T:SCC 2.10 "Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point"

[hazelk]

Lord but they really were serious about the Cromartie=Christ imagery. And the Son shall become his own Father (or AntiFather as the case may be). Well played show! Well played.

Either Skynet or FutureJohn tried to terminate Sherman but although the good doctor survived that attempt now he’s dead. So whatever he did to make himself a target is already done, which implies that in the future simply the act of naming has a big enough effect on Skynet for one side or the other to believe the namer must be stopped. After all you have to wonder at a child psychologist naming the future of all steam hammers John Henry. The man who beat the machine but died trying and at some point machine John Henry is going to read that story and wonder which of them it’s supposed to be.

Ellison’s horror at John Henry’s complete lack of conscience was palpable. He must realize that Weaver has the antichrist in her basement now. He presumably doesn’t know she knows but now we know how the machines know him.

Riley being from the future was less of a shock than seeing Garret Dillahunt back. When she first appeared I did mark how she latched onto John but any suspicions were lulled by the sheer number of succeeding episodes so the reveal was really well timed. Do Jesse and Riley come from a future where Cameron has already been with John for 20 years (while in Derek’s future Cameron is a new convert)? Either way killing the current Cameron won’t really stop her as Skynet will still make the Derek Future version. The idea that simply destroying the past isn’t enough to change the future seems to be spreading.

Jesse’s relationship with Riley veers on the abusive/manipulative. I begin to wonder if my fevered speculation last week that Jesse and Fischer were some kind of item had something to it.

Sarah’s story was a cat’s cradle of parallels and twists but at the end of it all the main thing I remember thinking was how both she and Alex Agagi are basically out of their depths in this game. Both survived their encounter essentially because neither were as big or as mean or as well connected as they claimed to be. The main difference between them seemed to be that Sarah has more faith in John than Alex did in his son. While equally determined to protect him Alex seemed to regard Xander almost as some kind of cuckoo in the nest.

Comments

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'd assumed Riley had simply been recruited by Jesse as part of her surveillance (and told about Judgement Day), but having her actually be from the future herself makes sense.

I was expecting to see Cromatie/Dillahunt back at some point, so it wasn't that big a shock... but it was still really creepy to see and hear him.

If John Henry is proto-Skynet (or Skynet 2.0) I wonder what effect being in an isolated, vulnerable body able to interact with others will have on its development, as opposed to being an invulnerable, omnipresent machine?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I think Cromartie's body is more like an interface than an essential part of the entity currently known as John Henry but one that will make a big difference to how people interact with it and hence to what it can learn. It's outgrown the visual communication phase too. Actually that reminds me of something I was thinking of writing about child development and language...