selenak

Like last week, another episode that on the one hand feels like a standalone and on the other has strong arc connections. The most obvious being the first Derek and Jesse encounter; on the principle of showing beating telling, showing said encounter feels like a preparation to make the audience feel more for Derek's attachment to Jesse and their soldier comradery bond so when the inevitable present day conflict occurs (i.e. the point where Derek will be forced to make a choice), it is dramatically more effective than it would be if we knew Jesse only from the present day. But stuck with me most, though, wasn't anything about Derek and Jesse forming a connection in dire circumstances, but Jesse's story about the rabbits, and the way Australians tried to get rid of them, with the rabbits coming back every time. Because depending on your point of view, the rabbits could be standing for either humanity or the AIs here, not that I think Jesse is aware of either interpretation when she tells the story (but the writers are). Survivors through all another species with superior technological means throws at them, or plague that didn't belong in that continent/world to begin with and needs to get rid off? Also, for a show as fond of book references - specifically to children's books - as this one, it's impossible not to suspect some Watership Down allusion. Watership Down features an apocalypse early on, the prophecied destruction of a warren by humans, with only some of the rabbits, who listened to their version of Cassandra, escaping because they left before it happened. It features, among other things, three versions of survival: there are the rabbits our heroes encounter early on who live a rich and well-fed live in the awareness that some of them will get killed by the nearby farmer now and then; in essence, they traded their liberty and some of their lives for a full stomach. Then there are the rabbits who are free of humans and their threats but basically live in a fascist state, with their leaders having become the monsters who plague them. And finally there are the rabbits who are the book's heroes, who adopt survival techniques from both but refuse to become either.

Sarah has encountered various mothers - and fathers - in the show so far who in some degree functioned as alter egos, but this time her true double isn't the mother, but the daughter, teenage Lauren. I never could understand the complaint about T1's Sarah Connor by people who "met" her in T2 - to me, Sarah's heroism always was heightened, not lessened by the fact she wasn't a natural warrior and really was what film heroines too often just claim to be, everywoman. What she became, she made herself into. Lauren here is a younger Sarah who similarly has to recreate herself and at end disappears with a baby destined to save people in the future. (If Lauren is a Sarah alter ego, Sydney with her immune-giving blood, all the dead bodies around her and the look of being near completely withdrawn is John's.) Fathers? Fathers die on the way. Lauren's father does between flashbacks, and Sydney's father does in front of Lauren, skewered by a Terminator, as Kyle Reese died. Derek, who comes across mothers and their children just a bit too late in either time line, can't be more than a gatekeeper. He's always on the periphery, but not, in the end, a part of the trinity, neither of Lauren/her mother/Sydney nor Sarah/John/The Terminator, whether that's the one who kills or the one who protects. Speaking of, I loved that image of Cameron after killing the hapless Roger by mistake reaching out her hand to Lauren, because there you have it, both the terrible danger and the protection she poses. Lauren isn't ever going to make the mistake to confuse "on our side" with "nice" or even "good".

One more aspect of Sarah bonding with Lauren here: it was juxtaposed with her emphatically stating again that Cameron isn't her daughter. It reminded me of her refusal to speak about Cameron to Dr. Sherman, and him saying she can't be helped while she refuses to acknowledge the third dot. Sarah, with the constant awareness that Cameron could turn against them at any moment, never allowed herself to have a relationship with her, and is disturbed that her son does, but on the other hand, she has come to rely on Cameron despite herself, and her subconscious keeps bringing it up (hence dreams of Cameron and Sarah being dressed identical and people constantly taking them for mother and daughter even when they don't claim to be). Lauren, though, is human, and so to Lauren Sarah can open up and become a mentor figure. In the present day timeline, we see Lauren's face with bloody spots as Sarah saw her own on in the mirror recently. And in the future, we don't see her face clearly at all, but hidden beneath plastic as she saves Derek and Jesse through her baby sister's blood. We don't know what life did to her. But we do know she survived. And that's something.

Lastly: "Don't confuse close with happy". And thus we describe the Connor family. Though they do manage to be both, very occasionally.