Mark Watches ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’: S02E10 – Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point

In the tenth episode of the second season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, HOW IS ALL OF THIS HAPPENING? Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Too much, too much.

Three Dots

This show knows how to make me sad??? How? How can it keep doing this? At the end of the day, Sarah’s story just makes me horribly sad. She’s so desperate to help, to change the future, to protect her son, that she pursues a dead end so far that it ends up being a colossal waste of time. This is directly paralleled with Alex Akagi’s decisions in this episode, too, since both of them are parents who pursue safety for their own children, no matter the cost. Unfortunately, no one seems to have faith in Sarah. They’re not convinced that Dakara Systems is the next piece of the Skynet puzzle. Certainly, there are aspects that seem more than just coincidence, and the ties to the Army and AI systems are a little suspect. But without Cromartie’s body or the Turk (OH GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW CLOSE YOU ARE TO THOSE), there’s no real connection.

So we have to watch Sarah press onwards, arranging to give Akagi half a million dollars for a chip that ends up being a fake. And it sucks, because as Derek points out, sometimes they just get scammed. Hell, the Akagi story itself is pretty sad, too, since Alex just wanted to guarantee some safety for him and his son. But Sarah’s confrontation with Alex is so brutal and violent because – my guess – she uses it as a catharsis for her own frustration with the three dots. Alex just happens to be the easiest target. I don’t even think she was all that concerned with the money, you know? Still, there’s absolutely no progress made on Sarah’s dream. They’re right back at square one. Is it even “they” at this point, though? She’s the only one concerned about what the dots might mean. Oh god, WHAT IF IT’S NOTHING? Why must this show torment me?

Jesse / Riley

YOU. ARE. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME. Was I surprised that Jesse had come back for something related to John Connor? No, not at all. I saw the photos under her bed, I suspected as much. I was a little shocked by her purpose, but it makes sense that John would become close with Cameron. But how bad is it? Is it really so awful that she came back just to stop John becoming friends with Cameron? HOW??? HOW BAD IS IT?

All we’ve got to go on is her word. However, it has to be serious enough that she would bring back a partner to help her infiltrate John’s world. THAT PARTNER IS RILEY. AT NO POINT IN TIME DID I EVER SUSPECT THAT SHE WAS A PLANT OR A MOLE OR A SPY AND I’M SO MESSED UP. I kept predicting that her relationship with John couldn’t end well, BUT IT WASN’T BECAUSE SHE WAS A GIANT SECRET. As if this isn’t fucked up enough, Riley is struggling with her duplicity, enough that she’s starting to question whether she can stand to live in a world that isn’t a constant hellscape. That scene with her foster mom is just so gut-wrenching because like John, like Sarah, and like most of these characters, Riley has no one to talk to about what she’s going through. Jesse isn’t exactly the most supportive person here; she’s more interested in Riley completing her mission than any personal issues Riley’s going through. So I think that Riley’s last scene in “Strange Things Happen…” is meant to convey that she’s just accepted her job, and that’s it. She can’t go back, and she can’t escape. This is now her life.

Ellison

This man has to be questioning what he’s gotten involved with at this point. The death of Dr. Sherman (NO NO NO THIS ISN’T FAIR) is clearly the start of something horrible. Is this it? Is Catherine Weaver the one responsible for Skynet? All of the signs are pointing to this, and it’s terrifying. I mean, let’s talk about the Turk, which has advanced to the point that it’s able to create new rules by which it follows. It’s fascinating to see how Ellison uses his experience as a detective to determine exactly what happened to cause Dr. Sherman’s death. Well, they all know that the Turk cut power from all other systems to cool itself (which is evidence of a sense of self-preservation), but how aware was it?

The unsettling truth that Ellison uncovers is that the Turk knew that Dr. Sherman was in that room; the Turk knew that cutting power to that room killed Dr. Sherman; and the Turk simply cannot care. It doesn’t possess the ability to moralize or judge ethical decisions. It’s a pure mathematical machine. So Catherine Weaver asks Ellison to teach it ethics??? WHICH WOULD SERVE WHAT PURPOSE? Y’all, I am so eternally confused by what she’s trying to do, but I’m going to suggest that REVIVING CROMARTIE’S BODY AND PUTTING THE TURK INTO IT IS A HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD IDEA. LIKE THE WORST IDEA. Ellison, what the FUCK are you going to do with this? How could you help her? Certainly you’re aware that this might end up guaranteeing the future apocalypse? WHO KNOWS????

This show is destroying me.

The video for “Strange Things Happen at the One Two Spot” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

 

About Mark Oshiro

Perpetually unprepared since '09.
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