SCC 216: Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep
Like the "Cameron visits the library" episode, this was entirely a character piece but, fortunately, Sarah's psyche is infinitely more interesting to me than Cameron's. I'm not sure they should be doing character pieces while tottering on the bubble of non-renewal but it was twisty enough and violent enough and Cameron was walking around in underwear so what the hell...
Thing was, it was pretty damned clear early on which half was the dream and which half was the reality. Or they'd cocked up character canon in a major way. Sarah Connor would not check into a "sleep clinic" -- particularly not one run so institutionally. Not with her history. Not with her level of paranoia. (hey, even paranoids have enemies) Not where the patients wear a karate gei. (Seriously, NOT comfortable enough to sleep in. Especially not the heavy canvas ones.) All the regular viewer had to do after the first "nightmare" was ask themselves "Which life is Sarah Connor, as we know her, more likely to be living?" New viewers were probably a little more dazzled.
That said, Lena Headey kicked ass and I enjoyed the episode since the "real world" tension was sufficient to keep me fretting about when Sarah'd wake up. I loved seeing John through Sarah's eyes -- becoming more JOHN CONNOR all the time -- and I really loved her concerns about the John/Cameron dynamic. The whole pancake conversation was brilliant. I love that her climactic concern was that the Terminators were mapping her psyche -- you will become the thing you hate. And while I'm not a huge fan of narration -- I think it's a cheat in a visual medium -- it's always been a part of the Terminator mythos and it's a further glimpse into Sarah's head, so I cope.
I'm still not sure if I think the emergency C-section was a lazy or clever shorthand for Ed to know she'd a child and move on to the conclusions required for what plot there was.
Every time we've seen Sarah dream, John dies. That woman needs a hug. Or hot, sweaty sex with Derek. (yeah, yeah, shallow as charged)
As far as Ed Winston's survival is concerned, I just figure that as a "security specialist" he was likely wearing a vest of some kind when Sarah shot him and handwave vigorously.
However... when last we left our heroes, they were watching a HunterKiller rise up out of a pond. Might have been nice to get a little reaction to that. Derek should be freaking -- not only because of the mere presence of an HK -- and the instant he saw it, he should have opened fire -- but because this means that the time line is seriously fucked. Not a small thing and moving away from it so completely makes me think it's fallen through the cracks.
And we still don't know how Sarah got from the desert to the hospital. We can assume, given what she saw before she passed out, that the men running the HK were involved but since we know they're willing to kill, why would they save her? To question her later? Then we need follow up. If this was follow up, one line to Sarah or while Ed was on the phone with his bosses would have covered it. And she was shot in the leg, fcol, if they only wanted to question her and since they canonically don't care about her life only what she knows, they could do that without a hospital.
Questions challenge your viewers. Too many questions without answers piss them off. I'm starting to get the impression that the writing room isn't entirely sure where they're heading and that's never good...
(And was it just me or did anyone else think that Dana (Michelle Arthur) looked like a heavier Eliza Dushku?)