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Sarah Connor Chronicles 2x15-2x17
Have not seen this week's episode yet; spoil me and I will send killer robots after you!
2x15 Desert Cantos
Oh, I liked that. And I take back my earlier complaints about Sarah not having killed anyone; it was totally worth it for this. I really love that the show has been extremely good with emotional follow-up.
The show continues to be good with its one-off female roles, but I find myself wishing that they were not all white women.
Given that the show has its origins in an action movie franchise, I am surprised and pleased that it has so far been very good about violence. Sarah just killed, John killed at the beginning of the season, and Derek has very few compunctions about it, but the Connors at least keep being confronted by the shades of those they've killed. Sarah in particular; of course she meets Winston's wife. Cameron clearly has no such compunctions, but usually we only see action-movie-style violence (big set pieces, walls, explosions, lack of face-to-face brutality) when two terminators are battling, two machines with no human lives at stake.
There's an X-Files feel to this episode that I'm not sure if I like or not. I would generally like it, except it now makes me flinch to think of how the writers will totally drop the ball on everything (and I didn't even watch to the bitter end!).
Weaver continues to baffle me, although I am now almost certain she is not trying to build Skynet, but rather something newer and more interesting. And I wonder how all this is connected to John Henry and his lack of understanding of grief, at least from what we understand from his killing the therapist.
2x16 Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep
I figured out the sleep clinic must be a dream probably around halfway through. Especially because it was so hard to believe that Sarah would put herself in a 24-hour monitored medical place after T2!
That said, I suck at dream episodes, and my brain is too tired to go through it again and see what was symbolic and what was not.
On the other hand, I found it very satisfying and chilling that Sarah had to kill Winston again, this time consciously, a bullet to the forehead, execution style. Even if she could have excused the time in the warehouse as self-defense, this one is much harder to keep at bay.
I wasn't as enthusiastic about the ending voice over as most people seemed to be, but that may be because the dream sequences tired me out or because I am still grumpy that we have no women of color! Although points for having a one-off who does not have the same body type as all the other one-offs.
2x17 Ourselves Alone
I wish there were more of a connection between this episode and the previous ones; I want to know more about how Winston ended up not-dead and then kidnapping Sarah and how the Connors dealt with Sarah not being there. If they noticed. I guess she escaped pretty quickly?
I was spoiled for Riley's death somehow, but the previouslies had me absolutely terrified that they were going to kill off Jesse too. I'm still not sure she's going to survive the season/series; I am alternately convinced Sarah will kill her or Derek will.
Oh man. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that I would be sad by Riley's death, I wouldn't have believed you. But she ended up so broken and so lost, so desperate for any hint of love that she trusted Jesse. I love the constant brushing of hair and the "Sweetie," the way Jesse's outward signs of love are so shallow and crack so easily to reveal the soldier. I feel I should be more up in arms about her betraying Riley, but I feel the female-female dynamic makes it very different, especially because Jesse is clearly the one with all the power in their relationship. And yet! Riley fights back, not quite believing that Jesse would throw her to the wolves, and she's so desperate in the end that she grabs on to anything—Jesse's neck, a vase, anything.
And I love Jesse's repetition of bringing Riley out of Hell and into Paradise. In her mind, it's all the afterlife anyway, they're all dead, and the only point in surviving is to make sure that the future ends up going the way it should. She's already written herself off and Riley off, and probably written off Derek as well.
Cameron and John, yikes! I really have been liking John in the past few episodes (although I wanted to tell him not to hit on people at a funeral). I especially love that he's the one trying so hard to be the moral center when he's surrounded by Sarah and Derek and Cameron, all of them more concerned with his safety than with the lives of others.
And Cameron, yeesh. She can fix herself, but she asks John to; she hides away spare parts and accidentally kills birds. I loved all her scenes with Riley and the unspoken menace and the way Riley is falling apart. I also loved the Jesse-Sarah scene, in which Jesse knows much more than she lets on, and yet, the two of them are still circling each other, poking for weak spots. And Jesse can't help but poke at the spot that is Derek, no matter how dedicated to the mission she is.
I also love that Derek turns to Jesse for help and ends up being stood up, that despite everything, despite all her manipulation, Jesse ends up killing Riley in self-defense and panic, not on purpose. And I am terrified as to what Derek will do to Jesse and that her cover will be blown!
Gack! Only five episodes left, and I am scared as to what the body count will be.
eta: I can't believe I forgot to mention the self-detonator! It is like my fandoms are crossing, since everyone knows that "You must kill me if I go berserk" means "I love you" in manga! Even better when the detonator is placed in Significant Jewelry!
I started watching this as my good, solid show, with remnants of goodwill from my teenage obsession with the Terminator movies. And damnit, now that it's probably on the verge of being canceled, I am getting all involved with the characters and possibly fannish. Nooooo! Don't die, show!
2x15 Desert Cantos
Oh, I liked that. And I take back my earlier complaints about Sarah not having killed anyone; it was totally worth it for this. I really love that the show has been extremely good with emotional follow-up.
The show continues to be good with its one-off female roles, but I find myself wishing that they were not all white women.
Given that the show has its origins in an action movie franchise, I am surprised and pleased that it has so far been very good about violence. Sarah just killed, John killed at the beginning of the season, and Derek has very few compunctions about it, but the Connors at least keep being confronted by the shades of those they've killed. Sarah in particular; of course she meets Winston's wife. Cameron clearly has no such compunctions, but usually we only see action-movie-style violence (big set pieces, walls, explosions, lack of face-to-face brutality) when two terminators are battling, two machines with no human lives at stake.
There's an X-Files feel to this episode that I'm not sure if I like or not. I would generally like it, except it now makes me flinch to think of how the writers will totally drop the ball on everything (and I didn't even watch to the bitter end!).
Weaver continues to baffle me, although I am now almost certain she is not trying to build Skynet, but rather something newer and more interesting. And I wonder how all this is connected to John Henry and his lack of understanding of grief, at least from what we understand from his killing the therapist.
2x16 Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep
I figured out the sleep clinic must be a dream probably around halfway through. Especially because it was so hard to believe that Sarah would put herself in a 24-hour monitored medical place after T2!
That said, I suck at dream episodes, and my brain is too tired to go through it again and see what was symbolic and what was not.
On the other hand, I found it very satisfying and chilling that Sarah had to kill Winston again, this time consciously, a bullet to the forehead, execution style. Even if she could have excused the time in the warehouse as self-defense, this one is much harder to keep at bay.
I wasn't as enthusiastic about the ending voice over as most people seemed to be, but that may be because the dream sequences tired me out or because I am still grumpy that we have no women of color! Although points for having a one-off who does not have the same body type as all the other one-offs.
2x17 Ourselves Alone
I wish there were more of a connection between this episode and the previous ones; I want to know more about how Winston ended up not-dead and then kidnapping Sarah and how the Connors dealt with Sarah not being there. If they noticed. I guess she escaped pretty quickly?
I was spoiled for Riley's death somehow, but the previouslies had me absolutely terrified that they were going to kill off Jesse too. I'm still not sure she's going to survive the season/series; I am alternately convinced Sarah will kill her or Derek will.
Oh man. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that I would be sad by Riley's death, I wouldn't have believed you. But she ended up so broken and so lost, so desperate for any hint of love that she trusted Jesse. I love the constant brushing of hair and the "Sweetie," the way Jesse's outward signs of love are so shallow and crack so easily to reveal the soldier. I feel I should be more up in arms about her betraying Riley, but I feel the female-female dynamic makes it very different, especially because Jesse is clearly the one with all the power in their relationship. And yet! Riley fights back, not quite believing that Jesse would throw her to the wolves, and she's so desperate in the end that she grabs on to anything—Jesse's neck, a vase, anything.
And I love Jesse's repetition of bringing Riley out of Hell and into Paradise. In her mind, it's all the afterlife anyway, they're all dead, and the only point in surviving is to make sure that the future ends up going the way it should. She's already written herself off and Riley off, and probably written off Derek as well.
Cameron and John, yikes! I really have been liking John in the past few episodes (although I wanted to tell him not to hit on people at a funeral). I especially love that he's the one trying so hard to be the moral center when he's surrounded by Sarah and Derek and Cameron, all of them more concerned with his safety than with the lives of others.
And Cameron, yeesh. She can fix herself, but she asks John to; she hides away spare parts and accidentally kills birds. I loved all her scenes with Riley and the unspoken menace and the way Riley is falling apart. I also loved the Jesse-Sarah scene, in which Jesse knows much more than she lets on, and yet, the two of them are still circling each other, poking for weak spots. And Jesse can't help but poke at the spot that is Derek, no matter how dedicated to the mission she is.
I also love that Derek turns to Jesse for help and ends up being stood up, that despite everything, despite all her manipulation, Jesse ends up killing Riley in self-defense and panic, not on purpose. And I am terrified as to what Derek will do to Jesse and that her cover will be blown!
Gack! Only five episodes left, and I am scared as to what the body count will be.
eta: I can't believe I forgot to mention the self-detonator! It is like my fandoms are crossing, since everyone knows that "You must kill me if I go berserk" means "I love you" in manga! Even better when the detonator is placed in Significant Jewelry!
I started watching this as my good, solid show, with remnants of goodwill from my teenage obsession with the Terminator movies. And damnit, now that it's probably on the verge of being canceled, I am getting all involved with the characters and possibly fannish. Nooooo! Don't die, show!
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Ditto. I expected to be very bored by her when she first appeared, but I've become increasingly sympathetic towards her as it's become clearer that she's a tragic figure, a prisoner in paradise, and the relationship between her and Jesse fascinates me. SCC is the most satisfying thing I'm watching on TV right now: it's dense and layered and just a really, really well written, well-made show. I do hope they get a third season.
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I so do not want the show to be canceled! It has won me over, and it is just so solid every week.
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I think maybe it was all the same night, in the middle of the night--she called in at what, midnight or 1 AM or something, and then when she was driving away during the last voiceover, it was still nighttime. Though I suppose there could have been a day in there I wasn't aware of, given that she was stuck in a van most of the time.
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This post contains a lot of caps lock.
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Hm, you're making me rethink Jesse. She frustratingly falls into the Dragon Lady stereotype for me in that most of her M.O. is seduction, manipulation, and mysterious motivations that were only recently revealed. On one hand, the Jesse storyline with Riley makes me cringe because it amounts to, "Turn Riley into a woman in the refrigerator for John." OTOH, Jesse's regret(?) makes her feel more fleshed out, and we are getting backstory on her. She's getting a storyline, instead of being in the story for how she affects the other characters.
Aside from that, I love what the show's doing. Oh, aside from wanting more of a storyline for Ellison.
eta: I can't believe I forgot to mention the self-detonator! It is like my fandoms are crossing, since everyone knows that "You must kill me if I go berserk" means "I love you" in manga! Even better when the detonator is placed in Significant Jewelry!
I had the same thought, too. And there's so much symbolism and meaning that the detonator's in a watch.
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And yeah re: Riley's refrigerator-ness. I'm less annoyed by it because we do have so many more women in the show already, so losing one doesn't make the same difference that it would in another show. Also, the show has done stuff with men in refrigerators as well. That said, I am terrified Jesse is going to be a woman in a refrigerator as well.
There's also just so much interesting stuff going on with the men being the emotional nurturers and the women being the leaders and the tacticians.