I totally agree that John showed signs up suspecting there was more to Riley than meets the eye in Ourselves Alone, but that was right before she got killed. The way he presented it to Jesse, he'd figured it out a while back. Maybe you can help me pinpoint this "really bad day" that John referred to as being the marker for when this lightbulb went off in his head. If I could figure that out, I might be able to find clues that I missed.
Actually I think I get Derek really well, but I had the same problem with him last week that I had with John this week. Derek made a character leap. Yeah there are things that we can point to along the way as maybe having a slow impact on his thoughts about killing, but none of it really adds up to his big moment last week when he told Jesse that the loss of innocent life is never a good thing. Unless of course that means Riley is the first "innocent" Derek ever feels he encountered ;)
I don't have any lack of faith in the TSCC writers at all, so you needn't worry about that, But I did see this 2-parter as a rush to get John and Derek into different points in their character growth before the end of the season. It was a short cut. If it was a one-time deal, I'll make peace with it by the time season 3 starts. If this is the start of a new less-character-depth approach to the show, then yeah, I'll lose my *OMG LOVE* for TSCC. I don't expect that, though. The show is too brilliant to for this to be more than a hiccup.
Re: "Today is the Day 1 & 2" TSCC
Actually I think I get Derek really well, but I had the same problem with him last week that I had with John this week. Derek made a character leap. Yeah there are things that we can point to along the way as maybe having a slow impact on his thoughts about killing, but none of it really adds up to his big moment last week when he told Jesse that the loss of innocent life is never a good thing. Unless of course that means Riley is the first "innocent" Derek ever feels he encountered ;)
I don't have any lack of faith in the TSCC writers at all, so you needn't worry about that, But I did see this 2-parter as a rush to get John and Derek into different points in their character growth before the end of the season. It was a short cut. If it was a one-time deal, I'll make peace with it by the time season 3 starts. If this is the start of a new less-character-depth approach to the show, then yeah, I'll lose my *OMG LOVE* for TSCC. I don't expect that, though. The show is too brilliant to for this to be more than a hiccup.