A Dubious Achievement?

The most recent episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - "Adam Raised a Cain" - was not only some of if not the best TV I've ever seen, it was also notable for wresting a dubious achievement away from the Japanese: Most Sudden, Unforseen, and Unceremonious Death of a Major Character in a Series or Film. If you blinked, you'd have missed it.

Not that this is a bad thing - no one being safe, that is - though in terms of the plot it may turn out to be a mistake...but maybe not, as earlier in the episode, when Sarah was trying to convince Cameron not to murder Ellis, they wound up having a conversation about how you don't kill for no reason. Also, Terminator's scribes are to the best of my experience the best storytellers in the industry right now.

And John Henry's song...little Savannah taught him to sing a goofy folk song she must have learned from her Scottish mother, a song about a Scotsman wandering to and fro and eventually winding up in London, wearing a kilt regardless of the wind or other risks of exposure/humiliation, with the repeating refrain "Donald, where's your trousers?" The series is about being strangers in a strange land (i.e. the Scot in Britain), and this episode in particular was about risk, exposure, and being caught with one's pants down. What a brilliant use of a silly, silly song to contrast and help cope with the death in this episode, and perhaps it was also a subtle but searing indictment of the legions of people who think Terminator - and sci-fi in general, especially shows on which stuff goes boom - is just brainless entertainment.

If you haven't been watching this show....well, wait until the end of the season and rent or buy it when it comes out; it's well worth paying to watch.