Into the Black (320)

[kes]

All the discussion of how 'hard' Helen is on John in this episode just illustrates to me how differently individual viewers can interpret and feel about what they are watching.

Firstly it wouldn't have surprised me, or seemed out of character or mean, if Helen had been this harsh to John with no provocation.. just because she's sick of him showing up and hassling her.

In the pilot he come for her blood, he's all messed up.
In the Five he shows up to save her life.
In Revalations he shows up with the drone and intel on the Cabal.
After that, if I remember correctly, its always Magnus that seekes him out.
He actually asks to be left alone in FKaC.
He shows up in Into the Black to warn her about Adam and because he needs help finding him, sure. But she came to him enough times before.
According to Normandy and the Pilot she's been putting up with him for quite sometime but she also sought (sp) him out quite a few times and never told him to leave her alone (when he's sane) until Into the Black. As far as we've been told.

[majorsal]

I think this sums up how I viewed the John / Helen scene and why it doesn't strike me as odd for her to be so angry. The way I understand going along with Adam's time-bending plan, from Helen's POV, is that John is deliberately trying to hurt her. He's effectively trying to kill her and replace her with an alternate timeline version of Helen that he can still be with. Incidentally risking everyone and everything in the process - with particular risk to those closest to Helen over the course of her life since those will be the most likely affected.

To my way of thinking, in terms of emotional impact to Helen at least, John might as well have told her, "Adam and I have come up with a plan to make you mine. I have cloned you and erased the clone's memory back to when we were together. Now I am going to kill you. Anyone who notices the difference among your friends and colleagues I'll kill also." Except his plan is far worse than this because it would achieve all that and would eliminate her history of relationships as well, do who knows what to the uninvolved innocents in the world at large, not to mention rob Helen of her core identity as herself by erasing 100 odd years of her existence as if it had never been.

wow, that was a great explanation!

I completely agree with that, I've always been quite partial to the Druitt character but the more they push his obsession with Helen angle the harder I find it to relate to him. Maybe I've just never experienced love that deeply but he's starting to remind me of Kathy Bates' character in Misery!

i really wish john's motivations would have been like adam's, to get his daughter/ashley back. i also think helen wouldn't have been so angry with him if that had been his cause (whether it erased her and history).

[Huaracocha]

I'll have to rewatch it, but iirc they did play up the angle of John wanting to go back for romantic reasons. Now, him going back so that he doesn't get taken over by the Electrokiller I can see, with a benefit of going back to their happy couple days.
I think the scene may have been shortchanged a bit. Those two are very complex.

i really wish john's motivations would have been like adam's, to get his daughter/ashley back. i also think helen wouldn't have been so angry with him if that had been his cause (whether it erased her and history).

Wholeheartedly agree and either / both of these motivations would make more sense to me and make John's plan less base and deplorable.

[ann_sgcfan]

Looking at the transcripts that Sky provided a while back http://www.jackfic.net/emeraldcity/s...totheblack.htm

Adam, who has never been trustworthy- remember he said Helen killed his daughter. He and Helen have a very different version of the events surrounding his daughter's death. I'm guessing Adam and John's version of are very different as well. Even John tried to explain Adam was not telling the entire story.

We don't actually know what John's plans were ... we only take Adam's word for it, which has been proven to be worthless. Who's to say John hadn't planned on going back to only prevent himself from taking the source blood in 1886, and stopping the present Adam from any further damage. Who could blame him. If he had a chance to undo the JtR and all those he has killed over the past century ... why wouldn't he want to go back. Even if he was the only one that didn't take the source blood... he and Helen could have had 20, 30 or 40 good years, before she moved on with her life and he eventually died. Ashley would have been born in the 1800's, and the creature would never have latched onto John. We don't actually know what John's plans were. And If John would never hurt Helen, then Helen should have at least listened to what John had to say before she jumped on Adam's band wagon and blamed John for some atrocity that hasn't taken place yet.

From the transcript:

Adam: Oh, you always were a bit of a bore Helen. Even your boyfriend wanted a do over until he found we were going to the wrong time.

Magnus: What are you talking about?

Druitt: Adam…

Adam: Oh, he hasn't told you the whole story, has he? Of course not. Secrets and lies. You see, John wanted to go back to 1886, before the whole source blood incident.

Magnus: But you realized you couldn't do that.

Adam: She is a smart one, John.

Magnus: Going back to 1886 would have altered the time line. There's no telling what it would have done to the future, even the near future. Your daughter may never have been born.

Adam: Mmhm. And since this is definitely a one shot deal…

Magnus: You chose a different year.

Adam: 1898. The year she died. John got really upset. Started doing that menacing thing with his voice. That's why I had to hide, you see. And I'm guessing it's why he had to come back to you. Hoping you could somehow fulfill his dream.

Magnus: So you intended to use me for your own selfish agenda. How shocking.

Druitt: Of course not, Helen.

Adam: Oh give it up, John, she knows. Least you could do is have the decency to admit it.

Druitt: Don't talk to me of decency. I let you live. Twice.

Adam: Part of the game. I just play it better.

#####

Tunnels

Magnus: Don't talk to me.

Druitt: You can't seriously believe that I would lead you down.

Magnus: Can't I? You let Adam Worth live, twice. Everything else is beside the point.

Druitt: We need to get him back.

Magnus: How? We've overloaded these devices. There's no way to siphon enough power. Face it, John, we both lost.

Druitt: No we haven't. there's another way.

He grabs two cables from the large generators.

Magnus: What are you doing?

Druitt: The creature inside me lives on energy. I need only feed it what power the rift field.

Magnus: You can't do that. The creature will become too powerful. It will consume you.

Druitt: I caused this, Helen, I need to fix it.

He sparks and conducts and Adam's field collapses

Adam: Johnny, I always knew you were crazy but I never expected this.

Druitt laughs.

Adam: You're too late.

Adam's rift opens and he picks up a couple of bags.

Adam: Never enough time, is there?

He goes through.

Magnus: John?

Druitt: Almost.

Druitt falls to his knees.

Druitt: Can't blame me for the dream, no?

Magnus: The hell I can't.

[EvenstarSRV]

i really wish john's motivations would have been like adam's, to get his daughter/ashley back. i also think helen wouldn't have been so angry with him if that had been his cause (whether it erased her and history).

Oh, that would have been very interesting, would Helen have been willing to undo that last 2 years of history in order to save Ashley? The impact on the world would have likely been much less since it was a far shorter jump back in time, though still significant esp to the Sanctuary network.

Looking at the transcripts that Sky provided a while back http://www.jackfic.net/emeraldcity/s...totheblack.htm

Adam, who has never been trustworthy- remember he said Helen killed his daughter. He and Helen have a very different version of the events surrounding his daughter's death. I'm guessing Adam and John's version of are very different as well. Even John tried to explain Adam was not telling the entire story.

We don't actually know what John's plans were ... we only take Adam's word for it, which has been proven to be worthless.

Well, also from the transcript:

Magnus: What difference would that make? And why would you allow him to live?

Druitt: He promised to take me with him. Back to Oxford. Before…before we injected he source blood

Magnus: Why would you want to do that?

Druitt: You know why. If I could have prevented us from taking that damnable blood things would have been so different. You and I could have been together. Raised children.

Magnus: If I’d been inside that transport module I’d have taken care of things myself, thank you. In any case, I wouldn’t have been taken in by his lies. How could you think that rewriting the past is any kind of solution? You’d really wipe out the last hundred years without so much as a second thought?

Druitt: To be with you, oh yes.

So I think Druitt himself stated the reasons for his collusion with Adam pretty clearly. I'm sure keeping himself from becoming Jack the Ripper was also a motivation, esp since in Haunted he was so eager to believe it was the entity alone that caused his bloodlust, but IMO his driving reason in this case seems to be to get back his relationship with Helen.

Though he did ultimately come through and made the sacrifice of his sanity in order to allow Helen to go after Adam. I think Tesla's observation that Druitt would never hurt Helen still mostly holds true, since even when he does hurt her, he's willing to do whatever it takes to right that wrong. He did the same in S1, by first hurting/using Ashley to coerce Helen, and then helping Ashley help him save her from Tesla.

[majorsal]

So I think Druitt himself stated the reasons for his collusion with Adam pretty clearly. I'm sure keeping himself from becoming Jack the Ripper was also a motivation, esp since in Haunted he was so eager to believe it was the entity alone that caused his bloodlust, but IMO his driving reason in this case seems to be to get back his relationship with Helen.

Though he did ultimately come through and made the sacrifice of his sanity in order to allow Helen to go after Adam. I think Tesla's observation that Druitt would never hurt Helen still mostly holds true, since even when he does hurt her, he's willing to do whatever it takes to right that wrong. He did the same in S1, by first hurting/using Ashley to coerce Helen, and then helping Ashley help him save her from Tesla.

i wonder if john's 'obsession' with helen is in part his jack-the-ripper impulses? i don't know the history of jtr, his motivations, but john's all-encompassing obsession with helen could maybe be out of his control???

[Skydiver]

theoretically, it would have been one huge reset. John would never teleport and never be possessed, helen would never live forever, they might have had ashley normally and he'd have his chance for happy families.

helen could still work with the abnormals, she'd just need to hand it off to someone else (at least in john's mind)

he used adam to try and get back. we still don't know what bargain adam made with him in the 1800's to save him from the river, but adam and john seem to have a dark partnership going back over a century

[ann_sgcfan]

Regarding EvenstarSRV transcript post - good catch. I didn't go back far enough. LOL when I watched the scene I knew at some point I rolled my eyes - now I remember where.

OK well I'll leave this alone now. LOL, because the more I try to make sense why the writers would have Helen and John be portrayed like this - the less I like both characters, at least in this scene.

[kes]

Oh, that would have been very interesting, would Helen have been willing to undo that last 2 years of history in order to save Ashley? The impact on the world would have likely been much less since it was a far shorter jump back in time, though still significant esp to the Sanctuary network.

Adam asks that in the ep. She says no.

[EvenstarSRV]

i wonder if john's 'obsession' with helen is in part his jack-the-ripper impulses? i don't know the history of jtr, his motivations, but john's all-encompassing obsession with helen could maybe be out of his control???

Hmm, doubtful I think just because the two seem like opposites to me. JtR causes chaos and destruction while John's obsession has a very singular target and is more about building a family I think. Though I guess they could be two sides of the same coin, a sort of love/hate or good/evil duality.

Adam asks that in the ep. She says no.

Ah, good point I forgot about that.

[Skydiver]

it wasn't no as much as 'not at the cost of billions of people'

so i think, had she been given an opportunity to get ashley back, with no consequences to anyone else, she very well would have considered it

[kes]

it wasn't no as much as 'not at the cost of billions of people'

so i think, had she been given an opportunity to get ashley back, with no consequences to anyone else, she very well would have considered it

Well, yes of course. Everyone would.
But going back has consequences, so no.

[dipsofjazz]

<snip>
we still don't know what bargain adam made with him in the 1800's to save him from the river, but adam and john seem to have a dark partnership going back over a century

In 'King and Country' Adam makes a deal with John when they are in the water after Helen shot him.

Down in the river. Druitt zorts into the water and pulls Adam up.

Adam: John...

Druitt: End of the line, old boy.

Adam: They'll be coming for you next. Maybe they'll let Helen and Watson go free, but the ripper? They're going to hunt you forever. She'll hunt you forever.

Druitt: I hope she does.

Adam: My safety deposit box. Bank account in Kensington. The key's in my flat in Marylebone, on the mantelpiece.

Druitt: What of it?

Adam: Safe houses. Weapons, pass codes. Anything you need to help you avoid capture, it's yours.

Druitt: I can't let you live, old boy.

Adam: John...Let me die here like this. Please...Let me go.

Druitt lets him go and Adam sinks.

Druitt: <narrating>He was close to death.I let him go with honor.

End of flashback.

Druitt: He was as good as his word. Everything I found in his safe deposit box helped me avoid detection for the next 80 years.

Magnus: His death gave us all a future.

Druitt: Mmm.

[EvenstarSRV]

Regarding EvenstarSRV transcript post - good catch. I didn't go back far enough. LOL when I watched the scene I knew at some point I rolled my eyes - now I remember where.

OK well I'll leave this alone now. LOL, because the more I try to make sense why the writers would have Helen and John be portrayed like this - the less I like both characters, at least in this scene.

I'm not sure either of them are meant to be particularly likeable in those scenes. Druitt risking the lives of billions for his own personal desires, and Helen betraying her motto of 'Sanctuary for All' by completely rejecting John.

Druitt started to redeem himself by sacrificing his sanity to help Helen go after Adam, and I don't think Helen will be able to keep her back to John for long, too much history between them and ultimately he is an abnormal deserving of her help like any other.

Well, yes of course. Everyone would.
But going back has consequences, so no.

Yeah, Helen probably knows that even going back only a couple of years could have significant consequences that she couldn't predict, so she wouldn't risk it.

[Matt G]

1. Praxis is toast! Ouch!

2. Interesting to see that Helen tried to publicise the existence of abnormals in the late 1940s! That's a story I wouldn't mind seeing.

3. OK...how the hell are you going to keep quiet the issue of a load of abnormals coming out from under the ground?

4. Not sure why Helen followed Adam through the rift, going back in time is one hell of a gamble. She's now stuck in Victorian England and hell if I know how she's going to get back.