SCC 1x5: Dungeons and Dragons

[vaznetti]

It is 1x5, isn't it? a few spoilery comments under here:

The future is confusing to me. Andy Goode is alive, and Bubbles is in the resistance. And random terminators kidnapping people but not bothering to kill them. The present is less confusing, at least. I did like the moments of parallelism between the two bodies: Derek Reese, and the dead Terminator, both stretched out, both cut open, one to be healed and one to be utterly destroyed. And Derek, stepping through two doors, each time with a cyborg leading him: one to see John, and one... well, that's a mystery.

I actually thought that the first 2/3 of this episode was both slow and confusing, but it left me with plenty to think about. Sometimes they go bad, and Cameron hiding the chip from Sarah, and Derek having knowh her in the future -- her? or a Terminator that looks like her? are they like Cylons in that? -- and Cameron looking a little frightened, as if she believed that Sarah really would take her apart. Which she probably would. And what the hell is actually going on in the future? if that was memory, and not dream, and I think it was a memory.

Nice character work -- Derek, but all the rest as well, especially John and Charlie.

Comments

[medie]

Yeah, the part where Skynet didn't kill them was weird. I'm hoping they explain that one a little further in coming episodes. Maybe it's some weird brainwashing experimental place or some such.

But yes, it definitely has given us a ton to think about. I definitely loved all the character work in this!

[vaznetti]

Brainwashing is definitely a possibility -- which of course makes Derek unreliable, at least potentially! I also wondered whether there might not be some division within Skynet itself. Is that possible, do you think?

[medie]

hmm...yeah, it's possible. In T2, the T101 says his neural processor is an adaptive one. He learns as he goes and that the more he's around humans, the more he learns how to be like them. It's conceivable that by creating the Terminators and giving them that modicum of independence, Skynet risks a secondary race of AIs developing. A race with motives independent of its own. That's not even taking into account the Terminators that John (and potentially his wife) are reprogramming.

We know in T3 the Terminatrix sent back to kill John's lieutenants had the ability to force other machines to act on her behalf. While I doubt she'll exist in this continuity (though, with the actress semi-available...), the point is an interesting one. What if the Terminators being reprogrammed by the Connors start capturing and reprogramming Terminators on their own. What kind of motivations would they give them? I don't know if the show will go there, or not, but it's an interesting idea.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

It's like the divisions between hte Final Five Cylons and the Seven Dwarves!

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

Terminators definitely have duplicates - aside from the Arnie model showing up as bad guy then good guy, I think it's implied that they reuse the same faces in the first movie. Which I should probably rewatch, just to revel in the ways they echoed it tonight.

I'm confused about what was going on in the future too. I couldn't keep track of the people - they were all dirty and scruffy and I couldn't differentiate them from one another. Plus, the whole "kidnap and keep chained up in a house" doesn't make a lot of sense just yet. But somehow? I trust them to bring everything to light.

[vaznetti]

Duh! I feel like such an idiot for not remembering the obvious duplicates we've seen! Arnie!

I hope that they explain what was going on in the future, as well. I had the same problem you did -- there was Derek and Andy Goode and Kyle and not!Bubbles, and other than that, just a bunch of scruffy white guys (and a couple women) who all blended together.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I think I must have noticed it in earlier episodes (in which he is killed), but tonight I sat up and called, "Bubbles!" with great glee.

(Also, "Lucky!" because the kid they hired to play Kyle Reese used to be on General Hospital. And, as white guys go, he's a reasonably good match to the Michael Biehn of 20 years ago, although if he's actually in his late 20s I will proceed to feel very old.)

[vaznetti]

Tonight was the night I really sat up and noticed Bubbles -- had he done anything (other than be dead) in the earlier episodes? But there he was! all coherent!

I think it's just as well that I have a very poor memory for actors -- I know I watched 90210, but have no memory of the actor now playing Derek, for example, or the character he played.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

Okay, wait. Who's Bubbles?

Annnyway, I was wondering if maybe Derek Reese doesn't have a duplicate, you know? Like maybe the barcode was Skynet's way of tracking both the copy and the timeline he's deployed into? Because I read Cameron's "sometimes they go bad" as a comment on Derek, and because I keep going back to Skynet-as-chess-master, where there's the whole thing where you play out branching possibilities beyond the move at hand; and Derek's "It's always a game" after he's released. And the dragons in Dungeons &.

I don't know. But I really loved the ep for the cascading allusions and references that make speculation so much fun.

Also, everyone's lying. Cameron's "I swear" to Sarah was really perfect, under the circumstances.

[vaznetti]

Oh! I like your idea of duplicating Reese! That would really throw a wrench nto things. I do like the way it isn't clear who is more likely to "go bad" -- it could very well be a reference to Reese.

Bubbles is a character in The Wire -- a drug addict and sometime police informant -- the actor who plays him was the light-skinned black man in the resistance with the Reeses. It was funny to see him being coherent and in control of things.