214: 'The Good Wound'
Wr: Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz
Dr: Jeff Woolnough
Synopsis: Sarah gains strength from images of Kyle Reese, John's father, while she's hurt. Weaver attempts to save John Henry.
Review: Okay, look. I know I should be praising the bravery of this show's production crew; I understand that what they are trying to do is somewhat unprecedented in action/sci-fi drama and that no, we don't need endless gun battles and all out action fests to make a show work. Character is the crux of any programme worth its salt because it is this that we identify with. The people are what make us come back week in, week out because we want to explore their lives, to understand their plight and to see hwo they cope with the action arounmd them. Concentrating squarely on character, then, is by no means a bad idea. Just look at Battlestar Galactica: it has essentially built its well-deserved reputation on exploring the minutiae of its key players, on discovering what makes them tick and three-dimensionalising them to the point where you're actually uncomfortable with how much you know about them. But you see, Galactica also understands that you cannot develop character without delving into action. Events have to occur in order for there to be ways into their psyches. Terminator, it seems, has trouble with this concept.
Now all right, so things happened in 'Earthlings Welcome Here'. But what things? Um, Sarah met a woman-cum-man-cum-woman, drove to a warehouse and, er, ended up flat on her back staring up at at what appeared to be a UFO. Riley tried to commit suicide. Derek... did nothing. John... did nothing. Ellison had a religious debate with John Henry. Riveting. Really. For a mid-season finale, it was bitterly, bitterly disappointing. So many unresolved strands are begging, pleading, for the writers' attention and they are routinely ignored in favour of exploring some minor, generally insignificant (or just plain obvious) facet of one of the main characters' psychological make-up. Which is fine for the occasional episode but when it's every flipping week, it starts to become a little frustrating.
I mean, really, what happens in 'The Good Wound'? Sarah wakes up in hospital, for Christ's sake. No mention of what happened to her after the 'UFO' began to descend, how she got there, nothing. That whole strand, the bleeding cliffhanger, is tossed to the wayside. The only chance we get to explore any of that is in the episode's one top notch scene: Weaver's obliteration of the warehouse (excellent effects guys, by the way). Instead, we spend forty five minutes watching Sarah have a heart to heart with a hospital nurse that she kidnapped as she treats her wound. Oh and she hallucinates Kyle. So they talk. And talk. And oh, she's so tortured! Oh, she can't let anyone in because the world thinks she's a psycho so she puts up a front but oh, she's really this delicate little flower who just wants a friend and her son and her husband and to be loved and oh! Calamity! The meaningfulness of it all! Um, no, frankly. We know this stuff already. Sure, it's nice to finally see Kyle in The Sarah Connor Chronicles universe but why of why must we keep the brakes on and ponder Sarah's fragile emotional state, her 'situation', for the umpteenth fucking week in a row?
And as for John, phew, don't get me started. Once again, Dekker has nothing to do except worry about Riley. Cameron is completely superfluous. Derek runs between the two plot strands, trying to liven things up but failing miserably. And Riley/Jesse... um, we find out that she slit her wrists for John's affections (hmm... suspect this may be a little economical with the truth) and she leaves the hospital. That's it. Seriously. That's the plot. The only other distraction we're given is a little piece with John Henry that, once again, is full of religious mumbo-jumbo, although the scene with Weaver is a nice, slightly sinister, touch. Seriously, how is ANY of this supposed to engage a viewing audience?
I'm the last person to pour scorn on a show simpy because it puts character at centre stage: arguably, plot should derive from character, not the other way round. The Sarah Connor Chronicles, however, seems to eschew the idea of plot altogether on a weekly basis and, instead, spends its time navel-gazing, pondering the same psychological questions week in, week out, and ignorning the fact that there are a whole tonne of dangling narrative threads still crying out to be addressed. 'The Good Wound' does nothing, it goes nowhere and apart from a couple of the Weaver scenes, is about as interesting as watching paint dry. So Sarah opens up to someone? So what? Give us more. At the end of the day, the plot for this episode can be summarised thusly: Sarah and Riley have their wounds treated. Really. THAT'S IT. 4.5
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