Complications starts just minutes after the previous story, with a weird dream sequence where John is embraced by three polymorphic cacti. Sarah’s asleep in the back of the 4×4 on the way back from Mexico, and wakes with the compulsion to vomit. After she’s done being ill, she sees a tortoise by the side of the road, on its back, and turns it over. The strength of this symbolism for sci-fi buffs is overwhelming, as it’s a direct reference to the ‘blush response’ sequence from Blade Runner. This was the interrogation technique that Deckard uses to determine synthetic people from real ones. This is later reinforced when Cameron asks John why she turned the creature over, and her lack of understanding about what it really signifies. This is just one of a series of dreams Sarah has, where she sees Cameron growing or nurturing things. Always in threes, it’s all rather disturbing. The other major thread of this week is a story involving Derek’s Anglo-Asian lover, Jesse, who’s captured a man she insists is a Skynet collaborator sent back in time. At first she seems overly confident that she’s got the right man, but Derek isn’t convinced. The man denies being ‘Charlie Fischer’, until she returns with another younger ‘Charlie Fischer’ with an identical birthmark. Sarah goes back to see Doctor Sherman, concerned she’s going nuts, but she can’t really explain the whole deal or he will really think that she is. At more than 30 minutes in, I’d sort of concluded that Complications was a wind-down exercise after the explosive release of the previous story. How wrong I was. Jesse tells Derek about who ‘Charlie Fischer’ was in the future; he didn’t only cooperate with the machines, but he trained them how to interact with humans, and broke them down physiologically. And then comes the gut punch at the end of her story, she talks about being held for weeks by this man till she didn’t remember how she got out. Except it wasn’t her being held, it was Derek! Frick! Derek goes to kill young Charlie, but Jesse kills the old one before he can… maintaining the timeline? The young Charlie Fischer goes back to work and is immediately arrested for hacking the military computer systems where he works, except we know that the biometric security system sensed his older self, and not him. He’s got some explaining to do, and it could alter his life entirely. Catherine Weaver finally turns up in the final act, to meet Ellison who’s brought her the remains of Cromartie. Her and Cromartie’s view that he’s the key to the Connors looks an increasingly accurate prediction. Lots happened this week, much of it pushing a longer story arc than any localised developments. So it was a show for those that follow the whole story, and not anyone accidentally tuning in. Next week, Sarah finally catches up with the Turk, I’m told. And after that there is only one more episode in the can. Read a review of the episode 8 here.
