Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – The Good Wound
By Melissa Voelker
When we left our Connor Crew last year, they were fighting several bloody battles. Riley, John’s irritating and duplicitous girlfriend, had tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists on his bathroom floor. And being the young and foolish man in love that it doesn’t surprise me he turned out to be, he and Cameron rushed her off to the hospital. Sarah, meanwhile, was suffering bloody wounds of her own. After storming into a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, she found herself shot and falling mercy to whatever might happen to her once she passed out from pain and blood loss. It wasn’t as exciting a finale as the episode that ended Season 1, but it certainly left some questions for the first episode of this half of Season 2 to answer. Would Riley survive her life ending attempt? Would John pay the price for taking her to such a public place for help? And what would happen to Sarah, who found herself wounded and alone?
It didn’t take long for this episode to start answering questions. Riley did survive her suicide attempt, much to John’s relief and everyone else’s chagrin (the girl is IRRITATING). Derek isn’t too impressed with his nephew’s actions, as the cops will certainly be called in to take a statement from John and Riley on why she might have tried to hurt herself. The last thing any of them need is the cops poking their nosy noses into Connor Crew business. But John sticks to his decision, feeling it was better to save his girlfriend’s life and possibly attract law enforcement attention than to just let her die in a mess on their bathroom floor. While the boys are having a bit of a tiff at one hospital, Sarah wakes up at another hospital to find that she still has a bullet in her leg and some law enforcement of her own to deal with. Luckily she also seems to have a guardian angel, in the form of her long lost lover Kyle Reese, hovering over her and giving her advice. He urges her up and out of bed so that she can make a great escape before the cops start questioning her. But she still has a bullet in her leg that is causing her some trouble, so Sarah kidnaps a nice lady doctor from the middle of the hospital parking lot in broad daylight (great security they have there).
While the Connors deal with their own personal problems – suicidal girlfriends who suddenly go missing, evidence of Sarah’s actions that must be destroyed, imaginary baby daddyies, and a nasty bullet wound that isn’t going to just go away – Agent Ellison and Catherine Weaver get to deal with their own set of issues. John Henry, the childlike AI that is now inhabiting Cromartie’s body, has started asking questions and getting his own answers via the Internet. He may act like a little boy (just check out his collection of Lego Bionicle figures) but the information he is assimilating could still cause a lot of problems for his handlers. He has managed to pull up the entire history of his cyborg body, which doesn’t sit well with Ellison, and he has managed to figure out that Weaver is not who she says she is, and is in fact not even human. This sends her on a bloody killing spree, in true Terminator fashion, which she swears she is doing all for John Henry’s sake.
In the end Riley runs off with Jessie, Derek’s own duplicitous girlfriend, and Sarah manages to survive thanks to her imagined conversations with Kyle and some great surgical work by her kidnapped doctor. When Derek arrives to rescue her, Sarah is ready to go, though a little more gun play must occur first (as usual). Once again the Connor’s leave a trail of bullets and death behind them as they head out to try and solve the mystery of the warehouse where Sarah was injured. But unfortunately for them, Catherine Weaver got to it first, and there isn’t much left after she gets done destroying evidence of her own.
When I sat down to watch the premiere of the second half of this season, I was mentally prepared to be unimpressed. So far, unfortunately, I have been nothing but consistently disappointed in this show. From the ridiculous plot lines, to the unlikable characters, it has been a trial to sit and watch episodes week after week. So imagine my surprise when I not only really enjoyed this episode, but found it to be one of the best written and performed of the ENTIRE SERIES. There was no hinky time travel business going on, there was not yet another terminator popping up to try and kill anyone, and John wasn’t all that whiny. Instead this episode seemed to focus on the internal struggles of the characters. John is beginning to show his leader side, making decisions such as to take Riley to the hospital even though it could lead to questions and trouble later, and then sticking to that decision even in the face of Derek and Cameron’s obvious disapproval. And Sarah is showing her human side. She is wounded and weak and feels like she can’t make it anymore. The only thing that keeps her going is reaching out to a long dead man who she only knew and loved for a short time but who obviously meant something to her. So often Sarah seems like a one-dimensional character. She is all “fight fight fight” and never anything else. You know she loves her son, and wants to change the future, but you never get to see her really falter. In this episode she falters. There is a moment when she calls Derek to tell him she might not make it, the first time for her to admit such a thing, and though she cannot say the words he can tell that she is handing over responsibility of John to him. That is definitely a first. Up until now John’s survival has all been her responsibility and her burden and she was loathe to let anyone else in to help. This week she was finally able to admit her own weakness and fallibility and allow another to take a bit of her burden away from her. It was a really emotional moment, and I actually teared up a bit watching it.
The direction the writers are taking John Henry in is also interesting to watch right now. Each time we see him this week, he is playing with his Lego figures. He flies them around and moves their limbs and rattles off their little back stories (that come printed on the boxes – I happen to have a few Bionicle figures myself) just like a little boy would. But then he starts to share the information he has gathered from his searches on the Internet and he becomes a little scary. What would a little boy with that much knowledge do with it? Will he use it to bring down Agent Ellison, or Catherine Weaver? Will it help him to evolve into SkyNet and start the Robot War? Just what part does this AI really have to play in the future? For once I leave an episode intrigued and excited to watch the next one, and see what happens next.
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About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.
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I watched this ep to kill time before Dollhouse and was surprised about being drawn in. I can easily see John Henry becoming an integral part of Skynet, if not the hand that presses the button, perhaps based on a childish observation about humanity.
They REALLY need to place a moratorium on having any more time travelers show up.
Regardless of a hallucinatory Kyle, it was nice to see an episode that really had nothing to do with time travel. That said, though, I have been pleased to see them SOMETIMES explore some of the implications of time travel more thoughtfully than most time travel programs, such as having characters realize they're from different futures. You rarely see that outside of comics.
I, too, was quite pleased at the character development this week. The Connor/Reese clan is growing up at long last. It makes me kind of nervous about the inevitable fallout when they finally find out what Jessie and Riley are up to. And that would be… what, exactly? And why does it require Riley to have a bicurious crush on a clearly disdainful Jessie?
The robots still get the best comic relief lines, though. "I want to ask God why he didn't use more ball-and-socket joints in your design." ::snerk::
And good casting match with Jonathan Jackson as Kyle. I haven't seen him in a few years, but he does look a lot like Michael Biehn now.
I thought they did an excellent job of making the TV series Kyle look like the movie version. They even made sure he was wearing similiar clothing and had similar hair and facial features. The first time they showed Jonathan Jackson as Kyle I was unimpressed because he just looked way too young and babyfaced to me to believe he could be the same character as Michael Biehn played. But this time I felt differently about him. He did a good job, and I kinda hope they do a little more with him in future episodes.