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| Saturday, March 8, 2008 02:20 PM |
| On the Viewer - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles ("Vick's Chip" & "What He Beheld") |
 by Fëanor |
It seems a little redundant to come on here every week and say again how incredibly brilliant I think the last episode of Terminator was, but seriously, the two-part season-ender was freaking incredibly brilliant! In part one, "Vick's Chip," Reese discovers that Cameron had kept and was hiding away in her room the brain of the Terminator that tried to kill him. Cameron says it could be a useful thing to have, and that yes, she does lie to them sometimes. Well, that's reassuring! John powers up the Terminator brain (although he has to be sure not to give it too much power, or it will become aware again and try to rebuild itself and kill him!) and they take a look at Vick's super-creepy visual logs. They're trying to find proof that Cameron didn't lead this Terminator to Reese's safehouse, but they also stumble upon what Vick's real mission was back here in the past, and they head out to disrupt it. Meanwhile, Cromartie is continuing his attempts to track down John, and gets horrifyingly close once again.
In part two, "What He Beheld," FBI agent Ellison, now aware that Sarah Connor is alive, but also more inclined to believe her wild stories about robots and the apocalyptic future, gets back in contact with Connor's ex-fiance, Charley Dixon, with the hope that Dixon can put him in contact with Connor. Meanwhile, he also finally tracks down Cromartie in his new guise posing as an FBI agent, and heads out to get him with a SWAT team, with predictably disastrous consequences. Back with the Connors, they've made contact with someone who says he can sell them Andy Goode's Turk computer, but there's more to his offer than they realize, and things get incredibly dangerous for all of them yet again. But before things spiral out of control, Reese gives Connor a deeply moving, and seriously mind-blowing, surprise for his birthday.
"Vick's Chip," which gives us an incredibly disturbing look at the world through a Terminator's eyes, just reinforces how very, very creepy and heartless these killing machines really are. And the scene wherein (spoiler alert) John accidentally gives Vick's chip a little too much power and it instantly targets him and begins trying to connect to the internet, is totally chilling and horrifying. But Vick isn't the only creepy Terminator around - Cameron is just as creepy, and that fact is driven home in a scene wherein a fellow student tells her the cops are looking for John. She steps toward him, and there's a moment where you're really not sure whether she's going to kill him or not.
Both of these episodes are amazing, but the second one, "What He Beheld," is virtually a masterpiece. When I realized what it was that Reese was really giving John for his birthday, my brain nearly blew up for the time travel-y weirdness of it all. But the scene is done so well, and Thomas Dekker's performance as John is so fantastic, that it ultimately brought a tear to my eye, it was so moving.
We all know how Ellison's attempt to take down Cromartie with a SWAT team is going to turn out, so the director (spoiler alert) wisely and artfully chooses to shoot the scene from the bottom of the pool outside Cromartie's apartment. From this vantage point, we watch as each member of the team falls dead into the water. It's a brilliant sequence, and far more effective than if we had just seen Cromartie mowing them all down.
I love, love, love this show, and I cannot wait for the next season. If you haven't been watching it, you should absolutely take this chance and use Fox's online On Demand player to catch up on the first season. You will not regret it. |
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