The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Alison from Palmdale
Thursday, 2 October 2008 13:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
This week's Sarah Connor Chronicles was fantastic. Thoughts, not necessarily coherent: Huge amounts of praise for Summer Glau, to start with - I've always thought she was a good actress, now I think she's a great actress. She has this look that she does as Cameron, for example, where her face is very blank but she also manages to convey the fact that there's vast amounts of... processing, I suppose, going on beneath the surface. It's an episode I really want to watch again, now I know when she's Alison, when she's Cameron and when she's Alison!Cameron. I didn't realise at first that she had no idea even of what she was - when that guy punched Jodie I was expecting her to take him apart. It was incredibly poignant seeing her having a chance at a normal life, especially intercut with scenes of what happened to the real Alison in the future. For a while I wondered if they were going to go into a big time loop thing, whereby John would programme Cameron to think she was Alison and hide her away with that family to be his secret weapon in the future and then get sent back to protect him in the past. But then how would she ever have got made in the first place? Ow, my brain.
I loved how angry Alison/Cameron was with Jodie for lying, because it fits with both personalities - Alison struggling to remember her family, angry because the details of her life are so precious and she can't bear to see someone treating their own life so cavalierly, both of them betrayed by someone they trusted, Cameron reminded of her own failings: she's not creative enough to lie as easily as Jodie can. And then at the end, "You didn't kill her?" / "Apparently not." There's an element there of Cameron not knowing why she didn't kill Jodie when she could easily have done, and a Terminator not knowing why it acts like it does is a scary concept. Oh Cameron, she's so messed up, I love her.
So much glee about the fact that so many of the important scenes in this episode were two women talking. It was lovely to see Sarah's warmth in her scenes with Kacy, it's a side of her she doesn't get the opportunity to show that often. And when the policeman turns up and starts inviting her and her children to barbeques, you can see her visibly backing off, remembering that that's a life she doesn't get to have. Poor Sarah.
A few other things:
- When Alison climbed out of the Terminator camp, the background was a pretty obvious painting. It's just a little thing but it did spoil the moment. On the other hand, I loved her jumping off the boat - wasn't "I don't swim" pretty much Cameron's last line last episode?
- I am incredibly amused by the fact that Ellison's ex-wife kept his last name despite remarrying. "That's a nice name, I'll 'ave that."
- No Derek this week. I do like him but it's a testament to how great the other characters are that I didn't even notice til someone pointed it out.
I loved how angry Alison/Cameron was with Jodie for lying, because it fits with both personalities - Alison struggling to remember her family, angry because the details of her life are so precious and she can't bear to see someone treating their own life so cavalierly, both of them betrayed by someone they trusted, Cameron reminded of her own failings: she's not creative enough to lie as easily as Jodie can. And then at the end, "You didn't kill her?" / "Apparently not." There's an element there of Cameron not knowing why she didn't kill Jodie when she could easily have done, and a Terminator not knowing why it acts like it does is a scary concept. Oh Cameron, she's so messed up, I love her.
So much glee about the fact that so many of the important scenes in this episode were two women talking. It was lovely to see Sarah's warmth in her scenes with Kacy, it's a side of her she doesn't get the opportunity to show that often. And when the policeman turns up and starts inviting her and her children to barbeques, you can see her visibly backing off, remembering that that's a life she doesn't get to have. Poor Sarah.
A few other things:
- When Alison climbed out of the Terminator camp, the background was a pretty obvious painting. It's just a little thing but it did spoil the moment. On the other hand, I loved her jumping off the boat - wasn't "I don't swim" pretty much Cameron's last line last episode?
- I am incredibly amused by the fact that Ellison's ex-wife kept his last name despite remarrying. "That's a nice name, I'll 'ave that."
- No Derek this week. I do like him but it's a testament to how great the other characters are that I didn't even notice til someone pointed it out.