Monday night is filling up fast. I have no idea how I’m going to keep up with it in a few weeks when all of my shows are back with new episodes. It’s hard enough juggling the four I did watch! Of course, I do plan to give up One Tree Hill as soon as Heroes is back but that’s not going to be much help since I usually have tons more to say about the latter anyway.

A little birdie had promised that last night’s Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles was going to awesome and that wasn’t an exaggeration. The episode kept me on the edge of my seat and fast-forwarding through commercials. If you know me, you know I like my commercial breaks so giving them up is not usual! A sign that an episode has truly captured my attention. Prison Break surprised me. I wasn’t as into last week’s season opener as everyone else and I expected more of the same this week. Instead there was enough tension to keep me anxious throughout the entire hour. Weeds was less pleasing. I’m currently frustrated with Nancy and the predicament she’s got herself into now. And, yes, I did give in and One Tree Hill again this week. About the only positive I have to say for it is that it wasn’t the disaster that it was last week. But given how horrible that episode was, that’s not saying much.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Oooh, baby, that was freaking awesome!! Perfect reminder of why I came to like this show so much last season. I like that they came back with guns a-blazing. Or, cars a-flipping, as the case may be.

I don’t even know where to start so I’m going to start with Shirley Manson first. Others mentioned not being thrilled with her but I thought she did a decent job. She felt a little too cold to me at first but once the truth was revealed it rang true to how she’d come across. For instance, the exchange she had with her assistant on the phone about canceling plans for the weekend for her evening meeting (which was all of, what, two minutes long??) felt a little too much. Once I knew she was a machine, I realized that’s exactly how a machine would react to that… emotionless. Because it wasn’t that she didn’t give at all, clearly she was a hard ass who wouldn’t give. It was that she also didn’t do something that would come across as menacing but I think that’s only something a human would do because they’d realize the need. A machine would just wait until they had confirmation that its orders were being followed. So, yeah, I thought she did a good job.

I have no attachment to the original movies so the fact she’s a T-1000 means nothing to me. A lot of people seem happy about it, though, so yay? I do have to say that I thought it was a bit much to have her disguising herself as the urinal. Oy. A little too literal a take on potty humor there, wouldn’t you say? And, really, the guys wouldn’t have noticed an extra urinal?

But let’s get back to the stuff that really matters… like Cameron waking up in TERMINATE mode!!! WTF?! Actually, I can understand that. Someone just tried to blow her up; I think I’d want to kill someone when I woke up too. Thank goodness she was a little careless with the lighter downstairs, eh? Because that’d be a pretty anticlimactic end to John Connor. Heh.

Sorry. Is it wrong of me to joke about that? Even though we all know that if John dies the series dies? Speaking John, how fucking sucky was his birthday? I had completely forgotten what day it was… but never again will I complain about having a crappy birthday. Nothing compares to having to run for you life from a machine you’ve grown to care about.

I liked that they let Cameron go bad but wish they had extended it beyond just one episode. Sure, it wouldn’t be too believable that they could keep escaping her without us questioning just how bad-ass Cameron really is but it also would have been an interesting way to switch up the dynamic for a little while. However, I can settle for knowing that we’ve basically reset the group dynamic. They had grown to, grudgingly, trust her and I’m guessing that’s over for a long while.

Plus, it did force John to make a stand about how he was going to do things. You know, I’ve seen a lot of people say it was a mistake for John to save Cameron but I’m not sure I buy that. I think it was a risky choice and not one I’m convinced he’d do again but I also think it was important that he trust his future self. In a way, the whole story depends on it. He has to trust the information and people he’s getting from Future!John or there’d be no reason for him to trust any of it. So I see his choice to save Cameron was more about that trust and not about the way he’s come to care for a machine. Of course, I do think that part’s important. In a way, I suspect it’s John’s ability to care for the machines is probably a key element to how he can beat them in the future. But now I’m just talking outta my ass.

What does Cameron’s order to Sarah mean? Was she warning Sarah that the terminate override isn’t permanent? I’m never sure what to think about Cameron, especially since we know she appears to have some ulterior motives of her own. Were her words to Sarah a simple warning but why would she say them? Doesn’t issuing the warning indicate she has some ability to emote? Thinking about it makes my head ache a little.

Then there’s Derek and I can’t believe he wasn’t a little more combative when John was holding that gun on them. Given his history with Cameron and the way he feels about machines, I was surprised that he was so passive. I couldn’t tell if he was holding back because of what John had already been through that day or if he has his own motives for not protesting.

Little things… Ellison standing up to Cromartie was, as everyone else has already said, awesome. Love that Ellison knows exactly what’s going on now but isn’t going to reveal it to the FBI (who would??). The little pissing match between Derek and Charlie was amusing but I actually wonder the same thing as Derek. Just what is Charley doing? I don’t doubt that he loves his wife but I wonder if he’ll ever be able to let go of Sarah. And hey, when the Connors blow their cover, they really blow their cover. Literally. I’m guessing John can’t just show back up at school. Does that mean they’ve decided to drop the high school angle? It clearly wasn’t what worked best in the show anyway.

I’ve gone on too long as it is but can I quickly touch on the title of this episode? Obviously, John cutting his hair is a direct tie back to the tale of Samson and Delilah but something else about that tale worries me. In it, Delilah keeps trying to find out the secret to Samson’s strength. Despite the fact that every time he tells her something misleading and she tries it, he does eventually reveal where his strength lies. And she betrays him. I worry that the foreshadowing here is that John keeps revealing his strengths to Cameron and that one day she will betray him with that knowledge. Or maybe it really just is about John cutting that damn hair?

Prison Break
See, now, this was a much better episode! I’m still not as excited about this new season and the setup for it but making the threat of prison real gives me a reason to care about what’s going on… and amps up the tension. I like it. I still could care less about the mission. I suppose that’s why I need to care about what could happen to these characters instead.

This show is unbearably depressing. No one ever survives. Seriously, if you ever see Michael or Linc or any of these guys, run the other direction as fast as you can. They are just bad news. FBI dude has totally marked himself for death. Do you think he knows that? Although the way he looked at that picture of his girl makes me think he’s already experienced some of the heartbreak they can bring. Anyway, poor Bruce, he was pretty much a goner as soon as he took that phone call from Michael.

Then there’s Alex’s son. Thank goodness they never showed us much of him. I don’t know if I’d be able to handle picturing him being murdered. I’m not surprised it was Linc who found out what happened. After all, we all knew he’d be on Alex’s side once he heard the truth. I suppose the one saving grace here is that the wife wasn’t killed. Imagine her life now, though. See? Bad freaking news. At first I didn’t get why Alex needed to see the pictures of what was done to his son but then I remembered Sarah and the head thing and realized he just needed to be sure his son was really dead. Scary.

So… who’s the one involved with the Company? The FBI guy’s boss or the senator he contacted directly? For a mission that no one could know about, there sure are a lot of people who know about it!! I originally thought the FBI guy was going to arrange for it to look like Michael and company had escaped from custody and that’s how they were going to play the “no one can know” card. Apparently not. I’m betting someone knows the truth and I have to wonder if we would have seen who if Michael had shown us all the pictures he got on his camera phone.

What else? Why isn’t Linc even slightly curious how LJ is? Or Sophia? This one’s probably pretty easy to explain away but it annoys me that we never get to see it on the show. T-Bag disgusts me and I hate how the show likes to pretend anyone could find him charming. Whatever, show, I don’t buy it. And I guess that’s all I’ve got this week. I’m interested again and, after last week, I wasn’t so sure that’d be the case.

One Tree Hill
Against my better judgment, I caved and watched again this week. And, I’ll give them this, it was 100% better than last week. Or maybe I’m just being so generous because I was forewarned and fast-forwarded past all of the Carrie/Dan scenes? Either way, it didn’t turn me off as I expected.

That said, truly hate the Brooke storyline and, while I totally cried, hate that they killed Quentin. Was that really necessary? I guess if that’s the price of them having two happy couples on the show? Actually, theoretically we have four happy couples if we count Skills/Deb and Mouth/what’s her face. And since it’s way too soon to break Lucas and Peyton up yet and it’s hard to break up the couple with the cute kid, I guess that means we need to kill off a redeemed character. I mean, this is Tree Hill, what else could be his fate?

It just… bums me out. It’s pointless and I assume Brooke’s break-in and Quentin’s death will no doubt end up being related so that she can feel all guilty for not going to the cops on top of powerless and afraid. After all, this show is so good at throwing angst at these characters.

And can I just point out how stupid Peyton is that she bought Brooke’s story about the falling down the fucking stairs? No, seriously, I don’t care how happy she is to finally have her man back. No one looks like that after a tumble down the stairs! And if the clearly beat up face wasn’t enough, Brooke’s entire personality changed overnight and Peyton doesn’t pick up on the clues. PEYTON! Who has been stalked and painted her bedroom red because she was so freaking angry and scared! Whatever. Of course she’s completely oblivious to Brooke’s pain. Normally I’d be annoyed with Brooke for feeling that she can’t go to her friends but then her friends act so clueless that who can blame her? Lucas gets engaged to Peyton and doesn’t even make an effort to see Brooke… arguably the person who has been his best friend over the past few months. Right. You see why I have issues with this whole storyline?

Even the happy stuff in this episode ends up being sad because it’s all about Nathan, Haley, and Jamie loving Quentin. Damn them for using Jamie to make a death that would otherwise piss me off actually bring me to tears. Ironically the one thing I really liked about this episode is probably the one thing all other OTH fans will hate… Skills and Deb. Those two actually have chemistry and I’m not surprised they’ve found a true friendship there. Skills has always paired well with just about anyone on this show. I like him and I like that having a storyline with him has brought Deb back to some semblance of the woman that existed in earlier seasons of this show.

Ok, I lied. I also liked the jumping on the bed sequences. The cutting back and forth between Lucas and Peyton to Jamie was cute.

Weeds
This year has been so… disconnected. I hate that the family hardly ever shares any scenes together and that’s once again become all about Nancy indulging in her bad-boy tendencies. I’m aware that makes me slightly hypocritical since I actually liked Conrad but Conrad was merely trying to make a living by doing something he was good at… he and Nancy were on the same level in that way.

Instead Nancy is once again proving that she makes stupid, stupid decisions. And she sucks at picking the right people to trust. I know that she was right in coming forward about what was happening in that tunnel. Drug running is one thing, people running quite another. Still, why the hell wouldn’t you make the better decision for your family and agree to make a deal for protection? Hoping that your connection wouldn’t be discovered? That’s just stupid. She knows better than that. How many times do these type of things have to happen to her before she finally learns her lesson?

And don’t tell me that she can’t learn it or the show would be over because that’s crap. The more she does the same thing over and over again, the more I can’t stand to watch it. Others have raved about this season, so how did it end up being my least favorite? I guess I’m just missing all of the elements that I loved about the show. It’s become much more about what they’re all doing instead of the reasons they’re doing it.

As for next week’s finale, I’m afraid to find out the shocking news Nancy has for Esteban. All of the possibilities scare me. Even knowing this show excels at awesome finales and jaw-dropping cliffhangers, I fearful about what’s ahead.

Enough of my rambling, what’d you think of last night’s shows?