TSCC 2x17: "Ourselves Alone"
Mar. 6th, 2020 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsTSCC 2x17: "Ourselves Alone"
We're clearly in a heavy arc portion of this story, as this episode has the clear look of a first act. And considering it looks like we're heading into a two-parter and then either straight into the final run or maybe a short bit of downtime before kicking back into high gear, I guess that fits. But I don't think that's the only reason I'm not sure how I feel about this one.
Some of this feels like plot beats we should have hit more often or at least touched on earlier. Some of the problem is that while this episode doesn't do something that's been bugging me this season, it does a related thing that still kind of bugs me. And I have some timeline issues that make the fact that all of this is happening so fast right now stand out as a problem.
Kind of like with a couple episodes ago suddenly had Sarah not liking to call Derek for help and that not really being set up until then; John's attitude toward Cameron comparing him to future-John (you somehow stole that from me across time) feels like it would be more effective it had more setup. It's not out of nowhere, I believe it's a thing that has happened, but we haven't seen it much if at all. It fits in really well with John's struggles this season, always being compared to who he's supposed to be, or expected to be a certain way because he will be, and never being allowed to find himself because he's always known who he has to be; so Cameron stepping in and directly making the comparison feels like it should connect more than it does.
Also, as I find myself more settled into my anti-John/Cameron stance, I find myself aware of something I often find annoying in shows. I'm not a person who pays a lot of attention to the music, it's not quite just wallpaper to me, but it tends to be part the whole body of the experience of a work for me. But I do sometimes notice when it feels manipulative and I'm not going along with the manipulation. In this case I feel like on its own, without the music trying to sell that scenes with these two could be read as...honestly I don't even want to say romantic but it's in the neighborhood, it wouldn't seem even close; and the contrast sets my teeth on edge. For one thing, if the presented genders here were reversed, it would seem a lot creepier a lot closer even on the surface, but I still find it pretty creepy. For another, in so far as we can ascribe human emotion to Cameron (and the machine were created by man, so it's not out of the realm of possibility, John just doesn't seem into her the way she seems to expect him to, he seems to find her weird and creepy or downright scary a lot of the time, but the music tries to soften that and get us think differently. I really expected to ship this, turns out I really don't.
While all through this season there has been a lot of splitting the group up to deal with different things, in the first half or so of the season that seemed a natural choice given the format of this show. This isn't really a show about a team who goes out and faces a new threat each week; it's as much about them living their lives with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads at all times. For various reasons not everyone can or should be on every mission even when they have a set mission. But sometime after the Chromartie battle, the group has been very split apart; usually episodes only have things for one or two characters and maybe a third tags along in the background. A guess that's only talking in terms of the four characters I consider the mains as until pretty recently we didn't really see Riley or Jesse away from their love interests. But even though this episode has all four or six main characters, they have scenes together in various forms, and yet it still seems like no one's rowing in the same direction. I was so happy with them all teaming up in the funeral episode that I guess I was hoping we'd see more of that, instead of basically just Sarah last episode and this one as occasionally colliding independent objects. For such a moment of escalation in the plot, it doesn't feel like things are coming together much at all.
At least the title fits this factor. Also, just realized I left out Ellison and Weaver, that probably says something about what I count as the focus of this show; but they're definitely off on their own too.
And in some ways, that feeling is also what kicks in my 'why is this happening now?' reaction. Why didn't they find anything out after Riley's suicide attempt? Is this a week later or a couple months? I guess Jesse's been going around stirring up trouble in the last few days, but it feels like everyone else's attitudes devolve pretty quickly to push a confrontation, and Jesse couldn't have controlled that. And while I get Sarah's mistrust of Riley, why does Riley have such a hard time with Sarah? I don't think it's some sort of fear of an icon, I don't actually think that makes sense (I do it's possible think future-John was always talking Sarah up to Kyle for the purposes of making sure he continued to exist and Sarah's future reputation does not really hold as much power as Kyle implied); but the presence of Cameron makes it clear the Connors know about the future and that Sarah is not the threat. If this was carrying on my point that even if Sarah doesn't usually pull the trigger, she definitely does stand by when Cameron kills people and not being sure how anyone in the family will react to any portion of the truth, that's a thing, but it's not conveyed in the moment.
Also, as a timeline note; obviously we don't know what John will soon or ever learn about what was going on here, but I can make a case that part of why he pulls away from people in the future is he doesn't know who all it actually in on this conspiracy (information he wouldn't have) so he's having a hard time trusting people for a while. Just a suggestion.
We're clearly in a heavy arc portion of this story, as this episode has the clear look of a first act. And considering it looks like we're heading into a two-parter and then either straight into the final run or maybe a short bit of downtime before kicking back into high gear, I guess that fits. But I don't think that's the only reason I'm not sure how I feel about this one.
Some of this feels like plot beats we should have hit more often or at least touched on earlier. Some of the problem is that while this episode doesn't do something that's been bugging me this season, it does a related thing that still kind of bugs me. And I have some timeline issues that make the fact that all of this is happening so fast right now stand out as a problem.
Kind of like with a couple episodes ago suddenly had Sarah not liking to call Derek for help and that not really being set up until then; John's attitude toward Cameron comparing him to future-John (you somehow stole that from me across time) feels like it would be more effective it had more setup. It's not out of nowhere, I believe it's a thing that has happened, but we haven't seen it much if at all. It fits in really well with John's struggles this season, always being compared to who he's supposed to be, or expected to be a certain way because he will be, and never being allowed to find himself because he's always known who he has to be; so Cameron stepping in and directly making the comparison feels like it should connect more than it does.
Also, as I find myself more settled into my anti-John/Cameron stance, I find myself aware of something I often find annoying in shows. I'm not a person who pays a lot of attention to the music, it's not quite just wallpaper to me, but it tends to be part the whole body of the experience of a work for me. But I do sometimes notice when it feels manipulative and I'm not going along with the manipulation. In this case I feel like on its own, without the music trying to sell that scenes with these two could be read as...honestly I don't even want to say romantic but it's in the neighborhood, it wouldn't seem even close; and the contrast sets my teeth on edge. For one thing, if the presented genders here were reversed, it would seem a lot creepier a lot closer even on the surface, but I still find it pretty creepy. For another, in so far as we can ascribe human emotion to Cameron (and the machine were created by man, so it's not out of the realm of possibility, John just doesn't seem into her the way she seems to expect him to, he seems to find her weird and creepy or downright scary a lot of the time, but the music tries to soften that and get us think differently. I really expected to ship this, turns out I really don't.
While all through this season there has been a lot of splitting the group up to deal with different things, in the first half or so of the season that seemed a natural choice given the format of this show. This isn't really a show about a team who goes out and faces a new threat each week; it's as much about them living their lives with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads at all times. For various reasons not everyone can or should be on every mission even when they have a set mission. But sometime after the Chromartie battle, the group has been very split apart; usually episodes only have things for one or two characters and maybe a third tags along in the background. A guess that's only talking in terms of the four characters I consider the mains as until pretty recently we didn't really see Riley or Jesse away from their love interests. But even though this episode has all four or six main characters, they have scenes together in various forms, and yet it still seems like no one's rowing in the same direction. I was so happy with them all teaming up in the funeral episode that I guess I was hoping we'd see more of that, instead of basically just Sarah last episode and this one as occasionally colliding independent objects. For such a moment of escalation in the plot, it doesn't feel like things are coming together much at all.
At least the title fits this factor. Also, just realized I left out Ellison and Weaver, that probably says something about what I count as the focus of this show; but they're definitely off on their own too.
And in some ways, that feeling is also what kicks in my 'why is this happening now?' reaction. Why didn't they find anything out after Riley's suicide attempt? Is this a week later or a couple months? I guess Jesse's been going around stirring up trouble in the last few days, but it feels like everyone else's attitudes devolve pretty quickly to push a confrontation, and Jesse couldn't have controlled that. And while I get Sarah's mistrust of Riley, why does Riley have such a hard time with Sarah? I don't think it's some sort of fear of an icon, I don't actually think that makes sense (I do it's possible think future-John was always talking Sarah up to Kyle for the purposes of making sure he continued to exist and Sarah's future reputation does not really hold as much power as Kyle implied); but the presence of Cameron makes it clear the Connors know about the future and that Sarah is not the threat. If this was carrying on my point that even if Sarah doesn't usually pull the trigger, she definitely does stand by when Cameron kills people and not being sure how anyone in the family will react to any portion of the truth, that's a thing, but it's not conveyed in the moment.
Also, as a timeline note; obviously we don't know what John will soon or ever learn about what was going on here, but I can make a case that part of why he pulls away from people in the future is he doesn't know who all it actually in on this conspiracy (information he wouldn't have) so he's having a hard time trusting people for a while. Just a suggestion.
