Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Ep 2.07 Brothers of Nablus

[parallactic]

Anyone have any thoughts on what Cameron's retelling of the brothers of Nablus has to do with this ep?

• Reading manga has made me notice visuals more. Whoever directed this episode is good, and had a lot of interesting visuals from the grocery scene where Cromartie barely missed John and Riley; Cromartie, John, and Riley playing hide 'n' seek at the house; and the interrogation room where Ellison stared at his reflection in the mirror after hearing that his look alike terminator killed someone.
  
• I'm glad to see Ellison get more play this ep, instead of being on the back burner, working for Wheeler. I liked the opener where Ellison opened the door to find his double. I'm now anxious over Ellison, and I hope he gets more to do. Now two terminators are trying to use him as a pawn. One, he knows about. The second, he doesn't, and he's apparently important enough that Wheeler got him off.
  
• TSCC's horror/scifi roots are showing with this ep. I read somewhere that T1's anxiety was over the Cold War, and a general distrust of technology. TSCC plays off of contemporary fears of identity theft: S1 when Cromartie stole the actor's face, this ep where Ellison is blamed for the murder his terminator Doppelganger committed, Catherine Wheeler's shapeshifting, the Connor/Baum house being burglarized and the biggest fear is that the IDs and credit cards can be traced back to them.
  
• Speaking of the house burglary--Sarah and Cameron continue to have interesting dynamics together. There's so much tension and undercurrents from being uneasy allies. Whenever Derek's with Sarah and Cameron, he comes off as a dangling appendage. He doesn't quite fit; he even went off in the middle of the IDs hunt to meet up with Jesse.
  
• Cameron highlights: She didn't bring up the security risk of Riley sneaking in and out of the house, because she didn't want to be a nag. She continually brought up the missing jacket(s), and seems to really like her leather one. Hee. There's nothing new in how cavalier Cameron is with murder. Human life is expendable to her. But it is quite a juxtaposition to have her bring up her leather jacket, and then just casually shoot the non-threatening men in the bowling alley. We don't really learn anything new about Cameron, and she isn't forced to undergo any change. But Cameron does make a good foil for Sarah.
  
• The confrontation with the thieves in the bowling alley was a big payoff for Sarah's character. I feel the show continually brings up and reexamines how much Sarah values human life, up against needing to do what's necessary to protect herself and John, and prepare for the robot apocalypse. Here, Sarah finds the last thief, and chooses to spare the fearful boy's life, settling for threatening him. It's what I expected of her. But what's different is that her mercy has consequences. Because she left the guy alive, Cromartie was able to interrogate him, which would lead him to finding the Connors. I'm looking forward to the next ep.
  
• This ep is also where John confronts her over the death in the first ep. (I can't recall the guy's name.) He's angry that Sarah couldn't protect him, and that he had to kill the guy. I think it makes emotional sense that John's angry at her, since he seems to view her as a larger than life figure, someone who has the answers, the plans, the rescues, the orders he doesn't always follow. But it doesn't make practical sense, because Sarah was tied up at the time, and John was free.
  
• Putting Cromartie with the halfway house girl from Ep 2.04 was comedic win. I LOL'ed at the banter in the car. Cromartie comes off as a creepy stalker cop not!uncle. I like how Cromartie was so very bad at smiling.
  
• I wonder if there are different factions in Skynet. What Cromartie said about some parts of Skynet thinking Ellison was trouble, but Cromartie himself disagreeing, was interesting. If there are different factions, then are Cromartie and Catherine on the same or different sides? Or this could be attributing too much human group behavior to them. Skynet could be operating on a Need to Know basis, and might not see the need to inform terminators on what others are doing.
  
• Derek and Jesse's scenes are boring filler for me, as the show sets up whatever they're doing with the characters. Jesse would be more interesting if we knew what she was up to, or if we got more stuff on why she went AWOL.
  

Re:daily blogging--

A day ends when I go to bed, not when it hits midnight. I am also not above backdating entries to make the quota.