it, you can't forgive Sarah for it, nor the idea that the God Ellison believes in must have a plan. Like I've said earlier, I like Charley as a character. His wife, too, feels underused. Both of those actors nail their parts in this episode. It's hard not to feel for Michelle as she's abducted into a war she probably didn't really believe in, and then is almost raked over the coals by Sarah's indifference that borders on outright cruelty. "I thought it'd be easier, I thought you'd be dead," is a hell of a thing to say. But Michelle, despite all that, rises to the occasion. Even terrified, she remains strong. Even bleeding out, she pushes onward. In a way, she's stronger than Charley. If there's one thing I think TSCC does consistently well, it is its female characters, even when they're merely supporing cast like Michelle. This might have something to do with the number of women on staff - it appears that TSCC has a fair amount of female producers, writers and directors. And, to be fair to the Dixons, we've never seen a Terminator concoct such a trap before. Really, we've never seen them do anything except pursue their target in a straight line. No one could have expected that Cromartie would have had such a thorough plan, even as obvious as it seems in hindsight. Cromartie used a lot of knowledge here - prediction, psychology, etc. - and didn't settle for anything except the most optimal result. Both he and Cameron exhibit more of a personality in this episode (particularly Cameron) and I wonder something. When Cromartie had seemingly killed the Connors in the shack, when he had called John and set up an ambush at the pier, did Cromartie think of anything? Was he happy that he was about to achieve his mission? Dillahunt plays him as neutral as always but it is something I wondered. Was there any pride in the fact that his plan worked, that he outwitted Sarah Connor? As for John and Riley, well, this episode feels like it should mark the end of his dalliance with her. After all, Charley's wife just died and John viewed him like a father. He has literal blood on his hands, again. He is not in control of his fate, the machines are, and if you take your eyes off the ball then they're going to curve one into your jaw. He ran away from Cameron and almost got himself killed. His mistake in giving Charley his phone number is what led to Cromartie learning all this new information. It's easy to understand why John is rebelling so strongly, and so badly, against everyone in his life, but it's certainly not fulfilling or interesting to watch.
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Feb 7, 2017 09:19
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Oh, and one thing I forgot to add, I do appreciate how the show doesn't use Cameron's inability to understand human concepts or her inhumanity as the joke. Her stuff about killing the bird "maybe later" is funny, but it's not laughing at her inability to understand. It's laughing at the unsettling situation that the Connors are in.
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Feb 7, 2017 10:12
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The episode with the nuclear power plant is the only one that really irked me as far as their story "stages" go. Having clients in nuclear power plants, the background checks and everything else required to get in would have busted 'em, not to mention the metal detector that you have to pass through to get into the entrance of the protected area... but oh well, the series is otherwise awesome.
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Feb 7, 2017 23:55
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R-Type posted:The episode with the nuclear power plant is the only one that really irked me as far as their story "stages" go. Having clients in nuclear power plants, the background checks and everything else required to get in would have busted 'em, not to mention the metal detector that you have to pass through to get into the entrance of the protected area... but oh well, the series is otherwise awesome. Definitely. Overall, it works, I think. The problem is, the show has drawn attention to the threat of law enforcement and the fact that metal detectors and such are an issue to Cameron. I can overlook, essentially, procedural matters when it comes to getting characters into a cool story, but a show like TSCC could make a neat story about handling those procedural matters as opposed to handwaving them away.
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Feb 8, 2017 03:59
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Episode 4: Allison From Palmdale In the nightmare future, a young woman flees from the machines. She runs from the tunnel network, where they're stalking her with flashlights and inexorable footsteps, and out into the night where she is captured in a net. On her back, with a light shining in her face, Cameron frantically tries to free herself. In the present, John stares at Cameron, who, to him, seems to be daydreaming. She takes a second to respond to him, evidently stuck on her memory of being trapped in the net. "Are you okay?" He asks, sounding remarkably more jovial than one might expect based on his disposition in the previous episodes. "'Cause if you're gonna try and kill me again, I wouldn't mind a head start." Cameron gives him a flat look. "If I was going to try to kill you again, we wouldn't be having this conversation." "Yeah, fair enough," John admits. John heads off to pick up some things from Radio World, telling Cameron he will meet her back here in thirty minutes. When she doesn't seem happy about it, probably imagining that John is going to ditch her for Riley again, John promises. As she gets out of the car, John asks her to pick up some 'cheese things', specifically, the 'crunchy' ones. He gives Cameron this playful waggle of his eyebrows as he does. It's... quite refreshing to see John being, well, normal again. But Cameron has this dismissive expression. It's the sort of expression that says I have a titanium hyperalloy skeleton and a nuclear heart, I'm faster and stronger and more enduring than you - and you're sending me to pick up junk food? Meanwhile, Sarah runs into Kacy at the mailbox. She's going into labor and Sarah takes her to the hospital. Cameron walks the aisles of the supermarket, paying particular attention to an employee who is scanning items with a barcode reader. The constant attention to the wheel of the cart she's pushing and the POV shots indicate that something's not quite right with Cameron. She picks up an apple, studying it (hello, Biblical metaphor), and her HUD begins to glitch out before vanishing entirely. Confused and disoriented, Cameron's cart collides with a display of watermelons and they spill everywhere. Cameron goes catatonic. Later, she's sitting by the cart, staring at nothing, not responding when a police officer shines a light in her eyes, asks her if she's been drinking, asks if she has any ID, if she has a name. Slowly, Cameron offers him a wad of cash. A lot of cash. The question about her name prompts a memory and, in the future, Cameron defiantly resists giving her name to a pair of Terminators. In response, one of them - a naked T-888 endoskeleton - holds her down and brands her with a barcode along her inner forearm, like the Reese brothers. She screams: "Allison! Allison Young!" So, the woman isn't Cameron. This episode probably gives us the most insight into where Cameron came from. In the present, though, Cameron is still confused. In lockup, she gazes at her arm: "Can tattoos just disappear?" she asks her new friend, Jody, who appears to have mistaken Cameron's missing memory as drug-related. But with the store owner not pressing charges, Cameron is free to go. Jody - apparently something of a usual face around there - spots the large wad of cash Cameron is carrying, and drags her off with her. An hour later, John reaches the police station, and fights down obvious nerves as he steps through the doors. He's still a wanted terrorist, after all! But the cops don't know where Cameron was headed either, but they tell John where he can probably find Jody. Interspersed with this is Sarah and Kacy at the hospital. Kacy knows Sarah is 'busy' and so is fine with her leaving, if she wants. But when Sarah offers to call someone and Kacy makes it clear that she doesn't know who the father is, or knows he simply won't come, Sarah feels a pang of sympathy and stays with her. The pair of them reflect on motherhood. I really like this scene. On TV, it feels rare to have two women discussing motherhood and what it means. They talk about when Sarah had John - in a Central American jungle where the only thing Sarah had for the pain was a bottle of rum. And, in Sarah's mind, Kyle Reese was right there with her. Just like how Kacy's baby daddy, Trevor, has just come through the door. Sarah's wishes are nothing like the real thing. John walks the streets of LA, frantically asking about Jody. There's a lot of things at play here: one, he's obviously concerned about Cameron, two, he's worried that she could blow their cover, and three, he's probably wondering if Cameron is going to kill Jody. I really like how Sarah reaches out to call John, but John is preoccupied with trying to find Cameron. It's nice to see Sarah trying to be the mother John needs and not the warrior he also needs. And it's interesting that John doesn't mention anything about Cameron's issues, knowing that it'd renew the heated discussion from Samson and Delilah. It does also bother me that Sarah doesn't bother with the date/year passcode (or to be more accurate, something new). Sure, Cromartie's figured it out, but doesn't that just make a security measure more important? Meanwhile, Ellison meets with Catherine Weaver. They have an interesting conversation where Weaver's words draw certain parallels to Cromartie's dialogue in the previous episode. ELLISON: The last time I went hunting for these things you want me to hunt, twenty other people died. I won't let that happen again. WEAVER: Nor should you. ELLISON: These things... They're evil. WEAVER: We have to be careful, Agent, not to anthropomorphize a machine. ELLISON: These are more than machines, Miss Weaver. But I'll never make the mistake of thinking they're human. WEAVER: Two years ago, my husband and I were in a helicopter accident. He was killed. ELLISON: I'm sorry. WEAVER: He was flying us to Barstow. There was a microchip plant there doing some amazing things. ELLISON: So, your husband was a pilot. WEAVER: He had over seven hundred hours on that particular helicopter. It was his passion. [A long pause. Ellison misreads Weaver's flat tone.] ELLISON: This is difficult for you. WEAVER: The Kulishov A-85 is a beautiful flying machine. Like the most perfect bird. It's almost flawless in its design. ELLISON: Almost flawless? WEAVER: It needs a human to fly it. ELLISON: Are you saying that... Machines make better decisions than humans? WEAVER: What I think is that in certain extreme conditions, even the most calm and careful of men... panic. Help me find this machine, Agent. You and I'll take it apart piece by piece. I'm not sure what we'll find, but I doubt we'll find evil. In the future, Allison Young is brought food. She smashes the plate against the wall in open defiance. In the present, Cameron stares down at some all-American fast food, burgers and fries. Jody discusses her past. She "crashes with people" and "does, y'know, whatever for money". It's clear that she's not had the best life, but Cameron does like her necklace. "It's cool, huh?" Jody says. "I got it from this awesome thrift store in Echo Park." But lunch is interrupted by an angry man who appears to know Jody and accuses him of stealing and pawning his laptop. He punches Jody and holds Cameron against a wall, leaving Cameron to pass him that huge wad of cash and tell him to go. He does, but tells Jody that he'll be back for what he's owed. Jody's not happy about it as they visit a halfway house, telling Cameron she should have taken a punc to keep the money. All they need to do is fill out a form and ace an interview, and they'll have somewhere to stay for a while. But Cameron has no idea what to write, deciding to fill out the form as 'Allison Young'. She covers Jody's injury with make-up, and she doesn't know where she learned to that either. In return, Jody gives Cameron her necklace. Ellison is trying to run a check on Catherine Weaver. The officer he's talking to is his wife, and she notes that Ellison is no longer wearing his cross. I do like how we only learn that she is his wife by having them both look to the door when someone asks for 'Agent Ellison'. Cameron sits with the Counselor, and every question the Counselor asked is matched by one she remembers her interrogator - a Terminator, or maybe Skynet itself? The voice is ambiguously neutral - asks in the future. "Where are you from? You don't remember what town you're from? Tell me about your life. Tell me about your family. What's that bracelet on your arm?" By the end of it, Allison's defiance is worn down and she collapses, crying. "I saw a boy ride by on his silver mountain bike, and I told my dad, that's what I want. And he said next year. But I didn't have a party the next year. No one did. Everyone was dead." In the present, Cameron is crying, too. She stares at a statue of a Balinese tiger, extinct since the 1930s, and asks the counsellor if she ever thinks "that could happen to us, to humans?" "Is that something you worry about? the counsellor asks. In the future, Allison wants to go home and, seeing an opportunity, bolts for the door. Palmdale is where she's from, which Cameron relays in the present. John's on the way to the halfway house, tipped off by a friend of Jody's he bumps into. In the hospital, Kacy and Sarah talk about motherhood. KACY: I just want life to be perfect for him, you know? Didn't you feel that way? Don't get me wrong. I'm not an idiot. I know it'll never be perfect. It's just... Right now... In there... No one's ever made fun of him, turned him down for a date. How long does he have, really, until he figures out how hard it can all be? How long does he have until he figures out the burden on his shoulders? Has John even had someone make fun of him, or turn him down for a date? Cameron - still in the guise of Allison Young - calls 'her' parents, and gets through to Claire Young. But she doesn't have a daughter, not yet - as Claire steps out from behind a kitchen counter, it is revealed that she's heavily pregnant, too. "Pretty name, though, Allison." Hello, causality loop! Later, lying on a bunk bed with Kacy, Cameron can't understand why her mother didn't know who she was. Back in the hospital, Trevor returns with food. He offers to do a barbecue with Sarah and John and Cameron... and even offers to take John shooting! But there's a snag, Trevor's a cop, and Sarah's attitude goes from friendly to a deer caught in headlights when that information is revealed. Ellison has the results of his inquiry into Weaver. Sitting in his wife's office, he finds out two things: one, that Weaver is squeaky clean, and two, that the crash was put down as "mechanical failure". A discrepancy in Weaver's story, and a point against her argument of human error being more pressing than machine error. His wife tries to get him to talk to someone about what he's seen but Ellison can't - who the hell could he possibly talk to to lift the burden of the truth from his shoulders? John arrives at the halfway house. In the doorway, he stands watching Cameron play foosball with Jody. His expression is hard to read: confused, anxious, and maybe even a little bit sad. Cameron is apparently having the time of her life, laughing and smiling, but the meeting between her and John doesn't go too well. JOHN: Hey. What the hell are you doing? CAMERON: [laughs] Playing foosball. JOHN: We've gotta go. CAMERON: Go where? JOHN: [increasingly confused] Home. CAMERON: Home? Who are you? JOHN: Cameron... CAMERON: My name's Allison. JOHN: No, it's not. It's Cameron. I can't explain this to you right now. We have to go before mom gets home. CAMERON: You're freaking me out. JOHN: I'm freaking you out? [Cameron nods] You really not know who you are? CAMERON: I'm Allison. From Palmdale. JOHN: You're not Allison. You're not from Palmdale. You're from the future. You're a machine. CAMERON: A what? JOHN: The chip is messed up again, but I can fix you. I fixed you once, remember? CAMERON: Fixed me? Why would you fix me? [Cameron remembers Allison fleeing through corridors, finding hundreds of humans in cages, all of them urging her to run. There are animals in other cages: monkeys, bears, and even a tiger. She reaches outside, finding herself on the deck of an aircraft carrier. She leaps from the side, and is caught in another net.] JOHN: [taking Cameron by the arm] Come on, we have to get out of here. CAMERON: What did you do? Did you hurt me? JODY: Is there a problem? JOHN: No. I'm her brother. John Baum. CAMERON: I don't have a brother. JODY: Look, dude, I don't know who you are, but you really-- JOHN: Come on. [Cameron shoves John against the wall with Terminator strength.] John is asked to leave by a guard, and he does. In the future, Allison is hauled back to face her interrogator: a naked Cameron, whose mechanical voice becomes her usual one. They have a conversation. CAMERON: You shouldn't have run. You're just making things worse for yourself. Your hair. It's so pretty. We work very hard on the hair to get it right. I'm not your enemy. ALLISON: Right. CAMERON: I want to get to know you. You're very brave. That must be why John Connor chose you. ALLISON: I don't know what you're talking about. CAMERON: I admire him, his determination. His spirit, his fearlessness. I'd like to meet him. ALLISON: He wouldn't want to meet you! CAMERON: They're going to kill you. They're going to kill every one of you. They'll hunt you down until every human is gone, and you're extinct. ALLISON: Then... Why are we having this conversation?! CAMERON: Because some of us don't want that. Some of us want peace. You were chosen, Allison, not just by John Connor, by us. Tell me where his camp is. We'll talk about all this at the end of the episode! Back with the counselor, Cameron is experiencing a crisis of personality. The counselor prompts her along, taking notes, as Cameron responds to her polite questions, treating her like a victim of severe delusions. "I think I'm a machine. From the future. I'm an infiltrator. It's what I was programmed for. To find John Connor. He's the one who saves mankind." "From what?" "Extinction." "And what are you gonna do when you find John Connor?" the counselor asks. "I'm going to kill him and hang his head on a pike for all to see." Not the best response. After the interview, the counsellor heads to the phone. John is waiting outside, in the big black Connor truck. Cameron is talking to Jody. Here is where we see Cameron shifting back towards her typical self - her voice is a bit flatter, her face a bit more neutral. And she quotes what she said to Allison in the future, about the hair, about getting it right. She asks Jody about her past, but Jody is evasive. They leave the halfway house before some uniformed types show up. Not cops, I don't think, but mental health people, if I've read their shoulder emblems right, probably intent on taking Cameron to a mental health facility. Ellison meets with Weaver again. He meets Savannah Weaver, Weaver's young daughter, but the meat of the conversation concerns the discrepancy in Weaver's story. What Weaver led him to believe is the official story, and Ellison thinks that the unofficial story is related to the nightmare machines from the nightmare future. The only story that should be getting around, the only story that Savannah should hear, is the one about mechanical failure. But both of them have seen things (more complicated for Weaver, of course). Ellison signs on with her. Jody leads Cameron to burgle a place that Jody used to babysit for five years ago. Cameron notes that Jody said she only moved to LA two years ago as she shoves the door open. It's interesting that Cameron knows what's valuable, the cash and jewelry. Jody lies again, to Cameron, when she is questioned about the place. Okay, she didn't babysit - this is her parents' house. In a safe, Cameron spots a necklace just like the one Jody gave her, the one she claimed to get from a cool thrift store. As if processing that, Cameron repeats her words to her, and asks her about the necklace. Cameron is getting angry, even if she doesn't seem to understand what's prompting here. She gets well within Jody's personal space and asks, again, to be told about the necklace. In the future, Cameron confronts Allison with a lie: the bracelet wasn't from her sister, because six other Resistance soldiers wear those bracelets. Cameron deduces that it was a trick, Allison would send her the camp without the bracelet and she would be spotted and discovered. "You lied to me," Cameron states, in the future, before snapping Allison's neck. "You lied to me," Cameron tells Jody, prowling around her like a big cat. Cameron's really not happy as she comes to understand that Jody didn't just lie to her, but was going to set her up to take the fall for the robbery. Flashing with memories, and we're not clear if they're Cameron's memories of killing Allison or Allison's memories of being killed, Cameron seizes Jody by the neck. "You lied to me," she states, again. John arrives and finds Cameron standing over Jody's body. "Did you kill her?" he demands. "Apparently not," Cameron muses, leaving as Jody begins to stir. In the hospital, Sarah and Kacy talk. Sarah reveals the truth about John's birth - his father wasn't there, but Sarah wishes he had been. But she could get through it, all by herself, and so can Kacy. And Sarah will be there, just next door. Kacy reflects the unsettling idea of breastfeeding 'your baby boy' next to a 9mm. Something Sarah's lived with ever since having John. On the way home, neon signs flashing above and beside them, Cameron comments that it was her "last get off jail free". Simmering, John remarks, "drat right." But he spots the necklace, and asks Cameron where she got it. "At this awesome thrift store in Echo Park," she lies. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Feb 8, 2017 |
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Feb 8, 2017 07:58
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So, this episode was all about Cameron, so it feels only fair to talk about her and her backstory this time. We know Cameron's story until she reached John Connor's camp now. She was a Terminator who was involved in at least one interrogation. Her chassis model is unknown although the Terminator vault specifies her as a T-900, something backed up by her unprecedented capabilities (eating, crying, etc.), the fact that her HUD is different to any other model of Terminator, including T-888s, and the fact that Vick's HUD identifies her chassis as 'unknown'. Her flesh covering was based off Allison Young, a resistance fighter. Her original mission was to kill John Connor. Her behavior in Samson and Delilah is Cameron reverting to her original programming, something which Connor and the Resistance seemed to only be able to haphazardly patch over and not eliminate entirely. Cameron also seems to hold all of Allison's memories. At some point, Cameron was identified by the Resistance as a Terminator (presumably by dogs). Her chip was extracted and reprogrammed to serve, apparently, as Future John Connor's bodyguard. From there, she seemed to become his ambassador, intermediary and lieutenant (maybe even his lover), much to the frustration of Derek and others in the Resistance (such as Derek's friend Jessie, who we meet in two episodes time), and leading to increasing number of Terminators to be reprogrammed to serve the Resistance. Derek Reese in particular is very wary of Cameron, calling her a liar and having a violent reaction to seeing her in the present, going so far as to cryptically state that he knows who she really is. At some point, Cameron is sent back in time to protect John Connor, although her mission appears to extend beyond that. For example, we have seen her gathering coltan for an unknown purpose, as well as the CPU of a Terminator. What we learn later in Season 2, is that she has also been keeping specific parts from other endoskeletons, which we'll talk more about towards the end of Season 2. But there's some stuff we can discuss now. Firstly, Derek and Cameron's relationship. I believe that Derek ran into Cameron when she was working for Skynet, and almost certainly wearing the Allison Young flesh. Cast your mind back to Season 1, Dungeons and Dragons, the episode where we get our first glimpse of Derek in the future. Remember how Derek was experimented on, maybe tortured, in the basement of that strange house? The music was a piece by Chopin. Cameron has also been shown listening to it in the present. It would be a coincidence, perhaps, if Allison Young didn't explicitly mention that her father listened to Chopin. Was Cameron a more independent lieutenant of Skynet, working on certain projects? Did she try to sway Derek Reese as she tried to sway Allison with talk of the machine resistance? If so, why didn't she kill him? Who gave Derek the axe with which he used to free himself? As an aside, yes, a more independent lieutenant. The idea that a Terminator is read-only or read-write comes from a deleted scene in T2. Given the actions of Cameron, who could realistically be set read-write, and Cromartie, who demonstrates new thinking despite Skynet presumably wanting to keep him on a short leash, it appears to be that TSCC runs with T2's original idea: that Terminators just learn from contact with humans. As an additional comment, the idea of independent machines also comes from T2, with the reason for Skynet making few T-1000s because it was worried about their capability for independent thought and that they would turn against it given time. As we know, Weaver is a model of T-1000 (a T-1001, specifically, presumably due to the weird legal stuff surrounding the franchise) and is seemingly a significant player in the machine resistance in the future and the present. But why torture Derek? It appears Skynet is making infiltrators to mimic specific people. Was it trying to get some information from Derek, maybe a scan of his brain, something which does come up later in Season 2? It's unclear. Either way, Cameron was definitely involved and Derek recognised her due to that. The machine dissension that Cameron speaks of is something of a lie. The machine resistance exists, and Weaver is a part of it, but the group is seemingly operating outside of Skynet. I know some people have misread the scene as Cameron already being part of it, maybe undercover in Skynet, and being honest with Allison but it flies in the face of some things, minor and major.
This links back to the apple we see Cameron studying at the start of the episode. It's a metaphor for the fruit from the Garden of Eden, which is typically depicted as an apple. In her hand, Cameron holds the knowledge of good and evil, but she hasn't eaten it yet. She's beginning to lose some of her 'innocence' now, as she begins to really understand her ability to self-determinate (including her ability to self-terminate, later in the season). If we keep associating Skynet with God (and the series does, too, particularly with some of Weaver's comments later) then the fruit, the ability to choose is something denied to its creations. And, again, if we put Skynet's Terminators as angels, angels never had the ability to choose anything but God's design, too. Another thing I find interesting is John's perspective on Cameron. He believes he saved her. He believes he fixed her chip. We know this isn't quite what happened and the exact mechanism that led to Cameron disregarding her original programming is unclear, but it helps explain John's behavior, and gives light to his feelings of Cameron. He didn't just fix a broken machine, he saved a girl's life. As Weaver would say: be careful not to anthropomorphise a machine. And John has, but it's not necessarily his fault, not when we think about how him and Cameron interact in Season 1. And I don't think John thinks Cameron is a human, but he treats her like a person, like something with qualia. On a good day, he teases her and treats her like a friend. On a bad day, he is jealous, awkward and even spiteful. And, his experience with the T-800 in T2 had informed him that Terminators can understand what makes a human feel, even if they might not express it like a human. Of course, it seems like Cameron can express something like anger (distinct from her 'acting' as Allison Young earlier in the episode). She's certainly not pleased that Jody has repeatedly lied to her, seemingly taking it as a violation of trust, and attacks her because of it. She doesn't kill her though, which comes back to Cameron's new ability to choose. Is she genuinely angry or merely simulating the anger that she thinks Allison Young would have felt? Does the distinction even matter? But who is Allison Young? And what is her relationship to John? The words "John Connor chose you" seem to imply an intimate relationship, and the bracelets might correlate to some sort of inner circle, but we're not sure. As Season 2 goes on, Cameron will display increasingly human-like behavior and a range of emotions and thoughts that depict a capability for self-reflection and awareness. But if the damage sustained in Samson and Delilah was what made it a possibility, it is the events of Allison From Palmdale that serve as a catalyst and serve to dramatically complicate things for the Connors going forwards.
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Feb 8, 2017 10:54
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Did we already pass the "What are you doing, bird?  " episode? I remember that being a few great scenes.
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Feb 10, 2017 07:22
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CPColin posted:Did we already pass the "What are you doing, bird? Just for you, a dumb video I made last time I did an SCC rewatch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCOkD77GfuM
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Feb 10, 2017 07:49
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CPColin posted:Did we already pass the "What are you doing, bird? Not yet! It is towards the end of the season. It is a good couple of scenes, yeah, particularly when you look at it with the context of her bird scene in episode 3.
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Feb 10, 2017 15:28
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Milky Moor posted:Derek did the same when he got back to the past, after all. I like her weird slang, even if they could have linked her to Jessie by actually using proper Australian slang. For example, instead of "apples and oranges", an actual bit of Australian slang could be used: "she'll be apples". Same general meaning but one is authentic and one feels like a copy. Maybe they hadn't landed Jessie's actress yet (Stephanie Jacobsen). I love your reviews and discussions but as an Australian I have never heard anyone say 'she'll be apples' in real life. Thats like what an over the top stereotype or someone from maybe some specific parts of the country might say. Ironically the common Australian slang is going to be stuff thats on American tv. Also I assumed apples and oranges was slang people use to say that two things arent comparable but is this not how its used in the US? kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 02:24
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kingcom posted:I love your reviews and discussions but as an Australian I have never heard anyone say 'she'll be apples' in real life. Thats like what an over the top stereotype or someone from maybe some specific parts of the country might say. Ironically the common Australian slang is going to be stuff thats on American tv. Also I assumed apples and oranges was slang people use to say that two things arent comparable but is this not how its used in the US? Maybe we're from different parts of the country. I've heard it a few times down in Vic but especially in rural NSW. That is how apples and oranges is used, but it's not used that way by Riley. Riley uses it in the sense of something being good, special or rare - which makes sense, given that fresh fruit is probably incredibly rare in the future war. I think her exact usage to John is "You're just apples and oranges."
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Feb 13, 2017 02:29
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Episode 5: Goodbye To All That Goodbye To All That is an autobiography by a man named Robert Graves. The title refers to how the entire world changed following the cataclysm of the First World War, how the traditional methods - of war and at home - were swept away by the sights, sounds and stories of the Western Front. Graves himself had to leave England following the war, so disillusioned he was by the failures of British society and his memories of the world he had stopped living in when he came back home. If there's one thing World War One conclusively killed, it was the romantic ideals that had persisted since the Victorian era, if not before, that war was good and noble and heroic. The First World War, the blood-soaked birth cry of the Industrial Age, put an end to that innocence. It's clear why they picked that reference for the title of the episode, given how much of the episode refers to the loss of innocence of the entire cast. John, Derek and Sarah. Even Ellison. And the two Martin Bedells who find themselves caught up in the apocalypse. This episode could have been a great one. As it is, in the wider context of the second season, it is merely good. In the present, someone named Martin Bedell has been murdered in his backyard by a strange, expressionless man. Reading the newspaper, Derek points out that he knew a Martin Bedell in the future, and so did John. Martin Bedell was a well-known and well-respected figure, one of the people who broke out of the Century Work Camp, the event that started John Connor's legend. SARAH: Maybe it's just coincidence. DEREK: [very pointedly] How many coincidences named Sarah Connor got killed before Skynet finally locked in on you? SARAH: So, why would they want to kill him? DEREK: He had experience and knowledge John needed. Military prep school, then West Point. Bedell had real training. He helped John put the Resistance together. [John gathers up a phone book, looking through it.] JOHN: Okay, there were three Martin Bedells in L. A. Now, there are two. So how do we know which one is the target? DEREK: They both are. Machines are thorough. Only good thing about them. So it took you, what, thirty seconds to find those names? If there is a triple-eight out there, he's found them too. Sarah suffers in this scene. She functions as exposition when she should know full well what's happening, given that it is how the first Terminator went about trying to assassinate her originally. John, however, starts coming into his own. From grabbing the phone book, to heading down into the basement to decipher some of the cryptic clues, to standing up to Sarah to take part in Derek's plan, this feels like we're seeing John-as-leader. Derek's plan is a simple one ("I've got a plan," he says, "It involves guns"). He will head to Presidio Alto and find that Martin Bedell and keep him safe - and John will go with him. Sarah is less than pleased but John stands up to her: "I can do this, I am doing this." This leaves Sarah and Cameron to watch over the other Martin Bedell. "He's not a soldier," Sarah reminds Derek, as the two Connor boys head to leave. "No," Derek agrees. "Not yet." John and Derek load up the big black Connor truck with all sorts of equipment: more than a few rifles, some big packs, huge cases. Closing up the rear tray, John shares a look with Cameron and it's unclear what either of them are thinking. John seems confused as to why Cameron has turned to look at him. Above it all, Sarah watches like a sentinel statue, glowering out at the horizon. She only looks down at John once he's climbing into the car. The drive is not a comfortable one. For the first forty miles, John doesn't say a word. "You, uh..." Derek begins, "Thinking or worrying?" "Thinking," John comments. "About Bedell After we grab him, where are we supposed to hide him?" "Who said we were going to hide him?" Derek smiles, but only slightly. "Martin Bedell hiding in a cave somewhere might as well be Martin Bedell dead somewhere. No use to John Connor. Besides, it's a military school. Soldiers, guns, can't do much better than that." No, if the T-888 comes hunting for this Martin Bedell, John Connor and Derek Reese aren't going to run. They're going to fight. Meanwhile, in Catherine Weaver's office, Ellison is being tasked to look into the events at the Serrano Point reactor, the reactor that the Connors stopped from melting down. Ellison's read the official reports, the reports that claim it was an accident. Weaver is adamant that there are, of course, no such thing as accidents now. To punctuate her point, she places the eye of a Terminator into Ellison's palm. There's a bit of a recurring eye motif throughout this episode. I'm also going to point out that Weaver seems to be the only character we see wearing white, as opposed to the darker shades that much of the cast wear. It is, of course, a color associated with the heavens and purity. Derek and John pull up at Presidio Alto. John stares at all the students being run through calisthenics by fatigued military officers. First things first, let me admit that I'm not really that knowledgeable about American military schools, so, if I get any terminology wrong, don't hang me! Derek stares, too, and Derek flashbacks (or flashforwards, as the case may be) to the future war. Now, while a good sequence, it all feels a bit awkward. Like a lot of parts of Season 2, it works but it's hard to tell what the writers were going for, and if there might have been better ways of doing it. Anyway, in the future, Derek, Kyle and some other soldiers are watching the movements of a Skynet column. The Kansas bunker, an important Resistance facility, has been hit and the people inside taken prisoner. The prisoner convoy will be coming through the area in an hour. Derek advocates for the unit to hold to Connor's orders, to hold the corridor and recon the movements of any Skynet movements. KYLE: What's the report going to say?! That we observed Skynet move these people into a death camp while we sat?!" DEREK: I know! I know it sucks, all right? But if we lose eyes on this road, we could lose a lot more than one bunker, Kyle. If Connor were here- SOLDIER: Connor isn't here. Corporal, get below. Round up every tunnel rat you can find. DEREK: Martin. You know what he'd say. You know what Connor would say. BEDELL: Yes, I know what he'd say. If Connor wants to shoot me for disobeying orders, he can get in line behind the tin cans. We're doing this. Now, I don't know if it is the lighting of these scenes, or if it's a deliberate attempt to make Bedell harder to recognise, but the guy looks pale, sweaty and sickly in his future scenes. It's honestly kind of weird because neither Kyle nor Derek look anything like him. Either way, John shakes Derek out of his nightmare reverie. Wordlessly, Derek heads off to handle things with the commanding officer of the school. HOBBS: We see a lot of boys like your nephew, Lieutenant. Single mother. Socially withdrawn. Move around a lot. Tend to cling to male authority figures. Lost his dad, you said, in the war? DEREK: Killed. On a mission. Can't tell you any more than that. HOBBS: Don't know? DEREK: Can't. HOBBS: I understand. Well... Good grades. Good test scores. Good kid. Here's what I'll do: three weeks as a plebe. If he likes it, he can stay. Then we'll talk tuition. DEREK: Thank you. I'll give him the news. [As Derek reaches the door, Hobbs addresses him. Derek turns back.] HOBBS: Lieutenant. I lost one of my tacs a couple weeks ago. Reservist. Had to go. TAC. Teacher-advisor. They keep the cadets from going all Lord of the Flies on us. Hired a replacement, but he's not due for a week. I'm shorthanded. DEREK: Sir... Respectfully, I'm probably the last guy you're looking for. HOBBS: Guys like you get dropped into the rear end end of nowhere. You can handle thirty adolescents for a week. "Good news," Derek tells John as he returns to the truck. "You're in." "What's the bad news?" John asks. "I'm in." In a suburban home, a young boy plays a video game and says some truly terrible 'this is what people sound like playing video games' dialogue, which I've included for your pleasure at the end of this section. The doorbell rings and, looking through the eyehole, the boy sees an expressionless bald man staring back at him. "Martin Bedell?" the man asks. Just as the kid confirms his identity and the Terminator empties his clip through the door, Sarah arrives and clutches this Bedell in her arms. The Terminator gives chase but Cameron is waiting with the Connor SUV. Leaping onto the car, the Terminator rips the sunroof free and Sarah blasts him with a shotgun, sending him crashing to the asphalt. Honestly, there just isn't much to say about the scenes with Sarah Connor and the younger Bedell. On one hand, the kid is clearly a stand-in for John and the childhood he never had with Sarah (as well as a reflection for how cold a mother Sarah is). On the other, that's all he is and all he does for the episode. I'll skip over it and discuss it in another post, sticking to the main plot with the older Bedell for this one. Ellison investigates the Serrano nuke plant, walking the premises with Mr Nelson, Greenway's plant boss from the earlier episode. Nelson explains that there's a problem with the incident reports, with them not making any sense. The reason they give for the valve blowing up and compromising the plant is metal fatigue. Even if they're granted that, Nelson comments, which seems unlikely given the pristine condiiton of the valve, then how did the valve close itself? And, if someone did that, how stron were they? "Superman," Nelson claims. And where are the security tapes to shed some light on the situation? All gone. Said to be stolen by Greenway who then went home and hung himself while 'mystery employees' shut the reactor down. It's put Nelson in a rough situation. He's putting together a report for the NRC - the Nuclear Regulator Commission - which he knows will bring the feds on the war path to find out more about what happened at the plant. But it's also going to play hell with "the schedule". "What schedule is that?" Ellison asks. Nelson explains that it's the schedule that Weaver implemented earlier, with the new automated systems to run the plant. But if the feds come through, then the whole thing is going to be pushed back. In clear contrast to the dull colors and industrial furnishings of the nuclear plant, Derek wanders the wilds outside Presidio Alto, taking stock of the land for when the Terminator arrives. The place is heavily wooded and there's plenty of tar pits around. He spots a deer and stares at it, obviously enraptured by the appearance of a wild animal, something no doubt rare after the nuclear annihilation of much of the planet. But his pleasant moment is broken up by the reports of gunfire. Someone's shooting. That someone is John Connor and his class. John proceeds to prove himself a better shot, nailing the bulls-eye, and knowing more about firearms than the other members of his class. It earns him a merit from Bedell, the Cadet Captain of his unit, for his knowledge - and a demirit, for not adhering to the chain of command. But Bedell seems to like Connor and the pair go for a run. "You run, Connor?" he asks him. John Connor would like nothing more than to run away from it all. And, as it turns out, so does Bedell. They run into Derek on the run. He's not too happy about John potentially exposing himself to a Terminator attack but when he sights on Bedell he recognises him as the Bedell from the future. "I've heard a lot about you," he says. "A lot of good, I hope, sir," Bedell replies. "Lot of good." Later (maybe the next day, the episode feels weird with how it handles time), Derek is led to meet the other cadets. The following exchange takes place. DEREK: Hi, I'm Lieutenant... Baum. I'm your new TAC. So... I've been told... that my job is to make sure that you're all doing okay. [Long pause.] DEREK: Well, you all look okay to me. So, um... Any questions? All right, then. PYLE: Sir. We heard you were in the war. Heard you seen action. DEREK: Yeah. Yeah, I've seen action in the war. PYLE: Got a lot of kills? DEREK: Say again? PYLE: Kills, sir! I want to go infantry as soon as I get out of here. Maybe rangers! Maybe Delta! Best of the best! DEREK: Best of the best. Counting kills. Like it's a game. Like it's just a game. I remember one particularly fun day. A guy in my squad got his stomach blasted open in a fire fight. He spent six hours holding his own guts in. His buddy carried him on his back to the nearest aide station, just praying that someone could put the dumb son of a bitch together again. The game, Pyle, the game is played with your buddy's life. With the life of your squad. Your platoon. The game is played by you! On behalf of the whole drat human race! [Pyle resumes his seat, on the verge of tears. Bedell looks like he's had an epiphany. John watches Derek closely. Derek stares at each member of the cadet unit in turn, and then stalks out of the room.] Brian Austin Green basically nails every scene he's in, and this one is no exception. But it's also nice to see Derek getting something to do that isn't just having singular lines. In the future, Bedell asks the resistance fighters to meet his friend. "Meet my friend, the EFP. He sits in the middle of the road and blows up metal. This is his life's ambition. I intend to help him achieve it." The EFP is an explosive device, and Derek informs the others that they've seeded the street with them. They'll draw the Skynet tank - referred to as an Ogre - into position and blow it to pieces, which should allow them to hit the convoy and rescue the prisoners. Kyle will be creating the distraction to lure the Ogre out of position, taking with him a bunch of kids who don't seem to have any combat experience. Derek is lost in his thoughts in the Alto mess hall, shaking his head, evidently seeing the kids arounds him as the future kids fighting the machines. Bedell and John watch him as they talk. BEDELL: Your uncle... He's an intense guy. JOHN: Yeah, I know. He's a good guy, though. He's just-- he's a lot to take sometimes. All that he's been through. You know... What are you supposed to say to that? BEDELL: You mean, how do you measure up? Every man in my family, going back five generations, has been a general or statesman, CEO, something amazing, they all went here. But you know what the best part about Presidio Alto is? The cross-country course. You know, sometimes when I'm out there-- when I'm all alone, and I'm going flat-out-- everything just, sort of, falls away. But sometimes, I wish that... JOHN: Wish you could just keep on running and never look back. BEDELL: I met this girl over the summer. Her name is Alicia. She's amazing, dude. She started at Dartmouth this year. She's a runner like me. She's coming home in a couple of weeks. When she goes back, I think I want to go with her... And never look back. That's a secret, Baum. You treat it as such. JOHN: I always do. So, the younger Bedell is basically an analogy to John when he's younger and the present day Bedell is John as he is now. John is basically forced to consign someone to very fate he's been railing against. I really like it, it's got just the right kind of melancholy and weird temporal drama. Later, Derek finds John doing some lesson exercises and gives him the lay of the land. John and Derek argue about what I've just said. John claims that Bedell will leave. Derek claims he "doesn't". John points out this is exactly what people do with his life, and returns to his work. Ellison is also working. He hits up the bar where the Connors had been during the events at Serrano. Not much to say, really, but he spies a photo where Sarah is visible, blurry in the background. Derek is setting up an ambush point for the Terminator. He's got claymore mines and a huge sniper rifle. John indicates the mines. "These going to kill it?" "No," Derek says. "A speed bump." But the armor-piercing high explosive round in his other hand? "It'll make it stop. Reconsider its life choices," he adds, smirking. Derek gets a lot of good lines in this episode. Anyway, John and Derek talk. John makes a leap of logic that Kyle was the soldier Derek described, the one who carried the dying man back to the aid station. Derek describes his first memory of a deer. DEREK: No. After. We were up in Griffith park, hunting for food. It was a big bastard too. Your dad had never seen one before. I mean, not like that. After I killed it and we got close... Your dad started crying. You know, more than I'd ever heard or seen him. I didn't know how to make him stop. I buried the deer. We went hungry. He was just a boy. JOHN: So were you. DEREK: Yep. I guess I was. The line about Kyle crying not only reinforces the point that they were kids and had to grow up fast, but I feel like it links back to John crying when Sarah first told him the legend of the golem. Both John and Kyle have strong hearts and a powerful sense of empathy. In Weaver's office, at nighttime, the pair discuss Ellison's findings. Weaver knows most of it, of course, but the big thing that seems to surprise her is the idea of a second machine fighting the machine responsible for breaking the valve. "Where did they come from?" she muses, "Why did they fight?" It's hard to tell whether she's testing Ellison or if she truly has no idea. "Let's keep looking," she says, once Ellison has told her about the plant's soon-to-be visit from the NRC. "Before the nightmare begins." Nelson - the plant manager - is in the bar. A very attractive lady (credited as Bar Skank, ugh) begins chatting him up. Smash cut to them having sex outside the bar, where she promptly turns silver and invades his mouth and head and kills him. So, by this time, it seems clear that Weaver is working against Skynet, but she's certainly no stranger to murder. Later, Sarah calls Derek. Cameron's recon has discovered that the Terminator is heading straight for the military academy and that it'll be there in two, maybe three, hours. This, of course, puts John right in the firing line. Sarah's incensed that the plan is not as simple as Derek had said it would be but Derek promises that nothing will happen to John. "It won't touch him. I won't let it." That night, Derek, Bedell and John are working with thegroup of cadets on an obstacle course exercise. Derek promptly changes the mission. "New exercise. A guy with a gun is going to come through here. Do not initiate contact. Not even for laughs. Are we clear? You see him, you send a hand signal up the line. If I see that hand signal before I see our infiltrator, you win. Exercise over." So, Derek is putting a bunch of kids in the line of fire, potentially getting them all killed by a Terminator. Of course, when he's fighting for that deer and for Bedell and for his brother in a different timeline, it's easy to understand his callousness. But still, there's something very grim about this plan. Derek takes John and Bedell with him, to the ambush point he set up earlier. Bedell expresses his doubts when he sees the 'Claymore simulators'. "What?" Derek asks, "We're not having fun?" In the future, though, one plan is going horribly wrong. A stray shot has ignited the explosive devices for the Ogre tank and blown them all prematurely. The tank is advancing on them and Kyle is exposed. It's going to kill everyone and Derek is preparing to "drop a couple endos" and go out in a blaze of glory. But Bedell has a plan - they have one more explosive, they just need to get it to the tank. The big bald Terminator wanders through the woods. It spies some of the cadets but sums them up as: no target, no threat. It ignores them, moving past them silently. The hand signal passes up the line and Derek waits, aiming down the scope of his huge sniper rifle. Over this whole sequence, Sarah and the kid Bedell read from the Wizard of Oz. There's a lot to talk about with this but I don't think it works at all. It's very muddled in execution and imagery. Derek blasts the Terminator in the face, but it is only a glancing blow, doing more damage to the skin than the chassis and it sights in on Derek. But that's the plan. John blows the charges as the Terminator crosses the ambush point and the machine is enveloped in a huge explosion. But the Terminator, battered and beaten, rises to its feet. Bedell freaks out and trips, falling from his safe vantage point with John, and locks eyes with the robot from the future. The robot acquires its target and advances. John rises to his feet and shouts at the robot. "It's me, Connor! John Connor!" And the Terminator experiences an override, forced to engage the more pressing target. It chases John out over the tar pits, until John is caught with nowhere to run. It advances on him. Just in time for Derek to come out of nowhere and - and I'm not kidding here - blasts his huge sniper rifle like six times from the hips, shooting the Terminator in the head, chest and each leg, sending it into the tarpits. He shoots it once more, blasting most of its cranial casing away, just to be sure. Now, look, I know firing a rifle like that is impossible, but man, it is incredibly cool to see Derek do it. They burn the tarpit and the Terminator chassis inside of it. On the other side, Bedell stares, not comprehending what he's seeing. Nearby, hidden by the trees, Cameron watches everything play out. The next day, John and Derek have told Bedell about the future. BEDELL: So this... This is what I'm supposed to do? Stay here, graduate, go to West Point? Like I don't know the end of the world is coming? Like any of this... any of it really matters? JOHN:: It does matter. It all matters. BEDELL: You believe that? JOHN:: [sighs] I've got to. [John gets into the Connor truck] BEDELL: I'll see you around, Connor. JOHN: Yeah. I guess you will. On the way home, John sniffs his tears back. "Sometimes I wish I could just wake up from all this. Like from a dream. But I can't, can I?" "You want to know what happened..." Derek begins. "To Bedell. What really happened?" "I don't know. Do I?" "I guess it depends on who I'm talking to," Derek wonders. "John Baum or John Connor." "Baum is just a name," John states. In the future, Derek and Bedell argue over who is going to strike the Ogre tank with the explosives. Derek wants to go, because Kyle is his brother, but Bedell is a runner and argues that he's the only one who can do it in time. "Run like hell, okay?" Derek tells Bedell, in the future. "You get those people out," Bedell tells Derek. "Don't be a hero." In the present, Derek recounts: "And he ran. He ran so fast. Fast enough to get to that tank before it got to Kyle's position. Fast enough to blow it sky-high. We rescued forty prisoners that day. One of them was John Connor." In the shotgun seat, John begins to break down. And wouldn't you, if you found out you ruined someone's dreams of normality, consigning them to the nightmare you live in, just so they would save your life in the future? "Martin was always a great runner," Derek continues, "But no one... No one could outrun a blast like that. He died... John. He died for you. We all die for you." And they pull up at home, and John staggers from the car, his movemens laconic, his demeanour dour, and Sarah watches from the window, aware, more than ever thanks to the events of the episode, of just what she's cost her son. And maybe, just what he'll cost others in the future.
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Feb 16, 2017 01:10
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So, let's talk about some of the particular elements in the episode. First, the B-plot. Sarah Connor and the younger Martin Bedell. Look, it's not a bad idea. I like that the show touches on motherhood, I like that it shows that Sarah is not a good mother in the sense of being warm but she's great in the sense of raising a child to be strong (in a particular sense). But the whole thing is basically that: Sarah showing how inexperienced she is at being a warm, motherly figure, and giving a glimpse of the life she feels, on some level, that she should have given John. John should have had a time of worrying about book reports and playing video games without wondering about the nuclear hellfire that awaits everyone. The whole plot feels cliche. We already know this about Sarah from almost every interaction she has with John. It is nice to see Sarah truly out of her 'warrior woman' comfort zone, having to take care of a child, but it falls a bit flat. Frankly, the most interesting part of the plot comes from Cameron's interactions during it. When Martin wants to do a book report, Cameron suggests John's favorite book, the Wizard of Oz, which seems to shock and confuse Sarah. It's a strange thing for Cameron to do. Season 1 Cameron might have just suggested the first book she saw, but she chose a very specific one because of its relation to John. It's a nice little hint that Cameron might be getting to know John better than his own mother. Speaking of Cameron, what is she doing when she stands there and watches John and Derek destroy the T-888? Also, the time scale of the whole episode feels off. The stuff with Sarah and the younger Bedell (what's he doing in the phone book, anyway?) feels like it takes place over several days, but Derek's stuff takes place over maybe two. But I feel the biggest issue with this episode is its place in John's arc. In this episode, we've seen John take charge, stand up to Sarah, demonstrate his martial skill, seemingly accept his fate as John Connor and not John Baum, cast Bedell to the same fires he's afraid of casting himself into to, come to understand that people will die for him... the list goes on. In this episode, you can plainly see the young man who will become Future John. But does he, going forwards? Not really. The title, Goodbye To All That, implies a total break from what has come before, a total loss of innocence. It fails to work when John regresses back to frantically trying to be normal with Riley and acting like an immature child. It's not A Temporary Goodbye To All That. The future sequence is both good and bad. It's a nice sequence, overall, and I like how we're positioned with Derek in a bunker while everything else happens outside. I like how a flippant comment from Bedell, about Connor shooting people, might just be true. I like the OGRE reference with the tank (OGRE was a hex-based wargame about AI-controlled nuclear-armed supertanks). I don't like the convoluted chain of events within the sequence, however. Kansan Bunker is hit by Skynet and John Connor happens to be there. Okay, that's fine. But not a single characer mentions this until Derek's final reveal about Bedell saving John's life, despite it being a huge act of some importance. Throughout the scene, they talk about John as if their radio contact is down, not as if he is in the clutches of Skynet. On one hand, despite it not making any sense, it feels like Bedell is supposed to be the catalyst for John's famous escape from Century Work Camp with Kyle... but that was the thing that built John's legend and put him on the path to becoming a leader. In this episode he is already a leader in the Resistance. Why didn't Skynet kill him in the future if he's a known leader? Was there a point where Skynet didn't know that it should kill John Connor? I guess that's possible, if Skynet really did enact it's 'Kill John Connor' plan at the last second as Kyle seems to indicate it did in T1. Was it a link back to Skynet's T1-era motivation, that it wanted to ensure its own creation and destruction out of guilt for killing its creators? Maybe. But it feels a little like Derek's reveal about Bedell saving John's life was put in late in development and it made a few wrinkles. It's a really good reveal, to be fair, but it just stretches things to the point where they start to fray. Speaking of stretches, Derek and John getting into the academy is one, but not nearly as obvious as the nuclear plant stuff. One wonders how they could fake Derek's military background, given that you would assume they'd check. And while John's grades could be faked, one wonders why they're going with that story when he's apparently being 'homeschooled'. Meanwhile, in the C-plot, Weaver and Ellison spin their wheels, doing very little of interest. I don't actually mind their scenes, because I'm a sucker for that sort of real/unreal investigation, but nothing about them moved forward in this episode. In fact, I'm pretty sure they just tread water until about halfway through the season, so, we'll see. Now, Wizard of Oz. Let's talk about this. During the ambush of the T-888, the younger Bedell and Sarah read out sequences from the Wizard of Oz novel (which I, sadly, have not read). Each excerpt seems to have been deliberately chosen to correspond to the events on screen. quote:"The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced, the ground became rougher and hillier. For there were no farms nor houses in this country of the west. Before night, Dorothy, and Toto, and the lion lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with the woodsman and the scarecrow keeping watch. Now, the wicked witch had but one eye. Yet she could see everywhere. She saw Dorothy lying asleep, with her friends all about her." As I said, this episode has an eye motif. Ellison gets a Terminator eye and multiple references to eyes are made during this sequence. When the wicked witch is mentioning only having one eye, we get series of POV shots from the T-888 examining the military cadets. My initial reading is that the Emerald City refers to the idyllic past that John and Bedell must leave behind. If the witch is the Terminator, given direct link by the POV shots and the eye comments, who are the others? quote:"The wicked witch looked out with her one eye. She said to the king crow, 'Fly at once to those strangers. Peck out their eyes. Tear them to pieces.' The wild crows flew in one great flock, toward Dorothy and her companions. When the little girl saw them coming, she was afraid." At this point the T-888 has one eye and is chasing after Derek. But who is Dorothy? Who are the crows? quote:"But the scarecrow said, 'This is my battle, lie down beside me and you will not be harmed.' The scarecrow stood up, and stretched out his arms." John... is the scarecrow? Which makes Bedell... Dorothy? Don't the monkeys rip the scarecrow to pieces, though? I suppose the tin woodsman is... Derek? quote:"The witch got into a terrible rage. She couldn't understand how all her plans to destroy the strangers had failed. There was only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends." Is the witch the Terminator, or is it Skynet? After all, Skynet directs the monkeys (Terminators), right? And it is the thing that makes the plans, not the Terminators. Or is this just a simple comparison to the Terminator being in a 'rage' as it chases after John? That's... pretty boring. quote:"The sky darkened and a low rumbling sound was heard in the air. There was a rushing of many wings, a great chattering and laughing, and the sun came out of the dark sky to show the witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys. 'Go to the strangers and destroy them all,' said the wicked witch. But Dorothy they did not harm at all. Carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried her to the witch." The monkeys - the Terminator or Skynet - didn't harm Dorothy (Bedell)? What? quote:"The witch looked into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that she did not know of her wonderful power. The witch said to Dorothy, 'Come with me; for if you do not, I will make an end of you.' The little girl grew angry. 'You are a wicked creature!' She cried. In her anger, she picked up a bucket of water that stood near and dashed it over the witch, wetting her from head to foot. The witch gave a cry of fear. As Dorothy looked in wonder, the witch began to shrink away. 'See what you have done!' The witch screamed. 'I shall melt away.' With these words, she fell into a melted shapeless mass. The wicked witch had come to an end. Being at last free to do as she chose, Dorothy ran, no longer a prisoner in a strange land." Well, the Terminator does melt into a shapeless mass at the end of the fight, so, that tracks. But does the rest of it? The ending certainly doesn't, but that's irony. Dorothy wins her battle and is free to run, no longer a prisoner of her fate. But John and Bedell, for all the battles they win, it only seems like they are trapped behind another set of bars. See, this kind of juxtaposition can work really well. In fact, it's some of my favorite things to see in a series. Neon Genesis Evangelion, for example, uses the juxtaposition between horrific violence and upbeat songs to make very dark or disturbing sequences that little bit more difficult to watch. For example, NGE contrasts a character 'manning up' and invoking the end of the world with a children's choir singing a traditional song and spreading your wings and doing your best. The movie, perhaps quite infamously, features a very upbeat, peppy song about wanting to kill yourself because you've released it's the best thing you can do for everyone else in your life. That's not to say that Eva should be imitated, but it's an indication of why and how it works. The discordance is obvious. Here... sure, it's a children's book being read out while people destroy a cog in the genocidal machine, but... what else is it? Does it reveal anything new about the characters? Examine them in a different light? Does it foreshadow anything? If the meaning isn't directly obvious, is it ambiguous to encourage conflicting but coherent perspectives? Will it become clear in hindsight? Is it setting up a twist? Is there any particular thematic connection between the two works? I don't think this attempt at such bold contrast accomplishes any of those things. It's unclear how it matches at all to the scene in question, given that they're directly invoking certain comparisons, and many of the comparisons fail when they're given even basic scrutiny. It's about as simple as 'the witch is bad, the Terminator is bad, so they're the same' and 'Dorothy is the hero so John is Dorothy but Dorothy is also Bedell' but when considered in the context of the scene it can't really be made coherent. And, really, it's what sums up Season 2 in my mind. Ideas that might have seemed cool at the time but don't quite stick the landing.
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Feb 16, 2017 01:34
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For all of its faults, the line "We all die for you." gave me more chills than probably anything else in the entire show; somehow it was the thing that actually brought home to me the grand, mad destiny everyone is fighting for and over. Especially given what happens to Derek. 
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Feb 16, 2017 03:52
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Mukaikubo posted:For all of its faults, the line "We all die for you." gave me more chills than probably anything else in the entire show; somehow it was the thing that actually brought home to me the grand, mad destiny everyone is fighting for and over. Especially given what happens to Derek. It's such a good line. Not 'We would all die for you', but 'we all die for you'. And Green says it like it's a fact of life. It's not a heroic declaration, just a verbal shrug. We all die for you, John, so you better make our belief in you worth something. I always wonder how this show would have ended had the full series played it. Would they have stopped J Day, convinced Skynet not to go through with things in the present? Or would the bombs fall and force John into that position? The series seems to indicate that the timeline is in constant flux and that things can change but the overall thrust of things will always hit the same notes. Or will it? It feels like it would have been rough. I'm not sure I would have been happy with an ending where they avert Judgment Day, or an ending where everything unfolds as predicted.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:09
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I certainly don't think that a third season of this show would have had anywhere near the budget needed to do justice to the scenario the finale left us with. You can see even in this episode that the budget was strained: we see literally nothing in the future scenes except the orangey interior of an underground bunker.
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Feb 16, 2017 07:28
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Zoran posted:I certainly don't think that a third season of this show would have had anywhere near the budget needed to do justice to the scenario the finale left us with. I imagined it would have been similar to the New Caprica bits of Battlestar Galactica. John would have spent maybe 3-4 episodes in the worst possible timeline where John Connor never existed, before he returns to the present (presumably with Cameron's chip and John Henry, maybe even the alternate Derek) to set things right. I don't think they'd have done a full season of that just for the simple idea of what would they do with Sarah, utterly alone with only Ellison from the cast regulars, in the present? I kind of hate that the show ended where it did, and yet it works really well. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 08:14
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Yeah, they pulled off a good open ending which is more than most abruptly canceled shows get. John and Sarah permanently separated feels natural as the last possible thing that could happen in this story. It's enough to show that because of the events of the series, the future is a vastly different place, which was their goal all along. You also forgot to include the execrable video game trash talk, but that's OK because no one should ever be subjected to it again. Man up, noob. haveblue fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 19:54
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haveblue posted:Yeah, they pulled off a good open ending which is more than most abruptly canceled shows get. John and Sarah permanently separated feels natural as the last possible thing that could happen in this story. It's enough to show that because of the events of the series, the future is a vastly different place, which was their goal all along. Haha, so I did! Yes, it was truly terrible stuff.
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Feb 16, 2017 23:40
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I got busy with some other projects, but here we are! Episode 6: The Tower Is Tall But The Fall Is Short I'll open this recap with two thoughts. The first is that this episode is one of my favorites of the second season. The other thought is that episodes like this are why the series always seemed to have a reputation that, at best, could be called 'underappreciated'. When you unashamedly proclaim that a TV series is a Terminator series, the branding comes with certain connotations and expectations. I feel it's safe to say that people expected action scenes with car chases and shootouts galore, with quotable lines and heaps of black leather. I don't think the average member of the audience expected a Terminator TV series to dive into the psychological ramifications of fighting a future war, of examining the characters of John and Sarah Connor through a critical eye, of spending time with a T-1001 that had to figure out how to be a good mother so as to avoid further suspicion, of ruminating on the madness of constantly changing the future. The TV series sits down and takes its premise seriously, and openly devotes time to acknowledging the terrible fate it has forced on the Connors and everyone around them. The episode opens with Sarah and Cameron prowling through a house at night, going through medicine cabinets, searching through desks, browsing over bookcases. When the owner of the house spies the light of their torches, though, the pair of them flee through a window. Over it, Sarah monologues: "My father slept with a gun under his pillow. There was no pill for his sickness, no medicine to ease his mind. He left blood, and sweat, and part of his soul in a foreign land. My father never talked to me about the war he fought. He never talked to anyone. Ever vigilant, ever silent. I never thought I'd follow in his footsteps." The man, as Sarah states to John the getaway driver, is Doctor Boyd Sherman. He's a child psychologist and a family therapist. The only thing John cares about is whether he's a friend or foe of Skynet. He's on their blood wall list, and everyone on that list has been a target for Skynet. The next morning, Catherine Weaver is having some publicity photos taken in her office. The photographer gives exacting measurements - "Turn your head a quarter inch, another half inch" - and Weaver complies with Terminator efficiency. Of course, when asked to smile, it's more of a grimace, and they decide not to go with such a cold expression. The photographer suggests getting photos with Savannah, Catherine's daughter. Savannah is busy building a tower of Lego and fights any attempt to get her to be in the pictures with "mommy". Weaver is intent on forcing the issue, however, and takes a seat on the couch by 'her' daughter. "Savannah," she says, her voice flat, "Sit here with me." She asks three times, and her delivery is exactly the same each time. The scene is so uncomfortable. Weaver's actress is terrifyingly alien as ever and Savannah's actress is remarkably unsettled by her presence. Savannah flees, so terrified that she wet herself. Afterwards, Weaver discusses children with the photographer's assistant. WEAVER: You have a child. ASSISTANT: Yes. WEAVER: What do you do with it? ASSISTANT: It? Uh, he, Leo. He had some issues during my divorce. Some days I wanted to kill him. But we went to someone. A real miracle worker. I can get you the number. Smash cut to the man from the Connor-led break-in. "Who wants to start?" he asks someone we can't see. Opposite him, John, Sarah and Cameron sit on a couch. John's body language is closed off and defensive, as is Sarah, and there is a fair distance between the pair. In fact, Sarah is sitting closer to Cameron - as pleasantly neutral as always - than she is to her son. It's a nice illustration of the emotional distance in the Connor family. "I'm not sure therapy is for us," Sarah says, smiling, which might be one of the most alarmingly incorrect statements in the entirety of TSCC. As Sarah feels out Boyd's past and history to get a handle on what he means to Skynet, the information he reveals gives John pause. Boyd Sherman worked with military veterans with over twenty years of experience, and a benign, grandfatherly presence and warm voice. Throughout the scene, Dekker plays John as becoming far more interested in the man. For example, where Sarah shoots down any notion of discussing the death of John's father, John looks like he's about to disagree - and he's very obviously upset. Sarah might not notice, but Sherman does. SHERMAN: Oh, I'm sorry. Is that something you'd all like to discuss? SARAH: It was a long time ago. We've been on our own for some time. SHERMAN: [staring at John] That must be difficult. SARAH: You get used to it. SHERMAN: [still staring at John] Do you? CAMERON: I'm used to it. JOHN: [very quietly] It's fine. [Pause] SHERMAN: Is there anything else I should know? SARAH: Anything else we should know? SHERMAN: If we... choose to go forward, I'd like to meet with each of you individually. Is that something you'd be open to? I could do tomorrow if you're up for it. [Cameron places a small device on a lamp in Sherman's office as his back is turned. Sarah looks like she's going to shoot down any further appointments, but...] JOHN: Tomorrow's good. There's an obvious parallel here. Weaver doesn't understand that the pain she's causing 'her' child. Sarah doesn't understand the pain John is in. Back in Weaver's building, Ellison tries to catch Weaver in an elevator but he is barred from entering by a security guard. The elevator takes Weaver to the basement where a bald technician - Mr Murch - is running the Turk through a series of recognition exercises. He asks the Turk to show him a tree and, on a big monitor, the Turk displays an image of a tree. But it stumbles on the word funny. It begins showing random images. A book, math equations, a crying face. Neither Murch or Weaver can understand why the Turk is doing that, or what it means, but one thing is clear: the Turk is slowing down, taking more time to do less. Back in Sherman's office, he is talking with Savannah. He's calm and gentle but Savannah can't stop glancing to her mother, who is watching them both like a hawk. When he offers to teach Savannah to tie her shoes, to try and get her to exhibit some sort of reaction beyond sullen silence, Weaver sweeps in and ties them with incredible Terminator efficiency. It's funny, in a very grim way. Sherman gives Savannah a doll, some coloring books, and some cards displaying cartoon faces depicting a range of emotions. Techniques like this are pretty normal when dealing with children in this sort of situation. The child might not be willing to talk, but might be willing to indicate what they're thinking or feeling. He leaves Savannah to toy with the items as he talks with Weaver outside, telling her that he'll need more time to help Savannah. "I'll wait outside," Weaver states. But when Sherman returns, he finds the card that Savannah has picked out. SCARED. Something has replaced her mother, and little Savannah Weaver knows it. Back in the Connor residence, Derek returns, drenched in sweat. He's been on a run, he says. Cameron points out that it's been six hours. "I doubled back on Sherman's house," Derek claims, "I guess I'm slow." And then John Connor tries to kill himself. At the sound of a gunshot, the Connors race into John's room. He's seated on the floor, a gun in his hands, and a mark on his face. Derek spies the bullet hole in the wall. John recoils from Sarah. "I'm fine, okay? I'm fine. I was just cleaning it. I thought- I thought I cleared it. It's just a burn from the shell casing." This is, of course, ridiculous. John Connor's been using guns since he was a child and, as we saw in the episode immediately previous, is better with them than military academy cadets. At this point, John would know if a gun was loaded or unloaded, probably by something like instinct. The show leaves it ambiguous, as it probably couldn't get away with having John attempt to commit suicide, but the message is clear. He just tried, and leaned away from the infinite abyss at the last possible second. The next day, Savannah and Doctor Sherman talk about things while Cameron listens through the bugged lamp. Through a doll, Savannah tells Sherman that she doesn't like the way her mommy looks at her, and that she'll tell him a secret: she wants her old mommy back. Outside, Catherine has an awkward conversation with Sherman's receptionist. With the appointment over, Weaver and Sherman talk. Sherman asks Weaver about her childhood memories and she dodges the question. Sherman takes Weaver's odd answers as being indicative of her own trauma in dealing with the death of her husband. "Well, we can't make her grow faster, can we?" Weaver asks, deadly serious. While the adults talk, the children meet each other. John Connor has arrived for his appointment and he helps Savannah with tying her shoe laces. John actually smiles, as does Savannah, but both traces of happiness vanish as Weaver strides pass and, in her cool Scottish brogue, calls for Savannah. Funny, that she came within only a few feet of John Connor. Meanwhile, we see Derek Reese's Day Off. What does he do when he's not on a mission? Well, by the looks of things, he wanders down to a park, has a hot dog, sits on a bench, listens to the bird and watches the women jog by. And why wouldn't you, when you've lived through what he has? But when he spies someone following him, the chase is on. Derek chases the figure - a lean, athletic woman - into a hotel. It's clear she's leading him there for a reason, because she pauses at the door to a suite. "Jesse?" Derek gapes. "Hey, baby," she replies, and kisses him. In her room, Derek and Jesse talk. I'll sum it up. Jesse has been sent back, but not by John. In fact, Jesse is quite annoyed at John Connor. "There's metal everywhere these days, looking for us," she says, but sounds more disgusted by what she says next: "Working for us." Connor's got "at least one" Terminator in every major base. One of those machines "flipped", took out half a bunker, killing Jesse's friends and wounding her with shrapnel. Connor didn't even send her back. Jesse's gone AWOL through time, intent on resting and enjoying the idyllic past. And, when everything ends, she just wants to be with Derek. After all, he left without saying goodbye. But Derek is torn. He doesn't want Jesse to stop fighting, but also knows he's been given a second chance with the lady he abandoned in the future. She goes in for a kiss, but Derek leaves. John and Sherman talk. There's a lot to unpack in this scene, so, I'll leave it to another post. But suffice to say, John is falling to pieces and Sherman picks up on it by the way John acts and how he speaks. Sarah comes to pick John up. Cameron is sitting in the waiting room, reading a pamphlet on suicide. CAMERON: Did you know that 60% of all teen suicides are committed with a gun? SARAH: He thought it was cleared. It was an accident. CAMERON: Some first attempts may appear to be an accident. If Sarah isn't oblivious to John's pain, then she doesn't give it much consideration. Cameron, the inhuman amoral murdering machine, can understand what's happened more than John's own mother. Cameron knows where to start looking for tactics and strategies, but is he growing personality enough to actually help John? There's some understated comedy in the scene between Sarah and Sherman. SHERMAN: I'd like to see all of you again. I think your daughter has some sort of social disorder. It's too early to diagnose, but she does exhibit possible Asperger's symptoms. SARAH: And John? SHERMAN: Yeah, this might sound strange to you, but, uh, he reminds me of veterans I used to treat. SARAH: War veterans. SHERMAN: Yeah, Vietnam, especially. The way he evaluates a room. His guardedness. The way he carries himself. Do you know of any violence in his past? [Sarah flashes back to the violence between herself, John and Sarkissian] SARAH: He's never been abused, if that's what you're suggesting. SHERMAN: Oh, no, no. I'm not suggesting anything like that. SARAH: Thank you, doctor. SHERMAN: It may not be me, but that boy needs to talk to somebody. SARAH: We talk. SHERMAN: That's not enough. [Sarah leaves] Meanwhile, Catherine Weaver pores over old footage of the still-human and visibly pregnant Catherine Weaver. She's interrupted by Murch calling for her. Down in the lab, the Turk has seemingly got itself stuck in a loop, repeating a series of nonsense images and equations. Murch advises scrapping the project but Weaver, with cold ire, comments that it would be intemperate. It's the first response we've seen from her that indicates any sort of response beyond a cold intelligence. When she returns to her office, she finds Savannah watching the footage. Weaver strokes her hand down her fake-daughter's arm, and Savannah smiles. It's a small step but Weaver is learning, and the ominous music sting makes you wonder if it's a good thing that a Terminator is learning how to blend in more effectively. But where Weaver and Savannah are bonding, the rift between Sarah and John is growing. Sarah is hammering a boxing bag, and has been for some time - she's covered in sweat. John stalks past her, settles on a bench. "When are we going back to Sherman?" he demands. We're not, Sarah states. There's no way to tell if a T-888 is going to come after him now, or in six months, or what he'll do. "We can't trust him," Sarah argues. Of course, neither John nor Sarah are really talking about what's on their minds. John wants to go back and talk to him. Sarah seems to resent that John is confiding in someone other than her. She gets more aggressive when Cameron steps in and points out that "maybe" Sherman "helps John". "What makes you think John needs help?" Sarah accuses Cameron. "What makes you think I don't?" John asks, seemingly bewildered that his mom just doesn't see what's eating him away. Sarah looks to John and the anger fades away. "Do you?" she asks, seriously. "Because you can talk to me John." And John collapses in on himself. "No," he mumbles. "I'm fine." A redheaded, female Terminator arrives in the back of a bus. She kills the driver and steals his clothes. Sarah's sitting on the floor of the shed where she was boxing. Derek arrives, beer in hand, and speaks: "I had this friend once. We dug tunnels together. Roughest son of a bitch I ever knew. One day, he went out to take a leak. And when he was out there, he just decided to blow his head off. just like that. He fought, and fought, and fought for his life, then just couldn't anymore." As it turns out, Derek is talking about himself. What an optimistic episode this is! With the murderer-on-a-leash now telling her what the murderbot did, Sarah growls, "John is not suicidal." "No. But what is he? He's not a boy. He's not a man. He's not a soldier. He has changed. Saw his mother kill a man." At that, Sarah shakes her head. Elsewhere, the redhead Terminator kills Sherman's receptionist and steals her clothes. In ZeiroCorp, Ellison meets Murch in an elevator. Ellison is promptly kicked out as the elevator hits the ground floor. Whatever is happening in the basement with the Turk, it's a level beyond the world of secrets that Ellison now inhabits. In Weaver's office, she has brought Sherman in to discuss the Turk's issue. When she shows him the nonsense images, Sherman laughs, immediately getting it. He goes through each image, illustrating how they form a sentence. ? - Why? Equations - Math Books - Books And the other images are all linked by the emotion they convey: sadness. "Why is a math book so sad?" Sherman says, laughing, while Weaver looks on, confused. It's advanced, Sherman states, like a child developing a sense of humor. "Some people," he says, looking to Weaver, "Never develop a sense of humor." ""If this were one of my patients, I would say it was a gifted child who's grown bored. It's amusing itself. But of course, that's impossible. It's just a machine." "Why is a math book so sad?" muses Weaver. "Because it has so many problems." Back home, Sarah listens to the talk between John and Sherman. It links directly with what John was saying earlier, so, it'll go into the post dealing with that. Derek pays Jesse a visit. He makes it clear that he was talking about himself when he was talking to Sarah, earlier. DEREK: I was, uh... Thinking about that time we met. You found me outside the bunker. JESSE: When you went to take a leak and almost talked yourself into eating your gun? DEREK: I don't think I've ever thanked you for what you said that day. JESSE: I think the exact words were, "your fly's open." DEREK: Yeah. JESSE: It was. They have sex. In bed, afterwards, the pair enjoy each other's company, but Derek seems to try and feel out for her to come and help out the Connors, but Jesse is adamant that she prefers her "new life". And she sweeps numerous photos of Derek and John, taken as if under observation, under the bed. In her office, Weaver has constructed a truly incredible replica of the Tower of Babel next to Savannah's more 'artistic' tower. Like, this thing is maybe 2/3 Weaver's own height. It's huge! Weaver's also got her hair in a markedly less severe style, making her look immediately more approachable. ELLISON: I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. WEAVER: It's for my daughter. ELLISON: I'm sure she'll love it. WEAVER: You think so? I don't know what she loves. How goes the robot hunt, Mr. Ellison? ELLISON: Absurd, when you put it like that. WEAVER: If you need any resources, you let me know. ELLISON: I do have a question, if that's all right. The basement. What's happening down there? It seems that there's high security. WEAVER: And for good reason, Mr. Ellison. We're building something. Good luck on your hunt. And what is she building? Well, a Tower of Babel of her own. Next post. John meets with Sherman again, and, seemingly frantic, destroys the bug that Cameron had planted. Cameron gets up to investigate and enters the building, side by side, with the redheaded Terminator. They enter the elevator at the same time, and both turn to look at each other at the same time. Seemingly content to ignore each other, the two Terminators come to blows when they both reach Sherman's office. If there's one thing the series does well, it is Terminator-on-Terminator action. When Cameron and this Terminator fight, it is with considered, precise blows, designed to try and disable joints or knock each other with jarring blows to disrupt their CPU processing. And we see that in this fight, as Cameron methodically dislocates and disables the limbs of the other Terminator, before contorting it into a metal pretzel and dropping it on the floor of the Connor's living room. Unfortunately, there's no possibility of determining whether the redhead machine was there to help or hinder Sherman. When Cameron pulled the CPU, the component ignited in reaction to oxygen. In the future, Skynet has gotten wise to John's reprogramming tactics, and is holding the lives of its Terminators hostage. Weaver speaks with Sherman, and invites him to come and help her corporation with the Turk. She helps sway him by reciting some of the information she gleaned from human-Weaver's old tapes, but the information - that the butcher paper she used to write on smelled of cow's blood - only seems to leave Sherman more unsettled. In the Connor household, Sarah monologues as she watches John with the unknown T-888. "In 1678, doctors diagnosed the mental affliction soldiers suffered from as 'nostalgia'. Homesickness. A longing to return to the past. The cruel reality of war is that there is no return home." In Weaver's office, Savannah gets a backrub from her not-mother. "No return to innocence. What is lost is lost forever." On a park bench, Derek broods. "War's wounds have bled me dry." In the hotel, Jesse examines her scars. "No words of comfort." In her room, Cameron glances at the suicide pamphlet, then at the destroyed chip from the T-888. "No words of forgiveness." And John, in the bathroom, examines the impact point of the bullet that almost took his life. "No words at all." "I have to say," Sherman says, to someone we can't see, "I was surprised when you called. Why don't you start by telling me why you're here." And, seated on the couch, Sarah Connor remembers that it was John Connor, her son, who killed Margos Sarkissian.
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Feb 24, 2017 14:09
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There's a ton of stuff to unpack in this episode. Sarah and John and their hosed up relationship, Cameron's empathy and self-awareness, the Tower of Babel reference, the future becoming unlike anything anyone knows in the present which helps make John's sacrifices and pain all the more pointless... But it's very late where I am, so, I'll get to it tomorrow. But I really like this episode because it just lays all this drama and psychological issues and makes you wonder how any of it could ever be fixed. At this point, there is no light in the Connor family tunnel. Things are only getting worse. Derek reveals that he tried to kill himself. Cameron's self-development is leading her to contemplate killing herself. John did try to kill himself. Sarah flails about, unable to talk to John because she resents the fact that Sherman and Cameron are better at it than she is... And yet Weaver, the unsettling metal wyrm that she is, learns some little bit of humanity by the end of the episode.
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Feb 24, 2017 14:16
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So, when you stitch the scene between Sherman and John together with the bit Sarah listens to, you get a longer story. In summary, John is not a healthy individual and, throughout his discussions with Sherman, seems to be about five seconds away from a complete breakdown. And can you really blame John Connor? Here is Doctor Sherman, a warm figure who wants to do nothing but help him, but even as John tells the truth about what is affecting him, he still has to lie about the extent of it. He has to dress it up in mundane terms, which almost defeats the effort of opening up about it in the first place. As Sherman points out, at this point, John has numerous parralels with PTSD sufferers, something he even points out to Sarah. quote:SHERMAN: When I showed you in, you, uh... you assessed the exits. You're talking to a V.A. doc. Every vet does it every day. John is obviously lying. As the audience, we know he never cooks, we know Sarah handles that when she can, or they eat out. And Sherman sees right through it, too. quote:SHERMAN: Why do you think your mother brought you here? John's bitterness comes through loud and clear here. Sarah Connor is a hero, in the older, classical sense of the word. She's a woman who does great things, but not a woman who does good ones. She has turned her son of sixteen into a fighting machine, the equal of any soldier, really, but has basically ruined his life in the process. The role John takes on in the family, of course, is no mere cook. He's the prophesied messiah. He certainly doesn't go to school (anymore), or hang out, or really be a kid in any sense of the word. quote:JOHN: [hotly] You think I'm lying? Why don't you check my passport or something? Part of the pain in this scene comes from the fact that for everything John admits to (wanting to run away, for example) he must lie about something else (the circumstances of his family). quote:SHERMAN: Don't you feel safe around your family? The tragedy of this episode, and the realization that Weaver makes, is that all some people need is someone to try and truly understand them, to empathise with them, to just be there and help them. It's what saved Derek's life, the fact that Jessie found him and spoke to him. It's what John doesn't have, and why he tried to kill himself. It's the idea that Cameron is starting to understand, from her accurately surmising what John attempted and her reading of the suicide brochure while she examines the burnt-up CPU chip. Cameron even seems to make an attempt to connect with John (in a deleted scene) and help him, but doesn't quite do it successfully, even as she essentially offers to remove one cause of trouble from John's life. I want to talk more about John and Cameron but I'll save that for an episode that brings the John/Cameron/Riley triangle to the fore. [John is inspecting the bathroom mirror and the bullet damage done to it. Behind him, Cameron enters.] CAMERON: I can fix that. JOHN: No reason to. CAMERON: People will ask about it, if they see it people will want to know. JOHN: Who? Who's going to see it? CAMERON: Riley, for example. You've brought her in here. JOHN: Not lately. CAMERON: That's good. Your friendship with her almost got you killed. JOHN: My friendship with anyone almost gets me killed including you, if you remember. CAMERON: I won't let that happen again. JOHN: I'm not sure you can control it. CAMERON: I'll design a way. JOHN: To control it? CAMERON: To kill myself. Even without that scene, though, it is clear that Cameron is developing some new knowledge she never quite had before, some sort of new awareness. As does Weaver, even if she is imitating and parroting on a level below Cameron, like she's bragging about her newfound disguise more than anything else, but she solves her issue with her daughter by simply being there with her, without expectations or duress. It's fair to say that Sarah has placed a lot of expectations on John, and she's never quite there for him like Weaver is for Savannah now, and Weaver isn't even Savannah's flesh and blood. Now, the Tower of Babel is dragged front and center this episode. It's another part of the Book of Genesis from the Bible. After the great flood that God used to wipe the world clean, humanity gathered together under one banner with one language. Together, they built a great tower - the Tower of Babel - with the intention of storming the gates of Heaven itself. Some argue that the tower was built so they could be safe if God were to ever flood the world again. Either way, God became aware of the tower, and seeing that great work, remarked that there was nothing that a united humanity couldn't do. There's this strange sense of competition there, that God would have something to fear if the tower was completed - or simply didn't like the idea of humanity being able to build such a thing. So, God struck the Tower down, and scattered humanity across the face of the Earth, cursing them all to know different languages and to never understand each other. I've said before, that when you look at TSCC, it is important to note Skynet as God and the Terminators as Angels. Skynet is not the Tower of Babel, the project was intended to avert an apocalypse, the project that causes humanity to be laid low. See, Terminator does not believe in the idea that artificial intelligence is some spiritual line that man Must Not Cross. It wasn't that man was playing with something it had no business playing with, and that the nuclear fire was an inevitability, it was that man did not raise its child correctly. So, John Henry is the project, the thing that is built to avert an apocalypse. And, as we see later in the season, Skynet does make a good attempt at attempting to destroy the great work once it becomes aware of it. But what's the match to that one language that allowed people to build such great things, to threaten the heavenly realm? Well, it should be obvious, given the ideas in this episode, and what comes later in the season. The universal language that would unite everyone and threaten the reign of God - uniting man and machine both - is love.
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Feb 25, 2017 12:26
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Working on my Brothers of Nablus write-up now. It's one of my S2 favorites! I spent the last three days in kittyjail, so, I couldn't update. I think between the previous episode, this one, and the next two, we're at the high point of Season 2.
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Mar 6, 2017 04:11
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I freaking loved this show when it was on. These write ups are fantastic. Almost like what TV Without Pity wanted to do but frankly never could quite manage.
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Mar 8, 2017 10:19
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Episode 7: Brothers of Nablus So, like I said, Brothers of Nablus is one of my favorite episodes of Season 2. However, it's definitely a strange beast of an episode. Very little happens, the plot doesn't move forwards at all, and it could be said to combine all the worst parts of TSCC - whiny John and Riley, unclear references to literature, Ellison doing nothing of consequence... But the episode also contains some of the best points of Season 2, particularly when it comes to Cromartie and Cameron, and is generally about paying off previous decisions made by the characters. It's the sort of episode that I wish TSCC had more of, where it puts plot to the backseat and delves into the characters and their decisions. Almost every part of this episode happens because of previous actions of the Connors. And, to me, that's far more interesting than collecting a cryptic clue from the boring blood wall. So, the episode opens with a knock at Ellison's door. The voice that calls for "James Ellison" is familiar, eerily so. The figure slams open the door, knocking Ellison to the floor as he twists the knob, and comes into view. The figure is a duplicate of James Ellison. The Ellison Terminator lowers its pistol at Ellison and prepares to shoot him, when something stabs through it from behind, and then a fist punches through, clutching the Terminator's power cell. The Ellison Terminator collapses, inert. And there stands Cromartie, Ellison's savior. Ellison is incredulous. "Why?" he asks. ELLISON: Aren't you on the same side? CROMARTIE: Skynet does not believe in you like I do. ELLISON: Believe? What do you believe? CROMARTIE: You will lead me to the Connors. I've mentioned before the Skynet = God, Terminators = Angels, thing, and while I'm not sure this is the best comparison, my immediate thought went to Cromartie as Lucifer, an Angel who committed the sin of pride and fell. Meanwhile, it's like a cyclone has hit the Connor residence. Tables and chairs have been overturned, cabinets cleared out, bookshelves thrown down... Sarah stalks the hallways, gun in hand, but whoever committed the deed isn't there. And neither is Derek. When Sarah calls Derek, her anger makes it quite clear that he was supposed to be there, at their home. But Derek was too busy sleeping with Jesse, and now everything is missing: cash, credit cards, IDs and the diamonds that the Connors use to finance their secret war. The fact that all the food is missing points out that it wasn't a machine job, which is some small consolation. Cameron, despite everything, is seemingly most upset that her purple leather jacket - her prized possession - is missing. While Derek extricates herself from Jesse's embrace, Sarah snaps at John as she examines the security system: "Why didn't it beep or do whatever the hell you set it up to do?" John stands there, saying nothing, and focuses on righting some of the couches. Cameron explains: "Riley climbed out John's window. The alarm would have had to have been turned off for her to do that." Sarah is less than happy with this, of course. SARAH: You gave her the code? JOHN: We were up late watching TV. She was supposed to reset it. SARAH: And somehow your master plan went awry. JOHN: Mom- SARAH: John, our IDs are out there. Our names, our faces. JOHN: Fake addresses, fake names. Nothing can be traced to this house. SARAH: No? What if the police find who did this? Where do you think that trail leads to? If our IDs made it into the system linked to this address- CAMERON: Canada. We should move to Canada. Anything further is interrupted by Kacy's arrival, who is incredibly shocked to see the state of the Connor residence. Sarah explains it away as John having trouble with kids from school, and adds, pointedly, "You know how stupid kids can be". Cameron and Sarah head out, to ostensibly talk to the families of the kids responsible, leaving John with the penitent task of cleaning up the whole house by himself. One wonders if Kacy never realises or notices that John never goes to school, given the "home schooled" line earlier in the season, and it's still not clarified whether Sarah has any idea that her son has stopped going to school. Back at the half-way house where Cameron had a brief stay at, the desk clerk is scanning photos into the computer system. One of them is Cameron's. Elsewhere, Cromartie is driving down a road. A computer in his car beeps, and displays Cameron's picture. He's got a lead. Sarah and Cameron are also on the road, with Sarah setting up a callback with her credit card company, so they can alert her if her card is used. Sarah's clever to set it up as an internal matter - blaming her son for stealing the cards - and it's a nice way of pointing out that she's still very upset at John. Sarah then turns on Cameron. Cameron outing John like that is a first for her. Cameron has always had a willingness to lie for John. In Season 1, she might have taken responsibility, or backed up a lie of John's. To me, I think Cameron threw John under the bus because Riley was the one responsible. She doesn't like Riley and would like John to stop hanging out with her, so, she sabotages their relationship. She's upset and acting out and doesn't know how to handle her jealousy in a more constructive manner. Sarah picks up on this, and asks Cameron why she didn't say anything earlier - if not to her, then to John, to anybody. I've always made my position on security very clear," Cameron states. "No one likes a nag." Cromartie stomps his way into the half-way house and, like any Terminator would, ignores the long line at the front desk. CROMARTIE: I'm looking for this girl. RECEPTIONIST: You see these people, sir? These people are real. These are the real people, and they were all here before you. CROMARTIE: [unfazed] I'm her uncle. RECEPTIONIST: And I'm Angelina Jolie. Get to the back of the line. As Cromartie is thwarted by red tape, he receives help from an unexpected source - Jody, the girl who abused Cameron's trust and was almost killed by her in response. While Jody plays foosball, Cromartie stands next to the table awkwardly. JODY: Hey. I know that chick. So what do you want her for? She owe you money? CROMARTIE: I'm her uncle. JODY: You're not her uncle. You're a cop. CROMARTIE: I'm not a cop. JODY: You gonna hurt her? CROMARTIE: Yes. JODY: What about her brother, you gonna hurt him too? CROMARTIE: Her brother? JODY: Yeah. John Baum or whatever. CROMARTIE: John Baum? JODY: Another prize. CROMARTIE: Is that him? JODY: Yeah, that's him. CROMARTIE: Let's take ride. At the suggestion of a ride, Cromartie smiles about as well as Uncle Bob the T-800 did. We go back to James Ellison for a bit, and I just want to point out that this episode doesn't handle its passage of time so well. Here's what we've seen so far. Ellison's Terminator Double: morning, Ellison is eating breakfast Connor Residence Ransacked: presumably morning, given that Derek was asleep with Jesse (but then where were the Connors overnight?) Cromartie Investigation: During the daytime Sarah and Cameron Discuss Nagging: prior to 5pm When Ellison is arrested, it is very obviously night time. I think it's the only time this happens in the episode and the rest of it seems to take place over a single day. Anyway, Ellison is arrested for the murder of a man called Peter Meyers. "Yeah, I know my rights," Ellison says, when they're read to him. He is - or was - an FBI Agent, after all. "I just don't know what the hell you're talking about." Now, there's actually one really cool thing about this scene, and it's something that might not be immediately obvious. Ellison is very crafty in this scene. When he's called to the door, he hesitates and asks who is there. An understandable precaution, given what happened to him earlier. Now, for some people, being told that it's the police department would be enough to quell fears of imminent termination. But not Ellison, and why? Because Ellison has encountered Cromartie, who had successfully posed as an FBI Agent. So, Ellison asks about something that happened the previous evening - the result of a football game - and checks it against a newspaper. Then, and only then, does he open the door. It's so incredibly understated, though, I think a lot of people missed what was really going on there. As that's happening - assuming it's happening during daylight - the Connor women, with Derek in tow, are hitting up one of their local fences. His name is Moishe and he talks about justice in the eyes of God, and namedrops the title of the episode. MOISHE: Everything we do, without exception, can be seen many ways in the eyes of god, Or nature, or whatever you want to call it. Someone came into your home. Someone took things that were rightfully yours. The Torah says, 'lo tikom ve'lo titor'. No revenge, no retribution. On the other hand, It also says, 'ayan tachat ayn'. An eye for an eye. And then, of course, we have the story of the brothers of Nablus- Sarah cuts through his wordy bullshit. They're looking for their diamonds, can he help them or not? Moishe claims business is dry as a bone. Derek counters that four other fences said he was the busiest one around. Moishe claims that he wouldn't have anything they would want. Sarah wants to be shown anyway. Moishe claims that the diamonds are from legitimate sources. Cameron identifies them as being the diamonds from their house. Moishe claims that is impossible but eventually tells the Connors where he got the diamonds from. The man's name is Walter Ostrowski, and he works out in Toluca Lake. "I shall not lie," Moishe says. On the way out, Sarah asks Derek about something, a name he'd let slip during the meeting with Moishe. "Who's Jesse?" "He came back with me," Derek lies, "He handled the diamonds." He gestures to Cameron. "One of them killed him." In the bright sunshine, Jody and Cromartie cruise the streets of LA. JODY: Do you want some gum? CROMARTIE: No. JODY: You sure? It's cinnamon. [pause] JODY: Would it kill you to try and make a little conversation? CROMARTIE: No, it wouldn't kill me. JODY: Funny. You're funny. In your own sort of cop way. CROMARTIE: [almost defensive] I'm not a cop. JODY: You're not a cop. You're not an uncle. You're just some guy who wants to kick the crap out of little miss bitch and her brother. CROMARTIE: [almost casually] Just some guy. JODY: But why? She try to kill you too? CROMARTIE: Yes. JODY: Oh. Well, this is gonna be fun. Meanwhile, John and Riley walk the stores of the supermarket where Cameron had her catatonic moment that instigated her Allison Young episode. John tells her about what happened, but points out that it was Riley's fault. She seems less than concerned about it. And Jody and Cromartie step through the front doors. Cromartie asks a variety of people the same question with the same tone of delivery - "Have you seen this girl? I'm looking for this girl" - while Riley and John talk about what happened with the alarm system. While Cromartie doesn't know it, and the audience does, Jody's immaturity costs him his shot at John when she causes a display of tuna cans to collapse. In that moment, Cromartie's face is something that you might call machine contempt. It's clear that he's tolerating her because he thinks she can be useful and, what's more, that his tolerance is running out. The next scene, Ellison is being questioned by a detective in a holding cell. Apparently, Ellison killed Peter Meyers, a man he claims not to know, while completely naked, and then stole his clothes. The detective pins it on Ellison being the sole survivor of Cromartie's SWAT slaughter. And, unfortunately for Ellison, they have a witness. "You got a twin brother I don't know about?" the detective asks. For whatever reason, the show flashbacks to depict the start of the episode again, with the Ellison Terminator and its destruction. Why it did this when that was only fifteen minutes ago is unclear. The Connors find Walter Ostrowski. As it turns out, he's a dentist. Obviously nervous, he makes a run for it and makes it to his car ahead of the Connors. Cameron, with what seems like uncharacteristically open display of her strength, yanks the door from his car and hurls it aside, then yanks him up and out, holding him with one hand. "Leather jacket," she demands as Sarah asks about the missing items. But Ostrowski is worried about something else. He hasn't paid Moishe. Moishe has the Connors running debt collection. Which is, well... Given that he's Jewish...  When they return to Moishe's place of business, Cameron slams his thug so hard that you can actually hear the bones in his chest snap before he is driven into the wall, crushing the shelves behind him. She wants her jacket back! With such a display of violence, Moishe gives up the real details: the one responsible is Tristan Dewitt of Reseda. "You killed Liko," Moishe gapes, as the Connors leave. "Not yet," Cameron states. While the Connors are making progress, Cromartie isn't. He's travelling quite literally door to door, asking whoever he finds if he's seen "this girl". To Cromartie's machine brain, this is an acceptable strategy, even as Jody balks: "An employee at the grocery store saw them shopping there on more than one occasion. It's highly likely they live within a one-mile radius." Jody doesn't take it well. She gets angry, accuses Cromartie of being a creepy stalker, of being cute at one point but not anymore, of kidnapping her, of getting the police involved. Cromartie shoves her through the car door and onto the road, leaving her behind. He's hit the end of his patience. Derek's having a rough time with his patience, too. He finds Jesse bathing at a swimming pool. He points out his meeting with Moishe, and the fact that Moishe is all too happy to mention who his sources are - including her. Suffice to say, it'll be bad if he talks about the Connors. Jesse points out that Moishe is Derek's fence, but Derek ripostes that he likes her better. He's not sure how long Jesse will keep this up, the AWOL temporal vacation. It seems, however, that Jesse is going to keep it up indefinitely. They kiss. Cromartie continues the world's most polite yet most disturbing doorknocking campaign seen yet. This time, he's found Kacy's house - which puts him right next to the Connors. "I'm looking for this girl," he says, and Kacy's question as to why she's looking for him gives it away. But Kacy had worked with George Laszlo before, and she recognise him. "You look really familiar." "Common face," Cromartie replies. "Have you seen my niece?" Cromartie asks about the neighbouring house, and Kacy lets slip that it has been rented. Cromartie moves on. And John and Riley are at home. The landline rings and John ignores it, knowing that his family would only call him on his cell. So, Riley answers it. It's very weird, to answer someone else's phone, but Riley is a very strange girl from a very dark future. And it's a good thing she is because it is Kacy on the other end of the line. She warns them that "a guy" who was "just off" showed up, asking for Cameron. And the door thunders as a fist knocks repeatedly, mechanically. John catches a glimpse of what we already know: Cromartie has come. "We gotta get out now," John tells Riley. But Riley decides that she will go and "get rid" of Cromartie, despite John's protests. For his part, John takes up a shotgun and prepares to fight. CROMARTIE: I'm looking for this girl. She's my niece. RILEY: Um, sorry, I don't know her. Wish I could be more help. Good luck finding her. CROMARTIE: How do you like your new house? RILEY: Oh, uh, It's really nice, I love it. [Cromartie knocks the door open and steps past Riley] RILEY: Excuse me, what do you think you're doing? Hello, you can't just come into people's homes. Hello, are you listening to me? What is wrong with you? CROMARTIE: You're not in these photographs. RILEY: Maybe because I was the one taking them. Look, if you don't leave, I'm calling the police. CROMARTIE: Thank you for your time. It's hard to tell whether Riley is brave or stupid here. We can assume that she knows what a Terminator is. But does she know that Cromartie is one? Does she estimate that anyone who would be looking for John would be a Terminator? She's evidently crafty, but was that her plan, to fool Cromartie, or did it just sort of happen? It's a scene that could be read either way. For all I dislike Riley, I do like her here - I just wish it was more clear. Personally, her later comments make me think she had no idea what she was toying with, at least at the time. As Cromartie is searching the Connor residence, Sarah and Cameron are hitting up the DeWitt residence. Turns out that the thief is a thirty-four year old man who works in a video store (remember those?) and his parents are aware he robs houses. The dad is almost a touch too harsh and the mother a touch too lax. It reminds me of what Sarah said in a few episodes previous, about parents, children and understanding Skynet's desires to wipe out humanity. Catherine Weaver meets with Ellison. Ever since she met with Doctor Sherman, Weaver is far more expressive and pleasant, even if she is still unerringly alien. Weaver is concerned, and the conversation parallels Cromartie's earlier comments. WEAVER: This is a very curious turn of events, Mr. Ellison. ELLISON: I'm innocent. WEAVER: There's an eyewitness. ELLISON: It wasn't me. WEAVER: The witness is quite sure. ELLISON: As I would be If I had seen what he'd seen. WEAVER: Is there something you want to tell me, James? Something only I would believe? ELLISON: Not here. WEAVER: I'll be in touch. ELLISON: Miss Weaver. Thank you for believing me. WEAVER: What good is faith if we don't use it? John drives away from the Connor house, Riley in the shotgun seat. Riley figures out that Cromartie wasn't John's uncle, but doesn't seem to have any idea why he might be after Cameron. But Riley is riding the high of staring him down and scaring him off, calling herself "totally badass". I don't think she knew what Cromartie was. "It was badass," John admits, and Riley kisses him on the cheek. Having left the DeWitt residence, Sarah muses that they've accomplished nothing - just fool's errands and fathers of Nablus. "It's been a great day." "Brothers," Cameron corrects her, and then explains the reference. Sarah is shocked that Cameron has memorised the Bible, but points out that the story is Cameron's kind of story. "Yes," Cameron says. "My kind of story." I'll talk about it in the next post. After that, Sarah's cell rings. The earlier callback has come in and someone has just attempted to use her credit card. A bowling alley, in Van Nuys. Meanwhile, the Detective who met with Ellison is meeting with the witness who claims that he saw Ellison murder Meyers. The detective quizzes the witness, giving off a familiar bird-like tilt of the head in response to some question. In particular, the detective seems very interested in the state of the street, and the flash of light that left a crater there. "So," the Detective says, "Mr. Ellison emerged from this... energy bubble." "I never said anything about a bubble," the witness replies, anxious. "But there was a bubble, correct?" The detective reiterates the witness' version of evens. Ellison materialized out of an energy bubble, entirely nude, walked straight to Meyers, snapped his neck with ease, stole his clothes, and vanish. The detective is none other than Catherine Weaver in disguise, having taken on his appearance. Having discredited the only witness, Ellison is free to go. In the bowling alley, Tristan DeWitt - the terrible, amateur, boring filmmaker that he is - is telling his two equally loser friends about his brilliant idea. With the money he got from the Connors, he's going to film the following magnum opus. so it's 1863 And Abraham Lincoln is on the train to Gettysburg. Then the train breaks down. Some small Pennsylvania town. So he's got to stay there overnight. The only problem... Town's overrun with zombies. We shoot it on location, in Gettysburg, 35 millimeter. And that's when Cameron and Sarah arrive. Sarah demands the bag they have. "It's mine." "Uh, not anymore it isn't," retorts Tristan. When one of Tristan's friends steps up to back him up, telling the women that they'll get done for trespassing, Cameron notes something. He's wearing her jacket. "My jacket," she states, "Give it to me." "Come and get it," the man gloats. In one smooth motion, her face betraying no change in expression, Cameron draws her pistol and levels it at him. "Come and give it to me," Cameron orders, in what is one of Cameron's best moments in the show. The boys pass everything back, even a credit card they had separate from the rest. But Sarah notices something: there are three boys before her, and four pairs of shoes. There's someone else here, and she sets off to find them. Cameron promptly shoots the trio. "They knew where we live," she points out, and while she is correct and it is her usual modus operandi, you can't help but wonder if there was some degree of emotion driving her actions. In the bathroom, Sarah finds the fourth boy, cowering in a stall. Sarah lets him go, but makes one thing clear. "You were never here. You never saw me. You don't know what happened here. Understand? If you say anything to anybody about what happened here, I'll hunt you down. I'll kill you. Now you wait five minutes, then you run. Understood?" He waits, and those five minutes will end up costing him his life anyway. That night, five things happen. One, Derek goes to meet with Moishe. And, given that he is armed, it's clear that Derek is going to have a very final meeting. But, when he arrives, he finds Moishe already dead. Jesse has seen to it. DEREK: You said you were gonna have a talk with him. JESSE: I did. It was short. What were you gonna say to him? DEREK: Well, you know me. Funny Derek. JESSE: Funny Derek. DEREK: How was the sunset? JESSE: Never better. Two, Ellison, adrift and aware that his life is spiraling out of control at the behest of forces he can't comprehend, lurks outside his wife's house. She spies him there and comes out to talk with him. I think the scene between them is actually quite lovely and I like their relationship. You can tell they had an amiable break-up. LILA: You never really struck me as the type of guy to stalk your ex-wife. ELLISON: I'm sorry. I just, um... I had an urge to see the house. See something familiar. Weird, I know. LILA: You do realize you don't live here anymore. ELLISON: Yeah. LILA: Fancy ride. No wonder we keep losing people to civilian life. ELLISON: Company car. They lease it for me. LILA: I have to tell you, You don't look so well. ELLISON: Yeah, I'm not. I just, um... I don't know, I... I miss it. I miss my old life. LILA: James, this is a really weird time to start into all that. ELLISON: No, no, I don't mean that. Things have changed. And I just... I didn't. LILA: You're not making sense. Come on, come inside. Paul can make coffee. We'll talk about it. ELLISON: Thanks, but I didn't come over for that. LILA: Yes, you did. ELLISON: This was the wrong thing for me to do. I don't live here anymore. LILA: It was the right thing to do. Just five years too late. Call me the next time you wanna see something familiar. I'll send you a picture. Three, Cameron and Sarah arrive home, finding it looking as good as new. "The place looks good," Sarah admits. "Well, I think we pretty much got everything back to how it was." "We?" Sarah asks, archly. "Riley helped," John comments, and instantly moves past it: "So how'd you find 'em? Was it Derek's fence, or what?" SARAH: You can't bring people here anymore, John. JOHN: What? She had nothing to do with this. SARAH: No, you did. She just made it worse. CAMERON: She's a security risk. JOHN: Really? She's never tried to kill me. And you know that this has nothing to do with Riley. Or the rules. Or the security of this house. You're pissed off because I found someone I actually like spending time with and it's not you. SARAH: You think I don't want you to have a normal life? JOHN: No, I don't. SARAH: Hey, we didn't choose this, John. It chose us. And there's nothing either of us can do about it. My job is to protect you. And you can hate me as much as you want, but I will keep doing that as long as I'm here. JOHN: [voice low, furious] Then why didn't you protect me when I was killing Sarkissian? Why didn't you protect me when I had my hands around his throat? Why didn't you protect me from that? Four, Catherine Weaver and Ellison discuss the recent events. Weaver knows there was an Ellison Terminator, and wants to know where it is. But Ellison doesn't know, and equates himself to Job - a Biblical character who was rather sadistically tested by God. "And God spared him," Ellison says. "So," Weaver begins, "Who spared you?" And, finally, the fifth event. In the bowling alley, Cromartie sits across from the fourth member of the break-in group. CROMARTIE: Where did you get those credit cards? GUY: I don't know. CROMARTIE: [almost playfully] Yes, you do. GUY: She said... She would find me. She said she would kill me. CROMARTIE: I promise you, she won't. And, as Cromartie's grotesque mockery of a smile reveals, Lucifer doesn't spare just anyone.
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Mar 8, 2017 14:16
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Captain Rufus posted:I freaking loved this show when it was on. These write ups are fantastic. Almost like what TV Without Pity wanted to do but frankly never could quite manage. Thank you! That means a lot! What'd you like most about the show? Tomorrow, I'll get to discussing Job, the Nablus story, examining the Cromatie as Lucifer thought, and a few other little points from this episode - such as I think this episode gives us the most prominent indication of how TSCC time travel/alteration works. But, man, do I love how Cromartie comes off in this episode. He really feels like a Terminator that's about to 'go native', like he's getting a bit addled by being on a mission for so long. He learning how to smile and he's learning intonation, and he's just using them all wrong. And Cameron's obsession with her jacket is a pretty big thing when you think about it. It's maybe the only thing she possesses so far that obviously asserts her individuality as a being that isn't a Skynet killing machine, nor Allison Young, but something else. She's worn that jacket ever since Season 1, and it identifies her as Cameron.
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Mar 8, 2017 14:29
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