Episode Report Card Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sarah, Plain And Tall
By Sobell | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.07.2007
As we go to the credits, I am juggling many thoughts at once. The first is, what do you do with a head in a box? Do you just toss it in the nearest dumpster and hope it can't be traced to you? Chuck it in a river? Give it a decent Christian burial? Another thought: has there been a dude on this show who has been through half of what the women here go through? Veronica: held at hostage not once but twice prior to being shot and dismembered. Dr. Sara: tortured by Kellerman, kidnapped by the One World Conspiracy, then beheaded. T-Bag: tortured -- but then managed to kill one of his torturers and set the other up for murder. Sure, he was kidnapped by the Bozo Fetts compared to the One World Conspiracy, but even the three dudes whom the conspiracy took out last year -- Abruzzi, Tweener and Haywire -- weren't savaged like Veronica and Dr. Sara were. The women protagonists on this show are depowered and dehumanized in a way that none of the men ever are. It creeps me right the hell out.
Anyway, as you were. We're back in Panama City. Linc is walking along the waterfront and he's just met up with Susan B. Anthony. She's not looking too pleased to see him. Linc leans next to the rail and remains silent. Susan B. says, "I am just a soldier in this war, Lincoln. Just like you." Linc does not point out that A) the "just following orders" argument didn't fly at Nuremberg and it doesn't fly here, and B) most soldiers actually don't behead their hostages, thanks to a little thing called the Geneva Convention, so unless the One World Conspiracy's got the Bush administration's Justice Department on retainer, torturing and murdering prisoners is widely considered uncool, even in wartime.
Then Susan B. manages to annoy me even more than usual by pleading her case to Linc: "I did not want to do that. Can you even comprehend the intimacy of the mechanics of what I had to do to that woman? It's horrible!" Cry us a river, Susan B. Her upshot is, she hopes she won't have to start mailing pieces of L.J. to Linc, because boy, does she hate to do that sort of thing. Linc is like, "Whatever you want, lady." Then Susan B. starts in with her weird, conspiracy-stooge-with-feelings act, saying, "I know the last few days have been hard -- for me as well. If you want to talk about it, I know what this pain feels like." Okay, I get at this point that she is either a reluctant conspiracy stooge, or she's working for them following some sick family-harmed-by-forces-beyond-her-control backstory or whatever, but...I sort of don't care. Like I've said before, I have no idea what motivates her, I have no idea what she brings to the table, and the shrouded-in-ambiguity angle is getting old. Please, writers, it's time to tip the hand on who she really is, before I lose all interest.