Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles“The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short”
Original Air Date – Oct 20, 2008
Tara – TwoCents Staff Writer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
This week's episode is all about the collateral damage of war. Sure, the actual war may be in the future, but the victims of that war are suffering in the present. John has reached his stress limit and may or may not have tried to kill himself in this episode. Meanwhile, Catherine finds a counselor for her AI. That'll end well. There is good news though, a full season of episodes for the show has been ordered! Yay!
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[photo: FOX]
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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
ReplyDelete“The Tower is Tall But the Fall is Short”
Original Air Date – Oct 20, 2008
Tara – TwoCents Staff Writer
tara@thetwocentscorp.com
This week's episode is all about the collateral damage of war. Sure, the actual war may be in the future, but the victims of that war are suffering in the present. John has reached his stress limit and may or may not have tried to kill himself in this episode. Meanwhile, Catherine finds a counselor for her AI. That'll end well. There is good news though, a full season of episodes for the show has been ordered! Yay!
In tonight’s episode, Team Connor is following up on another name from the Future Wall: Dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman turns out to be a child psychologist who used to treat military vets. To get more information, Team Connor goes to family counseling. It's actually pretty funny if you look at it from Dr. Sherman's perspective. John acts like a veteran of a war; Sarah acts like an overbearing mother; and Cameron acts like a...well...machine. Dr. Sherman decides that he wants to see them individually, and before Sarah can nix that idea, John agrees.
They aren't Dr. Sherman's only clients this week, though. Catherine Weaver has also decided that the real Catherine Weaver's daughter, Savannah, needs some therapy. This is after Savannah pees her pants rather than sit next to Catherine on the couch. I can't say I really blame the child. Catherine may well be the creepiest terminator ever.
Dr. Sherman decides that Savannah is afraid of losing her mother as well as her father. It's a logical diagnosis, if you don't know the whole killer machine background. He suggests that Catherine try to bond with her daughter, which she successfully does. Honestly? I'm not quite sure why Catherine bothered fixing things with Savannah. I was expecting her just to kill the little kid or send her away to school or something.
Impressed by Dr. Sherman's techniques, Catherine hires him to help her real child: the AI unit that she's building. It seems that the AI has stopped working and just keeps flashing random pictures instead. She calls in Dr. Sherman and he quickly realizes that the AI unit is telling a joke.
Why are math books so sad?
Because they have so many problems.
Yep, it's a silly joke, but it means that the AI has acquired a sense of humor. Really? Do they program that out of Skynet eventually, because mass murder isn't really a laugh riot...or maybe it is in the robot world. Catherine asks Dr. Sherman to continue helping her as a consultant. He agrees. Oh dear.
Meanwhile, John is basically wigging out. He keeps flashing back to Sarkissian holding him and Sarah hostage. He even goes to Dr. Sherman and starts to talk about it, but stops himself.
Cameron is actually worried about John, especially when John has an "accident" when cleaning his gun. An "accident" that results in a burn on his face. She tries to warn Sarah that this could the first stop on the road to suicide, but Sarah refuses to listen. It's not until Dr. Sherman tells her that John reminds her of a Vietnam veteran (Sarah's father was a vet) that she tells Dr. Sherman that John killed Sarkissian. At least, that's the implication. We see John strangling Sarkissian, but Sarah doesn't actually speak.
In other news, Derek's girlfriend, Jesse, is visiting from the future. She admits that she's gone AWOL, because she's had enough of the war and all the "metal" that John Connor has around. Derek is, at first, appalled that a soldier would quit, but eventually he ends up sleeping with her. We learn that Derek nearly killed himself and that Jesse stopped him. That made me like Jesse until we discover that Jesse has been watching John and Derek. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that’s not good.
Skynet sends another terminator from the future. Okay. Enough with the constant stream of visitors from the future. I mean, really. It's getting to be as easy as buying a bus pass.
Anyway, the new terminator kills Dr. Sherman's receptionist and then arrives at work to take her place. Unfortunately for her, Cameron is heading into the office at the same time and when they both arrive at the same office, Cameron decides that it's time to take the other terminator down. What follows is probably the funniest terminator-on-terminator fight so far. Cameron wins by turning the other terminator into a pretzel and shoving the terminator's black stiletto heels in her eye. Ew.
Cameron brings the dead terminator back to John where he determines that her chip is different. He can't reprogram it or get information from the chip. It would seem that Skynet has a new, impenetrable design. Uh oh.
I thought this was a good episode. The fight scene was hilarious and it was nice to see the ramifications of living this lifestyle hitting John--in a non-whiny way.
What did you think? Is Jesse trouble for John? It sounds like the war is not going well in the future. Do they need to stop with the fast-track train from the future? Let me know! Write your Two Cents below.
I totally agree about Catherine being one of the creepiest terminators ever.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the terminator Cameron killed (in what was a pretty funny fight) was sent to kill (1) Dr. Sherman for helping John (2) Dr. Sherman for working for Catherine, (3) John, or perhaps even (4) Catherine or (5) Savannah? Hmmmm...
And I was happy to see Derek's girlfriend - that actress rocked in in Battlestar Gallactica: Razor! Yay!
That's where I know her from! Thank you. She was so familiar, but I couldn't place her.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I think the terminator was sent to protect Dr. Sherman or at least to get some information from him. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of killing the receptionist and then posing as a sub?