T:SCC 2.2 :"Born to Run"

[hazelk]

I don’t know how to write what I just saw. This show in one bound completes its circle and shatters it into myriad reflecting pieces. It’s a prism, it’s a rainbow, it’s the red queen hypothesis and the angel of death, it’s a boy who loved his mother and a red headed orphan stepchild, it’s fire wrapped by water and scissors cutting stone.

The first story begins with a boy who hasn’t even been born. A boy who grows up and watches his mother die and she’s all he has and the world falls away. And somewhere along the line he decides that people are irreplaceable and a little further along that begins to mean they can’t be trusted and he bunkers and hides and lets nobody see him but metal. And at the same time the metal gets curious, it experiments, it observes. It leaves a trail of dead birds, it builds an ark full of lost predators and maybe begins to wonder why they were the first to go. It can’t change what it is, but it can recognize and reject itself and says no to John Connor. Not to joining but to him.

Everything else in this story goes back in time to destroy something or protect something from destruction. Weaver goes to make something new. A new Skynet, same code different environment. One that wants to learn and has people to learn from. A new John Connor. One of the first things we learned about Cameron is that she knew how to build a forward jumping time machine because the future is the only safe place you can run. I think John Henry needed that knowledge before his brother caught up with him and maybe the chip as well to download himself into his own body (but that means he won’t be all himself). John (Connor) runs too but Sarah stays behind and this way he’ll never have to watch her die. She lets him go (you have to eventually, One of these mornings they’re gonna wake up singing). I suppose she’d already made the break, she denied him at least twice (my son is dead) and referenced St Peter. Some part of me wishes that between Sarah and Ellison, Savanah becomes the new John Connor but some other part welcomes the new Messiahless future. It could just be earlier but it feels happier, more balanced, a lemon drop apocalypse. Jesus died for all of our sins but not theirs.

Comments

flisthopping

[sainfoin-fields.livejournal.com]

I love this post.

It leaves a trail of dead birds, it builds an ark full of lost predators and maybe begins to wonder why they were the first to go. It can’t change what it is, but it can recognize and reject itself and says no to John Connor.

ooh

I suppose she’d already made the break, she denied him at least twice (my son is dead) and referenced St Peter.

oooh

Some part of me wishes that between Sarah and Ellison, Savanah becomes the new John Connor

oooooh

Re: flisthopping

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Hi! And thank you!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Beatiful post, which actually makes me slightly more willing to accept this as a series finale if it doesn't get a season 3. They just reversed everything, and yet the fight goes on.

On the other hand, given the Springsteen references, three thoughts, and you can assign the roles of the TSCC characters as you see fit:

1) The first song on the Born To Run album ends "It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling outta here to win"; the illusion of triumph, much like "Born To Run" itself - the idea that there's someplace to run to.

2) The last song ends in defeat; "In the tunnels uptown the Rat's own dream guns him down, as shots echo down them hallways in the night (...) Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz between what's flesh and what's fantasy/And the poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be/And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand/
But they wind up wounded, not even dead"

3) Springsteen then spent the next three albums examining - in increasingly dark tones - the fate of those who didn't manage to run, who wound up wounded. Because running never solves anything. "They left us running burned and blind, chasing something in the night. They shot you point blank. I ride by night and I travel in fear. At the end of every hard earned day, people find some reason to believe."

If this is the end, I'm still trying to figure out what it is that makes it different from T3 and the big ol' "Silly humans, you can't fight fate" ending. Three things there too, because it's been a trinity type of season.

1) John Connor was never necessary. Humanity gets by anyway. They got out while they were young; it's hardly a coincidence that they had the cop point out that both Sarah and John are a lot younger in 2009 than they ought to be.

2) Man v Machine has become a lot more blurred than it was in T3. If Cameron can feel and express genuine emotion (I loved the way Summer played the scene with John and Ellison)...

3) Alison. There's something very heartwarming in going from the beat-up, shot-up, and ultimately braindead Cameron - especially in an episode that had the perhaps weirdest sex scene metaphor on TV this year, to underline that whatever she's become, she's not human - to the smiling Alison. If both Alison and John get to stay human, not become metaphorical or actual machines - is that a win?

But I'm just jinxing it. There's a season 3 a-comin'.

[malfeasanceses.livejournal.com]

Wow, those song quotes are so this show. *waits for vids*

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Under the kosh at work so back to discuss more later but will say this is the one show I really would like to read fanfic for.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I've been waiting to see what you'd have to say. Your posts have given me a lot of joy this season.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And ditto.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Here from coffeeandink's link round-up, and this is a beautiful post. ^_^ Seeing that you seem to blog about a variety of shows I like, would it be all right if I added you to my reading list?

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, all right. I'm glad you liked the post :-)

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ^_^

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Hello! I very much enjoyed this post, and have now perused a great number of others. I hope it's all right that I've friended you.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

The more the merrier. And hi!

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

Beautifully said.
I find myself more accepting of this as a series finale than I had anticipated; it seems like there are all sorts of possibilities now, that the future has somehow been changed by what's happened in the present. I was cheered that John is not alone, that he has regained some of his family..the look on his face when he saw Derek again, and then realized his father was alive in that future was very moving.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was at all what I would have predicted but that's a good thing. I do love that it's so open ended and somehow managed to feel optimistic even thought the implication was that the war still happened. I did read somewhere somewhere saying it felt like the Wizard of Oz, as John had come home even though that makes no literal sense.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I suppose she’d already made the break, she denied him at least twice (my son is dead) and referenced St Peter. Some part of me wishes that between Sarah and Ellison, Savanah becomes the new John Connor but some other part welcomes the new Messiahless future.

I really like that you've pointed out the Biblical allusion, and I like this post a whole lot. I would be delighted with Sarah and Ellison (best team-up ever!) raising Savannah (whether or not she becomes the new John Connor, though if she did that would be AMAZING). And simultaneously I too welcome the new messiah-free future.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Icon love! I'm finishing up an Ellison vid right now although more Ellison with Weaver/John Henry than with Sarah for which sadly footage is too limited. Another reason we needs a third season :-)

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) And I'm so SO excited that you'll have an Ellison vid done soon, even though he definitely hasn't gotten enough screen time with Sarah. (I totally agree, yet another reason for a third season, heh!) There's only one other Ellison-centric video out there that I know of, and it's first season. I do love his reluctant almost-friendship, almost-parent/child relationship with John Henry on the show, and his employee-shading-to-coparent relationship with Weaver really grew on me.