Tag: Summer Glau (Page 2 of 4)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.10 – I am trying to break your heart

November 25, 2008 /

It’s one of those moves that we felt like we should have seen coming, though we had no way of knowing, because the writers were holding all the cards. And what few cards they played before tonight’s Big Reveal were blatant misdirections that make no sense in retrospect. You know, kind of like a “Saw” movie.

Jesse finally, allegedly, comes clean to Derek. She claims to be working for the resistance to keep John on the righteous path; Future John is apparently getting too close to Cameron, and behaving erratically. Jesse’s mission: seduce Present John into taking out Cameron with live bait…live bait named Riley. Of course. That’s why we never her saw her family before now – so we wouldn’t know she was a “foster child.” Pretty sneaky, sis.

Credit must be given to genius “Terminator” commenter Eddie Offerman – seriously, read his blog on transform matrices, it’ll make your head spin – who laid out his “splintered universe” theory of time travel as an explanation for Reese not remembering Charles Fischer while Jesse did. I wasn’t convinced at first (I’m a fan of Occam’s Razor, myself), but after Jesse’s comments to Derek this week, it makes sense. Take Cameron out in the past, and get your savior back. This assumes, of course, that Jesse is telling the truth about anything, which is a bet that I’m reluctant to take at the moment.

“Hey robot, is it possible to get a blood stain out of silk?”

But now I have a new question: if Jesse and Riley’s mission is successful, what happens when Future John meets Allison, the girl that the machines duplicated and then killed to create Cameron in the first place? Personally, I’m betting that Future John locks her away the second he meets her so that she never gets caught, since she would literally be his lost childhood in the flesh. Man, what kind of splinter in time would that create, and wouldn’t that screw up Future John even worse than having Cameron around? Also, what happens to the people in the future when one of their own is sent back to change an event? How is reality altered for them? Will John just suddenly start acting differently right before their eyes? Would Future Cameron disappear if she’s terminated in our time? Help us, Obi Wan Ken-Eddie. You’re our only hope.

I’m suddenly thinking of the episode where the Connors were robbed, and it was because Riley forgot to set the alarm. Did she really forget, or was that by design? Will they even make a mention of that incident once John discovers who she really is? And if Jesse is really still working for the resistance, then I’m still perplexed why Jesse killed Future Charlie last week instead of Present Charlie. She could have undone all kinds of hurt by letting Derek kill Present Charlie (or as my wife calls him, Warren, from his days on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) while he was young. She put on this big dog and pony show for Derek by kidnapping both Charlies, but in the end it looks as though she was protecting a bad guy. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, in Weaverville, our child psychiatrist is found dead after Babylon, renamed John Henry by Dr. Sherman, needed the alternate power during a blackout and inadvertently killed him. To me, Ellison’s comment that “something killed Dr. Sherman but it wasn’t John Henry” could be taken two ways. The obvious answer is that he meant that John Henry just wasn’t properly coded with ethics and morals – best line in the episode: “It runs on commands. Start with the first ten.” – but with the way that Catherine was detailing Dr. Sherman’s death as Ellison was watching the video, I couldn’t help but think that the lady doth protest too much. Maybe the camera footage is bogus, and Catherine killed him with her magic tongue of death, who knows. The important takeaway from Weaverville is that a resurrected Cromartie is now the spokesperson for John Henry. That’s just all kinds of wrong, right there.

Oh, one other thing: Sarah is losing her mind down a paranoid, “Beautiful Mind”-type rabbit hole. Do the three dots mean something, or were they just the last act of a man who was bleeding to death? The Connor’s bathroom mirror hopes they find the answer to that one sooner than later. And God only knows what Sarah would do to Riley if she were to discover Riley’s true intentions while in this “heightened” state. I’m not 100% sure how she’d react, but I’m betting it would look an awful lot like a “Saw” movie.

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.9 – Pleased to meet me

November 18, 2008 /

Is it wrong of me to think Sarah Connor’s doomsday nightmares are awesome? Seriously, is there anything cooler than a T-1000 cactus? Or Cameron breast-feeding a tortoise? If that is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.

As the producers of the show continue to treat the story arc like their private garden, planting seeds here and there – Cameron’s constant talk about her sensory perception, Sarah’s walking nightmares – they used this week’s main plot to explore two concepts of time travel that I’m not sure can peacefully coexist. Jesse captures a “Gray” (machine-assisting human) named Charles Fischer (Richard Schiff in a bit of inspired casting), but Derek doesn’t remember him. Jesse explains the relentless interrogation techniques Fischer used on his prisoners, and finally makes the big reveal that, dunt dunt duuuuuuunh, she knows this because Fischer used those techniques on Derek in the future, and Derek told her all about it.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

“All right, tell me right now what it’s like to win an Emmy. Tell me, damn it!”

Derek seems to think that the reason he doesn’t remember this is because the future she left behind is now different than the one he left behind, and he attributes the change to the various things he’s done in the present to undo Skynet’s evil scheme. It’s an interesting concept, but riddled with holes – does this mean his memory is just randomly erased when the future changes? – and leads me to think that there are two, far more likely explanations: either Derek has blocked the memory as a defense mechanism – Fischer did admit shortly before Jesse killed him that he knew who Derek was, and wondered how Derek didn’t recognize him – or Jesse is lying. Actually, both could be true.

Now here’s the part I’m having a reeeeeeeeaally hard time with. Future Fischer breaks into Present Fischer’s place of work and does all kinds of nasty computer stuff that lands Present Fischer in the slammer. Future Fischer explains, like some sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome, that he never would have survived Judgment Day had he not been in prison when it happened, implying that it is the return of Future Fischer that puts Present Fischer on the path to that prison cell to begin with. But is that even possible? The Connors change people’s futures all the time, but only certain aspects of it; the rest is still up to the individuals. Can someone travel back in time and put himself on the path to evil? And while we’re talking about the case against Present Fischer, are there no security cameras at this supposedly data-sensitive company where he works? Jeesh.

One last stating-the-obvious story problem this week: how the hell did John and Cameron not think to check Ellison’s trunk when they were looking for Cromartie? Heck, they didn’t even need to knock on the door. Just pop the trunk, take the body, and go. Surely Cameron would have thought of that, right? Sigh. I hate it when characters do everything but the one thing they’re most likely to do in real life.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, TV, TV Action, TV Sci-Fi

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.8 – You’ve got a different point of view

November 10, 2008 /

They got clever on us this week with “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”…or did they? Yes, the decision to tell the same story from multiple perspectives – think “Election,” only without the blowjobs, bee stings, and Ennio Morricone theme music used for comedic effect – was unlike anything “Terminator” has thrown at us to date, but there is one small problem with it. Unlike the great, great “Election,” every character in this “Terminator” episode has the exact same perspective. The title cards may have said “Sarah’s Story,” or “Cromartie’s Story” (which I will admit I found amusing that he merited his own bit), but the truth is there was only one perspective, and several different camera angles to that perspective.

For a moment, though, I thought I’d be calling this blog “The Death of Riley” (Lightning Seeds fans, all six of them, just nodded knowingly), because they seemed to be telegraphing her death from the moment we first see Riley and John on the bus. You’ll only bring her danger, Sarah warns him. You’re doing something stupid, Cameron warns him. It seemed tragic but fitting that John would take Riley somewhere in an attempt to escape the harsh realities of his life, only to get her killed in the process. But then my wife reminded me that this is the beginning of sweeps, and they’re probably saving Riley’s death for the end of sweeps. Fair enough.

Kiss me. Deadly.

The really funny part is that when Cameron commented about how dumb John was being – while on his bed with him and stripped down in her most fucktastic outfit to date, which makes me think my prediction that John and Cameron ultimately get it on is still in play – she had no idea exactly how dumb John was about to be. Running off with Riley is one thing, but John decides to take her to the one place on Earth where people might recognize him: the city in Mexico where he and his mom stayed for years. As Paul Reiser said in the classic Thanksgiving episode of “Mad About You,” that wouldn’t have been my first choice. And, of course, it ends poorly, with John and Riley getting arrested and ultimately showing up on the FBI’s radar, which brings Ellison into the mix. Ellison ultimately helps save John, but things will never be as easy for any of them again.

Will Ellison say anything to Catherine Weaver about the “death” of Cromartie? She’s been looking for Cromartie, after all, though we still don’t know why. Does she want his chip in order to assist the development of the AI program she’s working on? And will she vow revenge on the Connors now that Sarah has crushed that chip into dust? Will the showdown between Catherine and Sarah, like Cromartie’s death scene, be shot in a Mexican church like a Robert Rodriguez movie? Tune in next week to see if Skynet finally pushes the History Eraser button.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, TV, TV Action, TV Sci-Fi

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.6 – Girls ain’t nothing but trouble

November 3, 2008 /

The rest of the episode may have been of the now-standard, here’s-a-morsel-of-plot variety, but you can’t deny that that opening sequence, where Ellison comes face to face with an Ellison Terminator, was creepy good. Even better that Cromartie kills the Terminator (!) because he believes that Ellison will ultimately lead him to the Connors. Cromartie is like Ellison’s own personal Cameron, which is just too strange for words.

Cameron, ironically, is the one that gives Cromartie his first clue in ages as to the whereabouts of the Connors. Her photo is finally entered into the police database after her stint at the halfway house following her arrest. Cromartie hits the house for clues, and finds Cameron’s deadbeat jail buddy Jody, who’s naturally out for revenge after Cameron nearly killed her. Their back-and-forth had its moments (mainly when Cromartie said “I’m not a cop” in the most unconvincing way possible), but the bit where he shoved her out of the car was money. But wouldn’t a Terminator like Cromartie be programmed to kill Jody once he had no use for her? Just a thought.

Aisle 7: condiments, salad dressing, welfare cases, unstoppable killing machines.

The other woman in John’s life, schoolmate Riley, causes even more trouble for the Connors when she forgets to set the alarm on their place and they are robbed. Cash, jewels, fake IDs, even their food is stolen. Mama Bear is not happy, but must be doing jumping jacks on the inside, since she’s been looking for a reason to keep John away from Riley since the day they met (I’ve dated girls with mothers like Sarah, it isn’t pretty). They eventually get their stuff back – three thieves and a fence lose their lives as a result – but not without tipping off Cromartie yet again when one of the thieves tries to use one of the stolen credit cards. So there’s your life lesson, John Connor: bitches ain’t shit. Make sure you have your therapist on speed dial in the future.

Cromartie isn’t the only machine that’s protecting Ellison, though. Catherine Weaver cleverly bails Ellison out of a jam after he’s fingered for a murder committed by his Terminator doppelganger. So two machines are protecting Ellison, while one (so far) has tried to kill him. Does he wind up playing a role of Miles Dyson proportions when all is said and done? Perhaps, but for the moment, as Catherine deftly observed, Ellison is Job. That’s gotta suck.

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.6 – There must be something we can talk about

October 20, 2008 /

That sound of merriment you hear is the cast and crew of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” doing a happy dance upon receiving the news that their season has been extended by nine more episodes. If we’re lucky – and the producers are smart – they will take whatever episode they’re working on right now and make it the most ass-kicking, sexiest episode they’ve done to date. They seem to think they have all the time in the world to tell their story. They don’t. Give up the goods, or the machines win, and you don’t live to see Season Three.

John and Sarah uncover a name on Skynet’s hit list, and when they find him, they discover that…he’s a child psychologist. Why Skynet would want him is unclear, but Catherine Weaver could sure use his help, since daughter Savannah is scared to death of her “mother.” Curiously, they put John and Catherine in the same building in this episode, which makes me wonder: if she had made eye contact with him, would her CPU have told her to kill him? Catherine hasn’t shown the slightest interest in the whereabouts of the Connors yet. Does she know of them? She must, right?

Either way, the scene of Catherine doing a photo shoot was money. “Turn your head a quarter inch.” Whizz. “Perfect. Now another half inch.” Whizz. The way her face fell after the photographer gave up on trying to get a warmer smile from her was priceless – as was the therapist’s diagnosis of Cameron as having Asperger Syndrome – and her attempts to show warmth to Savannah were great in how difficult it is for her to show emotion in a convincing manner, which made it even sweeter that her pet AI project is starting to show some human tendencies as well, ignoring its task to throw riddles at the programmers. Catherine brings the therapist on board to consult with her “child” AI project, which now makes it unclear whether they wanted to kill the therapist (since he’s trying to help both John and Sarah with their issues) or use him to get their pet project off the ground. I’m sure we won’t see him again for another month, if we see him again at all.

“You want to know why I traveled back in time? Indoor plumbing. I haven’t taken a real shower in years.” Continue reading »

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