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| Saturday, October 4, 2008 04:16 PM |
| On the Viewer - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Season 2, Episodes 1-3) |
 by Fëanor |
It's been a while since I caught up on this show and watched all these episodes online - in fact, I've now fallen behind again and need to finish watching episode 4. But I've heard that the show is getting bad ratings this season so I just wanted to get this post up pointing out that it's still really, really good and you should be watching it. (But beware; many spoilers follow.)
Episode 1, "Samson & Delilah," picks up right where season 1 ended, with the jeep exploding. Cameron survives the accident mostly intact, but something has gone wrong in her mind. John and Sarah, in a powerful sequence accompanied only by music and no dialogue, are held prisoner in the house and tortured by criminals, but ultimately they turn the tables and kill their captors. Just then, Cameron comes up the stairs and sees them. Her order to terminate John Connor suddenly takes hold again, and she raises the gun. Luckily for them, the house is on fire, and the stairs collapse under her. But Sarah and John have also realized what has happened and what it means, so they jump out the window and start running. It's a very artfully done sequence, and very effective.
Meanwhile, Agent Ellison decides to lie to his superiors and tell them that the actor whose identity Cromartie stole, and whose body was recovered from the wreckage, did the killings. Interesting. I have a feeling that's going to come back to bite him. The Connors get into a car crash and then keep running. Charley hears a call on the ambulance radio about a fire, and goes there, only to discover it's the Connors' house and everyone's gone. Derek sneaks into the ambulance and the two of them follow another call, this time about the Connors' car crash. It's pretty ridiculous that Charley can follow them around town just by answering every call that comes in over the radio. Anyway, our new cast member, Shirley Manson from Garbage, is introduced; she's buying the Turk from some guy. There's a very tense and exciting scene where the Connors electrocute Cameron, disabling her momentarily, and try to use the time to get the chip out of her head, but can't do it fast enough and have to run again. But eventually, in the episode's most dramatic scene, they do get her disabled long enough to pop the thing out. As John is doing it, Cameron tries everything she can to stop him, crying and protesting that she loves him and that he loves her. He pauses, but eventually goes through with it. Then they prepare to burn Cameron down and destroy her for good. But at the last moment John pulls a gun on the others and puts Cameron's chip back in her head, and tests her by giving her the gun. She somehow overrides the terminate order and does not kill him. But later she tells Sarah that if she goes bad again, John must not be allowed to bring her back again. John has not had a good birthday, and is shown in the bathroom cutting all his hair off. Meanwhile, Ellison has another curious meeting with Cromartie. He tells the Terminator he'll never do the devil's work and tell him where the Connors are. Cromartie just says, "We'll see," and walks off.
That was all very exciting! But the episode has one more surprise in store for us. Manson's character is actually the CEO of a giant tech corporation, and lets the heads of the various divisions know that she'll be pulling people from all their departments for a new project that will change the world. It's called Babylon. One of her employees is clearly pissed about the whole thing, so later on, in the bathroom, the toilet he's about to piss in suddenly morphs into her, and she kills him. Yep, she's a T-1000! Or T-1001, according to the stuff I'm reading on the internet. Crazy!
I was actually a little disappointed when Manson turned out to be a terminator. I mean, couldn't she just be some other interested third party? But it is cool to get a liquid metal terminator into the show, and it's also a bit of a mystery as to what Manson's ultimate goals are. Is she just here to be the impetus for Skynet, or does she have other more complex plans?
Next up is "Automatic for the People," which opens in dramatic fashion with a guy dropping in from the future with a bullet wound in his chest. Back with the Connors, there's an interesting scene where Cameron tells John he can't be trusted anymore. He wants to know why, and she says it's because he risked his life to fix her. Sarah tells John to go back to school (which seems like a ridiculous thing for him to do given everything else that's going on, but okay), and that she'll be looking for a new house for them. John apparently thinks it's pretty ridiculous for him to be in school, too, and sits outside rather than going into class. A girl from the school named Riley, apparently attracted by the whole mysterious, gruff, impolite, emo thing he has going on, tells him to take her to lunch, which he does. Hello new ongoing character! Sarah gets them a new house with a cute, nice, extremely pregnant neighbor. Ellison goes to see Charley, and the two of them end up telling Charley's wife everything. She's pissed. Ellison convinces them to move out of the area for their safety. Injured guy from the future shows up at the house and as he's dying tells them they have to stop Greenway in 2 days at Serano Point. Turns out Serano Point is a soon-to-be-operational nuclear power plant that in the future will be a key source of power for the resistance. Cameron and Sarah both manage to get hired at the plant. Turns out Greenway is the supervisor in charge, and he might stop the plant from opening due to concerns about safety. The problem is, his concerns are justified. If the reactor goes on and melts down, Skynet wins. If the reactor never goes on, the resistance doesn't get its power, and Skynet wins. So what do they do?
Well, ultimately a terminator shows up at the plant to blow it up, and their mission becomes clear: stop that from happening! Which they succeed in doing. But due to things nearly going horribly wrong, the power plant and six others across the nation will now be implementing automatic technology in the control rooms - technology that is clearly Skynet-related. So they win anyway!
This episode dredges up Sarah's fears about her impending death from cancer. She asks Cameron if she just has to wait for it to happen; will she just go off like a time bomb some day? Cameron counters, "Will I?" Woah. Intense.
Besides all the intense dramatic stuff, there's also a number of funny Cameron scenes, and some great action. I'm not sure how I feel about Riley yet, but I don't hate her, and it's certainly good for John that he has a human love interest now.
The latest episode I've seen is "The Mousetrap," which opens with Charley and his wife Michelle stopping at a gas station, where Cromartie shows up and kidnaps Michelle. There's a cool moment back with the Connors where John thinks he sees Cromartie on TV, but it's really footage of George Lazlo in a crummy B-movie; he's pretty infamous now after the massacre. Charley calls in a panic, asking Sarah to help him save his wife. She pretends to John like nothing's wrong, but then she and Derek sneak out to go help Charley. John and Cameron are out buying computers when Riley calls him and asks if he wants to hang out. He says yes. Cameron objects, and John wants to know why he can't go hang out like other people. Cameron points out that there are no other people like him. But he ignores her and runs away to be with Riley. Dumb-ass! Obviously he should just let Cameron hang out nearby and watch them, but he keeps running away from her whenever she shows up.
Agent Ellison seems to be just sitting at home doing nothing when he gets a call from Catherine Weaver (Manson's character), who wants Ellison to meet her for lunch about a job opportunity. She reveals she knows some things about the terminators, and wants him to help her find answers. It looks like he's probably going to accept. Sarah, Derek, and Charley finally find Michelle, apparently wired to a bomb. But when they find their car disabled and the cell tower nearby blows up, it quickly becomes clear that this has all been an elaborate ruse to lure Sarah and the others away from John, and to leave them stranded without a car or the ability to communicate. A very clever plan from Cromartie. Now it's a race to get back to John in time. But Michelle has been injured and is bleeding out. Sarah is ready to leave her behind, but Michelle says she can walk. When they hijack a van later, Charley insists Sarah slow down to avoid jostling Michelle, and finally Sarah complies, but it was clearly a hard choice for her to make. Meanwhile, John luckily sees Cromartie coming, and escapes him. He and Cameron meet up with Sarah and Derek later. They got Michelle to the hospital, but not soon enough. Girl is dead! Wow. Dark ending.
All three of these episodes were really quite excellent. Well-written, well-filmed, funny, moving, tense, powerful. It's great television. I really hope the ratings pick up and Fox renews the show. |
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