The Pullbox

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Episode 2.06 – “The Tower Is Tall, But The Fall Is Short”

Written by: Denise The

Directed by: Tawnia McKiernan

One of the more calmed down episodes of the season. Don’t get it wrong, though. Calmed down meaning less action, but so much happened in this episode. I really enjoyed it. It gave a lot of characters a chance to grow, and show us what’s going on with them. And one big hunk of doughnut, they gave us a final answer to the question of the season; Did John or Sarah kill Sarkissian?

After the jump: My spoiler filled review of “The Tower is Tall, but the Fall is Short”

- SPOILER WARNING -

In this episode, the Connor Crew look into the next name on their “Wall of Weird.” He’s a child psychiatrist and family therapist. The Connors bug his office, and start to go in for individual sessions with him. At the same time, Catherine Weaver, the T-1000,  has been taking her “daughter,” (that is to say the daughter of the true Catherine Weaver, whose place the T-1000 has taken.)

Weaver throughout this episode intends to make her fake-out more convincing. She doesn’t just need to fool the general public, she needs to fool the child as well. Fooling the child into thinking her mom is still the same person, will make her a happier child and take away any outside suspicion. This whole plot line was very interesting to me. Its great to see the kid isn’t some hologram demon child, although deep down I was kind of hoping she would be. How cool would it be to have a tiny little girl terminator running around shooting people’s heads off? Okay, maybe not. But I definitely enjoyed the mystery element surrounding the child. Now that the mystery is gone, you pity her. I liked fearing her. “RUN ELLISON! SHOOT IT! KILL IT ELLISON!”

Derek runs into an old friend of his from the future, Jessy. She’s come back in time, supposedly to escape the war and live a “normal” life. Derek even gets a little action, which should help him loosen up. But this chick isn’t being completely honest. She’s surveying Derek and John and definitely has some kind of hidden agenda. She’s a liability and I can already tell, Derek’s going to make the mistake of inviting her into the inner circle.

Ellison was around a bit in this episode. It makes me happy to see him involved. He’s still one of my favorite characters and I wish he had more to do. In this episode he grows more curious about what’s going on in the lower floors of the building.

Down there, Weaver’s team is working on the Turk. It’s learning. And as it learns, it starts acting weird. Giving the team illogical responses. Weaver uses Doctor Sherman to analyze the Turk’s message. Turns out the Turk was making a joke. And not a very funny one. The turk’s getting pretty scary. The Connors questioned what this guy could possibly have to do with SkyNet. Well, it appears Weaver’s hired him as a consultant regarding their project with the Turk. Thanks to John debugging the room, the Connors never found that out, though.

Oh John. Poor John starts seeing the therapist. Its clear he thinks he needs help, despite what Sarah would have you believe. As the episode moves forward, we start to get short flashbacks to the season premier when Sarkissian has John and Sarah tied up. Its been a matter of some debate whether John killed Sarkissian, or Sarah did. Even Derek himself is under the false impression that Sarah killed Sarkissian, and that John seeing it happen is what’s got him a little messed up. In this episode, Doctor Sherman repeatedly compares John to War Veterans he’s treated in the past. We get full confirmation at the end of this episode that John did, in fact, kill Sarkissian, and with his bare hands no less. John’s a little screwed up right now. He needs help. He needs to talk to somebody. Once again Thomas Dekker gives a brilliant performance. He’s got more talent at his young age than most veteran actors in Hollywood have.

This episode was just top-notch as always. My only complaint is there isn’t enough Ellison. Everything else is great. The Derek stuff is interesting. Gave him even more humanity. Cameron gets to turn another Terminator into a pretzel. That whole fight scene was hilarious. And the Sarah stuff was touching as always. She’s having as hard a time with John’s state of mind as he is. The return of the Sarah Monologue at the close of the episode was long overdue. I hope its back for good.

The A-Train’s Rating for “The Tower is Tall but the Fall is Short”: 4 out of 5 Pretzelminators!