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| Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:10 PM |
| On the Viewer - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Season 2, Episode 6 - "The Tower Is Tall, But the Fall Is Short") |
 by Fëanor |
I've been talking and talking about how much I love this show, but I'm really serious now: I love this show. It's a work of art, people. This episode was just brilliantly constructed, with story parallels and metaphors and emotional insight and the trauma of war and parenting and character development and humor and horror and a kick-ass robot fight and a hot sex scene with that lady from the Battlestar Galactica prequel movie. What more can you want! We also finally learn the details of how John and Sarah escaped their captor at the beginning of the first episode of this season, and we learn the answers to my questions about Catherine Weaver's child. Meanwhile, it continues to seem as if John's decision, in the past and the future, to trust the reprogrammed machines is a bad one. An interesting concept that I had never thought of before, but that makes perfect sense, is brought up when a soldier comes back in time, apparently not on a mission, but simply in order to escape into the past. Of course this would be a temptation: it's a literal enactment of a desire every soldier has, as the powerful closing narration subtly suggests, in its comments about nostalgia and home sickness. The episode is very much a discussion of the traumatic effects that a life of war and conflict can have on the human mind, and the desire it can instill to escape, even if that escape is only into death. It's really amazing stuff, and a fascinating examination of the character of John Connor, and the dynamic between himself and his mother.
But what about that soldier from the future? Maybe she's on some mission after all? And maybe it's not a friendly mission? Hmm...
And did I mention the kick-ass robot fight? It's done in a very clever and comical way, and is very exciting.
Again in this episode they're following a lead from the messages from the future written in blood on the wall in their basement (which is a concept I just can't get enough of). This time all they have is a name, and they don't know if the guy, who turns out to be a therapist, is someone they should protect, or someone they need to stop. It's revealed to the viewers at the very end of the episode that it's probably the latter. Sarah and company keep trying and trying to stop the terrible future, but somehow it keeps building up right under their noses.
An episode wherein the family goes to therapy as cover, but John decides he could actually really use some therapy, could have ended up as a really lame "very special episode," but they handle it expertly and turn out another masterpiece.
Other great moments in the episode involve Weaver and her child. The relationship between them is so, so twisted and creepy. There are many darkly comic, shiver-inducing scenes featuring the two of them in this episode.
I also really enjoy the cool stuff they're doing with the development of the AI in Weaver's basement - the way it's learning and playing.
The photo shoot scene with Weaver is also hilarious. "Can we get a warmer smile? Warmer... warmer... never mind." It's also great how Weaver is still learning herself how to act more human, and how she is so close to nailing it in her final conversation with the therapist, but then fails in the end, when, with a big grin, she says, "Cow's blood!"
There's some talk about Sarah's father in this episode, too, which is very interesting; I can't remember him ever being mentioned before in any of the movies or in any of the previous episodes of the show. Apparently he was a war veteran himself.
Anyway, the point is, another fantastic entry in the series. And I was very excited to read recently that Fox bought another nine episodes of the show, which will complete the second season. Here's hoping the ratings pick up and we get a third season! |
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