Yeah... WTF Cavil?! They brought him back into the story when they brought back Ellen and in the end he was about as useful as the final 5. Augh. The final 5 ended up being complete nonsense, serving no real purpose to the story. Oh God, and I just remembered the whole thing with All Along the Watchtower and Kara getting everyone to the lovely new!Earth by converting the musical notes to coordinates or whatever *headdesk*
It made no sense that there was no group of survivors who wanted to cannibalize the ships of the fleet to make a good one and frak off and do their own thing. That's BS.
SERIOUSLY. That was the lamest of lame that everyone just said "yeah it'll be awesome to have a fresh start, go ahead and scrap everything." That was stupid to the core. I don't care how badly you want a fresh start, you do not just throw all that away and start digging in the dirt.
I need to watch Sarah Connor again because right now I'm in the minority in that I wasn't thrilled. The story was good, but I get very hung up on character beats that feel false and that John retcon made the whole John story not work for me at all. I'm hoping on a rewatch it won't bother me as much so I can actually enjoy it. But right now, I'm not happy.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCjohnnypateMarch 22 2009, 09:11:40 UTC
I can see what you mean about the John retcon but let me help you out on seeing that it wasn't a retcon after all, admittedly they'd been rather subtle about the clues - which is why I think the writing is so great on TSCC. I refer you to one of my previous comments re I couldn't understand how John didn't pick up on the "apples and carrots" thing. Well, in fact he did, as he specifically mentioned it this ep. Also, the confrontation he had with Riley in "Ourselves Alone" makes perfect sense if he was sure about Riley. He confronted her but she had to admit to him what was going on without being forced to a confession. Before John could trust Riley he had to know she had made the choice to throw in with him - and his resistance faction - and not Jesse and her faction. He desperately wanted to say to Riley: "I know who you are and what you're doing but with come with me instead" but he couldn't if he was to be John Connor and not John Baum. Now does his conversation with Derek make more sense? It's really why he cried at the end. He had sacrificed poor confused Riley so he could become John Connor. (And Sarah had to comfort him because the metal has no feelings and can give him no emotional support, that's why a future John risked the timelines by sending a time machine team back to the sixties to bring Sarah forward to - a version - of him.)
I would say that it was the case that, in fact, Riley was the one at fault here. If she'd confessed to John she'd be still alive - and maybe so would Jesse. If John could have turned Jesse around - before she'd killed Riley - Jesse could have become an agent to bring the anti-John faction over to the John side. If only Riley had trusted John instead of Jesse. Poor Jesse too, what she went thru and lost her baby.
John really has no choice, he isn't John Baum he is John Connnor. John is the only one who can't buck his fate and has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
And Derek, how awesome was Derek? I know you don't get Derek but I do and I knew he would have to kill Jesse once he knew who and what she was. When Jesse said: "You're a good man" to Derek she was sad because she knew what she was. She knew how Derek, who she loved, would react if he found out what she had done. Jesse had to die she was a crazy loose canon with murderous intent. But Derek didn't want John to have the guilt of Jesse's death too nor would it look good if John executed traitors. However, if Riley had confessed to John and they'd confronted Jesse before Riley's death things could have been very different. To be fair to Riley, the swimming pool scene (apart from being an excuse to get Stephanie in a bathing suit, a very good thing IMHO) showed that we hadn't seen the softer side to the Riley/Jesse dynamic and Riley had probably had a lot of good times with Jesse. And, of course, Riley was jealous of Cameron and worried John would really love Cameron and not her. And also, quite rightly, terrified of Cameron. Maybe if Cameron hadn't confronted Riley just before John confronted Riley, then Riley would have been in a different frame of mind and would have thrown in with John. (See what I mean, if they really did write it the way I'm seeing it then it's awesome.)
I could go on about the great things put into that episode. And remember, "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Future John is the Wizard. He can't change the now, only his past - think about it. Sarah and the gang are really on their own. Memories of the future are memories of a possible future not their future.
You're losing your faith in TV writers... maybe it's the BSG effect. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the TSCC guys can keep it together. They have time travel to handle whereas BSG heaped their own problems on themselves with lazy writing. The TSCC writers are showing a lot more respect for their fans.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCroxybisquaintMarch 22 2009, 18:00:14 UTC
I totally agree that John showed signs up suspecting there was more to Riley than meets the eye in Ourselves Alone, but that was right before she got killed. The way he presented it to Jesse, he'd figured it out a while back. Maybe you can help me pinpoint this "really bad day" that John referred to as being the marker for when this lightbulb went off in his head. If I could figure that out, I might be able to find clues that I missed.
Actually I think I get Derek really well, but I had the same problem with him last week that I had with John this week. Derek made a character leap. Yeah there are things that we can point to along the way as maybe having a slow impact on his thoughts about killing, but none of it really adds up to his big moment last week when he told Jesse that the loss of innocent life is never a good thing. Unless of course that means Riley is the first "innocent" Derek ever feels he encountered ;)
I don't have any lack of faith in the TSCC writers at all, so you needn't worry about that, But I did see this 2-parter as a rush to get John and Derek into different points in their character growth before the end of the season. It was a short cut. If it was a one-time deal, I'll make peace with it by the time season 3 starts. If this is the start of a new less-character-depth approach to the show, then yeah, I'll lose my *OMG LOVE* for TSCC. I don't expect that, though. The show is too brilliant to for this to be more than a hiccup.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCjohnnypateMarch 22 2009, 19:29:32 UTC
I see what you mean about John but I didn't feel that way because I've been thinking, "He must be smarter than this if he's all that in the future!" so it was a relief for me that he was and had simply been playing his cards close to his chest. I think (hopefully) that re-watching S2 in hindsight after it all ends it'll look a bit more like John was suspicious. The party incident might look different with hindsight, for instance. I thought Riley was off from the first moment she approached but then I'm massively paranoid with new people at the best of times. Logically he formed his opinion some time before "Ourselves Alone" and it was not a spontaneous outburst, from what we now know. Further, we may give him some credit and assume he was cautious about broaching the subject due to Riley's suicide attempt.
Derek though, 'fraid I don't follow you there at all. Serendipitously I just emailed a pal thusly: "One of the reasons I like Derek is he reminds me of some the real soldiers I met when I played at it - including some of the SAS. I dunno how BAG nails it so well. He's not far off a genuine 1000yd Stare at times. The Glaubot will have 'im tho." (I was in Britain's Territorial Army, somewhat akin to your National Guard, for about 10 years during the Cold War and because I was in Military Intelligence I got to hang out with some rather interesting people and doing interesting things, at times.)
Nope, I'm gonna have to go with you don't get where Derek is coming from. Derek did not make a character leap, that's Derek all along - a battle-hardened soldier with a good heart, as Jesse remarked. (We first saw Derek's softer side when he took John for ice cream in the park. And remember, he's Kyle's big bro.)
I presume you still think he was wrong to kill Andy Goode when, in fact, Sarah should have done it (or at least let Cameron off the leash). Sarah is the one who's not getting it and is back-sliding.
They're fighting a guerilla war against a materially (and presumably numerically) superior foe. You can't do that without innocent people getting killed. Derek doesn't have to like it but he will do it. John is maybe smart enough to get it but Sarah could turn turn out to be a serious liability if she doesn't pay more attention to her testosterone. This is a war against genocide, people - outcomes matter. The job has to get done or everybody dies.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCroxybisquaintMarch 22 2009, 20:34:58 UTC
I don't think Derek as wrong to kill Andy from the POV he had, but from the POV we have, I do think it was wrong. I understand that innocents sometimes die in war and it's unavoidable because you have to do what you have to do for the greater good. I get that, I really do. And Derek had every reason to believe he was saving the world by killing Andy. But because we have the Dyson thing in T2 to look back on, we already know that the death of the man most directly responsible for Skynet didn't stop j-day, so there was no reason to believe that the death of Andy Goode would stop it either. Sarah had that experience to base her decision on. Not killing Andy was the right choice from her POV. That's the interesting thing about Andy's death. It was right *and* wrong.
But it was Derek's attempt to kill the cops under city hall and his lack of emotion over killing Andy that really established him and a cold killer for me, and not a soldier with a heart of gold. And even after he remembered the horror of buddies dying in future war (in Goodbye to all that), we still got him going to kill Moishe in Brothers of Nablus (except Jesse beat him to it). I don't see how killing Moishe was necessary even from Derek's POV. He'd already covered up the thing about him mentioning Jesse by telling Sarah that Jesse was a guy from his crew that got killed.
From Derek's POV, I could maybe even give him an "understandable" pass on attempting to kill young Fisher. But the Moishe thing no. That ruins the idea that Derek was starting to differentiate between taking innocent life and taking life for the sake of the mission. So I still found it too big of a leap last week when he was so adamant that the loss of any innocent life was tragic.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this, but feel free to get in the last word if you want. I'll read it if you do.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCjohnnypateMarch 22 2009, 22:26:46 UTC
You are indeed correct, we are going to have to agree to disagree. I do agree both viewpoints are supportable but I think mine fits more of the facts, both at the time and in retrospect - and, more importantly, in the context of the case of a war for survival.
* Andy - killing him could not be a bad thing except from the POV of loss of a life, there was every reason to suppose Andy's death would at the very least delay Judgment Day if not prevent it outright. And this was more than just killing an innocent - in Derek's future, Andy was Billy Wisher and a very close friend of Derek's. Sarah's choice was logically the wrong one even in the light of the Dyson experience. The fact that Dyson dying hadn't stopped JD is neither here nor there - they knew the Turk would lead to Skynet and the stakes were far too high not to make the attempt to destroy it. (If we follow your logic we inevitably assume Skynet is unstoppable whatever your actions are in the past, which makes any attempt in any manner to stop Skynet pointless.) Strike one for Sarah. So Derek bottles up his feelings and has the 1000yd Stare. Who's shoulder is he gonna to cry on? Sarah's? He's a soldier, he has his duty.
* Killing the cops. Absolutely 100% tactically the correct thing todo for their mission. Sarah was taking a big risk (an insane crazy risk) not just with hers and Derek's lives but with their mission - to save the human race from genocide. Armed and trained men who were ready and able to kill you and you take a chance with them? Stupid if not outright suicidal. It's yet another example of Sarah as a potential liability to John and the mission. Strike two for Sarah. (Yeah, I know in TV shows the bad guys always fall down and stay down if a 120lb women taps them on the neck but actually not so much in reality.)
* Moishe - he was a loose end that knew about the Connors - what happened, for instance with the guy Sarah let go in the Bowling Alley? Derek (and Jesse) know how Terminators work. Again, hit for Derek, strike three for Sarah.
* Fischer - again, Derek was correct on this one. Logically, killing young Fischer would prevent whatever nefarious stuff old Fischer would get up to. The only fly in the ointment there is that it's a Grandfather Paradox. I thought that Jesse knew something about mechanics of time travel that nobody else did. Now I think it was Jesse showing her good side. Despite her insane Riley plan she was very like Derek in her way and had a sense of justice - she balked at Queeg's summary execution of the sailor for instance. But she really believed she had to separate John and Cameron at any cost and, even more importantly, make John stop using metal soldiers. (Sarah would have frakked that one up too, of course.)
The point about Riley was it was a crazy plan that made no sense and risked the life not just of Riley but of John. (According to what John said to Riley it stood no possible chance of working anyway. If nothing else you can't blame a Terminator for killing, it's what they do, and John is smart enough to know that.) Riley really was an innocent girl that Jesse had deliberately lead astray. In any case, in the context of the talk Jesse and Derek had about Riley's death what Derek said about no good coming from the death of an innocent girl in no way contradicted anything he had done. As far as anyone knew, Riley was not any kind of soldier or even, at that point so far as Derek knew, any kind of actor in the Judgment Day scenario. So far as Derek knew Riley was just some random girl who liked John.
Derek had to kill Jesse once he knew what she was. Jesse hadn't recanted on her plan. She was still against John Connor. She was a loose canon that had proven ill intent towards John and was far too great a risk to the mission to be left alive. And Derek knew that, even if this Jesse loved him, she lied to him and he couldn't trust anything she said.
Sarah, of course, won't understand any of this and will royally frak things up as a consequence.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCCjohnnypateMarch 22 2009, 22:43:50 UTC
BTW, someone in the comments @ the Terminator official blog says "Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point" (s02e10) is the ep where John twigs to Riley, re the conversation about the Bear poster. He says he watched it again and thinks John freaked over that.
It made no sense that there was no group of survivors who wanted to cannibalize the ships of the fleet to make a good one and frak off and do their own thing. That's BS.
SERIOUSLY. That was the lamest of lame that everyone just said "yeah it'll be awesome to have a fresh start, go ahead and scrap everything." That was stupid to the core. I don't care how badly you want a fresh start, you do not just throw all that away and start digging in the dirt.
I need to watch Sarah Connor again because right now I'm in the minority in that I wasn't thrilled. The story was good, but I get very hung up on character beats that feel false and that John retcon made the whole John story not work for me at all. I'm hoping on a rewatch it won't bother me as much so I can actually enjoy it. But right now, I'm not happy.
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I would say that it was the case that, in fact, Riley was the one at fault here. If she'd confessed to John she'd be still alive - and maybe so would Jesse. If John could have turned Jesse around - before she'd killed Riley - Jesse could have become an agent to bring the anti-John faction over to the John side. If only Riley had trusted John instead of Jesse. Poor Jesse too, what she went thru and lost her baby.
John really has no choice, he isn't John Baum he is John Connnor. John is the only one who can't buck his fate and has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
And Derek, how awesome was Derek? I know you don't get Derek but I do and I knew he would have to kill Jesse once he knew who and what she was. When Jesse said: "You're a good man" to Derek she was sad because she knew what she was. She knew how Derek, who she loved, would react if he found out what she had done. Jesse had to die she was a crazy loose canon with murderous intent. But Derek didn't want John to have the guilt of Jesse's death too nor would it look good if John executed traitors. However, if Riley had confessed to John and they'd confronted Jesse before Riley's death things could have been very different. To be fair to Riley, the swimming pool scene (apart from being an excuse to get Stephanie in a bathing suit, a very good thing IMHO) showed that we hadn't seen the softer side to the Riley/Jesse dynamic and Riley had probably had a lot of good times with Jesse. And, of course, Riley was jealous of Cameron and worried John would really love Cameron and not her. And also, quite rightly, terrified of Cameron. Maybe if Cameron hadn't confronted Riley just before John confronted Riley, then Riley would have been in a different frame of mind and would have thrown in with John. (See what I mean, if they really did write it the way I'm seeing it then it's awesome.)
I could go on about the great things put into that episode. And remember, "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Future John is the Wizard. He can't change the now, only his past - think about it. Sarah and the gang are really on their own. Memories of the future are memories of a possible future not their future.
You're losing your faith in TV writers... maybe it's the BSG effect. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the TSCC guys can keep it together. They have time travel to handle whereas BSG heaped their own problems on themselves with lazy writing. The TSCC writers are showing a lot more respect for their fans.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
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Actually I think I get Derek really well, but I had the same problem with him last week that I had with John this week. Derek made a character leap. Yeah there are things that we can point to along the way as maybe having a slow impact on his thoughts about killing, but none of it really adds up to his big moment last week when he told Jesse that the loss of innocent life is never a good thing. Unless of course that means Riley is the first "innocent" Derek ever feels he encountered ;)
I don't have any lack of faith in the TSCC writers at all, so you needn't worry about that, But I did see this 2-parter as a rush to get John and Derek into different points in their character growth before the end of the season. It was a short cut. If it was a one-time deal, I'll make peace with it by the time season 3 starts. If this is the start of a new less-character-depth approach to the show, then yeah, I'll lose my *OMG LOVE* for TSCC. I don't expect that, though. The show is too brilliant to for this to be more than a hiccup.
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Derek though, 'fraid I don't follow you there at all. Serendipitously I just emailed a pal thusly: "One of the reasons I like Derek is he reminds me of some the real soldiers I met when I played at it - including some of the SAS. I dunno how BAG nails it so well. He's not far off a genuine 1000yd Stare at times. The Glaubot will have 'im tho."
(I was in Britain's Territorial Army, somewhat akin to your National Guard, for about 10 years during the Cold War and because I was in Military Intelligence I got to hang out with some rather interesting people and doing interesting things, at times.)
Nope, I'm gonna have to go with you don't get where Derek is coming from. Derek did not make a character leap, that's Derek all along - a battle-hardened soldier with a good heart, as Jesse remarked. (We first saw Derek's softer side when he took John for ice cream in the park. And remember, he's Kyle's big bro.)
I presume you still think he was wrong to kill Andy Goode when, in fact, Sarah should have done it (or at least let Cameron off the leash). Sarah is the one who's not getting it and is back-sliding.
They're fighting a guerilla war against a materially (and presumably numerically) superior foe. You can't do that without innocent people getting killed. Derek doesn't have to like it but he will do it. John is maybe smart enough to get it but Sarah could turn turn out to be a serious liability if she doesn't pay more attention to her testosterone. This is a war against genocide, people - outcomes matter. The job has to get done or everybody dies.
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But it was Derek's attempt to kill the cops under city hall and his lack of emotion over killing Andy that really established him and a cold killer for me, and not a soldier with a heart of gold. And even after he remembered the horror of buddies dying in future war (in Goodbye to all that), we still got him going to kill Moishe in Brothers of Nablus (except Jesse beat him to it). I don't see how killing Moishe was necessary even from Derek's POV. He'd already covered up the thing about him mentioning Jesse by telling Sarah that Jesse was a guy from his crew that got killed.
From Derek's POV, I could maybe even give him an "understandable" pass on attempting to kill young Fisher. But the Moishe thing no. That ruins the idea that Derek was starting to differentiate between taking innocent life and taking life for the sake of the mission. So I still found it too big of a leap last week when he was so adamant that the loss of any innocent life was tragic.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this, but feel free to get in the last word if you want. I'll read it if you do.
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* Andy - killing him could not be a bad thing except from the POV of loss of a life, there was every reason to suppose Andy's death would at the very least delay Judgment Day if not prevent it outright. And this was more than just killing an innocent - in Derek's future, Andy was Billy Wisher and a very close friend of Derek's. Sarah's choice was logically the wrong one even in the light of the Dyson experience. The fact that Dyson dying hadn't stopped JD is neither here nor there - they knew the Turk would lead to Skynet and the stakes were far too high not to make the attempt to destroy it. (If we follow your logic we inevitably assume Skynet is unstoppable whatever your actions are in the past, which makes any attempt in any manner to stop Skynet pointless.) Strike one for Sarah. So Derek bottles up his feelings and has the 1000yd Stare. Who's shoulder is he gonna to cry on? Sarah's? He's a soldier, he has his duty.
* Killing the cops. Absolutely 100% tactically the correct thing todo for their mission. Sarah was taking a big risk (an insane crazy risk) not just with hers and Derek's lives but with their mission - to save the human race from genocide. Armed and trained men who were ready and able to kill you and you take a chance with them? Stupid if not outright suicidal. It's yet another example of Sarah as a potential liability to John and the mission. Strike two for Sarah. (Yeah, I know in TV shows the bad guys always fall down and stay down if a 120lb women taps them on the neck but actually not so much in reality.)
* Moishe - he was a loose end that knew about the Connors - what happened, for instance with the guy Sarah let go in the Bowling Alley? Derek (and Jesse) know how Terminators work. Again, hit for Derek, strike three for Sarah.
* Fischer - again, Derek was correct on this one. Logically, killing young Fischer would prevent whatever nefarious stuff old Fischer would get up to. The only fly in the ointment there is that it's a Grandfather Paradox. I thought that Jesse knew something about mechanics of time travel that nobody else did. Now I think it was Jesse showing her good side. Despite her insane Riley plan she was very like Derek in her way and had a sense of justice - she balked at Queeg's summary execution of the sailor for instance. But she really believed she had to separate John and Cameron at any cost and, even more importantly, make John stop using metal soldiers. (Sarah would have frakked that one up too, of course.)
The point about Riley was it was a crazy plan that made no sense and risked the life not just of Riley but of John. (According to what John said to Riley it stood no possible chance of working anyway. If nothing else you can't blame a Terminator for killing, it's what they do, and John is smart enough to know that.) Riley really was an innocent girl that Jesse had deliberately lead astray. In any case, in the context of the talk Jesse and Derek had about Riley's death what Derek said about no good coming from the death of an innocent girl in no way contradicted anything he had done. As far as anyone knew, Riley was not any kind of soldier or even, at that point so far as Derek knew, any kind of actor in the Judgment Day scenario. So far as Derek knew Riley was just some random girl who liked John.
Derek had to kill Jesse once he knew what she was. Jesse hadn't recanted on her plan. She was still against John Connor. She was a loose canon that had proven ill intent towards John and was far too great a risk to the mission to be left alive. And Derek knew that, even if this Jesse loved him, she lied to him and he couldn't trust anything she said.
Sarah, of course, won't understand any of this and will royally frak things up as a consequence.
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