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selenakBy fortunate timing, there is a great new vid about Jesse (and her relationships with Derek and Riley respectively) out there: Howl. Now, on to the episodes.
Goodbye to All That: I still dig the very apropos Robert Graves title. (This is such a literate show.) And the two Martin Bedells, and the show's continued humanity in making us see the huge killing spree its concept leaves behind as people. When Derek asks how many Sarah Connors were killed before the original Terminator found the "right" Sarah? Ouch. In the right way.
Speaking of Derek: this is a Derek-centric episode, and reminds me that he's one of the characters I have a weird response to, in that my not embracing him hasn't to do with anything he does on screen - where I find him an interesting member of the ensemble - and everything with my original fear when he joined the cast, that this chiselled-jawed action hero type with requisite trauma would take over from Sarah as the central character, both in terms of actual storytelling and in terms of fannish affections. It wasn't true for the show, which used Derek to just the right amount, but I remember the one and only time I checked out what the Television Without Pity people were writing about SCC and hastened away because it was all "Derek is the only good character of the show" and "Sarah and John treat him like dirt, poor Derek!". So, with Derek, I constantly have to try and focus on who he is on the show proper rather than fannish reactions he evokes.
The cause and effect time loop in this episode is a little merciless circle: Derek, at the start, tells John and Sarah only that Future!Martin Bedell will teach him tactics; he does not say that Martin Bedell will die to save John Connor from a camp. Present day John, who clearly sympathizes with Martin's wish to become something other than military and have his own life instead of the predestined one, first provides an open ear and encouragement and then puts his own life on the line to give Martin the chance to escape (by distracting the Terminator sent to kill Martin Bedell through identifying himself as John Connor and providing an alternate target). This, of course, is what makes Martin Bedell decide to stick with the military education and what will him make offer his own life for John's year's later. Only then does Derek provide the full information, concluding with the "we all die for you" line. Which, really, is why I'm not surprised John is screwed up and rather surprised he's not screwed up MORE because how on earth do you live with such a burden?
Sarah and the other Martin Bedell is a look at Sarah trying to be a mother figure in ways that do not involve weapons and oddly charming, as is this show's continued love affair with Frank Baum (whose name the Connors took) and The Wizard of Oz (pimping the book and letting Sarah point out to young Martin that writing book reports based on the film won't do because of all the differences). One of my many regrets about the non-existance of s3 is that this way we won't get to see Sarah interact with Savannah, because I'd like confirmation or denial of my theory about Sarah not being able to relate to girls the way she does to boys. Adult women she has no problem bonding with. But I sometimes wonder whether some of her issues with Cameron are related to Cameron's teenage girl exterior as well as Cameron's robotness, given her hostility to Riley from the get go and the fact she leaves the interaction with Savannah solely to John, whereas she has no problem interacting with young Martin. (John's blind spot, btw, seem to be adults who aren't in a authority position over him, and fellow teenagers when they are in groups instead of by themselves. He gets along famously with Savannah both times they meet, more about that in a moment, and can relate to individuals such as Martin and Riley, but the one time Riley and he are in a group of fellow teenagers, it's a disaster, the interactions with Ellison are awkward, awkward, awkward, and with Derek it's confusing because Derek switches between being an authority figure (in his uncle capacity) and a follower (of future John).)
Back to the title: shell shock of soldiers - a big element in Graves' Goodbye to all that - is an ongoing theme this season, and Derek is just the most overt sufferer from it; Jesse, Riley, as well as Sarah and John themselves, all do as well.
The tower is tall but the fall is short: one of my favourite s2 episodes. She's been in a brief scene in an earlier episode, but this the first time we see what an amazing actress little Mackenzie Smith is as Savannah Weaver. The interactions between Catherine and Savannah are both chilling and touching; the brief glimpse at real Catherine in the vid should put a stop to comlaints Shirley Manson can't act other than stiffly. I think Terminator!Catherine Weaver originally kept Savannah around because the obvious physical similarity helped with her cover but here becames interested in Savannah as a child because that makes her a case study for the Turk, aka future John Henry; Dr. Freeman providing therapy for both and explicitly calling the developing AI a child is making that rather explicit. This is also where the explicit contrast/compare between the Weavers (plus not-yet-John Henry and Ellison) and the Connors (plus Cameron and Derek) starts. Both Sarah and Catherine Weaver avoid and deflect the therapist's questions after their daughters and would rather talk about their sons (well, Sarah doesn't want to talk all, but if she has to...); nonetheless, Catherine Weaver sending Savannah to therapy is actually real (because she needs Savannah to trust her) and she modifies her behaviour following the therapist's advice), whereas Sarah sending John is a pretense so they can discover what might be up with the good doctor, and the prospect of John treating it as the real thing disturbs her. (And that's leaving aside Sarah would need therapy herself.)
The relationship between Sarah and her son has been deterioting ever since the end of Samson and Delilah, which will lead to the explosion in the next episode. Here, the audience finally gets the answer to the "who killed Sarkassian, Sarah or John?" question. Mind you, I think playing that as a mystery is one of the few missteps SCC made, because honestly, why? It's pretty obvious it was John from the get go, because his behaviour afterwards makes no sense otherwise. Though it is interesting that Sarah herself is invested in keeping it a secret, on a Watsonian level; she doesn't directly lie to Derek and Charlie but deliberately leaves them in the belief she killed Sarkassian when Derek asks whether John saw it, or later brings it up again. A still open question is whether John's accident with the gun in this episode was one or, as Cameron suggests, a suicide attempt. (Suicide is another theme this season. Derek tells his story about a soldier (himself, as we'll later find out) deciding to commit suicide because he couldn't take it anymore; meeting Jesse saved him from that. Riley is saved and simultanously doomed by Jesse in the future and will try to commit suicide to get out of the increasingly impossible situation she finds herself in; Cameron comes up with a way of killing herself - or rather, to commit suicide by John - but ends up "dying", at least temporarily, for John Henry instead.) My own opinion on this is that it wasn't deliberate on John's part, but it might have been subsconsciously, because dissambling and assembling guns is really something Sarah had him do from toddlerdom onwards, so a mistake out of the blue is unlikely.
This is the episode which introduces Jesse. At the time of first broadcast, the presentation of Jesse came in for criticism both here and in the next episode because she seemed to be on display for the viewer in a sexual way in a manner that had been avoided with female characters so far. I can see where people came from - in this episode, Jesse's second scene with Derek involves getting her clothes of, we don't know more about her than that she and Derek were an item, and in the next episode, Jesse is in a bikini for the most part - but in retrospect, and with Jesse's entire story in mind, I don't think the criticism holds up. (Including the bikini part, because of the later swimming pool scene and Jesse's connection to water, to what happened to her then.) There are also clues from the get go Jesse isn't just there for Derek to have sex with, not simply because of the surveillance photos of John she hides but because the bruises on her body - of different origin, as we'll find out, than what she tells Derek - underline that the despairing emotion behind her words about the future is quite real. Jesse is also the first being (that we know of) to return to the past not sent by either Future John or Skynet, which begs the question: are there others? (Yes, as it turns out. Riley and Catherine Weaver, whom the audience at that point assumes is working for Skynet but who is not.)
Brothers of Nablus: very, very bleak and depressing in its "mercy will likely get you killed" conclusion. Though the subplot involving Cromartie getting stuck with Cameron's not-friend from Allison of Palmdale on his search is great black humour. What I had forgotten is that Derek here explicity lies to Sarah about Jesse, not just a lie of omission but a direct lie (when Moishe the fence mentions her and Sarah asks "who is Jesse", Derek makes Jesse a (dead) man instead of telling the truth). (No wonder Sarah will be furious much later this season.) Which is intriguing. Yes, he'll keep the Connors a secret from Jesse as well (he thinks) for a while longer, but not for very long. So, given that Jesse, who supposedly doesn't know with whom Derek lives, does not ask this of him, why the lie? Who does Derek think he's protecting by this? (Jesse, most likely. The death of Charley's wife Michelle was only a few weeks ago in show time.)
Riley's stand-off with Cromartie here, with the added knowledge she knows what a Terminator is, is either incredibly brave or suicidal or both. The scenes with John, here and even more in the next episode (which is the last one, imo, before John figures out where Riley is really from) have a poignancy because of what both of them don't say as much as what they do. More on that in a moment because Mr. Ferguson is ill today has the more important scenes for that relationship.
The long-smouldering tension between Sarah and John erupts in what is undeniably the most vicious thing John ever says to his mother on this show, and I don't mean "why didn't you protect me from that" (killing Sarkassian), though that is bad enough. Incidentally, while killing Sarkassian is part of what's eating at John I don't think it's really the basis for the hostility towards Sarah showcased here. More important is the realisation it trigged, that a) Sarah is mortal, and could die at any moment and b) Sarah is not infallible. "My mother is always right," he says to Dr. Freeman an episode earlier, and teenage rebellion or not, I think he does have her on that high a pedestal. She is a larger than life warrior goddess who might make bad pancakes but will always trick and defeat the machines and can even change the course of time. Seeing her overwhelmed and nearly killed not by a superstrong killing machine from the future but by two everyday human thugs crashes that idea. Then there is also what Riley learns almost as an aside the first time she visits the "Baum" residence; that John never brought home a friend before. Meaning: there weren't any. There were Sarah's boyfriends early on she used to learn how to fight, and later, briefly, some foster homes plus a machine from the future, and now there are Cameron and Derek, but one of the most basic rules through John's life was that when it comes down to it, they just have each other, and everyone else is expendable or dies anyway. Which makes for a mother-son relationship that's both incredibly close and incredibly alienated because there is no other emotional outlet (and hence the emotional arc of them, after rebuilding their relationship through the second half of this season, ending up letting go being a powerful one), and at this point, stiffling. Which leads to the above mentioned most vicious statement, that Sarah's objection to Riley isn't because of security concerned but "because I found someone I want to spend time with, and it is not you". It's incredibly unfair and cruel, but that doesn't mean there isn't a tiny morsel of truth in it as well. (More about that when we get to the episodes that offer a look into Sarah's head and how she sees John - and Cameron.) Sarah is incredibly heroic and selfless when fighting for her son, but she really isn't that good at sharing him (yes, both Riley and Cameron pose risks that allow legitimate concern, but the hostility to Riley from the moment she sees her and "I don't like the way he responds to you" to Cameron are about a bit more than that).
Mr. Ferguson is ill today: in which the show gets a bit non-linear and Rashomon-like, and I love it to bits. And there's yet another gorgeous use of a song matched to stunning visuals as Cromartie dies in a church in Christ-on-a-cross posture and lands in a grave. (To be resurrected and become part of a new trinity soon, but we didn't know that during first broadcast.) Speaking of visuals, there is the one where Riley and John first arrive in town and a Mexican in full Death outfit dances a few steps with Riley. Ouch. (Incidentally, whoever said that since John spend his early childhood in Middle and Latin America when Sarah was with various resistance groups, he could be more culturally imprinted by that than by North American attitudes is right, but such is tv.) As I said before, imo this is the last episode where John is unaware of Riley's background, as well as the one providing the final clues to figure it out. Because while Riley insisting on fobbing off Cromartie in "Brothers of Nablus" could be explained by a girl simply wanting to help her boyfriend getting rid of a pesky visitor, not knowing how dangerous that visitor is, the fact that her response to the photographer calling John "John Connor" is not to question the last name but to go after the camera to delete the photos the man took of her and John cannot. Earlier, while John is repairing the jacuzzi in the honeymoon suite for her (btw, rewatch made me notice this show has John constantly repairing things, whether it's tvs, computers, bath tubs or Cameron's arm), Riley goes from her cheerful persona to declarly bleakly that "people suck" and that "you meet them and don't expect to feel anything for them, and then...", and challenging John that she doesn't know anything about him. Which I think is the most telling scene between them until "Ourselves Alone". Riley doesn't know yet Jesse expects her to die for the cause, but this is where the pretend part of her existence starts the first cracks in her. I don't think she had feelings about John Connor one way or the other back in the future, other than knowing him as a legendary name; she followed Jesse into the past on the promise of salvation and because she loved Jesse. She chats up John on Jesse's instruction, still for Jesse. But by now she's starting to feel at the very least genuine sympathy for John, and there is a basic problem there because both of them are lying to each other. (John by omission, i.e. he tells her details like the telephone codes and some truths like having lived in Mexico for a while, but he constantly edits and leaves out anything Terminator-related.) In a way, this relationship is a desperate attempt at both parts to have something they regard as elusive (and "normal") while being in denial about the very circumstances that won't ever allow it to be.
Other than the s1 finale, Mr. Ferguson is ill today is the big turning point for James Ellison. He finally speaks to Sarah Connor, whom he has searched for for so long, and not in a brief "am I hallucinating" life saving moment in a fire. He can even help saving her out of a temporary danger, and contribute to the destruction of one of her foes. But Sarah doesn't have any answers, doesn't appear to have a plan ("this is all there is, all I do") and the one harsh truth she offers is that the loss of his old life isn't much to her. Until then, Ellison has done some investigating on Weaver's behalf since she hired him, but I think this is where he emotionally signs on Team Weaver and commits himself, because Catherine Weaver does seem to have a plan of how to deal with the oncoming apocalypse.
This is also where Sarah reaches a breakdown point. Not the first; she's been on the run since she was 18, there were bound to be a few in between her stoicism, other than the one we saw in T2. But this is the first one we see on this particular show, and it comes when smashing Cromartie's chip. It's not Cromartie specifically - one more Terminator in a long line, and it will never stop - it is the fact that it WON'T stop, her fear of losing her son one way or the other, the increasing death tolls around her and that not killing (humans) seems less and less an option (Cromartie tells her he got her address from the one thief whose life she saved from Cameron). It's typical for the Connors that this is what triggers their reconciliation and hit happens in silence as John embraces her and holds her as she cries.
Goodbye to All That: I still dig the very apropos Robert Graves title. (This is such a literate show.) And the two Martin Bedells, and the show's continued humanity in making us see the huge killing spree its concept leaves behind as people. When Derek asks how many Sarah Connors were killed before the original Terminator found the "right" Sarah? Ouch. In the right way.
Speaking of Derek: this is a Derek-centric episode, and reminds me that he's one of the characters I have a weird response to, in that my not embracing him hasn't to do with anything he does on screen - where I find him an interesting member of the ensemble - and everything with my original fear when he joined the cast, that this chiselled-jawed action hero type with requisite trauma would take over from Sarah as the central character, both in terms of actual storytelling and in terms of fannish affections. It wasn't true for the show, which used Derek to just the right amount, but I remember the one and only time I checked out what the Television Without Pity people were writing about SCC and hastened away because it was all "Derek is the only good character of the show" and "Sarah and John treat him like dirt, poor Derek!". So, with Derek, I constantly have to try and focus on who he is on the show proper rather than fannish reactions he evokes.
The cause and effect time loop in this episode is a little merciless circle: Derek, at the start, tells John and Sarah only that Future!Martin Bedell will teach him tactics; he does not say that Martin Bedell will die to save John Connor from a camp. Present day John, who clearly sympathizes with Martin's wish to become something other than military and have his own life instead of the predestined one, first provides an open ear and encouragement and then puts his own life on the line to give Martin the chance to escape (by distracting the Terminator sent to kill Martin Bedell through identifying himself as John Connor and providing an alternate target). This, of course, is what makes Martin Bedell decide to stick with the military education and what will him make offer his own life for John's year's later. Only then does Derek provide the full information, concluding with the "we all die for you" line. Which, really, is why I'm not surprised John is screwed up and rather surprised he's not screwed up MORE because how on earth do you live with such a burden?
Sarah and the other Martin Bedell is a look at Sarah trying to be a mother figure in ways that do not involve weapons and oddly charming, as is this show's continued love affair with Frank Baum (whose name the Connors took) and The Wizard of Oz (pimping the book and letting Sarah point out to young Martin that writing book reports based on the film won't do because of all the differences). One of my many regrets about the non-existance of s3 is that this way we won't get to see Sarah interact with Savannah, because I'd like confirmation or denial of my theory about Sarah not being able to relate to girls the way she does to boys. Adult women she has no problem bonding with. But I sometimes wonder whether some of her issues with Cameron are related to Cameron's teenage girl exterior as well as Cameron's robotness, given her hostility to Riley from the get go and the fact she leaves the interaction with Savannah solely to John, whereas she has no problem interacting with young Martin. (John's blind spot, btw, seem to be adults who aren't in a authority position over him, and fellow teenagers when they are in groups instead of by themselves. He gets along famously with Savannah both times they meet, more about that in a moment, and can relate to individuals such as Martin and Riley, but the one time Riley and he are in a group of fellow teenagers, it's a disaster, the interactions with Ellison are awkward, awkward, awkward, and with Derek it's confusing because Derek switches between being an authority figure (in his uncle capacity) and a follower (of future John).)
Back to the title: shell shock of soldiers - a big element in Graves' Goodbye to all that - is an ongoing theme this season, and Derek is just the most overt sufferer from it; Jesse, Riley, as well as Sarah and John themselves, all do as well.
The tower is tall but the fall is short: one of my favourite s2 episodes. She's been in a brief scene in an earlier episode, but this the first time we see what an amazing actress little Mackenzie Smith is as Savannah Weaver. The interactions between Catherine and Savannah are both chilling and touching; the brief glimpse at real Catherine in the vid should put a stop to comlaints Shirley Manson can't act other than stiffly. I think Terminator!Catherine Weaver originally kept Savannah around because the obvious physical similarity helped with her cover but here becames interested in Savannah as a child because that makes her a case study for the Turk, aka future John Henry; Dr. Freeman providing therapy for both and explicitly calling the developing AI a child is making that rather explicit. This is also where the explicit contrast/compare between the Weavers (plus not-yet-John Henry and Ellison) and the Connors (plus Cameron and Derek) starts. Both Sarah and Catherine Weaver avoid and deflect the therapist's questions after their daughters and would rather talk about their sons (well, Sarah doesn't want to talk all, but if she has to...); nonetheless, Catherine Weaver sending Savannah to therapy is actually real (because she needs Savannah to trust her) and she modifies her behaviour following the therapist's advice), whereas Sarah sending John is a pretense so they can discover what might be up with the good doctor, and the prospect of John treating it as the real thing disturbs her. (And that's leaving aside Sarah would need therapy herself.)
The relationship between Sarah and her son has been deterioting ever since the end of Samson and Delilah, which will lead to the explosion in the next episode. Here, the audience finally gets the answer to the "who killed Sarkassian, Sarah or John?" question. Mind you, I think playing that as a mystery is one of the few missteps SCC made, because honestly, why? It's pretty obvious it was John from the get go, because his behaviour afterwards makes no sense otherwise. Though it is interesting that Sarah herself is invested in keeping it a secret, on a Watsonian level; she doesn't directly lie to Derek and Charlie but deliberately leaves them in the belief she killed Sarkassian when Derek asks whether John saw it, or later brings it up again. A still open question is whether John's accident with the gun in this episode was one or, as Cameron suggests, a suicide attempt. (Suicide is another theme this season. Derek tells his story about a soldier (himself, as we'll later find out) deciding to commit suicide because he couldn't take it anymore; meeting Jesse saved him from that. Riley is saved and simultanously doomed by Jesse in the future and will try to commit suicide to get out of the increasingly impossible situation she finds herself in; Cameron comes up with a way of killing herself - or rather, to commit suicide by John - but ends up "dying", at least temporarily, for John Henry instead.) My own opinion on this is that it wasn't deliberate on John's part, but it might have been subsconsciously, because dissambling and assembling guns is really something Sarah had him do from toddlerdom onwards, so a mistake out of the blue is unlikely.
This is the episode which introduces Jesse. At the time of first broadcast, the presentation of Jesse came in for criticism both here and in the next episode because she seemed to be on display for the viewer in a sexual way in a manner that had been avoided with female characters so far. I can see where people came from - in this episode, Jesse's second scene with Derek involves getting her clothes of, we don't know more about her than that she and Derek were an item, and in the next episode, Jesse is in a bikini for the most part - but in retrospect, and with Jesse's entire story in mind, I don't think the criticism holds up. (Including the bikini part, because of the later swimming pool scene and Jesse's connection to water, to what happened to her then.) There are also clues from the get go Jesse isn't just there for Derek to have sex with, not simply because of the surveillance photos of John she hides but because the bruises on her body - of different origin, as we'll find out, than what she tells Derek - underline that the despairing emotion behind her words about the future is quite real. Jesse is also the first being (that we know of) to return to the past not sent by either Future John or Skynet, which begs the question: are there others? (Yes, as it turns out. Riley and Catherine Weaver, whom the audience at that point assumes is working for Skynet but who is not.)
Brothers of Nablus: very, very bleak and depressing in its "mercy will likely get you killed" conclusion. Though the subplot involving Cromartie getting stuck with Cameron's not-friend from Allison of Palmdale on his search is great black humour. What I had forgotten is that Derek here explicity lies to Sarah about Jesse, not just a lie of omission but a direct lie (when Moishe the fence mentions her and Sarah asks "who is Jesse", Derek makes Jesse a (dead) man instead of telling the truth). (No wonder Sarah will be furious much later this season.) Which is intriguing. Yes, he'll keep the Connors a secret from Jesse as well (he thinks) for a while longer, but not for very long. So, given that Jesse, who supposedly doesn't know with whom Derek lives, does not ask this of him, why the lie? Who does Derek think he's protecting by this? (Jesse, most likely. The death of Charley's wife Michelle was only a few weeks ago in show time.)
Riley's stand-off with Cromartie here, with the added knowledge she knows what a Terminator is, is either incredibly brave or suicidal or both. The scenes with John, here and even more in the next episode (which is the last one, imo, before John figures out where Riley is really from) have a poignancy because of what both of them don't say as much as what they do. More on that in a moment because Mr. Ferguson is ill today has the more important scenes for that relationship.
The long-smouldering tension between Sarah and John erupts in what is undeniably the most vicious thing John ever says to his mother on this show, and I don't mean "why didn't you protect me from that" (killing Sarkassian), though that is bad enough. Incidentally, while killing Sarkassian is part of what's eating at John I don't think it's really the basis for the hostility towards Sarah showcased here. More important is the realisation it trigged, that a) Sarah is mortal, and could die at any moment and b) Sarah is not infallible. "My mother is always right," he says to Dr. Freeman an episode earlier, and teenage rebellion or not, I think he does have her on that high a pedestal. She is a larger than life warrior goddess who might make bad pancakes but will always trick and defeat the machines and can even change the course of time. Seeing her overwhelmed and nearly killed not by a superstrong killing machine from the future but by two everyday human thugs crashes that idea. Then there is also what Riley learns almost as an aside the first time she visits the "Baum" residence; that John never brought home a friend before. Meaning: there weren't any. There were Sarah's boyfriends early on she used to learn how to fight, and later, briefly, some foster homes plus a machine from the future, and now there are Cameron and Derek, but one of the most basic rules through John's life was that when it comes down to it, they just have each other, and everyone else is expendable or dies anyway. Which makes for a mother-son relationship that's both incredibly close and incredibly alienated because there is no other emotional outlet (and hence the emotional arc of them, after rebuilding their relationship through the second half of this season, ending up letting go being a powerful one), and at this point, stiffling. Which leads to the above mentioned most vicious statement, that Sarah's objection to Riley isn't because of security concerned but "because I found someone I want to spend time with, and it is not you". It's incredibly unfair and cruel, but that doesn't mean there isn't a tiny morsel of truth in it as well. (More about that when we get to the episodes that offer a look into Sarah's head and how she sees John - and Cameron.) Sarah is incredibly heroic and selfless when fighting for her son, but she really isn't that good at sharing him (yes, both Riley and Cameron pose risks that allow legitimate concern, but the hostility to Riley from the moment she sees her and "I don't like the way he responds to you" to Cameron are about a bit more than that).
Mr. Ferguson is ill today: in which the show gets a bit non-linear and Rashomon-like, and I love it to bits. And there's yet another gorgeous use of a song matched to stunning visuals as Cromartie dies in a church in Christ-on-a-cross posture and lands in a grave. (To be resurrected and become part of a new trinity soon, but we didn't know that during first broadcast.) Speaking of visuals, there is the one where Riley and John first arrive in town and a Mexican in full Death outfit dances a few steps with Riley. Ouch. (Incidentally, whoever said that since John spend his early childhood in Middle and Latin America when Sarah was with various resistance groups, he could be more culturally imprinted by that than by North American attitudes is right, but such is tv.) As I said before, imo this is the last episode where John is unaware of Riley's background, as well as the one providing the final clues to figure it out. Because while Riley insisting on fobbing off Cromartie in "Brothers of Nablus" could be explained by a girl simply wanting to help her boyfriend getting rid of a pesky visitor, not knowing how dangerous that visitor is, the fact that her response to the photographer calling John "John Connor" is not to question the last name but to go after the camera to delete the photos the man took of her and John cannot. Earlier, while John is repairing the jacuzzi in the honeymoon suite for her (btw, rewatch made me notice this show has John constantly repairing things, whether it's tvs, computers, bath tubs or Cameron's arm), Riley goes from her cheerful persona to declarly bleakly that "people suck" and that "you meet them and don't expect to feel anything for them, and then...", and challenging John that she doesn't know anything about him. Which I think is the most telling scene between them until "Ourselves Alone". Riley doesn't know yet Jesse expects her to die for the cause, but this is where the pretend part of her existence starts the first cracks in her. I don't think she had feelings about John Connor one way or the other back in the future, other than knowing him as a legendary name; she followed Jesse into the past on the promise of salvation and because she loved Jesse. She chats up John on Jesse's instruction, still for Jesse. But by now she's starting to feel at the very least genuine sympathy for John, and there is a basic problem there because both of them are lying to each other. (John by omission, i.e. he tells her details like the telephone codes and some truths like having lived in Mexico for a while, but he constantly edits and leaves out anything Terminator-related.) In a way, this relationship is a desperate attempt at both parts to have something they regard as elusive (and "normal") while being in denial about the very circumstances that won't ever allow it to be.
Other than the s1 finale, Mr. Ferguson is ill today is the big turning point for James Ellison. He finally speaks to Sarah Connor, whom he has searched for for so long, and not in a brief "am I hallucinating" life saving moment in a fire. He can even help saving her out of a temporary danger, and contribute to the destruction of one of her foes. But Sarah doesn't have any answers, doesn't appear to have a plan ("this is all there is, all I do") and the one harsh truth she offers is that the loss of his old life isn't much to her. Until then, Ellison has done some investigating on Weaver's behalf since she hired him, but I think this is where he emotionally signs on Team Weaver and commits himself, because Catherine Weaver does seem to have a plan of how to deal with the oncoming apocalypse.
This is also where Sarah reaches a breakdown point. Not the first; she's been on the run since she was 18, there were bound to be a few in between her stoicism, other than the one we saw in T2. But this is the first one we see on this particular show, and it comes when smashing Cromartie's chip. It's not Cromartie specifically - one more Terminator in a long line, and it will never stop - it is the fact that it WON'T stop, her fear of losing her son one way or the other, the increasing death tolls around her and that not killing (humans) seems less and less an option (Cromartie tells her he got her address from the one thief whose life she saved from Cameron). It's typical for the Connors that this is what triggers their reconciliation and hit happens in silence as John embraces her and holds her as she cries.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 11:21 am (UTC)*nods* Mind you, I suspect that part of the hostility towards Jesse early on is less due to an objection to her introduction on the grounds of sexualisation of a female character and more due to disappointed shipper rage, because quite a lot of S/D fics had been written during the hiatus, and I think as opposed to some 'ships, this was one where its partisans really expected the show to go there.
Complications is only the third episode Jesse appears in and already showcases both how ruthless and how traumatized she is, so the show goes on to point out there's more to her than Derek's love interest pretty quickly.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 03:36 pm (UTC)