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selenakIn which I fall more in love with this show than ever.
Another episode with three different plot threads which all reflected on each other and brought out subtleties - Jesse's past/future, current John with Derek, Jesse and Sarah, and Catherine Weaver, John Henry and James Ellison. There are two ways in which this episode both delivered and subverted on build up expectations. Firstly, given the previous episode, it was obvious something would go horribly wrong on that submarine and would be the trigger event to transform Jesse into who she is today. But because of the horror/sci fi genre expectations built into the audience, that something was expected to be either Queeg the captain going beserk or the content of the box or both. Now, the content of the box does kill one of the crew, but it's no alien from Alien which gets hunted and takes out the crew one by one. And Queeg kills a human being, but only because said human is violently attacking Jesse and inciting a ganged-up beating on her. Indeed, the whole sorry tale of the submarine Jimmy Carter puts blame on everyone's shoulders, it's not a horror scenario of a machine gone wrong. Future John Connor is at fault for the absolute secrecy which heightens the crew's paranoia, the pressure they're under. The crew is at fault, lashing out against each other and their human commander all too easily. Queeg the captain is at fault, though he least of all, because he's simply following his programming and not flexible enough to see that a little variation - simply telling Jesse what they're transporting when she asks the first time, say - would help the mission to no end.
And then there's the T-1001 in the box. Who might or might not be Catherine Weaver, but who at any rate illustrates what I and a lot of others have speculated on to be true; a) the machine side of the future war is divided in itself, and not simply because John Connor managed to reprogramm several terminators, but because Skynet isn't the only faction around, and b) Future John tries to get one side to ally with him and end the war this way. The reason why "will you work with us?" as a question is so shocking to Jesse when she finally hears it isn't the basic idea of using machines against machines; Future John and the resistance have been doing that for a good while. But so far, these have been reprogammed machines. They weren't asked for their cooperation, they were made to cooperate via rewiring, if you will. What this proposal sounds like is voluntary cooperation, an alliance of equals, without the safety latch of the human side being in control of their machine allies to make sure they don't turn against them. (May we say it sounds like current day teenage John handing back Cameron her gun even though her programming still tells her to kill him, gambling on her ability to override it?) But of course, if you make such a proposal, you risk that a) your human allies think you're nuts and b) the machines say no and kill you anyway. Though it's interesting that the T-1001 on board the submarine kills "just" the one woman threatening her with a weapon, and no one else, though this might simply be because it's not threatened by someone else at that point and wants the submarine to reach its destination.
Meanwhile, in the present, we have John Henry, Catherine Weaver and James Ellison. Ellison really does treat John Henry like a child now, giving in to the "please let me stay up late and paint my action figures, dad?" demand and even helping with the painting, though he's still sufficiently creeped out not to reply to the "are we friends now?" John Henry, for his part, has arrived at the conclusion that they are, as he calls Ellison a friend when talking to Catherine Weaver later. And what's really fascinating is this: if John Henry "feels" something for Ellison, it would be a first. Because John and Cameron are a special case; she might or might not be voluntarily attached to him now, depending on how you define feelings for AIs, but it started from her pov via a reprogramming. John Henry, on the other hand, has not been programmed to have any kind of attachment or subordination to Ellison; Ellison is not essential for his survival; so anything pro-Ellison John Henry does would be in response to the attention and kindness Ellison has shown to John Henry. "Human beings will dissapoint you," says T-Catherine who neither loves nor hates Ellison and values him but has a continguency plan just in case he becomes inconvenient. They might or might not. I spotted some potential trouble about this whole "eyes are the windows to the soul" business and Ellison's insistence on the sanctity of human life because of the soul. Because should Ellison inform John Henry that machines do not have souls, how will John Henry react?
The current day John plot thread was fascinating, among other things, because it offered the best demonstration yet why John one day will be accepted as leader by so many humans. And it was another way in which build-up was followed and subverted. A lesser show might have made the whole John figures it out and confronts Jesse plot into John wanting to kill Jesse in revenge for Riley and Derek holding him back both because Derek loves Jesse and because he doesn't want his nephew to kill. Not this show. Instead, the conversation between John and Jesse wasn't about revenge at all. It was brutally honest, not least because John without excusing Jesse Talked about his own degree of guilt in Riley’s fate. And not in a teenage “woe is me” manner. Actually, he wasn’t behaving like a teenager throughout this entire conversation; that was an adult man Jesse was talking to, and she responded to him accordingly. It also answered for me one question I had: if Jesse, for understandable reasons, btw, has arrived at the conclusion Future!John isn’t working as a resistance leader anymore, why does she go through the complicated time travel and set up business instead of, you know, simply taking out “her” John Connor of the time she’s living in, and tries to either replace him herself or look for some other candidate to lead the resistance? Well, it seems she still respects him too much for this, not wanting him out of the way but changed, and given the kind of conversation they have, you can see where that respect is coming from.
The Derek and John interaction, too, was the most mature we’ve seen so far between them. Derek always had and has a double vision of John; boy/nephew on the one hand and Future Leader Whom He Resents As Much As Admires on the other, and he keeps switching between whom he treats him as. In their conversations here, both elements are present as well, but what struck me especially was the note of emotional closeness, arguably the most since Derek showing John his future father. Also, when John tells Jesse that both Derek and Riley only had the two of them this shows an awareness I hadn’t been sure of before.
Sarah only has a few scenes in this episode, but they’re striking. The conversation with Cameron is an awesome psychological blow (and btw shows that at least subconsciously, Sarah sees Cameron as a person and one who has some kind of attachment to John, because the “if Future!John sent you away, he must want you gone from himself” ploy would not work on an unfeeling machine), and I can’t wait for the result. And then there is the final scene, where John after being mature all the episode finally breaks down and cries, and she comforts him, in a reverse image to him comforting her after her breakdown in the Mexican desert. These two often misunderstand each other (see Sarah in this episode attempting to evoke nostalgia for a “normal” period in their lives which as it turns out John wasn’t fond of at all), but they’re still each other’s most important human tie. And there you have the problem of Future!John. Current day John, trying to understand his future self and Future John sending machines instead of people for protection, says to Jesse that human beings can never be replaced, or fixed, or repaired; once they are gone, they are gone forever. You will never ever see them again. There is an unspoken addendum here: machines will stay with you. They won’t leave your or be taken away by death, or only rarely. One day, Sarah will die, if not through cancer, then through violence. One day, Derek will die. And the way it looks like right now, John won’t let anyone human get that close again – and thus will trigger the situation that sends Jesse back to the past.
But this show has multiple timelines. Which offers hope. Who knows what lessons were learned?
Another episode with three different plot threads which all reflected on each other and brought out subtleties - Jesse's past/future, current John with Derek, Jesse and Sarah, and Catherine Weaver, John Henry and James Ellison. There are two ways in which this episode both delivered and subverted on build up expectations. Firstly, given the previous episode, it was obvious something would go horribly wrong on that submarine and would be the trigger event to transform Jesse into who she is today. But because of the horror/sci fi genre expectations built into the audience, that something was expected to be either Queeg the captain going beserk or the content of the box or both. Now, the content of the box does kill one of the crew, but it's no alien from Alien which gets hunted and takes out the crew one by one. And Queeg kills a human being, but only because said human is violently attacking Jesse and inciting a ganged-up beating on her. Indeed, the whole sorry tale of the submarine Jimmy Carter puts blame on everyone's shoulders, it's not a horror scenario of a machine gone wrong. Future John Connor is at fault for the absolute secrecy which heightens the crew's paranoia, the pressure they're under. The crew is at fault, lashing out against each other and their human commander all too easily. Queeg the captain is at fault, though he least of all, because he's simply following his programming and not flexible enough to see that a little variation - simply telling Jesse what they're transporting when she asks the first time, say - would help the mission to no end.
And then there's the T-1001 in the box. Who might or might not be Catherine Weaver, but who at any rate illustrates what I and a lot of others have speculated on to be true; a) the machine side of the future war is divided in itself, and not simply because John Connor managed to reprogramm several terminators, but because Skynet isn't the only faction around, and b) Future John tries to get one side to ally with him and end the war this way. The reason why "will you work with us?" as a question is so shocking to Jesse when she finally hears it isn't the basic idea of using machines against machines; Future John and the resistance have been doing that for a good while. But so far, these have been reprogammed machines. They weren't asked for their cooperation, they were made to cooperate via rewiring, if you will. What this proposal sounds like is voluntary cooperation, an alliance of equals, without the safety latch of the human side being in control of their machine allies to make sure they don't turn against them. (May we say it sounds like current day teenage John handing back Cameron her gun even though her programming still tells her to kill him, gambling on her ability to override it?) But of course, if you make such a proposal, you risk that a) your human allies think you're nuts and b) the machines say no and kill you anyway. Though it's interesting that the T-1001 on board the submarine kills "just" the one woman threatening her with a weapon, and no one else, though this might simply be because it's not threatened by someone else at that point and wants the submarine to reach its destination.
Meanwhile, in the present, we have John Henry, Catherine Weaver and James Ellison. Ellison really does treat John Henry like a child now, giving in to the "please let me stay up late and paint my action figures, dad?" demand and even helping with the painting, though he's still sufficiently creeped out not to reply to the "are we friends now?" John Henry, for his part, has arrived at the conclusion that they are, as he calls Ellison a friend when talking to Catherine Weaver later. And what's really fascinating is this: if John Henry "feels" something for Ellison, it would be a first. Because John and Cameron are a special case; she might or might not be voluntarily attached to him now, depending on how you define feelings for AIs, but it started from her pov via a reprogramming. John Henry, on the other hand, has not been programmed to have any kind of attachment or subordination to Ellison; Ellison is not essential for his survival; so anything pro-Ellison John Henry does would be in response to the attention and kindness Ellison has shown to John Henry. "Human beings will dissapoint you," says T-Catherine who neither loves nor hates Ellison and values him but has a continguency plan just in case he becomes inconvenient. They might or might not. I spotted some potential trouble about this whole "eyes are the windows to the soul" business and Ellison's insistence on the sanctity of human life because of the soul. Because should Ellison inform John Henry that machines do not have souls, how will John Henry react?
The current day John plot thread was fascinating, among other things, because it offered the best demonstration yet why John one day will be accepted as leader by so many humans. And it was another way in which build-up was followed and subverted. A lesser show might have made the whole John figures it out and confronts Jesse plot into John wanting to kill Jesse in revenge for Riley and Derek holding him back both because Derek loves Jesse and because he doesn't want his nephew to kill. Not this show. Instead, the conversation between John and Jesse wasn't about revenge at all. It was brutally honest, not least because John without excusing Jesse Talked about his own degree of guilt in Riley’s fate. And not in a teenage “woe is me” manner. Actually, he wasn’t behaving like a teenager throughout this entire conversation; that was an adult man Jesse was talking to, and she responded to him accordingly. It also answered for me one question I had: if Jesse, for understandable reasons, btw, has arrived at the conclusion Future!John isn’t working as a resistance leader anymore, why does she go through the complicated time travel and set up business instead of, you know, simply taking out “her” John Connor of the time she’s living in, and tries to either replace him herself or look for some other candidate to lead the resistance? Well, it seems she still respects him too much for this, not wanting him out of the way but changed, and given the kind of conversation they have, you can see where that respect is coming from.
The Derek and John interaction, too, was the most mature we’ve seen so far between them. Derek always had and has a double vision of John; boy/nephew on the one hand and Future Leader Whom He Resents As Much As Admires on the other, and he keeps switching between whom he treats him as. In their conversations here, both elements are present as well, but what struck me especially was the note of emotional closeness, arguably the most since Derek showing John his future father. Also, when John tells Jesse that both Derek and Riley only had the two of them this shows an awareness I hadn’t been sure of before.
Sarah only has a few scenes in this episode, but they’re striking. The conversation with Cameron is an awesome psychological blow (and btw shows that at least subconsciously, Sarah sees Cameron as a person and one who has some kind of attachment to John, because the “if Future!John sent you away, he must want you gone from himself” ploy would not work on an unfeeling machine), and I can’t wait for the result. And then there is the final scene, where John after being mature all the episode finally breaks down and cries, and she comforts him, in a reverse image to him comforting her after her breakdown in the Mexican desert. These two often misunderstand each other (see Sarah in this episode attempting to evoke nostalgia for a “normal” period in their lives which as it turns out John wasn’t fond of at all), but they’re still each other’s most important human tie. And there you have the problem of Future!John. Current day John, trying to understand his future self and Future John sending machines instead of people for protection, says to Jesse that human beings can never be replaced, or fixed, or repaired; once they are gone, they are gone forever. You will never ever see them again. There is an unspoken addendum here: machines will stay with you. They won’t leave your or be taken away by death, or only rarely. One day, Sarah will die, if not through cancer, then through violence. One day, Derek will die. And the way it looks like right now, John won’t let anyone human get that close again – and thus will trigger the situation that sends Jesse back to the past.
But this show has multiple timelines. Which offers hope. Who knows what lessons were learned?
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 12:21 pm (UTC)I hope he would slap Ellison upside the head (gently) and proceed to explain why Ellison cannot know this.
Watching this show through the prism of current debates in cognitive neuroscience and AI adds an extra level of thinkiness--not that it was needed. They can take it as slow as they want, as long as there is this kind of payoff.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 02:34 pm (UTC)Seriously, though, I love both that the show takes its time and the way it delivers. Hooray for smart tv and complex characters!