I love you, You love me...[let's gang up and shoot Barney]

[marguerite_krux]

Finally, I get to see the first ep of the new seasons of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I have to say, while I’m not obsessed with it, I certainly am a tiny bit hooked. Ok, it has a ton of plot holes, but I enjoy picking the eps to pieces. It's fun when they're imperfect and you get to nitpick every minor flaw. Heh. >:]


As usual, it’s the women that keep me interested in the show. Weird, that.

 

I wonder if the writers picked the music and then wrote the scene around it. I mean, it is so perfect and so portentous- ‘if I had my way, I’d burn this whole building down’- it’s uncanny. Kudos for that, and also for showing the flashbacks during which Cameron was bombed from her POV. I’m so sick of other shows doing flashbacks by using stock footage because they’re cheap and lazy and have no initiative instead of shooting it from new angles to match it to the particular character’s POV. I was expecting them to have the flashback show us exactly what we saw in the season finale, just the car blowing up, but they were cool and went beyond that to make an authentic Cameron view of the whole incident.

I love Cameron. She is so cool. In the third Terminator movie, it killed me that the main villain was this badass chick who whumped on Arnie like nobody’s business. It was really just…sad and majorly tragic. But now in this series, we get a stunning robo-girl who is fierce in the Tyra Banks meaning of the word as well as kick-ass capacity. I just wish she’d display more personality- what is it with females doing a 180 degree flip in the personality stakes between pilots and the rest of the series? *coughs* Samantha Carter *coughs*

Scene of chaos and bloodshed at the Connors’ not-so-secure residence.

I have to say this, much as it pains me- Cameron isn’t going to be a standout in the genius department, I mean, the girl needs to wise up a bit. In the opening scenes of the second season, she grabs a bad guy and bashes him against walls til he falls unconscious. What is wrong with simply snapping his neck? She’s a machine, not a tenderhearted romance novel heroine, isn’t she supposed to be governed by efficiency and expedience? Bouncing him off walls wastes time. Not to mention causes kerosene to spill everywhere.





Which brings me to my second quibble- Cameron is smart enough to know that leaving fire free and untended is a serious health issue, considering that there’s kerosene gushing out of suspiciously loosely capped bottles [I see gravity has learned how to twist caps open while things fall down], and a few barrels marked ‘flammable- keep fire away’ sitting around. They say it’s dumb to leave an enemy at your back, well, I’m sure that applies to leaving a fire with immense destructive potential behind you. That was the reason she lost her prey, because she wasn’t thinking in the long-term. Moron. I could cut her some slack because her chip integrity was compromised, but this is the kind of dumbass stunt she’s been pulling throughout the whole first season, so…I’ll stick with brutal criticism.

I have a question- did Cameron really need to steal that random baddie’s gun? Can’t she reform her arm into this super duper machine gun of doom? She’s supposed to be more advanced than all the other Terminators, isn’t she? Or because the third movie hasn’t happened- and will now be excluded from canon, I guess; too bad for John’s romance with Kate- does that mean she’s not as advanced as the blonde Terminator? Sucky.



Oh noes! The tension! The unbearable suspense! Will she kill him?
Pfft. Like THAT was ever going to happen. The leading man  boy of the show cannot be killed off so easily.





Whoops! Next time put out the fire first, Cammy! This could have been avoided.

Sarah Connor is so pretty.



I appreciate her beauty in a purely aesthetic chocolate-box pretty kind of way, though. It’s not like with Laura Roslin or Elizabeth Weir where society in general may not recognize or celebrate their beauty because it doesn’t fit the current standards- I still remember the hateful comments on GW during an ‘SGA beauties’ poll where all these idiots were paying out Torri for being second and implying she was ugly *spits on them* You look at Lena Headey and 9 out of 10 people will declare her stunning. Her character does not add to or detract from that description, probably because the show is mainly about action and intrigue and only a tiny bit about her mental state or personality.

However, with Roslin and Weir, my perception of their gorgeousness increases a hundredfold for little things like a sarcastic comment they make or a tough decision between two evils they’re forced to choose between or a small gesture Weir makes with her eyebrow:



or whenever Roslin crosses her legs, lol:

On the run in one of the many cars that will be trashed during this episode.

Anyway, Sarah’s physical appeal aside, I must say that she is the worst driver in the world [until I’m forced to get my license anyway]. If the Terminators don’t kill John, she will in some car accident some day.



Poetic justice- the woman meant to nurture him and raise him to be the leader of the rebel resistance is responsible for his death. Well, it’ll never happen in the series because they don’t do pointless deaths for the protagonists, but if we were operating by RL rules, he’d be dead due to her driving a million times over.  Really, how hard is it to keep your eye on the road and observe the basic road rules so as not to attract attention from the police, not to hurt innocent bystanders [what’s the point of saving the world if your negligent driving has offed everyone in the meantime?], not to damage the vehicle that was your ticket to escaping a damaged machine bent on homicide, and to avoid leaving a wide trail of destruction by which your enemies can track you? Yes, overprotective mom tendencies are very hard to switch off, but you could have gotten him killed by focusing on him instead of your driving!

[I find the parallel amusing- in the second movie, John thought that his mother was worried about him as they were escaping and she was practically hugging him but it turned out she was just checking for weapons or something, right? [Right?] And he was so hurt that she was all focused on the mission rather than his wellbeing, poor baby. Now here she is, fretting over him and he's too cool to give a damn.]

 

Although I suppose I could blame John for being an emo!whiny!brat and sulking in the passenger’s seat instead of answering his frantic mother’s questions about his wellbeing. I have to say, one of the least appealing features of this show is John Connor, younger version of the future hero of the resistance movement himself. He sulks and whinges all the time, gets into trouble when they need to keep a low profile, fails to take even basic precautionary measures to protect him and those with him, refuses to gain any shred of maturity and dignity and just basically screws up ALL THE FRAKKING TIME. Hero my ass. If I knew the future of my people depended on me, hell yeah, I’d be depressed and resentful and all that, but I’d inflict on people in non-emergency situations when they aren’t trying to save my life because I’m too lazy and unmotivated to do a damn thing about it. And I wouldn’t go out purposefully courting trouble because I want to have a social life or be a ‘normal’ teen or whatever crap. [Um, yes, there are lingering issues with John’s behavior in the first season as you can gather, since in this ep, he didn’t do enough to earn this vitriolic spray on his behavior]

Kyle reminds me of Ronon Dex. The ‘point weapons at people in a threatening manner first and ask questions later’ type, whose solution is always violence even if the likelihood of surviving is zilch, who forms snap opinions of people and stubbornly refuses to adapt to new situations or accept changes of heart by people they don’t trust even when the only alternative is certain death, because the code is all ‘death before dishonor’. I’m mentally flexible- if I’m going to die and someone I regard as the enemy offers a way out, I go along with it til I’m out of danger and then figure out what to do from the position of being alive and well, you know? I hate guys like Kyle and Ronon who waste time asking stupid questions like ‘how do I know I can trust you?’ and making life difficult for others who just want to survive the day by being snarly and grouchy and pouting like little kids.



Ouch. How nasty does that look? I love how this girl is so uncaring of her looks. I don't think the use of nail guns to treat wounds will ever catch on in human society, efficient though it may be.



Tracker!Cameron is tracking...

Plan of Doomed to Failure



Sarah and John appropriate a church to carry out their dastardly plan, ruining this family's christening. They left with remarkable calm and grace. My family would've kicked up a major fuss if someone pulled a stunt like this on us.

Given that the ep does not only have five minutes to go, this plan to redeem Cameron through fiddling with her chip cannot, by the laws of tv, succeed. It would be anti-climactic. They need to be sooo close to success only to have it snatched away in order to remind us of how high the stakes are and how difficult this all is in order to give us a new appreciation for the heroism of our protagonists.



Poor Cameron is blown up twice in the same day. It is still the same day, right? Within the same 24 hour period, at any rate. It was such an obvious trap, she kinda deserved it. But oh, what trauma that chip must be sustaining right now.



Lurking in the wings, mother and son rush in where angels fear to tread when Cameron is finally incapacitated. But that 'two minute reboot' is a bitch when you lack the necessary tools to hack her programming and make her, you know, not want to kill you. Le sigh.



This priest is SO never going to offer aid to anyone in trouble again. He just wanted to help two wounded people and now they're cutting into the brain of what looks to be an innocent teenage girl. What nightmares this dude is going to suffer.



We're so screwed Part 14685948957.

John handles his anger and resentment in a calm, rational, productive way.

I lie.



Nothing says 'I hate the idea of killing my pretty cyborg companion who was sent back in time to protect me, insinuated herself into my life and became a vital element to my mental health and wellbeing but now she wants to terminate me and we need to take her out but I'm SO GODDAMN PISSED OFF AT HOW LIFE SCREWS ME OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN' like stabbing a knife into a wooden board. Your local florist could never convey that message with flowers.



Poor Sarah. What did she do to deserve being the mother of a super emo kid and having to whip him into shape so he can save mankind? She can't even stomach the thought of being cruel to be kind when it comes to him and he so badly needs it.



Abandoned area with no inconvenient witnesses around.




Another one bites the dust! To be fair, it wasn't really Sarah's fault, though.



Srsly, how does she look so pretty even when bruised and bleeding? Me on my best day cannot even compare to her on her worst. How unfair is life? >:[



And Sarah gets whumped. Again. I don't know who gets it worse on this show, her or Cameron. I mean, in terms of what they go through, Cameron getting blown up surely wins. But in terms of suffering, well, a human in pain beats a cyborg, no?

How about we beat up on John now? Pretty please?



Don't you love the female friendship on this show? Aww, heartwarming.

Seriously, Cameron. ‘Call to him,’ she says to Sarah. Um, isn’t voice mimicry a standard part of your programming? Is this wtf-ery supposed to be attributed to your chip malfunctioning or are the writers just slipping up on continuity and proof-reading again? Who do we blame for this?

Cameron makes Sarah scream through the simple and effective method of causing her pain but John, rather awesomely, keeps running. HA. The kid is showing some sign of intelligence and character growth! He’s not stupidly returning to surrender and make her sacrifice meaningless. I might just like you yet, boy.

Once again Cameron’s compassionate nature or perhaps tunnel vision, take your pick, intervenes and instead of killing Sarah, she tosses her aside carelessly without bothering to administer a more permanent solution to the problem of a woman who has shown a determined and suicidal tendency to take on Terminators to save her kid. I mean, it doesn’t take a supercomputer to figure out that killing this woman would make the task of tracking and terminating John Connor a heck of a lot easier but hey, Cameron’s the new model of sensitivity and kindness and second chances, so she leaves Sarah behind.

Warehouse.

Cameron stalks John. This could be a show of So You Think You Can Dance, considering that their latest season was totally the Season of Deranged Psycho Ex-girlfriends.



Behold, the stick legs of DOOM.



'Come out, come out, wherever you are...'

Sarah slams a truck into her.



Yay for hardcore!Sarah. At least she's capable of doing what's gotta be done, no matter how unpleasant. Her only weakness is her son, no matter what, she won't abandon him, but considering he's like, the savior of humanity, you can understand that.



Oh,  a Cameron sandwich! Yummy...

John wibbles at the prospect of killing his bestest friend...



...especially when she guilt-trips him into hesitating after babbling that ‘I’m good now, I’m fixed now, I ran a test, everything’s perfect, you can trust me, I love you’ *flails* *retches* *scratches out writer’s eyes* but in a moment of maturity, he does the right thing and de-chips her. Of course, he loses this credibility and what little respect I gained for him later on in the ep but for the moment, let me celebrate this temporary override of the childish irresponsible brat within him. He was so grown-up in this moment. *sighs* Look, it’s not that I want Cameron to die, I just wish her survival didn’t hinge on a kid’s ill-advised attachment to her programmed killer self.

The aftermath.

The guys have turned up when all the fun is over, demonstrating how useless they are to this series.

Kyle: You guys cut a pretty serious path of destruction across the city.

Sarah: Wasn’t us.

I CALL BULLSHIT. WTF? WTF? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? OMG WHAT A LIAR.

So the bad guys blew Cameron up, and she in turn was responsible for the house burning down… but SARAH was the one that caused multiple traffic accidents with her inability to focus on the road and her evasive driving and her running across streets without looking left and right, because she expects the cars to part before her like the Red Sea before Moses, if I have my religious references straight. Aiyiyi.

Of course, maybe I’m misreading her tone. Maybe that was deeply concealed sarcasm, kind of a ‘who, us? We never get into trouble’ innocence. But I’m not convinced; if that was the intent, Lena did not sell the line.

John’s bubble of woe and self-pity.

I’m so tired of this ‘they’re dead because of me’ crap. Is it a pre-requisite for being a hero? Adama beats himself up, cries himself to sleep and can sometimes barely function through his grief and guilt and self-recriminations, and he’s widely loved or at least respected, man of the people. Roslin is tough and hard-core and faces down the worst possible decisions and chooses to do what is hard and difficult and soul-destroying because it’s what’s necessary to ensure her people’s survival…and she’s left on her own, no cheering crowds for her, but there’s a hefty group of people out there who hate her guts and want to see her down and out. I don’t get it.

John wanting Cameron back is selfish and childish and wussy-ish in the extreme. It is absolutely different from Shep with Elizabeth, in her human form or as Asura!beth, because whether she is flesh-and-blood or nanite or a composite of both, her fundamental character is the same. She loves them the same, she dies for them the same, no matter what form she’s in. Cameron? She was programmed from the start to be humanity’s enemy, then reprogrammed to help defend it, then she was damaged and reverted to her original native state which is focused on destroying mankind. There is no correlation between her and Elizabeth. Cameron his friend never really existed, her attitude to him swings on the programming of her chip. His life or death means little to her, it doesn’t personally affect her; it’s all just a mission, nothing more. Just because she saved him a few times doesn’t mean he owes her anything, she wouldn’t think that he owed her, she wouldn’t feel betrayed or hurt. Acting like she was his friend and they had a bond and that he’s honor-bound to save her is a shallow justification to cover the fact that he is like a child with a favorite teddy bear that he won’t give up, no matter how tattered and ratty-looking it is, even if its stuffing is hanging out and it’s falling to bits, but it represents security and comfort and safety and he won’t give it up, so he clings to Cameron, which could be regarded as sweet and adorable except his naiveté, his ego and self-indulgence could hand victory over to the machines and he needs to GROW THE FRAK UP.



Just like Sleeping Beauty. So innocent and fragile...hehe, NOT.



Super fake out. I have to give credit to him for this, he sure fooled the adults into thinking he was cool with killing Cameron. Why can't he harness his powers for GOOD rather than endangering the future of humanity? But he's achieved his short-sighted objective:

She's ALIVE. *gasps* How entirely shocking and unpredictable! Who saw THIS coming?! I am astounded at their clever twists. /sarcasm.

Gods, John pisses me off so badly. Anyway, what I want to know is- did he actually fix her or was she telling the truth earlier and she was fixed back then without his intervention? We see him in the truck, cleaning out her chip:



but I don’t think he had the tech-savvy to actually repair her…right? That’d be a bit much to swallow. But the idea that she was telling the truth earlier is also hard to believe because seconds before her touching admission of love for John *CRIZ AT EPIC LAMENESS* she was standing right in front of his truck and threw something heavy at his head, obviously in an attempt to kill him.





So what, did the impact of Sarah’s truck smashing her against John’s truck jiggle something in her head, cure her of the programmed desire to seek John’s death? Seriously? I could see how the explosion and shrapnel in her head combine to make her default to her original programming, but I don’t see how being trapped between two trucks- without suffering a head injury, her head was not damaged in this little collision- could restore her more recent reprogramming.

Does. Not. Compute.



'k, so she doesn't want to kill him anymore. It's not like it was her decision, it was her programming, goddamnit! That's not romantic at all! [Not like in Wall.E when Eve overrides her directive regarding the stupid plant in order to stay with Wall.E in his time of need. Aww!]

Btw, my opinion on the whole ‘not killing John after he hands her a gun’ thing?



Totally undeserving of warm and fuzzies. It’s not like she decided she wasn’t going to kill him, it was the way the frakking chip in her head telling her that inflicting death was not her mission. This proves nothing about Cameron except that her programming [gods, I want to shoot myself for typing that so many times] is currently on the side of the angels. It says nothing about her personally, not about her character or emotions or anything. I can’t stress that enough. She’s liable to take a bump on the head the next day and wind up pulling a gun on him again.

You know, I get that this kid is destined to become the leader of the human resistance but frak that, right now he’s just a stupid selfish little kid. He gets off on trading against that future eminence when he’s done nothing so far to deserve anywhere near the level of trust and confidence that others have put in him. Letting him keep Cameron as a tame pet Terminator was a damn foolish and weak decision on everyone else’s part. Yes, I blame him for doing it, but I also blame the others for not instilling boundaries, because he needs to be shown he can’t get away with endangering the future of humanity on a gamble. And now he’s acting like he won something, when Cameron’s current loyalty to him is a double-edged sword waiting to repay his trust in bloodshed at some future date.

Safe house. For now.

Cameron is broodingly contemplating religion when Sarah comes up to her in search of John who is apparently in the shower. Boooring. I like that Cameron asks her whether she believes in the resurrection of Jesus [Sarah does not].





I don’t know what she’s thinking, except maybe how it mirrors her unlikely resurrection. I mean, her fate lay in the hands of people who should have killed her for the greater good, but she was brought back, and maybe she’s wondering whether her return bodes well or evil for their cause.

This is one of the softest looks I've ever seen Sarah give Cameron. Sweet! She's finally warming up to the friendly cyborg!

‘Don’t let him do that again. If I go bad again, don’t let him bring me back.’

*exchange of serious glances*

 

*bounces* *shimmers* *GLEES*

THAT right there is why I am back in love with Cameron. Because she is smart and canny and she knows the score. It’s a bad risk-reward situation, the price could be too high if things go wrong the next time his judgment is impaired. She’s no Roslin or Weir, nowhere near their awesomeness, because she is a machine and it’s not like she’s pushing aside human emotion and sensibilities to make that kind of call, but I can’t penalize her for it all the time. I am bubbling over with goodwill toward her now. *wriggles*



This breaks my heart. She is so strong and yet when it comes to her son, she is utterly laid open and vulnerable.

I wish John could treat his mother with half the respect and affection he shows Cameron, who can’t appreciate it anyway. He was willing to sacrifice all their lives on the off chance that she wouldn’t kill them all, but he can’t even thank Sarah for bringing him food and clothing. Ungrateful brat. He takes and he takes from her but he can’t give back.



For he is preoccupied with himself as usual. Is this supposed to be a metaphor for growth and maturity right here? Cutting his hair? Ushering in the new improved adult!John Connor? *bursts out laughing* LAME.

Men’s room.

Ohhhh, great. The weird-accented redhead with the hunched shoulders [or maybe that’s due to her high necked shirt giving the impression of bad posture] is a Terminator. A hard-core badass female model. She’s so going to bash up Cameron, damn it. Just when my girl looked like she was back to ruling the roost, she’s been upstaged. Grr.

I have to ask why she was posing as a urinal, though. How did she know her target was going to come in just then, to that particular stall? How did she know he would be alone, with no witnesses to his untimely death?

And how long was she waiting for him anyway? If some dude came in just before the one marked for death [Tuck?] and…*ahem* used the facilities, where did the…um, urine…go? *scrunches face* Goddamn, that’s nasty.

I wonder if this one is making use of her emotional faculties. I mean, she seemed resentful with the dude for calling her nasty names behind her back. And she took satisfaction in killing him. I mean, that little quip of ‘I’m sorry I piss you off. The feeling’s mutual’ was just dripping with malevolent pleasure.

It’s interesting that earlier she was pretty much badmouthing computers- ‘give it a set of rules, and it will follow them…they are obedient to a fault…it’s rare to find one that will cross over…’ The feeling I got from that was disdain- I wonder if she’s trying to defeat her own programming? Huh. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, though. Maybe it was admiration, but her accent threw me off. WHY does she have an accent?

The plot thickens indeed. I have to wonder why the bad Terminators come back and establish themselves in human society so smoothly- the guy has a wife, for goodness sake, and the chick is the head of a successful corporation. Why can’t Cameron have similar success and power and prestige? They could do so much with resources like that.

Comments

[irony-rocks.livejournal.com]

Hey,

I was just going through friends' friends page, and ran across this. Awesome. I love the analysis, and especially agree about the Sarah, Elizabeth and Roslin descriptions. Especially the notes about the beauty (as defined by society) standards.

Also, all the pictures were very pretty. ;)

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I was just going through friends' friends page

Wow! Where do you find the time?! *envies* I barely have time to do justice to the people on my flist, let alone explore friends' friends pages...I firmly believe there should be a special pocket in the space/time continuum for LJers, like, for every hour of earth time, there is a corresponding hour to take care of journal posts and comments and all, lol. *daydreams*

I love the analysis, and especially agree about the Sarah, Elizabeth and Roslin descriptions. Especially the notes about the beauty (as defined by society) standards.

Yay! I wasn't sure if I really made sense there- with some people, it's kinda like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' but with others, society has made a pact that THESE features/characteristics when put together are considered beautiful and interpretation isn't required. Anyway. /analysis

I study sociology so I'm always interested in looking at how society constructs things, lol.

Also, all the pictures were very pretty. ;)

Glad you appreciated them, that was my whole reason for posting this! I had no intention of picspamming the ep, but ten minutes into it, I was thinking 'damn, they're so pretty, I HAVE to cap them' and then the commentary followed automatically. As you can tell, I'm wayyy too talkative. ;P