In the second episode of the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a Resistance fighter brings information, John tests his mother, and Ellison reaches out. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of cancer.
This was a solid episode, one that was definitely already facing a challenge after following “Samson & Delilah,†but I’m pleased with the number of things that Natalie Chaidez’s script sets up for future episodes. LET’S DISCUSS.
Ellison
I do find myself wishing that Ellison had a larger part here, but at least we’ve got a major loose end tied up in this episode. Ellison is still very much a drifter. He’s got his faith, and that’s about it. He has no other purpose as of yet because he doesn’t know what his purpose can be. So he goes, once again, to the only person he can actually talk to, and he does the only thing he can: he warns them about Cromartie, who is very much alive and may take out any of them to get to the Connors. There’s a sad parallel between what the Dixons go through and what the Connors go through: both of them are uprooted by the truth. John and Sarah are just more familiar with it. But it seems that once anyone learns about the horrible fate of the human race, they’re destined to start running. Hell, even Ellison’s life is already in shambles.
It’s inevitable, isn’t it?
John Connor
See, this is the sort teenage rebellion I thought it would be interesting for the show to explore, given John’s age. He’s smarmy, he’s difficult, he’s rebelling against his mother, he’s desperately trying to establish his own identity separate from her, and he’s clinging to the slightest sense of normalcy he can find. The show ramps up the awkwardness the entire time, of course, since John has literally no experience here. He’s never dated anyone; he’s never brought a friend over to spend time with him; he’s frightened of his mother’s reaction to him defying her. (HOLY SHIT, CAN I EVER RELATE TO THIS, SINCE THIS IS LITERALLY MY WHOLE EXPERIENCE AS A TEENAGER.)
I like Riley, and I’d love to see more of her, but I need her to have her own story aside from helping John develop as a character. What’s her family like? Why does she behave as she does? What inspires her to skip class as often as she does? MORE RILEY, SHE’S GREAT.
The Resistance
As distressing as the thought is, I liked that “Automatic for the People†highly suggests the unending futility of the war against the machines. It’s clear that the Resistance fighter (WHERE DID HE COME FROM, WHY WAS HE SHOT BEFORE HE MADE IT THROUGH) brought with him a framing device for this season, one that’s dearly exciting to me. There’s a lot of potential for both serialization and self-contained stories in that list of names and places and dates, and I think this episode was almost like a teaser for that. Here, with limited information, Sarah, Cameron, and Derek must… well, that’s part of the challenge. They’re given a name, a location, and a target of “two days.†That’s it. It’s infuriatingly ambiguous, but Derek and Cameron at least have enough knowledge of future events (their past??? oh god time travel HELP) to understand the importance of the Serrano Point Nuclear Power Plant.
I thought it was a little cheesy that Cameron and Sarah so easily got jobs within the power plant, and some of the details of their infiltration are shaky at best. But I was willing to overlook those because of the story that was ultimately told through these characters. Sarah’s fear about her cancer is ignited after an employee retaliates against her snooping and she has to start wondering if this moment – her time in the power planet – is what inevitably gives her cancer. It’s such an agonizing story because, like their fight against Skynet, Sarah can never truly know if she can change the future or her own timeline. If she really dies in 2005, what does her trip to 2007 mean? She’s already passed that year, so does that mean she changed the timeline? Or does it just mean her inevitable death will be moved 8 years in the future to 2013? Is she really a ticking time bomb, her own cancer inescapable? (Why is it that Cameron asks Sarah the same question? Cameron’s behavior in this episode is WEIRD AS FUCK, y’all. What’s going on with her?)
These questions are also important because of that UNREAL reveal at the end of the episode. Despite that they all saved the power planet from destruction and closure, Catherine Weaver swoops in to control it all at the last minute. Y’all, she’s not even on their radar at this point. SHE’S NOT! They aren’t even looking for her, and she’s busy collecting all the pawns to create and control Skynet, and IT’S JUST SO UPSETTING. I mean, she looks fabulous while doing it, but STILL. STILL.
ARRRGGGGHHH.
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The video for “Automatic for the People†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
