Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Good Wound - Mania.com



Sarah Connor Chronicles Review

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  • TV Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
  • Episode: The Good Wound
  • Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones, Brian Austin Green, Shirley Manson, Garret Dillhunt, Levin Rambin, and Stephanie Jacobsen
  • Written By: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz
  • Directed By: Jeff Woolnough
  • Network: Fox
  • Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Good Wound

That Shirley Manson sure is creepy, isn't she?

By Rob Vaux     February 14, 2009


Sarah (Lena Headey) abducts female doctor Burnett(Laura Regan) in TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES: THE GOOD WOUND(2009).
© Fox

 

The Sarah Connor Chronicles went into its midseason break on extremely shaky ground, marked most notably by a cross-dressing UFO theorist reminiscent of The X-Files at its worst. Add to that a multiplying series of time travelers, numerous rehashes of the "unstoppable machine hunting us" motif and some truly embarrassing surprise twists (Riley's from the future?!), and this show needs some damage control but quick. Apparently, we'll need to hold on for at least another week to get it.
 
Sarah (Lena Headey) wakes up in the hospital after being shot last episode, then busts out under the hallucinated admonitions of One True Love Kyle Reese (Jonathan Jackson). She gives Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) a call, revealing the high-tech warehouse she found in the desert and ordering him to dispose of the evidence she left behind there. He's sitting in the waiting room of another hospital with John (Thomas Dekker) and Cameron (Summer Glau), waiting for news on Riley (Leven Rambin) who tried to kill herself last episode. They stay, Derek goes.
 
Sarah abducts a female doctor (Laura Regan) named Burnett in the hospital parking lot and takes her to a hotel room to work on her wounded leg. The woman can't remove the bullet, however, and convinces Sarah to head back to the hospital for proper care. After sneaking into the morgue using an ambulance gurney, Sarah surrenders her gun and allows Dr. Burnett to put her under.
Down in the bowels of Zeira Corp, John Henry (Garret Dillahunt) tells Ellison (Richard T. Jones) how much it has learned about its new body--its arrival in 1999 as Cromartie, its imitation of actor George Lazlo, its massacre of the FBI agents at the end of Season One--which it obtained by Google-searching Ellison's name. When Weaver (Shirley Manson) speaks to John Henry, it reveals that it knows what she really is. She tells it that everything she does, she does for it, then high-tails it to the warehouse in the desert and proceeds to butcher everyone in sight before blowing the place sky high.
 
Back in the other hospital, Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen) arrives to take Riley away, then gives her considerable grief for trying to off herself. The police are hot on Sarah's tail but they don't count on Derek, who blows up her Jeep in the impound yard and burns the other evidence to cover her tracks. (The police still have an audiotape, however, revealing the location of the warehouse.) He then heads to the hospital to pick up Sarah, resulting in a three-way stand-off between Derek, the chief of police and Dr. Burnett. The latter two apparently have a history, which is probably why she shoots him instead of Reese. Sarah wakes up and she and Derek flee the hospital together.
 
The Good
 
The juice of this show mainly lies with Zeira Corp at the moment, both in terms of cerebral concepts (John Henry's halting progress towards sentience) and visceral action (Weaver's massacre of the warehouse personnel, which was this week's ass-kicking high point). The police in pursuit of Sarah are shaping up to be interesting foils (barring, you know, the one who got shot) and may lend some urgency to the series if they're allowed to develop properly. As always, Headey is damn tough to dislike in the lead role, and SCC can avoid full-bore disaster as long as she's around.
 
The Bad
 
The whole doctor/police chief subplot remained forced and poorly executed while leeching energy away from the already-shaky central plotline. Jackson doesn't fit Kyle Reese especially well (the patchy beard isn't exactly helping) and his presence consists mostly of regurgitating lines from the first movie. For that matter, a number of tropes come straight from the Cameron films (Weaver walking calmly out of an explosion, the hotel room Sarah briefly hides in, etc.), providing unwelcome reminders of how good this material is supposed to be and how less-than-good it has become. In addition, Glau--Headey's ready equal and Reason #2 to tune in every week--spends most of the episode on the sidelines, and the Riley/Jesse subplot continues to spin its wheels. There but for the grace of God goes the remainder of the show.
 
The Prognosis
 
As things stand now, SCC is a Mack Truck vehicle with a motor scooter engine. The elements are all in place for something truly great, and yet its purpose has become blunted by too many characters, too many subplots and a confused notion about where it's all supposed to go. Streamline the cast, focus on the essentials, and re-inject a sense of urgency into the protagonists and their mission. Where are they headed, how can they get there, and what precisely is standing in their way? The faster SCC answers those questions, the better off it will be. 

COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

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mbeckham1 2/14/2009 12:27:30 PM

The Weaver scene were brilliant.  And Dillahunt still proves no one can do creepy like he does.  His scenes invovling his growing sentience are some of the best scenes on the show.  Yeah, Kyle Reece does look a little back street boy, not to mention a bit young for Sarah, but Lena always delivers brilliantly and mae the scenes wiorth watching.  Agred they need to give Summer  Glau more to do and they need to pixck up the ace in terms of story.  This is about the pont in last season where this really became a can't miss show, they need to get some of that back.  Streamline hell yeah.   Find the plots that matter and move them forward

hanso 2/14/2009 1:19:19 PM

Shriley Manson sucks balls!

Dude you are right, that beard was weak!!  but I kinda liked seeing Reese running around with Sarah.

They should've played the Bryan Adam "Everythin I Do" song in the scene between John Henry and Shirley Manson.  That would've made the show even better!

Hobbs 2/14/2009 9:48:38 PM

Has the guy playing Kyle Reece gone through puberty yet?  What's up with that beard?  They should get that guy from Deadwood to play Reece...the guy who played Bullock.  Everytime I saw him I kept thinking how much he reminded me of the guy who played Kyle.

I thought this episode sucked...and I'm not just talking Shirley Manson sucks balls sucks....Even her slaughtering all those people couldn't save this episode.

The sub plots they keep adding to each episode that has NOTHING to do with moving the overall story forward is killing this show.  They are proving what I said when I first heard they were making a Terminator series...How the F are they going to make a weekly series out of Terminator?   I would have to say the writers are struggling with that one as well.

Rob, where I would have raised your BSG grade from B to A I will go the opposite way  on SCC and drop it to an F. 

MrJawbreakingEquilibrium 2/15/2009 4:51:51 AM

I think the reason that they are rehashing Kyle's lines are whatever from the first movie is basically just her remembering him and what he said.  She's just doing it in a hallucination.  I thought it was a good episode and I think that most of the episodes, if not all of them move the story forward but they're just not doing it half as well as Fringe is doing.

mbeckham1 2/15/2009 1:18:04 PM

Yeah, I was skeptical of Fringe in the beginning but it really had delivered, and improved with each episode. I am glad their calling Dillahunt John Henry now, a) Because the reference is clever.  And B) gbecause Cromartie was a silly soounding name.  I know it was a reference to  Arnold Schwartzenaber but it was still a silly sounding name and didn't fit Dillahunt's clever creepy performance at all.

redhairs99 2/15/2009 1:54:21 PM

Hanso, I was thinking the exact same thing.  Even before she answered the question, I was thinking please don't say "Everything I do I do it for you."  And then she said it and I was listening to see if they'd play the Bryan Adams song.

I think the grade given here is accurate.  It was a decent episode, not really bad but not good either.  The Riley and Jesse storyline sucks and should be written off quickly. I think boths the scenes with John Henry were great.  It's interesting to see this evolution of the A.I.  I also liked seeing Connor Trinner (Tripp from Enterprise) on the show.  Just wish they would have given him a better part.

SgtTechCom 2/15/2009 7:23:02 PM

Jonathan Jackson plays Kyle Reese Great. No complaints what so ever. I loved the whole idea which is no doubt from Terminator 2 the deleted scene between Kyle and Sarah in the mental hospital.

I love how now Sarah knows that Derek knows Kyle is John's Dad. The end was good.

Manson was great evil ! Just like she has to be . Lifeless and total T1000. She doesn't have to act so who cares. and John Henry playing with transformers was classic just creepy.

Can't wait for next Friday =)

DayDrumFour 2/15/2009 11:27:18 PM

Keep in mind that Michael Biehn today looks like Sarah Connor's dad. They had to cast Reese as best as they could.

Also, it's hard to stay interested in John Henry if he's talking to a T-1000.

Shirley Manson may suck balls, but what she is beats playing with Transmorphers.

JBBUC 2/16/2009 1:35:41 PM

I didn't think this episode was too bad. To me, less Cameron is more so I was cool with that. I wasn't a fan of Lena Heady as Sarah to begin with but she cerntainly is a good actress and it showed in this one. My biggest disappointment was the throw away character that the Sheriff turned out to be. When I first saw 'Trip' I thought for sure they were going to get back to some of the cat-and-mouse tension of the gang having to avoid the authorities as well as the terminators. Instead we got an under-developed 'domesic violence' sub-plot. Or maybe an over-developed wink at something I am not privy to. Whatever it was, there should have been either more of it, or none at all.

Here is where I really might lose some people. I still disagree with the casting of Summer Glau was Cameron, but I love Shirley Manson as Weaver. As I see it, the character is supposed to be cold, inhuman and entirely unlikable in every way. Manson is nailing that.

The kid who played Kyle Reese WAS too young, but I don't expect to see him again so I'm not going to kill them over it.

Riley should die, and if they can't think of a way to make Jessie interesting, she needs to go too.

My final thought is that it's time to get Ellison back in the mix for real. He was too likable and interesting of a character to be waisting away as John Cromartie's babysitter. The guy was an FBI Agent for crikes-sakes. Let him find out about Weaver and start working as an inside man for Sarah and crew. Just do SOMETHING with the guy before he becomes completely stale and irrelevent.

Bottomline, this was all about Heady showing her acting chops. B- for me.

Wiseguy 2/16/2009 1:50:00 PM

I love it. I think Manson is doing a better job than I expected and that most people give her credit for.

Are Jessee and Riley lovers/ All this "I want to spend the night" stuff is kind of suspicious.

Kyle had to be a bit older. He must've been near 30 give or take in the first Terminator but here he looks more like 20. The guy did a pretty good job otherwise and maybe they plan on using him in any flashes of the future.

Like that they kept John's role to a minimum. These are the SCC not the JCC.

Want to see more Cameron as well.

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