{"id":4350,"date":"2015-01-06T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=4350"},"modified":"2015-01-07T12:02:49","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T20:02:49","slug":"mark-watches-the-sarah-connor-chronicles-s02e14-the-good-wound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2015\/01\/mark-watches-the-sarah-connor-chronicles-s02e14-the-good-wound\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’: S02E14 – The Good Wound"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fourteenth episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0The Sarah Connor Chronicles<\/i>, I honestly can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fathom how amazing this show has gotten. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0The Sarah Connor Chronicles<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of suicide, domestic abuse, body horror\/blood\/gore.<\/b><\/p>\n

You know, I found it challenging to talk about\u00c2\u00a0The Sarah Connor Chronicles<\/i> over the holiday week. A lot of people, particularly those I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen in some time, were curious what I was writing about. (And yes, a good deal of my close friends don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually read my stuff with any consistency. It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother me, and I usually find it refreshing since I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0have<\/i> to talk shop with them.) It was fairly easy to gush about things like\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i> or to groan and hold my head in my hands when I talk about how\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i> has pulled me in without any care in the world. But then I would say that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching\u00c2\u00a0this<\/i> show, one no one has apparently seen, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hear the same thing: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How can you have a whole show about the Terminator movies?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

You have no idea<\/i>.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a literary quality to\u00c2\u00a0The Sarah Connor Chronicles<\/i> that I find hard to pin down at times. I think you can see that aspect in an episode like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Good Wound.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The writers take ambitions concepts and lofty narrative devices, and they try their damnedest to give us something that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like anything else we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen. In particular, the dreamlike sequences in this episode are something that normally might only work in a book. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to say they\u00c2\u00a0don<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> work here, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that is hard to pull off in a purely visual medium. Plus, this show could have been nothing more than a long action sequence. While I find\u00c2\u00a0The Sarah Connor Chronicles<\/i> to be endlessly terrifying and shocking (HOW DO THEY KEEP DOING THIS), there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an equal attention paid to the emotional drama as well. And\u00c2\u00a0that<\/i> makes this show stand out. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a deep respect for the ongoing emotional serialization of these characters in the writing of every episode.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply a pleasure to watch this all unfold.<\/p>\n

Riley<\/b><\/p>\n

I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily trust Jesse; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proven herself to be so dedicated to her mission that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do anything to succeed at it. Unsurprisingly, that means she sees Riley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suicide attempt as a sign of disrespect towards her. LIKE\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 REALLY???\u00c2\u00a0REALLY<\/i>? Way to make everything about yourself. Despite that Riley appears to agree with Jesse about her intentions here, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I believe this is the case. I think that Riley was clever enough to reference Jordan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suicide in order to dispel Jesse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suspicion and criticism. But there was so much we saw prior to the attempt that\u00c2\u00a0wasn<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> for John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s benefit. She genuinely had a breakdown that had nothing to do with manipulating John any further.<\/p>\n

So what is she going to do next??? Keep up her deceit? Tell John the truth? She doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to like Cameron at all, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also not exactly willing to keep up this mission anymore.<\/p>\n

Ellison \/ Catherine Weaver<\/b><\/p>\n

HOW IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING. Okay, one thing at a time, because\u00c2\u00a0HOLY SHIT<\/i>. First of all, Garrett Dillahunt is just\u00c2\u00a0unreal<\/i> as John Henry, and in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Good Wound,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he manages to find this unnerving balance between childish wonder and his growing intelligence. He plays with Bionicle toys while talking to Ellison about the failures of God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creations. He regurgitates the fictional history of those toy characters while questioning Ellison\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s faith. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO DISTURBING TO WATCH. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a sign of how quickly John Henry has been able to learn about\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, anything he wants. His curiosity is without boundaries, and this\u00c2\u00a0upsets Ellison, particularly after John Henry demonstrates his ability to put together the details of the case that ended Ellison\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career. (And he does so in a matter of hours.)<\/p>\n

But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s be real: the true spectacle in this episode is Catherine Weaver. I continue to be unable to determine what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing here in 2007, and I have to give the writers their due. How have they been able to keep me guessing for so long??? Even though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obvious she retaliates against the factory that Sarah nearly discovered because someone was too \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chatty\u00e2\u20ac\u009d about what they were doing, I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figure out\u00c2\u00a0what this has to do with her ultimate goal or what that goal actually is. If that factory posed a risk to John Henry, then it makes sense that she, like Sarah Connor, would eliminate that threat. But if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working with coltan, the very metal she was made of, why would she destroy something that inevitably led to her own creation? Is she possibly working\u00c2\u00a0against<\/i> Skynet? WHICH DOESN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T MAKE SENSE BECAUSE SHE BASICALLY IS SKYNET, AND I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T UNDERSTAND.<\/p>\n

Holy shit, that scene where she executes everyone in the warehouse is terrifying. TERRIFYING.<\/p>\n

Sarah<\/b><\/p>\n

Lena Headey is a gift to humanity, and you cannot convince me otherwise. While I do have a lot of lovely things to say about Laura Regan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s portrayal of Felicia Burnett, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lena who holds this entire story together. Her acting is one of those things that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to wrap your mind around because I absolutely believed that she was in immense pain. I believed that she was openly hallucinating glimpses of Kyle Reese, and I believed that she was struggling with her trust for Felicia. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t question a single aspect of this whole story. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fascinating is how Sarah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s toughness actually works against her at some points, so her subconscious (through Kyle) reminds her that ferocity won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get her through every situation.<\/p>\n

Hell, even the hallucinations are brilliant. At no point does \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kyle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ever provide Sarah with information that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t already have. His guidance is part wish fulfillment (since she desperately wishes that he was there by her side to help her along this journey) and part bravery and courage. Sarah is the one who gets herself through the mental aspect of this. As for the physical\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 bless you, Felicia. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing to me that this character \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who gets her own story within Sarah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u201c sees Sarah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fear and recognizes herself in it. She sees a woman who is in extreme pain and covered in blood, and instead of questioning the details, she does whatever she can to help her. While I do understand Sarah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lie at the end of the episode (she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s protecting John by lying about his existence), I do think that these two shared an experience that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll always be meaningful for them. Felicia saw her own abuse at the hands of Sheriff McKinley in Sarah, and it enabled her to finally fight back against him when he threatened her again.<\/p>\n

I know I said that Catherine Weaver was\u00c2\u00a0the<\/i> spectacle here, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to be hyperbolic about\u00c2\u00a0any<\/i> part of this episode. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all so fucking good. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s well-written, thrilling, compelling, and it constantly surprises me. As I said in the introduction, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to believe that this show is real. And yet, here I am, utterly destroyed by it.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Good Wound\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS.
\n– If you would like to support this website and keep Mark Does Stuff running, I’ve put up a detailed post explaining how you can!<\/a>
\n– Please check out the MarkDoesStuff.com<\/a>. All Mark Watches videos for past shows\/season are now archived there!
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Feature is now on the schedule! I will be watching <\/b>Leverage<\/i><\/b>.<\/b>
\n– The 2015 Mark Does Stuff tour is being announced!!! Check my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page<\/a> often to see if I’m coming to your city!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"