Review: "Sarah Connor," Episode 1.02
Review: "Sarah Connor," Episode 1.02
"Gnothi Seauton" visibly improves upon the TSCC Pilot.
Season 1 - Episode 2: “Gnothi Seauton”
Original Airdate: January 14, 2008
Written By: Josh Friedman
Directed by: David Nutter
Plot Summary: 3 days after arriving in 2007, Sarah tracks down her old friend Enrique Salceda (Tony Amendola), so she and John can secure new identities. Cameron attempts to contact other resistance fighters, only to run afoul of Vick (Matt McColm), a new T-888. John goes out to explore the new world of 2007 and checks in on a now married Charley Dixon.
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Review:
A serialized network show’s second episode is often expected to function as a second pilot and so carries the burden of re-familiarizing audiences with the show’s premise. Usually, this translates to a good deal of repetition and redundant exposition. What’s great about TSCC is that, for the most part, “Gnothi Seauton” (which means “know thyself” in Greek) manages to avoid this.
To an extent, this is a second pilot, insofar as it actually sets up what TSCC is going to be about in the macro sense. But it also builds directly on the events of the previous hour and assumes that you are largely caught up with everything that happened in it. (And if you haven’t seen it, that’s what the recaps are for.)
That becomes clear from the way E1.02 opens with a reveal that Cromartie’s flesh-covered head also made the time jump into 2007 and is able to recall its separated body. What appeared to have been a closed plotline from the Pilot is revealed to be a longer ongoing thread, which immediately signals that TSCC is not going to be as self-contained as the Pilot made it out to be. It promises another inevitable confrontation with the Connors, establishing Cromartie as a recurring antagonist of the first season. And it shows that TSCC will take its time getting there — after all, we see only about 4 concise scenes with the guy before the episode cuts to black.
Cromartie’s thread also ties into the main theme of “Gnothi Seauton”: identity. The majority of the episode, after all, is about Sarah, John, and Cameron attempting to acquire new identities and acclimate to their new timeline/surroundings.*
*And in case the audience doesn’t get it, Sarah in voiceover discusses how many identities she has had and how she now no longer quite knows who she is.
In a larger sense, the notion of identity extends to the show’s own status in relation to many other series released in the last 15 years that centered on male anti-heroes who usually made morally questionable if not amoral choices that required maintaining secret identities, while constantly living with the threat of public exposure and potential incarceration.
It is difficult to say if TSCC was intentionally striving to replicate this schema. But it is definitely using a similar setup to explore who its characters are and what they are capable of. The show would never push any of its protagonists into Walter White or Tony Soprano territory, but it would certainly strive to make them complex and flawed individuals that were far from always heroic.
After all, Sarah has to wrestle with the decision of whether or not to murder a potentially innocent man, who was once a close friend, and tells Cameron — who takes the matter into her own hands — that she has no idea of what she would or wouldn’t do. That confrontation with Enrique is thus crucial to defining both Sarah and Cameron, the latter of whom is firmly established as a Terminator that has no qualms about murdering innocent people to further her agenda. It’s a good scene, and one that evinces the show honing in on its potential as a serious dramatic program.
Admittedly, TSCC is still figuring out what kind of show it is exactly, particularly where tone and dialogue are concerned. Sarah, for instance, has a few Whedon-esque speeches throughout, evincing that the series hasn’t yet really found her voice. The one where she talks about a “paramilitary convenience store” in particular feels out-of-place. (On the plus side, the scene never draws attention to the fact that Cameron is hotwiring a car during this conversation.)
Nonetheless, “Seauton” is definitely more confident and self-assured on the whole than the Pilot. One can see this in the way the show now makes far more organic attempts at humor, such as when Cameron interacts with — and then tries to imitate — the seemingly mute lookout girl Chola. The two never exchange any dialogue onscreen but there is clearly something developing here, especially since the next time we see them together, Chola is giving Cameron a makeover.
But this is especially visible in the way the episode’s brilliant first act upends expectations. It initially sets up the idea that several new guest characters are about to enter the story — other human resistance fighters sent from the future by John to help bring down Skynet. However, when Sarah and Cameron get to the meeting place, it turns out that they are already dead.
It looks like we’re in for a mystery about who killed them and why. Just moments later it turns out that the Terminator that murdered them, Vick, is there playing possum. He attacks, leading to the hour’s only action scene — an extended visceral fight between Cameron and Vick that then becomes a chase sequence when Vick goes on the run — notably after being unable to identity Cameron’s model. Sarah manages to ram him with a motorcycle, but he gets away when Cameron is run over by a car. In the span of about 5 minutes, the show presents three reversals, and this is just the first act! And what’s great is that none of these developments feel rushed, because TSCC cuts out a lot of the expected procedural beats in-between.
In a more traditional show, it’s not difficult to imagine this premise playing out over the course of the entire episode, with Sarah and Cameron meeting the fighters in the first act, coming back later to find them dead, and then spending the rest of the episode looking for their murderer, before taking him down in the final climactic 10 minutes. And yet, TSCC again doesn’t follow the rules — a potential rematch between Vick and Cameron in the final act, when the Connors return to the resistance fighters’ hideout to collect whatever they may have left behind, is taken off the table when Cameron gets incapacitated by a rigged safe.
Suddenly, we have a suspenseful sequence, where Sarah and John have to quickly get what they can out of a hidden safe and remove Cameron from the premises before Vick can find them, leaving him as yet another loose end and a potential threat to the Connors down the line. This simultaneously provides a refreshing and exciting approach to telling a story, demonstrates the show’s commitment to avoiding Terminator-of-the-Week plots, and further confirms that TSCC isn’t really interested in being an action-oriented series. Moreover, it directly addresses a key issue of the Pilot, providing a greater sense of the season’s main direction going forward.
Story-wise, what doesn’t work that well is John’s subplot, mainly because it never really clearly establishes his motivation. He initially appears to sneak out because he is restless after being cooped up for three days, but that doesn’t explain why he later breaks into Charley’s apartment or why he violently reacts when Charley tries to hug him. I believe the intention was to convey that John missed his old life and identity, which Charley symbolized, but then he had to confront the fact that Charley had gotten married and aged, which caused him to panic. But if this is the case, then it wasn’t very well communicated to the viewer.
Overall, “Gnothi Seauton” has its issues but it is a strong second episode that begins the show in earnest. TSCC hasn’t figured itself out yet, but it’s getting there.
Grade: B+
Notes and Annotations:
Honestly, if you think about the Cromartie reunification plot too much, it begins to fall apart. Cromartie’s robotic body, after all, seemingly spent 7 years in a junkyard untouched and unnoticed. And just how is the head able to direct the body geographically?
I really wish the episode did not reiterate over and over how it’s been 3 days since the time jump — it really feels like an unnecessary plot reminder.
During the meeting with Carlos, the episode has an interesting aside, where Sarah first learns about the 9/11 terrorist attacks that she and John skipped over in the time jump. It never really factors into the story or characterization, but it does allow the show to again ground the heightened events of the series in our reality.
When Sarah picks up the gun from the ground, it’s not clear where that gun came from. Based on later episodes, the idea was that this is Vick’s gun, as in he apparently dropped it during his skirmish with Cameron. But like in John’s case, this is a muddled plot point.
This episode marks the introduction of a far more personal stake for Sarah: the idea that she might get cancer, as she had died from it in 2005 prior to her time travelling. This helps partially rationalize why the Connors had to jump in time, though, to some extent, it was really to get both characters into 2007 without having to age them up.
The Connors being somewhat out-of-place in 2007 would never really get this much attention again. Personally, I would’ve loved to see more of John discovering the world and learning to use modern computers.
I have no idea how Sarah knew exactly where to drive on that motorcycle to crash it into Vick, but it was really cool nonetheless.
I don’t believe the series ever explicitly established Cameron’s model number. According to the released bible for the show, it was 889-F,making her more advanced than a T-888.
It is never established here whether or not John learns that Enrique is dead, with the subject never getting brought up in later episodes. It’s likely that Sarah never tells him about this and one can read her reply to John’s question, as to whether or not she went out earlier as a lie to cover for the fact that she went to see Enrique one more time.
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