Goatmoose

As anyone who follows Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles knows, Brian Austin Green’s rather well-liked character took a bullet in the head. It was a rather shocking death for a main character, a death that has stirred up a lot of discussion today on Internet nerd forums on IMDB and elsewhere. There are a lot of mixed opinions on the matter, and I must share my argument.

The mixed opinions stem not only from the fact that Derek was killed, but how he was killed – cinematically speaking. The camera shot had just jumped to him, he rounded a corner in the house, and bang – bullet to the forehead. He fell down, the necessary blood puddle formed, and it cut back to something else. It was an extremely non-dramatic method for capturing the death of a main character. It was like any random henchman or cronie’s death. And that’s why I liked it.

People have been saying it was Joss Whedon-y the way it happened, killing off a main character abruptly only to say “hey look, main characters can die, too!” Just last week on Terminator, Charlie met his demise. While he wasn’t a main character, he was a recurring one and a father figure to John. This week it goes up one notch, taking out John’s uncle and eliminating one of the two remaining family members he has.

I read a lot of “Derek’s dead. The show is cancelled” type BS this morning. I read a lot of “why would they do that?” BS this morning. It’s really not all that complicated…

The purpose of The Sarah Connor Chronicles since its beginning is to show the evolution and transformation of John Connor. In season one, he was reserved, timid, relying on Sarah and terrified of the future that has been laid out for him his whole life. He was constantly holding back and scared. In season two, he’s faced deception from people he thought he loved, the loss of some of the only people who knew who he really is, even issues with Cameron, who is supposed to be there to protect him. All the while, Catherine Weaver is threatening him in ways he doesn’t realize. He has spent the entire season learning about trust, loss and survival. We all know that eventually John Connor ends up alone, as leader of the free world. Characters like Charlie, Derek and Sarah have to die for him to end up alone. He won’t be able to evolve into the future John Connor that the entire Terminator lineage revolves around without it – and so, here we are.

As for the quickness of Derek’s death, I thought it was perfect. It did show main characters can die, whether that’s Whedon-y or not. Big deal if it is – main characters can die. The fact he didn’t go out in some super long, blown out Bon Jovi blaze of glory was great. That’s not how people really die. Besides, Derek has always been the one who said that if a Terminator wants you dead, you’re dead. He has always been there to remind everyone of what they can do – it’s perfect that his death proved the claim. A big dramatic death would only have let you know that he will die in 30 seconds. With this one, it was just a slap in the face, and ten times more shocking than something built up.

Now we’re left with the finale – Weaver is being uncovered, Sarah is arrested, Derek is dead, and John and Cameron are left alone to handle John Henry and ZeiraCorp. John may have to be John for the first real time. We’ll see.

“They flow from street to street at a particular speed and in a particular direction. Walk the block, wait for the signal, cross at the light. Over and over. So orderly. All day I can watch them and know with a great deal of certainty what they’ll do in any given moment. But they’re not orderly, are they? Up close, any individual, who knows what they’re going to do? Any one of them might dash across the street at the wrong time and get hit by a car. When you get up close, we never follow the rules.”