Born to Fail - part 2

[roxybisquaint]

As you know, I wasn't happy with the season finale of TSCC (see Born to Fail part 1), but I think I could still talk about it and analyze it and speculate about it for months (which I absolutely will if the show gets renewed and maybe even if it doesn't). "Born to Run" circled back to the start of the series and hit on so many episodes in its wrap

Comments

[cj2017]

Picking and skipping through a whole bunch of nice points!

As much as I enjoyed the 3-dots journey, I was terribly unsatisfied with that whole loop being nothing but coincidence.

Ahh, gotta credit the girl with persistence though! The way this show plays around with fate, maybe the whole 3-dot journey was just fated to turn out the way it did with everyone learning lots of life-lessons along the way. This show took quite a lot of time with stuff that ultimately went nowhere. Cameron's kill switch just seemed to give John a trinket to play about with and the whole John Henry development was fun but ultimately wasted a lot of episode time. Once you've seen him play a game and learn a lesson about having a soul, you've seen it, and yet they reduxed it time and time again. Then turned him into Cameron. Or something. It's not terribly clear.

I would've liked more from all of them on the reveal of Catherine as liquid metal. We waited all season for it.On the plus side, Ellison had the wind taken out of his sails by it. On the minus,

[motoki]

On Weaver I think Derek's "If she wants me dead, I'm dead" line applies except even more so here. I think they know that they wouldn't be standing in that room right then and certainly she wouldn't have been shielding them from the HK attack if she wanted them dead. So it must be something else she wants and I think they were just playing along for a moment to try and figure out what that was.

For Sarah calling Weaver a "lying Terminator bitch" I was like 'Whoah lady you've got balls!'. I mean while it was clear by that point she didn't want them dead, at least not outright and directly, but you don't provoke a 1000 series either. I kind of feel like for a moment there Sarah almost felt like it was Game Over and Skynet was already made.

That or Sarah just really is that much of a bad ass. ;-)

[bobmacpharson]

Did they explicitly say they had different size chips, or did we just see the props at different times and they were different sizes. If the latter, I can't bring myself to care that much about this point.

Also Weaver had already asked John Henry to look over the Water Cooler guy's chip. Which kinda suggests that yes, they did have a universal chip adaptor. (Hell, John somehow made one when he looked at Vic's chip. Doesn't seem to be that hard. I'm willing to suspend disbelief here)

[roxybisquaint]

No one explicitly said it, but it the first time we saw Cameron's chip was in "Vick's Chip". So it's not like they'd switched how they were making prop chips for the show and it was just a continuity error. They were quite obviously meant to be different size, shape, different connector and different size cap piece.

An adapter could certainly be rigged up externally, just like John did in Vick's Chip. But to jump through time, John Henry would have had to fit the chip and adapter into his port. And in order for it to be stable in there, I'd think the lid would have to fit. I knwo this seems nitpicky, but they made it a point last season to show that Cam's chip was very different than the regular 888 chips. So I think an explanation is warranted.

We'll probably just find out how he got it to work when someone eventually pulls his chip out (maybe Weaver, maybe John).

[johnnypate]

The bank time bubble scenario from S1 was somewhat different in (at least) these ways:

• The time machine in the bank was cobbled together from 1960s era tech by humans;
• Sarah fired the Terminator-destroying nuke gun as the time bubble blew, whatever that was it caused Cromartie to come apart and whatever amount of collateral damage firing such a weapon under such cirmstances might cause.
• It would be reasonable to assume, given the intended circumstances of its use, that the bank time machine was rigged for self-destruct after the jump.

We've seen that time bubbles cause electrical effects and fires ("Self Made Man") but thus far the actual destructive effects have been reasonably localized, except for the bank. This gives credence to the hypothesis that Sarah firing the weapon had devastating effects in that particular case, and/or the machine was rigged for complete destruction to prevent the time machine falling into the wrong hands

[johnnypate]

BTW, I wasn't particularly a fan of the Ellison S1 character but I do think you're underestimating the role of character in S2. (Some exchanges on this issue occurred in the comments thread of your last "Born to Fail" entry.)

[roxybisquaint]

Hmm, I'll have to backtrack to the other post then. I don't remember an Ellison discussion. I thought I'd read everything, but I must have missed that.

I have no doubt Ellison's character could be turned around. If he stops thinking it's all about him for two seconds and actually listens to Sarah for once, he might have a shot at redeeming himself. But the other problem is that it would be really stupid of Sarah to even give him that chance now. He's burned her too many times.

[johnnypate]

My major point re Ellison is that the whole God vs John Henry was cool and consistent with Ellison S1. Plus, importantly. Ellison is the only one who has thought thru the issue of, "Well, we tried blowing the shit of Cyberdyne/Skynet, that didn't work so let's just go ahead and do it again." The definition of insanity, repeating the same failed strategy over and over. OTOH, we have Ellison staking his faith on God and redemption and attempting to make Skynet a moral being. Way, way, smarter. And, as remarked passim, a real issue for AI research.

I don't think Ellison knowingly led the cops to Sarah in the theatre - John had already warned him about Cameron going Terminator on his and everyone else's ass and one would assume Ellison would be loathe to risk that after "What He Beheld."

One would hope that Sarah doesn't trust anyone but is smart enough to work with anyone that can be used to further her agenda - which could easily be Ellison. They don't have to like each other.

[bobmacpharson]

Rewatching Season 1, I have been reminded of how much I used to like Ellison. It's amazing the difference between Season 1 and 2. I'm not explicitly angry at Season 2 Ellison. He's bitter, wrought with survivor's guilt and going through a crisis of faith. I can forgive him for doing some dumb things. I think Season 3 will intend to redeem him a bit, whether or not he and Sarah will ever get along.

I second the point that there wasn't a whole lot Sarah could do instead of calling Weaver a bitch. Liquid metal is essentially indestructible, and if Weaver was gonna kill them there wasn't a lot to do about it. If I had been in their place (any of them, Sarah/John/Ellison) I would have reacted the same way. I'm sure we'll get more complete reactions from everyone in Season 3. Assuming, you know, Season 3 exists.

[motoki]

I don't really know what the hell he (Ellison) thought he was doing. It doesn't seem like he thought at all but he was just making it up as he went along.

To be fair, if a robot from a post-apocalyptic future came back in time and killed an entire swat team leaving only me, and then another robot from the future looking exactly like me tried to kill me, well I think I would be pretty screwed up too.

I do like that John Henry called him out on his do as I say don't do as I do BS. And he knew he was wrong too. You could see it in his face that he had just been pwned. :-p

I feel like they should redeem him in a hypothetical 3rd season but I'm not even sure how to go about doing that.

[bobmacpharson]

Well, admitting his colossal fuck-ups would be a good start. And then doing something intelligent and useful would be a good follow up. Seems pretty straightforward to me. (although I admit I'm a little unsure how they'd get him and Sarah ultimately working together. Savanah would obviously play into it somehow)

[motoki]

Well he could call in some connections and help her track down Danny Dyson, but that's kind of assuming Kaliba took him and the authorities have any leads on it. Terissa might have noticed a little too much interest in him and just pulled a Sarah Connor and hid him away herself.

[the_narration]

Well, I think you're on the money regarding the symbolism of Sarah's dreams. Funny how on television everyone's dreams are prophetic even in science-based settings, huh

[bobmacpharson]

People are really overanalyzing Cameron's body not going through. It didn't go through because it had metal sticking out. The official fake science has always said the living bodies generate bioelectric fields that allow them to work with time travel. Terminators can go through because they're covered completely in living tissue. There's no reason it doesn't apply differently here or that we need a different fake science solution

[bobmacpharson]

(And honestly, nothing about the finale felt slapped together to me. The last few minutes were rushed, but it made sense to rush them because A) they were under attack, a perfectly common and reasonable excuse for B) the writers to set up a situation where neither John nor Sarah had time to think through the consequences of John leaving. But I suspect this is a point where we're just gonna disagree, cause you can't really argue "I liked it" vs "I didn't."

The only thing that bugs me a little is the drone crashing into the building. Yeah, guns would have made a little more sense. I'm hoping they might explain why in Season 3 but it's not on the top of my list of things I demand answers for.)

[the_narration]

I suppose you're right that personal preference is a factor, but it's not that I thought the finale was "OMG suck!" or anything. It's just that over the years I feel like I've developed a pretty good sense for when a series or season's myth arc was planned in advance versus being made up on the fly, and this feels like the later to me. Too many cases of [insert plot thread here] getting a lot of build-up but being wrapped up in a way that felt a bit quick and anti-climactic. Your mileage may vary.

[bobmacpharson]

In the previous post, there was a discussion of what "victory" would look like for Sarah Connor in the resolution of the Season 2 cliffhanger. I've got another related question

[roxybisquaint]

I think I need to sleep on that one ;)