The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep

(S02E16) This was, according to show creator Josh Friedman, the last of a trilogy of episodes devoted to examining Sarah Connor herself. If you're like me, the show has been trying your patience since it's return two weeks ago. I'm not against introspection or character examination, but so far these "back nine" eps haven't been too thrilling. "Some Must Sleep" was a lot more compelling than last week's ep, "Desert Cantos," but that's not saying much.

John and Cameron remained in the background, Derek, Ellison, John Henry and the Weaverbot took the week off, and most of the ep featured Lena Headey walking around in pajamas. Like I said – not too thrilling. Things picked up in the end, but I found the unreliable narrative a little distracting. It was confusing trying to figure out what was real and what was a dream. I'm sure that's what Friedman was going for here – he wanted to truly put us inside Sarah Connor's scrambled head. Well, it worked in that sense, but it didn't really translate to great TV.

So, the whole sleep clinic thing was a dream? That's fine. The stuff in the van with Ned Bellamy's baddie, Ed Winston, was a lot more interesting. It's here that the show reminded us exactly who Sarah Connor is – she's just a regular girl thrust into a never-ending nightmare. She had to grow up fast when that nightmare started, and she's been taking heavy blows ever since. She's beaten, tortured and will probably never see the end result of all her suffering. In short, Sarah's life is bleak. The bleakest. She spends her weekends chasing conspiracy theories and being tortured by creepy dudes in black vans. And now she's officially a killer – the "witch" of the "witching hour" she talked about in the voice over.

I like that TSCC is willing to go to these dark places. The episode ended with our main character accepting her role as a dark and dangerous soul born out of terror. But where do we go from here? Do we just move on to more Terminator-of-the-week stories knowing that there will be no rest for Sarah Connor, or will she be saved? And who can save her? The easy guess would be John Connor – he saves everybody, right? But something tells me Derek is more suited for the job. John seems a little distracted right now.

John spent a lot of time in this ep complementing Cameron's pancake recipe and eying her sexy half-naked body in Sarah's dream. Wil he finally fall for his cyborg protector? I doubt it. There's something else going on there, and I'm looking forward to finding out what it is.

John's scenes with Cameron worked to remind Sarah that a machine could probably take better care of her son that she could. Just another blow to her already bruised psyche.

Other Observations:

- Not a lot of overall plot advancement in this ep, but we did learn that Winston's employers have operations overseas. Has Skynet already gone global?

- I've been hard on Sarah's voice over's in the past, but I enjoyed them tonight. They were a little cheesy, especially that last line, but they helped me connect with the character.

- That Ned Bellamy sure is one scary SOB. I think he'd be a good replacement for Jigsaw in the next the next Saw movie.

- A needle to the eye? A point-blank execution? If she wasn't already, Sarah has now truly become hardcore.

- Cameron banging the vending machine was one of the best bits of this ep. That was some good Terminator action.