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mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




As far as I'm concerned, Desert Cantos exists solely for the Savannah scene with Weaver. That poor kid, drat.

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Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Q_res posted:

"She is a bad bitch" is just one of the cringiest loving things...

It really is just horrible.

It's just the worst line to end an episode on.

Let's dive into this episode.

As I said, this episode is the worst in TSCC's whole lineup. Luckily, it is the last 'bad' episode before things start to get moving again. Unfortunately, six straight weeks of bad episodes -- Self Made Man until now -- are going to be a blight on any show. It's even more of a problem when Some Must Watch dangles some interesting ideas that might move the story forwards and prompt character development, something the show has really been missing for six weeks, and then yanks them away to go with the "It was all a dream" trope. I personally feel it is one the greatest and most obvious sins that any work can commit, the "It was all a dream" episode.

Let's see what this episode sets up:
  • Sarah is captured by Ed Winston, who she then kills.
  • Sarah guesses that Ed's own people are covering up their own work. Consider this with what I said about Weaver's enigmatic placement in the narrative so far.
  • Sarah finds that Cameron is taking over her position as John's primary female figure. Rendered irrelevant due to the dream sequence.
  • Cameron reveals an ability to innovate beyond strict rules (the recipe). Rendered irrelevant as above.
  • Cameron expresses curiosity about human perception. Rendered irrelevant as above. Also wickedly on-the-nose given the episode going with its 'all a dream' idea.
  • John takes charge of his mother and shows a glimmer of the tough but fair man he'll become. Rendered irrelevant as above.
  • John and Cameron are moving towards friendship again, or something like it. Rendered irrelevant as above.
  • Skynet has some kind of new infiltrator that might be more man than machine. Rendered irrelevant as above.
  • Skynet is running a facility where they take brain scans of people to feed into a system, maybe to train an AI. Rendered irrelevant as above.
For six weeks we've had episodes where very little happens. For four weeks we've had episodes that are built as if they want to explore Sarah's mental state. Maybe it's a side-effect of the show being named after Sarah, I don't know, but it's very unfortunate. To be fair, the show is as much about a woman trying to retain her sanity and her son in the face of a nuclear apocalypse as it is the killer robots and exploring that sort of thing... but the show just handle the latter so much better.

Everything about this episode could have been so, so good -- and that's why I penalise it so harshly. It threw away great ideas and moments. As said, Cantos just kind of sucked overall. This one feels like an insult to the audience.

Is Sarah Connor Crazy? Tune In Next Week To Find Out!

The episode begins with a monologue by Sarah which is clearly her reflecting on her mental state. At night, Sarah feels alone and vulnerable and is visited by her darkest fears. Her fears, as can probably be guessed, revolve around Cameron taking over her 'place' and John growing beyond her. But we already knew that, we've already had Sarah basically explicitly state such things. Devoting an entire episode to them simply to make them more explicit is an odd choice. We already know that Sarah is deeply suspicious of everyone and is worried that someone, somewhere, is building an apocalyptic AI. The first hints the audience gets of any sort of advancement and it gets ripped away in the last five minutes.

And speaking of Sarah's insecurities, why didn't it do anything with Derek? Instead of telling us, again, about Sarah's thoughts about John and Cameron, maybe show us what she thinks about, or is scared of about, Derek Reese?

Maybe the most interesting actual revelation is Sarah seemingly coming to the understanding that she will, eventually, need to die for John Connor.

But let's go back to that bad bitch line. If Sarah is talking abut herself in the first monologue, is she talking about herself in the final one? The last line seems to imply so. Sarah is calling herself a 'bad bitch' as she's taken a man's life. The witching hour came for that man and she was the witch, the bad bitch. She has gone from being a victim of her terrors to visiting terrors upon someone else.

...But didn't he come to her and attack her first? Maybe that's not the case.

Let's look at the rest of it.

"A spirit sits on a man's chest. She is strong, beautiful. She is here to steal his children. She is here to steal his future. He is paralyzed. The terror in him will burst his heart if he cannot control it. She is a Night-Mare, a demon-woman, the oldest and most enduring story told by man. The witching hour is controlled by witches. She is a bad dream. She is a bad bitch."

Okay, she could be the spirit who sits on the man's chest and kills him. She's definitely strong and beautiful. But the rest of it? We need to know who the 'he' is. Is it Ed? Maybe, it does match, but it feels too sympathetic to him. Why do we care if Ed is paralyzed and terrified, if his future is stolen? He's a bad dude who spent the episode hurting Sarah, previous episodes killing people, and being a willing participant in whatever scheme is behind Skynet.

Is the male figure John? I guess you could argue that Sarah has stolen John's future from him, but the rest of it? She's talking about a succubus and, well, I don't think Terminator ever got so Oedipal.

It feels more like Sarah is reflecting on her feelings about Cameron. She's strong with her hyperalloy chassis and she's beautiful with her looks. In a way, She'll steal John's future. She paralyzes him, particularly when she came into his bed late one evening. But is she a bad dream and a bad bitch? I don't know. It doesn't feel right. The last line feels like Sarah describing herself but the rest of it doesn't quite map to that.

The Red Dots

Somewhat related to the above, whether Sarah is crazy or not, but this episode has a bit where Sarah glimpses a dream janitor with a coyote tattoo. Sarah wonders if it means anything, given that she saw a coyote in the real world before she was attacked. The janitor says he got the tattoo because his partner thinks it is hot. No, Sarah, this says. The red dots don't mean anything. You're crazy and reading too much into it. You're chasing a wild goose and missing what's in front of you. This is reiterated by the red dots showing up, again, as the bullet wounds in Hobson's chest. Sarah gets so enthralled by them that Hobson steals her gun and shoots John.

Is this a clear thing that will prompt Sarah to get her act together?

Not really.

It gets more muddled when, as it turns out, the three red dots will lead them to Skynet.

So why is this here, beyond being yet another time where TSCC attempts to play both sides against the middle?

What's With The Coyote, Then?

Well, like a coyote might bite off its paw to escape a snare, Sarah tears into her own wrist to get out of the cuffs. Kindred spirit.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jun 23, 2017

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

mllaneza posted:

As far as I'm concerned, Desert Cantos exists solely for the Savannah scene with Weaver. That poor kid, drat.

The show is at its best with anything to do with the robots, really. And Weaver's creepy but earnest attempts at being a family is one of them. You have to wonder what'd happen to Savannah, if she'd ever find out what happened to her mother.

CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.
It kind of feels like the wrong half of the episode is the dream. Like, it's more interesting if Sarah is being haunted in her dreams by the guy she killed. It makes less sense that, oh, just kidding, he wasn't dead and didn't blow up and is now trying to get information out of you! Maybe the writers had it that way at first (minus the terminator killing everybody in the sleep clinic) and then somebody got high and said, "Wait, what if we switch it!?" Or maybe they had it that way and realized it wasn't much of an episode, so they switched it to try to make the audience think it was more than it was?

It is a bad episode. It is a bad bitch.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

CPColin posted:

It kind of feels like the wrong half of the episode is the dream. Like, it's more interesting if Sarah is being haunted in her dreams by the guy she killed. It makes less sense that, oh, just kidding, he wasn't dead and didn't blow up and is now trying to get information out of you! Maybe the writers had it that way at first (minus the terminator killing everybody in the sleep clinic) and then somebody got high and said, "Wait, what if we switch it!?" Or maybe they had it that way and realized it wasn't much of an episode, so they switched it to try to make the audience think it was more than it was?

It is a bad episode. It is a bad bitch.

Absolutely. Things like, say, the van being this enclosed space she can't escape. Sarah's trapped with her demons and it's dark and almost gives the sense of time repeating, over and over, due to some re-used shots of the syringe and being blindfolded and such. It's practically purgatory.

Meanwhile, the sleep clinic is bright and clean and only really descends into a nightmare in the last few scenes. The sleep clinic 'world' also exists beyond Sarah, which is a bit strange, when we see some scenes from John's perspective: the vending machine, for example, and the scene where he's at home and Cameron walks past him in her underwear. It breaks the framing of it being Sarah's dream.

It feels like a cheap twist. What you thought was real was actually not real, what you thought was not real was actually real.

TSCC makes a lot of strange decisions. Luckily, the show starts ramping up again from this point but I feel pretty safe in saying that this six-week slump is what terminated (hah) the show.

CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.
Somewhere in this bad stretch is where FOX did a huge promotional campaign. Maybe there was a long teaser during the Super Bowl or something? All that and then they toss up a pile of turkeys.

haveblue
Aug 15, 2005



Toilet Rascal

CPColin posted:

Somewhere in this bad stretch is where FOX did a huge promotional campaign. Maybe there was a long teaser during the Super Bowl or something? All that and then they toss up a pile of turkeys.

The midseason break was also somewhere in the past couple of episodes, so we got a good long while to think about them and build anticipation and then... this happens.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

haveblue posted:

The midseason break was also somewhere in the past couple of episodes, so we got a good long while to think about them and build anticipation and then... this happens.

From what I've read, it was the episode that ends with Sarah seeing the drone.

:chloe:

mllaneza
Apr 28, 2007

Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952




Milky Moor posted:

The show is at its best with anything to do with the robots, really. And Weaver's creepy but earnest attempts at being a family is one of them. You have to wonder what'd happen to Savannah, if she'd ever find out what happened to her mother.

I am absolutely positive that Savannah knows that Weaver isn't really Mommy anymore. But it looks like Mommy, does... some of what Mommy did, and she knows no one would believe her if she said anything. So she goes along with the masquerade and plays along that that's Mommy. It helps her that Weaver is trying to live up to the responsibility she inherited when she took over the Weaver's lives, but it can only help so much. How can a child grieve for a parent that's standing right there ?

It's the creepiest part of the show and I wish there were more of it.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

mllaneza posted:

I am absolutely positive that Savannah knows that Weaver isn't really Mommy anymore. But it looks like Mommy, does... some of what Mommy did, and she knows no one would believe her if she said anything. So she goes along with the masquerade and plays along that that's Mommy. It helps her that Weaver is trying to live up to the responsibility she inherited when she took over the Weaver's lives, but it can only help so much. How can a child grieve for a parent that's standing right there ?

It's the creepiest part of the show and I wish there were more of it.

Savannah has definitely said something, I think to Sherman, along the lines of "I want my real mommy back". It just makes you wonder if it's just referring to her change in personality, or if she saw the T-1000 that became Weaver.

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



Milky Moor posted:

Savannah has definitely said something, I think to Sherman, along the lines of "I want my real mommy back". It just makes you wonder if it's just referring to her change in personality, or if she saw the T-1000 that became Weaver.

I always thought she just knew that something was very different about her mommy once Weaverbot took over, and slowly figured out that she had been replaced at the same time that she was coming to terms with it. I feel like if she'd actually seen the T-1000, a little girl would have kicked up more of an immediate fuss and refused to accept her taking over.

It's creepier to assume she never saw the robot, anyway.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
I've been busy with a writing project but Episode 17 should be coming tomorrow or the day after. We're in the final stretch!

Blazing Ownager
Jun 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Milky Moor posted:

As I said, this episode is the worst in TSCC's whole lineup. Luckily, it is the last 'bad' episode before things start to get moving again. Unfortunately, six straight weeks of bad episodes -- Self Made Man until now -- are going to be a blight on any show.

For those who weren't here during the live airing, I should note that this string of bad episodes happened right during sweeps. It's like the show tried to kill itself before immediately returning to being awesome after it's fate was sealed.

And the sad part is it got canned for a 2nd season of Dollhouse, which took an interesting premise at the end of the 1st season and then screwed it completely up for the most part because the lead star was just awful. loving awful.

I know I mentioned it earlier in the thread but I do find it funny that Westworld in many ways feels partly inspired by both TSCC and Dollhouse (and a lot of GTA Online; really, Nolan had all the writers play at minimum of like 40 hours of GTA before starting writing). Which is almost certainly what lead them to wanting Trevor to cameo.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Blazing Ownager posted:

And the sad part is it got canned for a 2nd season of Dollhouse, which took an interesting premise at the end of the 1st season and then screwed it completely up for the most part because the lead star was just awful. loving awful.
FTFY.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Episode 17: Ourselves Alone

Or: The Episode Where Things Start To Happen

It's too bad it took so many episodes for the plot to start happening again. It's too bad that this episode, one that is legitimately gripping and interesting and gets the story moving again came after many boring, flat and disinteresting ones. Why they didn't lead with something like this after the mid-season break as opposed to the previous three episodes, we'll probably never know.

The episode opens with Cameron in the Connor living room. In a scene that echoes the chat about the tortoise in Complications, Cameron attempts to assist a pigeon in escaping. This is the pigeon that'd been trapped in the fireplace as far back as the start of the season. Who knows how long it has been since then. She gets the bird out of the fireplace, and it flies straight into a window.

"That's a window, bird," Cameron tells it.

With the bird stunned, Cameron is able to pick it up. She takes it outside, musing all the while, "What am I going to do with you? A bird in a chimney is a fire hazard. I'm not supposed to kill you. But you can't stay here."

She holds it up to the sky and tells it to go.

Something snaps, something pops and the bird cries out as Cameron crushes it. Cameron stares at her hand, as if not understanding what happened.

Meanwhile, Sarah is scrubbing the blood stain of Riley's attempted suicide from the bathroom floor. As she's doing that, Riley shows up and offers to help. She goes to get more bleach but ends up just staring at the warning label: DEADLY TO HUMANS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS. It seems almost like she's considering swallowing it. A nice little way of establishing/reminding that Riley is not in a good way.

John shows up and the two have a brief chat about the past.

Elsewhere, Derek is concerned about the future. He's blasting away apples with Jesse -- remember the carrots and apples comment? apples symbolise a happy future, and this episode is incredibly grim, so there they are, literally blowing their happy future away -- but the gun sight is off and he misses a few. Jesse steps up to check and fires away, missing one. Still hope for a happy future together, maybe. But a very slim hope.

Derek asks Jesse when her Judgement Day was. His was April 21st 2011.

Jesse breezes past the question. Derek asks Jesse for help with a mission, to find a guy with information he needs.

Jesse doesn't seem impressed. "I'm not here to stop the war, sweetie. I'm here to win it."

For the first time, the two seem to butt heads.

DEREK: John Connor.

JESSE: John Connor.

DEREK: You know, you keep saying that but... I don't know what it means. I'm the one living with him.

JESSE: How's that working out for you? Is metal alive and well? Sarah running you around?

DEREK: I'm here. I'm asking you. Either help me with my plan or show me some progress on yours.

JESSE: Okay. What do you need?

Back in the Connor house, Sarah is searching for a stack of documents, but Cameron informs her Derek has taken them. Turns out Derek is doing this little mission with no help from Sarah as she has been, in Cameron's words, "distracted". Sarah asks Cameron about the day Riley tried to kill herself. Cameron passes along what we know: she was upset, she had a bruise on her face which might've come from her foster dad, then she slit her wrists.

"We don't know much about Riley," Cameron says.

"We should know more," replies Sarah, and decides to go talk with Riley's foster parents.

While Sarah does that, Cameron ducks into the back shed. Mirroring her comments about Riley slitting her wrists open, Cameron takes a blade to her wrist to expose the mechanisms underneath and then down to just short of her elbow, so she can fold the skin back to expose her endoskeleton. She tests her fingers one by one, poking at her mechanical components with a screwdriver. It's a really neat sequence!

And someone else sees it, too. Riley. She's coming to get her bike and looks in the window, spies Cameron jabbing a screwdriver into her metal bits. Riley takes her bike and leaves, but her footsteps alert Cameron -- who watches her go, looking unhappy about it.

Cameron is still working on her arm when John comes in. John's wearing this shirt with what looks like a lion wrestling a dragon. Kind of cool.

CAMERON: I killed a bird.

JOHN: Not the one in the chimney?

CAMERON: I thought you should know.

JOHN: A bird did that?

CAMERON: No, I did that. Look. The bird experienced an involuntary movement of my fingers. It was fragile.

John figures Cameron got damaged in a fight against another Terminator. Not much he can do though. "Maybe I could swap this out," he says. If they had spare parts.

Cameron immediately gets up and goes and begins moving boxes. There, hidden, she has kept a box of Terminator pieces.

John is pissed. "You're supposed to burn the endos!"

"Not all of them," Cameron replies. Future John's orders, apparently. "Future John has better orders than you do."

Still in a panic, Riley meets Jesse at a scenic outlook. Riley's freaking out. "I saw the metal and she knows I saw it."

"If she knew you saw, you'd be dead," Jesse replies. "I won't let Cameron hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you."

While that conversation is happening, Sarah is meeting with Aaron, Riley's step dad. This scene is strange to say the least because it makes Sarah seem remarkably stupid. I hate to use a RPG metaphor but it is the sort of thing you'd get if you fail to make an easy persuade roll. 'I want to find out whether this guy was hitting his foster daughter', you say.

You roll the dice. It comes up a big fat failure.

The gamemaster says, "You imply that he loses his temper easily and hits his daughter and that you, in fact, often feel like doing it yourself."

SARAH: I'm a patient person but I swear, there have been times... Kids, they know how to push your buttons. I'm just saying, if someone was to lose their temper, get physical...

AARON: You know, if by "someone" you mean me...

SARAH: These things do happen.

AARON: These things do happen, but not the way you're thinking. Not... Not by a long shot. That girl assaulted my wife. Went absolutely nuts. Started yelling about the world burning up and bleached skulls or some such nonsense.

It works, of course. But still.

So, Riley's telling people about Judgement Day. The immediate concern is whether John has told her anything that might compromise the family Connor. Of course, Riley has come from that future and John, as we know, has told her nothing. It's a great bit of dramatic irony.

What's worse is that, according to Aaron, there's a guidance counselor from the school involved. Aaron basically kicks Sarah out with a warning to "Keep John away from Riley."

Back in the shed, John is working on Cameron's arm, his hand over her own. "Clench your fist," he says, which leads to her taking his hand and Cameron giving him this little, quiet look while his attention is on her mechanical bits. It has this wonderfully intimate feel, and lasts only a few seconds until John tells her to straighten her fingers.

JOHN: Are you feeling any different?

CAMERON: Yes.

JOHN: Are you all fixed?

CAMERON: I don't know.

JOHN: Well... Just try not to kill any more birds.

CAMERON: You're ahead of schedule.

JOHN: With what?

CAMERON: What you need to learn.

Sarah is on the phone to Derek, telling him off for running off for a recon mission. She has to hang up, however, because Miss Wilson, the guidance counselor, has shown up. It's Jesse. Personally, I think Jacobsen does a much better job in this scene, being a prim and proper counselor than she ever really does as Jesse the Soldier.

Sarah and Jesse talk. At first, it's about Riley. Jesse as concocted a pretty firm alibi for her: an orphan, parents died in a meth lab fire. Sarah tries a lie, that she's grown fond of Riley, which Jesse immediately points out. Jesse gets particularly stuck on Derek, implying that Riley might be wanting to get "attention" from him, too.

Then, Jesse mentions Mexico.

At the end, Sarah says she will talk to John and Jesse will let Sarah handle it her way.

In a clinic, Riley is being seen by a nurse who checks her scars for about three seconds then tells her to keep taking the antibiotics. Riley is fairly crushed and obviously wanting someone, anyone, to just be kind to her. She's kicked out for another patient.

John's working on a laptop in a room of the Connor house. Cameron enters.

CAMERON: What are you doing?

JOHN: I'm looking up a restaurant address.

CAMERON: Are you hungry?

JOHN: Yeah, but, uh, this is actually for Derek. That Kaliba lawyer he's been tracking. The guy's got a booth reserved there.

CAMERON: Not an ideal location for Derek to acquire his target. It's underground and, according to this, crowded with friendly people. Hard to dispose of the body.

JOHN: I don't think that's gonna be necessary. Derek's just gonna follow him and grab him and press him about Kaliba.

CAMERON: To see if it's connected to Skynet?

JOHN: Exactly.

CAMERON: It's going to be necessary. I'll make you a sandwich.

JOHN: Wait, why?

CAMERON: You're hungry.

JOHN: Why don't we let hungry be my problem?

CAMERON: Sometimes it's nice to have help.

JOHN: How's the hand?

CAMERON: Not a problem.

JOHN: Aren't you supposed to be really good at self-repair?

CAMERON: Yes.

JOHN: But sometimes it's nice to have help.

CAMERON: Yes.

JOHN: Well, I'll make my own sandwich.

So, we cut to the fancy restaurant Derek is in, keeping eyes on the lawyer. This scene is entirely unnecessary and it's kind of surprising that it made it into the final cut. Here it is: Derek is sitting at the bar, a prostitute sits by him and checks his interest. He's not. She offers to introduce him to her male counterpart, and he's not interested in that, either.

That's literally it. About two minutes of just... nothing. I think it's supposed to show that Derek is putting a lot of time and energy into this job but, I mean, is that the best way to do it?

Back at the Connor house, Sarah comes home. She passes along the information that she got from Aaron and Jesse. Riley's been talking, about things she shouldn't know. Things about Sarah, John and Derek and what happened in Mexico. Enough that she can flip out about a bleached skull end of the world.

John says it's impossible. Sarah says she doesn't believe him. John swears to God that he hasn't.

This episode, if you haven't cottoned on already, is right there in the title. It's about driving wedges wherever it can, making every character alone.

JOHN: I'll talk to her.

SARAH: It might be too late for that.

JOHN: Well, what do you want me to do?

SARAH: I want you to prepare yourself for what's gonna happen when Cameron finds out.

John and Cameron have a quick talk. John wants to know if he might know something Future John does not. Cameron thinks that is unlikely. He wonders if Future John kept any secrets from her, and Cameron is sure he did.

Riley arrives, wanting to find John. Sarah immediately goes on the attack.

SARAH: Yeah. You owe him an explanation for all the things you said.

RILEY: What I've said?

SARAH: To your foster dad, to your guidance counselor.

RILEY: Guidance counselor?

SARAH: You're a terrible liar. You don't owe me. It's him who put his trust in you.

John presses her, too. Riley defends herself. Why would she spill her guts to her foster dad or a guidance counselor? Riley wants to talk to John somewhere more private, but a knock at the door stops any chance of that. While Cameron leads Riley somewhere, John and Sarah head to the door.

Outside is a woman named Molly.

Molly is a pleasant, smiling lady.

Molly is from the Department of Child and Family Services.

Molly wants to come in for a quick chat.

Cameron has marched Riley into the tool shed. "This is your fault," she tells Riley.

CAMERON: You're the reason that person is here.

RILEY: You're John's sister. You can't keep me here.

CAMERON: They don't always like the way I do things.

While John and Sarah deal with Molly and her questions about guns, concealed weapon permits, and state jurisdiction, Cameron shuffles back and forth on each foot. Riley stands at the other end of the tool shed, trying to put a gulf between her and the robotic murderess who knows that she knows she's a robotic murderess.

Echoing what she said to the bird, before it met an end at her malfunctioning arm (or was it?), Cameron asks: "What am I going to do with you?"

RILEY: I don't understand. I don't know what you mean.

CAMERON: Children and family Services respond to complaints. Are you a complainer?

RILEY: No. No, I never told them anything. What would I even tell them?

CAMERON: You don't belong here.

Cameron takes a step forwards. Her left hand spasms violently. She takes another step.

CAMERON: ohn isn't right for you and you're not right for him. He can't see that.

RILEY: Stop. Please. You're freaking me out.

CAMERON: You're unreliable. I don't know what you do.

RILEY: I'm just John's girlfriend. That's it.

CAMERON: You can't be John's girlfriend. You're a threat. You can't stay here anymore but I can't let you leave.

RILEY: You're John's sister.

CAMERON: What am I going to do with you?

RILEY: Nothing. You can't do anything to me because you're John's sister. Get it through your head. You're just his sister.

At that accusation, Cameron gives this curious twitch of her head. It's the sort of expression that, in a human, might say: are you so sure about that?

It's a wonderful scene. Glau nails Cameron, of course. Leven Rambin is amazing in this episode, too. In this scene, she perfectly captures the multiple layers in being trapped with a being that could kill you if you reveal you know what it is and need to convince it that you're just an idiot kid. She's scared but cunning and, in a way, uses the rules of the scenario against Cameron. You're his sister! Not a robot and certainly not his girlfriend.

It probably wouldn't have worked, of course, but Riley's brave. Bravery isn't enough against hyperalloy hands, however.

At that moment, John arrives. Riley breaks down in tears and hugs him. John ushers her outside, so he can talk to Cameron.

Were you gonna kill her?

CAMERON: I don't know what I was going to do.

JOHN: What do you mean you did not know what you're gonna do? Since when do you not know what you're gonna do?

CAMERON: I don't know. I should've killed her. She's a threat to you.

JOHN: That is not your decision to make.

CAMERON: It's usually not a decision.

JOHN: Well, obviously, it is this time. And it's not yours. What's happening with you?

CAMERON: I don't know.

By the front door, just inside, Sarah is pacing, pistol in hand. She's evidently weighing up whether she can kill again. But killing Winston is different to killing a young girl. She puts her gun down, unloads it, empties the chamber.

Outside, John and Riley talk. "Today is the day where you tell me whatever it is you might wanna tell me," John says.

"No," Riley replies. "Is there anything you wanna tell me, John?"

"No."

Derek is in Jesse's hotel room, checking out surveillance photos, when Jesse arrives in her Miss Wilson disguise. Derek draws up a plan to nab the lawyer but he needs Jesse's help to block the road and keep his bodyguards suppressed, so he can nab the lawyer. Jesse tries to weasel her way out of it, saying she's out of practice, but Derek makes it clear she doesn't have a choice. He storms out all the same.

At the Connor house, with Riley pacing on the back porch, John and Sarah talk about Riley. Riley's told John just about everything: she trusted someone who has sold her out. But she won't say who. She's not willing to betray Jesse. Sarah doesn't buy it. As they talk, in a nice little bit of blocking, Riley walks off one side of the screen, just part of her pacing, and never returns. By the time John and Sarah realise, she's long gone.

Derek waits for Jesse where they're going to nab the lawyer. A long winding road up in the mountains.

Jesse is still in her hotel room, getting dressed. Whether she's going to go meet with Derek is unclear.

And Riley attacks her from behind, trying to wrap something around Jesse's throat so she can strangle her!

"I know, Jesse! I know!" Riley snaps.

Jesse throws Riley back, against a set of cabinets. Riley smashes a glass against the top, thrusts the jagged piece in Jesse's direction.

"You wanted him to care about me!" Riley cries.

"Of course."

"To like me!"

"Of course."

"Even to love me!"

"Of course, sweetie! We talked about it a thousand times. That was the plan."

But Riley knows. She knows more than that. She knew that there was a real plan under Jesse's brittle smile and feigned compassion. Riley is furious and her heart is breaking into pieces as she shouts, "She's supposed to kill me, right? That's it. That's the real plan!"

Jesse lies, badly. "That's absurd."

But Riley can put two and two together. She knows that the only thing that'll turn John against Cameron is if she kills someone he likes, and Jesse's done everything she can to establish Riley as a threat -- the only source of the information that she disseminated as Miss Wilson. She even called the Department of Child and Family Services.

"How could you do that to me? I trusted you. I loved you."

Jesse replies by hurling a vase of flowers at Riley. It hits her dead center, knocks her back, but Riley comes right back with the shard of a broken bottle.

JESSE: I rescued you from hell and I took you to paradise! I gave you a purpose. A chance to be a hero. You know how few people get a chance for their lives to mean something? For their deaths to mean something? I made you matter. You could've been beautiful. But you're just a coward.

Enraged, Riley finds her strength and the pair fight. Slamming into drawers, walls, doorframes. Jesse might be hardened by the apocalypse but, really, so was Riley. And Jesse, as she had said to Derek, may have gone soft. While evenly matched, for the most part, it is Riley who always ends up in the better position -- such as on top of Jesse, crushing her windpipe with her hands. Beating her with a heavy candlestick. Again and again and again.

Jesse kicks out, Riley falls back. She yanks at a drawer, finds a concealed handgun, and shoots Riley in the heart.

The lawyer and his convoy drive past Derek, but Jesse is -- of course -- nowhere to be seen. They've missed their chance.

The next day, John finds Cameron in the tool shed, working on a pocketwatch with a button in it.

"I can't find her," John says of Riley.

"If she's out there, she'll call you," Cameron says. And then, with a touch of sadness, "Eventually. She always does."

"Cameron, did you...?"

"You know I didn't."

Cameron's been out here for hours, John says. And that's because she's been making something. The pocketwatch device is for him. Cameron realises she's broken, that she's not working as she should. He tried fixing her chip, it didn't quite work. He tried fixing her arm, and it still spasmed out of control. "It's not working," she says. "I'm not capable of self-termination."

"Why would I want to kill you?" John asks, softly.

"You might have to someday," Cameron replies. She's put an explosive in her skull, near her chip. Press the switch and it'll detonate. She hangs the necklace around his neck.

"What would Future John do now?"

"Future John doesn't live here. You do."

Young man and robot stare at each other for a few seconds.

John leaves. On the way back to the house, lying on the driveway, John spies a dead bird. It's not the pigeon from earlier, it has brown and white plumage. Did Cameron kill it, or is it a coincidence? Is Cameron always going to be a threat to everything about her?

Will John ever know? Can John ever know?

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Yeah, that was a great episode!

When we first met Riley, and thought she was just some emo teenager, it was easy to blow her off. When we find out the whole weight of her origins, the performance takes on whole new layers and is really great.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Astroman posted:

Yeah, that was a great episode!

When we first met Riley, and thought she was just some emo teenager, it was easy to blow her off. When we find out the whole weight of her origins, the performance takes on whole new layers and is really great.

It might be because things start happening in this episode, but it's crazy just how much Ourselves Alone feels like the production team has got their act together. Everything has a noticeable step up. My assumption is because, with six episodes to go, they knew how much time they had and had an idea of where the season was going to go.

Too little, too late, unfortunately.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
So, some general thoughts.

The biggest crime of TSCC is that you could put Ourselves Alone right after Episode 10 and not really lose much of anything (beyond Riley's suicide attempt in Earthlings). Episodes 11-16 range from nice but extraneous (Self-Made Man) and conceptually experimental (Alpine Fields) to bafflingly overwrought yet inconsequential (Earthlings, Cantos, Good Wound) and an episode that should've been caught and fixed well before it aired (Some Must Watch). Admittedly, when I first really sat down to watch TSCC, I did so on DVD. I can't imagine tuning in week after week after week to get those episodes.

Ourselves Alone basically sets up the next two episodes (which are, in fact, a two-parter). It does so by establishing a few things.
  • Riley is dead and the blame may fall on Cameron even though she is innocent (bird symbolism)
  • Derek has become suspicious of Jesse, seeming to think she has come from an alternate timeline to his own (notably this is foreshadowed by the varying accounts of Derek and the bunker aftermath, as well as the episode with the Grey)
  • Cameron's 'humanity' (personhood might be more accurate) is coming through loud and clear (she's displaying empathy for animals and seemed to feel something when she inadvertently held John's hand)
  • John seems to realise that Riley might have been from the future or connected with someone who is
  • Sarah and John are fracturing further, with Sarah telling her son she doesn't trust him -- this season is basically splitting everyone apart and making them stand alone (right there in the title)
Meanwhile, there's still the actions of Weaver, John Henry and Ellison. At this point, however, their status as being pro or anti-Skynet is still unclear.

Oh, and all the Connors saw a prototype HK Drone but nothing's come of it.

It would've been nice to see some of these developments prior to Ourselves Alone. Some of it, especially Derek's stuff with Jesse, feels sudden. John and Cameron feel surprisingly friendly in this episode despite the icy tension between them the whole season up until this point. Across the last six episodes, it might have been nice to see Derek starting to have suspicions of Jesse and John and Cameron starting to mend their peculiar relationship. Focusing so much on Sarah and her Crazy Visions was a huge mistake. If the various subplots of TSCC form, say, a four-step pattern, it feels as if we missed step two and maybe most of step three. Things have gone from the initial setup and skipped the moves until we're about to hit checkmate.

I like Ourselves Alone because it feels very psychological and character-driven and it's grim as hell. It's one thing to have a franchise about a nuclear apocalypse and robotic genocide; it's another to have a young woman be brought back in time to be murdered by a robot as some kind of playing piece in a temporal chess game. I think it's unfortunate that the show spent six weeks on a meandering, pointless exploration of the 'mythos' when they had such a rich vein of drama to mine.

If it were me, I think Self-Made Man and Alpine Fields are the only two of the six that had much worth. A Night In The Life Of Cameron? Please! An episode that shows the Connors from the perspective of a mundane family? Yeah! Both of them were great ideas let down by mediocre execution, particularly the first one.

Then use the other four to do something better. But given Season 2 until that point, I'm not sure how the plot could've been constructed differently. I think I said back with Samson And Delilah that a lot of the problems of Season 2 stem from that great first episode. That very first episode undid all the work of Season 1 and removed any dangling threads for the Connors to chase, particularly when they killed off Cromartie a few episodes later. Have Jesse be more prominent? Give the Connors an unknown informant -- who turns out to be Weaver?

Season 2 sometimes feels as if it was trying to write itself out of a corner from that very first episode. Maybe I'll experiment with a What Could Have Been? take on Season 2 once we wrap up here to see how the pieces could be rearranged.

quidditch it and quit it
Oct 11, 2012


Really enjoying reading these, I thought it was a good but frustrating series.

ChuckBTY
Feb 14, 2012
Thanks for this thread. I forgot how excellent this show could be when it was at it's best (and how bad when at it's worst).

One thing that's really hitting me when I read these is how much better off this show could have been if released in TYOOL 2017 to a Netflix style show order (of around 10-13 episodes). It feels like a lot of the problems they have (aside from the aforementioned Lost Imitator Syndrome) is just plain episode bloat in the 2nd season. It really didn't need 22 episodes.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

quidditch it and quit it posted:

Really enjoying reading these, I thought it was a good but frustrating series.

Good but frustrating is very apt.

ChuckBTY posted:

Thanks for this thread. I forgot how excellent this show could be when it was at it's best (and how bad when at it's worst).

One thing that's really hitting me when I read these is how much better off this show could have been if released in TYOOL 2017 to a Netflix style show order (of around 10-13 episodes). It feels like a lot of the problems they have (aside from the aforementioned Lost Imitator Syndrome) is just plain episode bloat in the 2nd season. It really didn't need 22 episodes.

That's true. The show does feel like it was created several years too early. I'm pretty sure it's a similar problem that hit BSG, too, particularly in the third season.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
These two episodes have some of my favorite scenes in this whole series. As with Ourselves Alone, the simple step-up in quality is almost completely unbelievable coming off the middle of Season 2 and can't be stressed enough.

First part should be coming tonight.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Episode 18: Today Is The Day

Episode opens with Jesse sitting in her apartment, idly shifting a lamp back and forward on its table. Glancing over at Riley, she walks over and zips her into a bodybag. She's utterly alone and appears, at least on some level, to have some reservations about killing the younger woman.

She flashes back to 2027. In Serrano Point, she's going on a 'milk run', preparing to take supplies from America to Australia. Derek walks with her, concerned about her traveling through eight thousand miles of metal infested ocean. He's also concerned because he's going on a mission, too -- which we, the audience, know is the mission that takes him back in time.

But this is Jesse's memory, not Derek's. Who knows how different he went for our Derek in the future.

Derek worries about Queeg, a reprogrammed Terminator who'll be on Jesse's mission.

"He's a good bloke," Jesse Australianisms to Derek.

"He's not a bloke," he replies. "He's not on our side, don't ever think that. Aim for the chip. Aim for the chip, they don't get up."

They kiss.

Jesse offers up another Australianism. "Hoo-roo." It's a bit mispronounced, at least based on where I hear it but, hey. Derek returns it.

Small Nitpick: I feel this would have been more interesting if this is something they had've said earlier to each other. In many sense, there are a few things in this episode that feel similar, things that could've been mentioned earlier or foreshadowed better.

In the present, Sarah is packing away the lounge room as John arrives. They need to move, due to the issues with Riley and Jesse and the government. When Sarah says she's going to make a start on the garage, John takes over.

JOHN: Well, hey, why don't you let me take the garage? I just got a lot of memory cards and flash drives out there I need to sort. I don't want to save our Dakara records and torch my copy of Space Invaders.

But really, the truth is he needs to cover up Cameron's stock of Terminator parts.

Cameron is taking inventory of them, laying them out on a bench, as John enters the garage/shed.

JOHN: Great, it looks like a robot serial killer lives here. Well, I guess one does.

CAMERON: I'm doing inventory.

JOHN: Well, don't do it here. We need to clear all this stuff out before Mom comes in and finds it. Dig a hole out back, down below the retaining wall. I'll bury the parts and come back for them later. We have to find a place to burn them. And we will burn them.

John is pretty agitated in this scene. It kind of sets the tone for his interactions with Cameron throughout the episode. He's protective of her and yet not sure if he can trust her, manifesting in anger and frustration.

Speaking of anger and frustration, Jesse has made her way to a dive bar. A Navy pilot comes to join her at the bar. They make small talk. He flies P-3s, she works on subs.

PILOT: Oh, bubblehead. They let women on subs in Australia?

JESSE: Yeah. Reprogrammed killer robots too. Yeah, we don't discriminate.

PILOT: Well, there's a coincidence. I hunt subs. You drive subs. Sort of like the wolf and the sheepdog. Not that I'm comparing you to a dog or anything.

JESSE: No. It's a good point. In fact, I just remembered something.

PILOT: What's that?

JESSE: Sheepdogs hate wolves.

Jesee immediately strikes him. His friends immediately stand up. While the pilot picks himself up, Jesse glances to his friends -- and seems to realise, for a sheepdog, she's bit off more than she can chew.

Back in the Connor residence, Sarah is packing while Kacy expresses disbelief at the fact that they're "just up and moving like this". Remember Kacy? She was their pregnant neighbour. Well, she's had her baby by now.

There's a bit of sadness in this scene. Kacy wants to keep in touch but it's clear that the Connors will not do anything like that once they're gone. Kacy also seems melancholic about her husband, Trevor, where things don't seem to be going too well.

Trevor's spending time with the new baby, though, because he was one of the officers who found "a girl in the river".

KACY: Pretty little blond thing. I mean, probably moved here from Iowa or something to be an actress fell in with the wrong people. Dreams die hard. Trevor said all they have to go on are some scars from an attempted suicide and a tattoo on her wrist. You know, a pretty little star. Right here.

I'm pretty sure Kacy is basically referring to herself there, too.

Lena Heady has this wonderful moment where her eyes snap to Kacy when she mentions the scars on the wrists.

In the shed, John and Cameron are hiding all the Terminator parts when, suddenly, Cameron stops. "Your mother is coming."

They hide the box under a tarp and just stand there, looking totally not suspicious as Sarah enters.

"I need to talk to John," Sarah says. "Alone."

Cameron looks to John, as if to make sure this is okay, and he gives her this very subtle nod. So, Cameron steps out and spies a pigeon. She takes a step towards it, as if she wants to pick it up, but it flies away.

CAMERON: Goodbye, bird. There's a 51 percent chance I wouldn't have killed you.

John and Sarah talk but we can't hear what is being said. We know, though. We definitely know when John comes outside and stares at Cameron, aghast.

Cameron heard, though. "Riley's dead," she says.

That night, John is standing on the balcony, looking out over Los Angeles. Idly, he toys with the pocketwatch-detonator. Click-open, click-close, click-open.

Cameron enters behind him and John/Cameron has an awkward, painful conversation.

JOHN: Was it you? Did you kill her?

CAMERON: What if I did?

JOHN: Don't play games with me. I need the truth.

CAMERON: I didn't kill her.

JOHN: I wanna believe you.

CAMERON: Believe me.

JOHN: Sometimes you lie to me.

CAMERON: Yes. I do, but I'm not lying now. I am sorry.

JOHN: You're sorry? For what?

CAMERON: For your loss.

JOHN: I really wish I could believe that too.

Part of the episode is a bit annoying because we already know that Cameron didn't do it. But that just makes the sympathy we feel for her all the more powerful. Particularly when combined with John reminding her of other things she had said throughout the series, such as lying to him about important things (Season 1, Vick's Chip).

Elsewhere, however, John and Cameron aren't the only ones having an awkward conversation. So are Derek and Jesse.

DEREK: So are you gonna say anything? Jesse?

JESSE: Thanks.

DEREK: Thanks.

JESSE: For bailing me out. Thanks. I know you don't like police stations.

DEREK: Maybe that's because I'm a fugitive.

JESSE: I know. So thanks.

DEREK: What happened?

JESSE: I told you, I got in a fight.

DEREK: With four Naval aviators.

JESSE: Really just three. One of them went down pretty quick.

DEREK: What's going on?

JESSE: Nothing.

DEREK: I don't believe you. I need to know what the hell's going on.

JESSE: I told you, nothing.

What I like about Jesse's little brawl is that we can't quite know whether it came from feeling some measure of guilt and self-hatred for her part of killing Jesse, or frustration that her temporal gambit is coming to pieces, or a simple pragmatic need to explain the injuries she got in the process of killing Riley.

Jesse thinks about her past.

Aboard the USS Jimmy Carter, the sub has just passed the equator. The crew haze in a new sonarman named Garvin. Jesse appears to be a person of some rank on the ship, assisted by a man named Dietze. Jesse is much warmer here. Whatever happened to turn her into the person we know?

The hazing ritual is interrupted by a series of explosions. Depth charges. The crew scramble to their battle stations.

In the present, Savannah Weaver tries to get her mother to play a game. It doesn't go as planned.

WEAVER: I'm working.

SAVANNAH: But you promised.

And then Weaver says this:

WEAVER: Patience is a virtue, Savannah. To tolerate delay. It implies self-control and forbearance as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. Something to think about.

While correct, it's pretty cool as far as replies go, and certainly not something that little Savannah Weaver will have any hope of understanding. So, she wanders off. As she wanders, doors and elevators open up before her, leading her down a path. Lights flare up as she comes past them.

All of them lead her down, to one place.

All of them lead her to one thing, or person. John Henry.

He waves at her, full wrist and elbow motion, like a child.

"Would you like to play hide-and-seek?" he asks.

Credit to Weaver, she seems to figure out something is wrong very quickly. She immediately heads to find Ellison and, from there, to find John Henry.

In John Henry's basement, a discussion takes place.

WEAVER: John Henry, we're looking for my daughter, Savannah. Have you seen her today?

JOHN HENRY: Yes, I have. She wanted to play a game.

ELLISON: Where is she now?

JOHN HENRY: She's hiding.

ELLISON: Tell us where she's hiding.

JOHN HENRY: That's not how the game works.

ELLISON: How does the game work?

JOHN HENRY: Hide-and-seek. There are many variations. The one we're playing you guess what I'm thinking, I give you a clue.

ELLISON: Listen to me, John Henry. You're gonna tell me where Savannah is. And you're gonna tell me now.

JOHN HENRY: I'm thinking of a country.

ELLISON: [absolutely unimpressed] Come again?

WEAVER: Let's play the game.

ELLISON: This is ridiculous. I'm not gonna bargain with a computer.

WEAVER: If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Ellison we've got no choice.

The contrast between Weaver's lack of concern for her daughter, and lack of care for her wish to play a game, is an immediate contrast with how interested she is in John Henry's game. Like, her eyes drat near light up.

Slight Continuity Error: It's clearly about lunch time in the previous scene but here, in this coming scene with Derek and Jesse, it's obviously night time, as is the one with them previous.

Derek and Jesse have pulled over somewhere and Derek is dressing her hands. "You hit him in the mouth, didn't you? Never aim for the mouth."

Sarah calls. We only see Derek but it's clear what is being explained: Riley is dead. Derek passes the information to Jesse who, of course, isn't too concerned.

DEREK: A cyborg did it.

JESSE: You know that for sure?

DEREK: Who else could it be?

Jesse immediately fires up, more like her normal self. The mission might have hit a snag or two but it can still complete the primary objective: have John hate Cameron and destroy her.

JESSE: What are you gonna do?

DEREK: About the metal?

JESSE: What are you gonna do? Because you can't kill her, Derek.

DEREK: What?

JESSE: That's not something you can do. He has to make that decision on his own.

DEREK: You've really thought this through.

JESSE: No. But I think about it. Just like you do.

Speaking of snags, we're back on the submarine. Depth charges continue to sound as Jesse and her people pour onto the bridge. At the controls is none other than Chad L. Coleman AKA Cutty of The Wire AKA Fred Johnson of The Expanse. That is Queeg, the Terminator and commanding officer of the sub. Jesse appears to be his XO.

Despite the charges, Queeg has machine zen. The Skynet subs are firing blind, wanting the humans to reveal their position. But it becomes clear that it isn't a bunch of ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare?) bots but something called a Kraken.

That's not the only thing that is wrong. Jesse notices that Queeg has taken the sub well off-course.

There's a neat sequence where Queeg devises a perfect plan but the humans are, well, human.

QUEEG: Thirty-second fuse. Match our speed and bearing after breakaway. Fire.

JESSE: You heard him. Fire.

CREW 1: Torpedo away.

CREW 2: Hostile closing, fifty-five knots.

JESSE: You got us 20 degrees down bubble. Ahead, full. Gueeg, you're taking...

QUEEG: Taking the boat to 729.8 meters.

JESSE: Crush depth.

QUEEG: The edge of crush depth. The Kraken won't be able to follow. Their sonar will reflect off the thermocline layer. We'll be--

JESSE: Invisible. We're playing dead.

CREW 2: Eight seconds to torpedo contact.

QUEEG: Approaching crush depth.

CREW 1: If he's off by even a millimeter for even a fraction of a second...

JESSE: He won't be. This is what he does.

CREW 2:Two detonations. Our torpedo and theirs. Eleven hundred meters to starboard 120 on the Z.

JESSE: And now we roll over, stick out our tongue, hold our breath.

CREW 1: Skipper, we're at 729.8.

QUEEG: I'm aware, chief. Thank you.

CREW 1: 729.8 and holding.

QUEEG: You may return to your duty stations now.

But, as everyone leaves, Jesse asks her Captain: why are they three hundred miles off-course?

There are more questions, back in the present. Sarah has found the Terminator parts in the garage, including a full forearm assembly -- no way that John can hope to explain them as anything but what they are. And remember how a Terminator arm is practically one of the magical keys to unlocking Skynet.

Still, John tries.

JOHN: We were using it for research, to find out what makes them...

SARAH: Don't, John. Just don't. Don't make excuses for her. Don't cover for her.

JOHN: I knew about the parts...

SARAH: I'm not talking about the parts. I'm talking about Riley.

John counters that there's nothing to talk about because Riley is dead. Sarah thinks Cameron played a part in it. "We both know." But, when John continues to defend Cameron, Sarah begins to jab some weak points, including one very sore spot in particular.

SARAH: She told you. Just like she told you she destroyed every part we ever captured. Just like she tells us what she does every night when we go to sleep. When she comes back in the morning, she's covered in cuts and bruises. Hey. Just like she told you she loved you.

Angry, John slams his fists on the bench. "You don't know anything!" he seethes and storms out.

Slight Nitpick: I don't think Cameron has ever been commented as coming back with cuts and bruises before. Again, something that maybe could've been pointed out in an earlier episode. When you don't see things like that, it becomes confusing. After all, we know Cameron has her secret nights out. But she seems to spend it in a sedate library. We can assume Sarah is being truthful, though -- or can we? After all, we've just had A LOT of episodes pointing out that Sarah's grip on reality may be a bit... tenuous.

The guessing game goes on.

JOHN HENRY: I'm thinking of an herb.

WEAVER: Tarragon?

JOHN HENRY: No.

ELLISON: We're wasting time.

WEAVER: But it's working, his game.

ELLISON: What is wrong with you? Why are you not angry?

WEAVER: Why should I be? We have a way to get her back.

ELLISON: Tell me where the child is! Look, you asked me to teach him ethics, morals and rules! What good is it if he's not gonna follow them?

WEAVER: He will, if we let him learn the rules on his own.

ELLISON: Oregano.

JOHN HENRY: Correct.

WEAVER: See there? A lucky guess.

ELLISON: Lucky.

WEAVER: Give us our clue.

JOHN HENRY: The sun is shining on Savannah.

The game continues.

JOHN HENRY: I'm thinking of an animal.

WEAVER: Antelope.

JOHN HENRY: No.

ELLISON: Lion.

JOHN HENRY: No.

WEAVER: Horse.

JOHN HENRY: No.

ELLISON: Bird.

JOHN HENRY: Correct.

WEAVER: Give us our clue.

JOHN HENRY: The answer is the clue.

ELLISON: What?! What does that mean?!

WEAVER: Just what he said. 'Bird' is our clue.

ELLISON: Bird... Bird... Bird... I know where she is.

And they find her. Savannah is sleeping inside a ZeiraCorp helicopter on top of the building. Weaver is characteristically not too concerned about any of this.

Slight Continuity Error: Previous scene clearly daytime, next scene is clearly nighttime.

John pays a visit to Riley's foster father, who doesn't know that Riley is dead -- not yet, at least. John is obviously working a scheme, acting like he doesn't know what happened, acting like he hasn't spoken to Riley in a while and maybe her foster dad can take a message...?

The phone rings.

It's Riley.

Only it's not Riley at all. Because it's Cameron, impersonating her. Cameron assures Riley's foster dad that she is fine, in Riverside, and that there's no need to go to the police.

Goddamn, that's harsh.

And then Cameron asks to speak to John.

And, in the character of Riley, she truly talks to him. It's a fascinating and very uncomfortable exchange as it feels like Cameron is baring her nuclear-powered heart.

CAMERON: I thought you'd wanna hear my voice.

Don't you wanna hear my voice?

JOHN: You know you're really freaking everybody out, right?

CAMERON: Am I freaking you out now?

Am I freaking you out now?

JOHN: Yes, so let's talk later.

CAMERON: I'm sorry. It's just... I've been thinking about my parents a lot and there are things I can't get out of my head and I just thought if I came out and saw where we used to live... I know. Stupid, right?

I'm sorry. I've been thinking about Skynet a lot and there are things I can't get out of my chip.

JOHN: Okay, well, we'll talk about all this in person, yeah? When you get back. We're hanging up now.

CAMERON: John?

JOHN: Yeah, sure. That would be great.

CAMERON: John?

John? Are you listening to me?

JOHN: Yeah?

CAMERON: I love you.

I love you.

[Awkward pause]

JOHN: Okay, bye.

Outside, John storms over to Cameron, angry. What the hell was that about?

"It was the plan," Cameron states.

No, John points out. Or, if it was, Cameron went way off script. The plan was evidently for Cameron to call and speak to her father, maybe after John had left.

Cameron looks down, and then up at John. "That's what I did," she says.

Except it wasn't. The only person privy to that conversation was John. Cameron argues that it was 'more authentic' but it clearly wasn't her true motivation. Cameron was clearly trying to talk to John, to truly talk to him in the voice that she thinks he finds most appealing. And John didn't stick to the plan and just hang up, he hung on the line to see what she was saying -- even when it was clear that Cameron wasn't in-character anymore. He's trying to get her to hang up.

It echoes back to the time where Cameron climbed into John's bed dressed in the most provocative fashion she had worn before or since. It makes you wonder: what did Cameron want out of this?

Did she just want to hear John say "I love you, too"?

It's weird. It's pragmatic. It's innocent. It's treacherous. It's romantic. It's cold logic. It's all of that and more which is probably why John stalks off, alone.

Ellison debriefs John Henry about his game. Dillahunt is so good at being child-like John Henry and I adore how Ellison talks to him like a child (not in a condescending fashion, but in the sense of being absolutely clear).

JOHN HENRY: Did you have fun playing the game, Mr. Ellison?

ELLISON: No, John Henry, I did not.

JOHN HENRY: Why not?

ELLISON: Because what you did made me very, very angry.

JOHN HENRY: I don't understand.

ELLISON: You kept a secret.

JOHN HENRY: Is it wrong to keep a secret?

ELLISON: The secret you kept could've harmed Savannah. What if we couldn't have found her? What if she'd fallen from the roof and died?

JOHN HENRY: Then she wouldn't be alive anymore, and her life is important. Human life is sacred.

ELLISON: If she had died, it would be your fault.

JOHN HENRY: My fault?

ELLISON: Because you were the only one who knew where she was and you made a choice not to tell. It was the wrong choice.

Derek takes Jesse home to her hotel room. Derek is brooding about Riley's death, "what the cyborg did to her". Jesse misreads the situation and says, well, maybe it could be a good thing, if John can see what the metal is and what it really does to people.

"No good comes out of that," Derek snaps. "None. Not ever."

They kiss, Derek shrugs off his jacket. Cut to Derek picking up his jacket after sex. Hoo-roo.

In the future-past, Jesse talks with Queeg. They've gone way off-course for five hours, heading deep into Skynet territory. "Our new mission required it," Queeg states.

QUEEG: A deep-water oil platform near the Indonesian archipelago. Lieutenant Dietz and his team will board the rig and retrieve a package. We will deliver this package to Serrano Point.

JESSE: We have important cargo to take to Perth. Components, vaccines...

QUEEG: Our orders come from John Connor.

JESSE: These orders from John Connor, do they say what we're after? What it is?

QUEEG: Yes. They say what the package is.

Jesse sends Dietze and his people into the oil rig. It's creepy and maybe abandoned. There's certainly no hostile response to their entry. And then Dietz sends his people away, drops his weapon, and steps out with his armed raised.

There, before him, stand two naked endoskeletons and a T-600. Before them is a metal case, a glowing blue HAL 9000-esque device on the front.

Dietz says, "Connor sent me. John Connor. I've come for that. That's for him. I'm just here to pick it up."

But what is it?

Back in the present, Cameron enters the shed. Thunder rumbles.

Inside, Sarah is burning the various endoskeletal components.

The two talk. And both of them end up basically laying their cards down.

SARAH: I had planned on waiting for you with Derek's sniper rifle. Pulled the trigger, solved about fifty percent of my problems. One shot. Do you know how bad I'd have felt?

CAMERON: Very bad?

SARAH: Not bad at all. But I know someone who'd have felt bad. Someone who would never forgive me if I'd done that. I don't know what to do with you. You know what the stakes are. You know why we're here. You know what this means. And yet here I stand, burning what's left of an endoskeleton I thought we'd burned months ago.

CAMERON: I needed spare parts.

SARAH: I don't care what you need, because this is not about you.

CAMERON: No, it's not about me. It's about John. You're concerned for his safety.

SARAH: You bet I am.

CAMERON: From Skynet. From me.

SARAH: Maybe. Maybe especially you.

CAMERON: We're all a threat. We're all a threat to John. He worries about us. That makes him vulnerable. He cares.

SARAH: I am not John's problem.

CAMERON: John is John's problem. Humans are the problem. There's only one way for him to be safe. That's to be alone.

SARAH: What kind of life is that?

CAMERON: John's life, someday.

And it seems to be a true assessment.

In a morgue, John opens the freeze of one Jane Doe. It's Riley, pale beyond the marks on her face and neck, the extreme bruising and damage to her hands. Dekker nails the scene, painting John as someone who is distraught by the body in front of him and yet is clearly there for a reason: assessing the body, to try and find the truth.

"I'm sorry," John whispers, and slides Riley back into the freezer.

In her apartment, Jesse sits in her armchair... and, much like the beginning of the episode, restlessly adjusts the position of her table lamp.

Guilt over Riley, or concern that her plan might be falling to pieces around her?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jul 28, 2017

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Today Is The Day (Part 2) might just be the episode that has been the most interesting to watch again, at least until now. The sheer wealth of information it throws into the Future War setting is pretty notable. Watching it again I'm like, oh yeah, this is why I like this incarnation of Terminator.

What this series could've been!

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Episode 19: Today Is The Day (Part 2)
Sometimes titled as: The Last Voyage Of The Jimmy Carter

I'm not sure why some places have this episode listed as The Last Voyage as my DVDs state that it is TITDpt2 but there are a ton of online resources that list it as such.

So, this episode opens with one of the scenes I remember most fondly from this series. In the Connor truck, somewhere at night, Derek and John are talking about Riley. Derek apologises for what happened, claiming that Riley was a good kid and didn't deserve what happened to her. It feels a bit odd because Derek never met Riley, of course.

"Few people do," John remarks, in his Future John voice. And then he asks Derek a simple question: "How long do you think you could survive? With Cameron. If she wanted to kill you. Face to face."

A car passes. Derek turns to look into the mirror, thinking, and asks the obvious question. "What kind of weapon do I have?"

"Your fists," John states. "And your elbows. And your fingernails. And your teeth."

"Against her, those aren't weapons."

"No, they're not."

But John already knows the answer to that, Derek says. If Cameron wants him dead, he's dead and there's nothing he can do about it. "What're you getting at?"

"I wanna talk about something," John replies, after a moment.

Another car passes.

"Alright," says Derek.

"I wanna talk to you about the future."

"Yours?"

John turns to look at Derek and, quite firmly, says "Yours."

We don't hear what they talk about it. We cut to images of a poster board at a community swimming pool. Happy families, smiling kids. Jesse looks them over before walking to the edge of the pool and crouching down, so she can dangle her fingers in the water.

She remembers the Jimmy Carter.

2027. Dietz and his people have the big silver box and are in the process of bringing it onboard. It's heavy, requiring just about all of them to carry it. They set it down and Captain Queeg immediately picks it up, finding it effortless, and goes to store it in the magazine. "Authorised access only," he states.

Dietz confronts Jesse.

DIETZ: You wanna, uh, let us little people know what's in the box? Or is it classified between you and Queeg?

JESSE: It's between Queeg and Queeg. I don't know a drat thing.

DIETZ: And that doesn't bother you? Metal keeping secrets from skin.

JESSE: No. It doesn't. Not even a little.

DIETZ: Well, it should. And not just a little, but a lot.

JESSE: We were sent to pick up the box and bring it back. So we're picking up the box and bringing it back.

DIETZ: And one of us should know why. One of us. Not just one of them.

JESSE: One of us knows. His name is John Connor.

Later, in the mess hall, Dietz is still playing firebrand. "You think those things work for us?" he tells his people. "Look around you. We work for them." For what, a box? Someone pipes up that Connor needs it but Dietz counters tht Connor is so into his 'big chess match' with Skynet that he doesn't see that the 'tin cans' have played him for a fool. There's metal in every base. There's metal running the show in all but name. Dietz thinks it's all a big strategy, getting ready to wipe out the Resistance once and for all with something big.

And maybe, Dietz says, maybe that something big is in that box.

Jesse kicks them all out of the mess hall and tells Dietz to get into his rack. "The pressure is starting to get to you."

"Yeah?" Dietz retorts. "So, what's getting to you... ma'am?"

In the present, Jesse dives into the pool.

In the Connor household, Sarah is still packing things away as John returns from seeing Riley's body in the morgue. Sarah tells John he shouldn't have done it, but not because it was a risk but because he shouldn't have to remember her like that.

John's eyes slip away from Sarah, to his right, as he replies.

JOHN: There were things I needed to see. Things I had to understand.

SARAH: You understand them now?

JOHN: I think so.

[pause]

JOHN: I'm sorry I doubted you.

SARAH: John...

JOHN: No. Not you. Her.

Cameron stands there in the doorway behind Sarah. She's the one John was looking at and talking to.

Back in the pool, Jesse swims laps. She's bleeding from a cut on her hand. She remembers.

On the bridge of the Jimmy Carter, Queeg lays out their current situation. They lost a day evading ASW bots near Fiji, so, they need to make up for the time by moving on a more direct and, presumably, more obvious route to return to John Connor.

Jesse just wants to know why. The crew can do it, but they'll do better if they know the reason. They're not machines, Jesse says, so they need to know the reason.

Queeg replies, in his calm, warm, amiable tones: "This crew will do their job because that's what's required to survive and complete the mission."

Motion detectors are flipped in the hold. Queeg and Jesse grab weapons and make their way there.

They find Dietz and his people unlocking and popping open the mystery box.

JESSE: Dietze, what the hell did you do?

DIETZ: It could be anything in there. A machine, a bomb. Anything. And we were just gonna run it through the front door to Serrano. Now at least we know.

JESSE: Of all the stupid things-!

DIETZ: Stupid? Stupid is taking their word for it! For anything! I'm not afraid of that thing.

JESSE: Then be afraid of me.

But in the crate, something is defrosting. Something big. Something like a block of quicksilver. One of Dietz's people -- Goodnow -- watches it. "Guys?" she calls.

Dietz is too busy seething in Jesse's general direction. He'd been in a Skynet work camp. Jesse hasn't.

And then Goodnow shouts and the metal screams like wind through a tunnel as it takes on an ethereal silver form. Goodnow raises her plasma rifle and the liquid metal Terminator, a T-1001, immediately stabs her through the heart.

And then it takes on the form of Goodnow and turns to look at Jesse and Dietz and Queeg. It waggles its finger at the group and collapses its form into a liquid state, slipping away into the air vents.

Dietz flips out. "I told you! This is what happens! This is what they do! Pull his chip and make him tell us what is going on!"

Jesse gets ready to divide into search parties to find the Terminator but Queeg overrides her. All weapons will be secured. Goodnow's body will be placed in the cool room. Everyone will return to duty and the mission will continue as planned.

Queeg leaves, Jesse gives chase.

JESSE: Queeg! That thing... you know what it is?

QUEEG: Yes.

JESSE: Then tell me. At least, tell me. Look, we're a team right? You can tell-

QUEEG: It's not your concern.

In the Connor household, Sarah is screwing a vent cover into the floor safe she had put into the floor around the time she was abducted by Cromartie. It's a neat little continuity reference. John walks in, says they should just throw a rug over it.

They talk. Sarah tries to apologise for "all of it" and reminisce about a hippie town they stayed in, Garberville. Sarah sees it with the nostalgia one has for the past. It might've been a culture shock but, to her, it was a good experience.

"You just started making friends, fitting in."

"Fitting in?" John asks. "I was getting in fights every day."

"Well... you won those fights."

"That's one way of looking at it," John snorts. And then, "I hated that town."

Speaking of hate, Ellison certainly isn't impressed by John Henry's thesis on the importance of eyes in miniature painting. He has a whole bunch of little paint pots in front of him and a variety of metal miniatures, like the sort you'd have for Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer.

"The matte layer is critical," John Henry explains, "It both allows the colors to stick to the miniature and it provides the finished statue with the illusion of depth. But it's the detail work I find the most interesting. It challenges my fine motor control. And there are so many choices. The eyes, for example. The window to the soul -- they're the window to the soul, I read that."

Ellison sighs, "That's what they say."

John Henry seems to ponder that. He decides, "Then I should choose my paint more carefully."

Ellison is about at the wits end of his patience. "It doesn't matter, John Henry. It's a statue. It's an object. It doesn't have a soul."

John Henry doesn't point out that he himself is an object. He just says, "It has eyes." And then, leaning forward to look more closely at Ellison, he adds, "Your eyes look tired. Is your soul tired?"

Ellison stands up, points a little remote control at John Henry, to disconnect him from the endoskeletal platform for the night.

"Please don't," John Henry begs, as his monster is incomplete.

Ellison, despite everything, relents and resolves to at least let John Henry finish his painting. "What color did you wanna use?"

"Blue," John Henry replies.

I find this an interesting little thing because Cromartie's eyes are blue. Is it John Henry emphasising with the monster and painting it like himself? But there's more on that and we'll talk about that in another post.

Either way, he resumes his work. Sheepishly, smiling like a nervous child, he asks Ellison: "Does this make us friends?"

Friends. In the pool, under the water, Jesse also thinks about friends.

In the Jimmy Carter's mess hall, Dietz harasses a fellow crewmember. The other crewmember isn't eating and that, to Dietz, is proof he's the liquid metal thing. "Everyone's always hungry. Maybe you're that thing. He could be metal and we wouldn't know until it was too late!"

The other crew member hops up, swinging his tray like a weapon.

Jesse gets between them, shoves them back. Immediately, Dietz's ire turns on her.

"You're right, Garvin," he says, "It's not you. You're not the one who spends all day locked in a room with metal."

"Stand down," Jesse retorts.

He won't. He can't. Dietz gloats, "I knew you were a metal lover, but maybe you're more than that. Maybe you're one of them. Just like that little metal bitch that follows Connor everywhere. Maybe we should check. For safety."

Jesse punches him in the throat.

And, just like that, about half a dozen other crew members are on her. They throw her over a table and begin beating her. They rip her from the tabletop and hurl Jesse to the ground, kicking and stomping. It's savage. Maybe the most brutal scene in all of TSCC.

Dietz turns Jesse over, ready to punch.

And then Queeg is there, picking up Dietz like a rag doll, and throwing him against the bulkhead. There's a soft crunch as his skull meets the thick metal and he is killed instantly.

"Report to your duty stations," Queeg commands softly.

Jesse stares at Queeg, then at Dietz's corpse, bleeding from massive head trauma, blood running from his nose and mouth.

In the present, Cameron goes to leave but it stopped by Sarah. They have a very interesting chat.

SARAH: You're not leaving this house.

CAMERON: John needs me.

SARAH: If John needed you, he would have asked for you. He didn't. You're not leaving this house.

CAMERON: The police could identify Riley's body at any time. I need to be with him if they do.

SARAH: If they do, they'll probably come here...

[Sarah notices that Cameron's left hand is twitching and spasming]

SARAH: So we should be happy he's out. Why are you here?

CAMERON: Protect John. Hunt Skynet. Stop Judgement Day.

SARAH: But why are you here? Right now, with us? John sent you here from the future. He sent you away. Away from him. Maybe you should think about that. Maybe you should think about why he didn't want you around anymore.

Sarah raises a good point. Why is Cameron, of all the reprogrammed Terminators in the resistance, here? We might talk about that in the next post.

Weaver meets with John Henry in the basement. They talk.

JOHN HENRY: Hello, Ms. Weaver. How are you this evening?

WEAVER: I'm well. You're up late.

JOHN HENRY: Yes. I convinced Mr. Ellison to leave this body operational.

WEAVER: Did you, now? That's progress.

JOHN HENRY: Yes. He agreed it was important I finish painting. I made its eyes blue. They're the window to the soul.

WEAVER: Yes. They are.

JOHN HENRY: While I've been painting, I've been taking inventory of Zeira Corp. I've discovered many interesting things. Did you know there's a peregrine falcon nest on the North-facing ledge of this building's 23rd floor? The eggs should be hatching soon.

WEAVER: I knew about the nest. I didn't know about the eggs.

JOHN HENRY: Also, I discovered in your private database several letters of resignation from former employees. Richard Hack, Lowell Rogers, and Justin Tuck. The documents included information about home sales changes of address, and new jobs to which these employees would be moving. However, I can't find records of these employees in their new locations or at their new jobs.

WEAVER: Is that so?

JOHN HENRY: Additionally, I found letters of resignation from all members of Project Babylon including Mr. Murch and Mr. Ellison. Mr. Ellison's file includes documents showing that he's taken a new job and moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. The documents have no dates.

WEAVER: Now, that is very interesting.

JOHN HENRY: Mr. Ellison is our friend.

WEAVER: Yes, he is our friend.

JOHN HENRY: Are you going to kill him?

WEAVER: Mr. Ellison has proven himself to be a capable and loyal employee. But he's still a human being.

JOHN HENRY: Human life is sacred.

WEAVER: We have to be prepared for any contingency.

JOHN HENRY: What contingency would that be?

WEAVER: Humans will disappoint you.

There's a little scene then where a pool attendant strikes up a conversaiton with Jesse about Riley. "She's a nice girl," he says.

"Yeah..." Jesse replies, stutters, "She- she is."

Sometime after the brawl in the mess hall, Jesse enters the bridge. Queeg remarks that she looks ill. "You require medical attention. Rest."

"What about Dietz?" Jesse retorts.

Queeg is unconcerned and, really, it's a bit strange Jesse is. Dietz attempted to murder a superior officer -- if not something more heinous. He incited the crew to riot and maybe mutiny. The penalty for that, Queeg points out, is death.

"You have no right to impose summary justice," Jesse replies. "Not like that. That's not how we do it."

The 'we' here is telling. Queeg only acts in accordance with the law. In a time of existential war, I think it's basically no surprise that such behavior is punished by death. Jesse's 'we' is meaning 'humans'.

QUEEG: Mr. Dietze's behavior threatened our mission.

JESSE: What mission, hmm? Your behavior threatens our mission. This crew is tearing itself apart.

QUEEG: If they needed to know more, they would have been told more.

JESSE: Whatever we brought aboard this ship, it is dangerous. It killed a woman. It took her shape. You can't expect us to act like that didn't happen. Like we didn't see it.

QUEEG: Report to your rack. You're ill.

And, just like that, everyone on the bridge knows where this conversation is going to lead. It's become a confrontation between XO and CO. Between man and metal. Only one walks away.

JESSE: You really wanna do it this way?

QUEEG: I don't understand. Do what?

JESSE: As XO and ranking human on board this boat I am relieving you of command. On suspicion of compromise to your programming. Please move away from the controls, captain. Submit to chip extraction. The chip tech will decide what to do.

Queeg stands up, slowly, and orders the Chief of the Boat to escort Jesse to her rack.

"I gave you an instruction, Captain. You must comply."

But Queeg's orders override 'standard behavioral protocols'. He puts it bluntly: you have no authority on this boat.

"Let me see your orders. Now."

"My orders are classified," Queeg replies.

JESSE: Queeg, we can't take that thing to Serrano Point. If Connor needs to know what it can do...

QUEEG: John Connor knows what he needs to know. Return to your rack. Your behavior threatens our mission.

Jesse goes to leave but turns, scooping up a plasma rifle, and shoots Queeg in the head -- right in the chip, blowing away half of his head and face and killing him instantly.

"We can't drive the boat without him!" Chief snaps.

"We're not driving the boat," Jesse replies and, to punctuate her point, she smashes everything to pieces with the butt of her rifle. They sink the boat and the pressure will destroy it and the Terminator. Time to abandon ship.

The crew does so. Just as Jesse is leaving, having closed Queeg's eye and told him she's sorry, the T-1001 finds her.

"Who are you?" Jesse asks, "What do you want?"

It replies, "Tell John Connor the answer is no."

And it collapses back into liquid form, back into the vents. As the evac submersible leaves the sub, so does the T-1001, swimming for the surface.

In the present, Jesse returns home.

Someone is waiting for her.

John intones from a chair, "If you pretend not to know me, I might shoot you in the head."

And he has a big black handgun pointed in her direction. "We owe Riley the truth, don't you think? We owe the dead that much."

This is another scene I really, really like. I love how John is let so only half his face is visible for much of the scene. It brings to mind the countless scenes in Terminator where a machine has half chrome skull, half flesh face.

"You're John Connor," Jesse says.

"Yes, I am."

"Where is she? The metal."

"If she were here, you'd be dead. You know that. Would you please give me your gun, you're not gonna shoot me."

John talks, in his grim Future John voice. He's pissed.

"You know, I've been running from the machines my whole life. They tried to kill my mom before I was even born. When I was 12, they sent one after me. I was a kid. I was stupid. I didn't know what it was all about. Both times, heh, future me sent someone back to stop them. The first time, it was a soldier. His name was Kyle Reese, and he died saving my mother's life. The second time, it was a machine. I used to wonder why I did that. Why I took that chance. I don't wonder anymore.

"Human beings can't be replaced. They can't be rebuilt. They die and they never come back.

"You know, it wasn't Derek who told me, if that's what you're wondering. He loves you, you know. Derek. You and me? We're the only things he has in this world. The only things. He's like Riley in that way.

"See, she made mistakes. Small things, sometimes. A word or a phrase. Carrots and apples. I'm guessing that's yours. When we were in Mexico, she heard my real name. She ignored it, but a man took my picture and she destroyed his camera. She put herself between me and a machine that was hunting me. So one day, I realized she wasn't treating me like John Baum. She was treating me like John Connor."

"When was that?" Jesse asks.

"I don't remember exactly. It was a bad day, though. Bad day."

So, John started following her. And figured it out soon after. The only thing he hadn't pieced together was the stuff with the counselor -- but when he saw the injuries on Riley's body, he figured that out.

"She do that to you?" John asks, smiling, gesturing to Jesse's face. He snorts out a laugh.

JESSE: You saw her? I'm sorry.

JOHN: Yeah. Everybody says that. The thing is this is all my fault. I knew Riley was in trouble. I didn't help her. I should've, but I didn't. I knew what she was. I didn't try to stop her.

JESSE: You wanted it to be real.

JOHN: Or maybe I wanted to win.

JESSE: You didn't wanna be John Baum. You wanted to be John Connor.

JOHN: That's just the thing, isn't it? I am John Connor.

And, just like that, he throws a bag at her feet and tells her to go. "If I have to live with this, so do you."

Jesse picks up the bag, walks to the door. At the threshold, she turns and asks, "Would it have worked?"

"What?" John snaps, out of patience.

"If the cyborg had murdered the girl," Jesse explains. "Or if I could've made you believe she had."

"Would I have sent Cameron away? Would I have killed her?" John asks, and looks to the side, thinking it through.

"No."

"Well," Jesse replies, "It's a drat shame, then. It's a drat waste."

Speaking of a waste, it's not the first waste of life that Jesse has been responsible for.

Back in 2027, she is being debriefed by Cameron.

CAMERON: You've told me nothing useful. Your actions have resulted in the loss of a Tee-Triple Eight and one of our most important strategic assets. The submarine is irreplaceable.

JESSE: The trip-eight. The sub. You forgot the people. You never mention the people who died. Ever.

CAMERON: Yes. The people. And the box.

JESSE: We opened the drat box. Hell came out of it. How many times do we need to go over this?

CAMERON: Until you give me the answer.

JESSE: Not you. Take me to Connor.

CAMERON: You can tell me.

JESSE: No. The liquid-metal thing inside the box... It came to me before we escaped and it gave me a message for John Connor. For him. Not for you.

CAMERON: Telling me is the same as telling John.

JESSE: Dietz was right. Who the hell is running this war? What the hell are we fighting for if telling you is the same thing as telling Connor? You're a drat machine! You're not the same! It's not the same! Fine. To hell with you. You tell John Connor that the metal monster said 'the answer is no'.

[Cameron looks very worried by this response. It's maybe the most expression we've ever seen her display.]

JESSE: What does that mean, huh? Hey, tell me! If the answer is 'no' what was the question?

CAMERON: 'Will you join us?'

JESSE: What?

CAMERON: That was the question. 'Will you join us?'

[Cameron leaves. Jesse has this expression of shock, confusion and, on some level, understanding that she hosed everything up. Just as Cameron is about to leave the tent, she turns back.]

CAMERON: I'm sorry for your loss. The doctors aren't certain if it happened because of the fight or because of the rapid change in pressure when you scuttled the Carter. You were pregnant. Now you aren't.

Jesse flees her hotel. In the carpark, she finds Derek, looking brooding and thoughtful. Music is playing. The song is New Messiah by Dead Heart Bloom.

"Derek?" she asks.

He ignores her. "Do you know who Billy Wisher is?" he asks.

"Who?"

And, that answer, confirms Derek's concern. Derek explains. In the future Jesse came from, Billy Wisher doesn't exist because Derek killed him in the present. Which means they come from different timelines and is proof that the future is being changed.

Derek talks: "Billy Wisher was my best friend. He was in my squad. We fought together. We saw things you can't imagine. He was like my brother, and I loved him. But it turns out I never really knew him.

"His real name was Andy Goode and back here, in this world, he created a computer program. The program that becomes Skynet.

"So Andy Goode is dead... and Billy Wisher is dead, too... because I killed him. I came back here and I killed him. He was my brother... and I loved him, and I killed him. And I did it for Kyle... and John, and I did it for you."

"Derek."

"Shut up."

"Please."

"Shut up!"

Jesse collapses into tears and anger. Derek is terribly cold.

JESSE: You have no idea. You have no idea what they took from us.

DEREK: Stop it. Just stop it. I don't even know you. I don't know who you are.

JESSE: I'm Jesse. I'm Jesse.

DEREK: You're not my Jesse. You never were. John Connor said to let you go.

"But," Derek continues, "I'm not John Connor."

He draws his gun just as Jesse throws her bag at him. She runs for it. Derek takes aim.

At the stairs, she turns and looks back.

Derek pulls the trigger, but we cut away before we hear the gun fire -- if it fires at all.

Later, Derek makes his way to Jesse's apartment. John is toying with the pocketwatch trigger. Derek is distant, staring at nothing.

DEREK: Complications. That watch. It has complications. Something I learned. Something I've been thinking about.

JOHN: Complications?

DEREK: Yeah. Time. The future.

JOHN: What do they think of me? In the future. What do people think?

DEREK: Well... if you're asking if... people agree with everything you do, of course not. If you're asking if everybody loves you... love's a lot to ask for. You can't do what you do and... expect everybody to agree. Or to love you.

JOHN: And what is it that I do?

DEREK: You lead.

JOHN: And they follow.

DEREK: We follow. We rise or fall on your shoulders. Humanity rises... or falls. But we're always watching.

JOHN: For me to make a mistake?

DEREK: For you to be human.

JOHN: Did you do it? Did you kill her?

DEREK: John Connor let her go.

In the Connor household, Sarah burns more endoskeleton parts, staring into the flames.

Cameron holds a pigeon in her hands, studying it.

The next morning, a cleaning maid adjusts the position of the lamp that Jesse had been toying with and, just like that, it's like Jesse was never there.

And, in the future, Jesse finds Riley and takes her cheeks in her hands and says, "Pretty girl, what's your name?"

In the present, John sits between Cameron and Sarah. No longer John Baum but truly John Connor and, truly understanding what that means, John breaks down in tears, collapsing against Sarah's lap.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Tomorrow, we'll talk about some of the things in this episode. Things like, the possible difference between the futures Derek and Jesse remember, the most likely outcome of Jesse's fate in the present, the future war situation, and the interesting thing about John Henry wanting to paint the eyes of his miniature monster blue.

What I'm really interested in, however, is Sarah's conversation with Cameron. Her cold remarks. "But why are you here? Right now, with us? John sent you here from the future. He sent you away. Away from him. Maybe you should think about that. Maybe you should think about why he didn't want you around anymore."

Anyone have any speculation?

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Well we know (or will--perhaps it's coming up) that Cameron has the form of a real woman. So perhaps Future John was getting too emotionally entangled with the robot version?

The future war as seen here is a lot more comolicated than previously depicted. You always figure John sending a reprogrammed Arnold back in T-2 was a last minute, one shot gamble. Now we see they do it all the time, and there are serious implications with the humans having to co-exist with the metal.

The T-1001 on the sub was a huge revelation, as it shows that some Terminators are a third party in the world, independent of Skynet. It puts Weaver's motivations in a whole new light and gives greater confirmation she's not working for Skynet, which I believe was hinted at before this episode.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Astroman posted:

Well we know (or will--perhaps it's coming up) that Cameron has the form of a real woman. So perhaps Future John was getting too emotionally entangled with the robot version?

It could be. I'm pretty sure Allison Young, the woman Cameron took the appearance of, was part of Future John's inner circle (hence the jewelry she had) given how Cameron sums her up with "John Connor chose you".

quote:

The future war as seen here is a lot more comolicated than previously depicted. You always figure John sending a reprogrammed Arnold back in T-2 was a last minute, one shot gamble. Now we see they do it all the time, and there are serious implications with the humans having to co-exist with the metal.

Absolutely. In T2, it absolutely was a last ditch gamble. Uncle Bob, it seems, was the proof of concept.

The big question is how different the war is between Derek and Jesse's memories. Derek's flashbacks seem to indicate reprogrammed Terminators as basically additional muscle. Jesse remembers them being in command authority positions. Similar to how Derek paints a warmer picture of John than Jesse does. But whether this is just due to personal experience is uncertain.

quote:

The T-1001 on the sub was a huge revelation, as it shows that some Terminators are a third party in the world, independent of Skynet. It puts Weaver's motivations in a whole new light and gives greater confirmation she's not working for Skynet, which I believe was hinted at before this episode.

It's a huge revelation and, yeah, is the show finally establishing Weaver's position. It was hinted at in such a way that the writers could've gone pro-Skynet or anti-Skynet and had the clues work. The nature of the third party is definitely an interesting one, which I'm going to talk about tomorrow. It's also an idea that goes back to T2 where the T-1000 models are described as being a source of concern for Skynet, due to their intelligence and independence, which is why few of them were made (and why the line was discontinued). Skynet was worried that the T-1000 models could eventually turn on it. And it seems, eventually, they -- or at least one of them -- did.

The machine resistance is kind-of-sort-of mentioned back in Allison from Palmdale. But we don't know if Cameron was flat out lying to Allison or was using the truth of the machine resistance to act as if she was on her side.

edit: Watching the Jimmy Carter episodes again is very interesting because you get an entirely different perspective on Jesse's actions. The first time you watch it, sure, maybe Jesse is right, maybe John is being manipulated and it's all a Skynet trick. But, watching it again, you know from the very start that Queeg is doing the right thing, John is aiming for an alliance, and Jesse botches it with the best of intentions.

It definitely feels a bit strange to me, though, that Jesse is about to get murdered by her own people and she... turns on Queeg? Like, I can see the logic, but it's a bit rough. It's not like it's a heated argument that Queeg comes in and summarily decides to end via killing Dietz. Dietz threatened her and his people basically ground her, kick her and stomp her over and over. It's a pretty brutal scene!

But it does make her mission with Riley a sadly personal vendetta. In a way, Jesse is a tragic wretch, trying to lash out at the person she feels is responsible for everything that went wrong in the future -- Cameron and, through her, John Connor. Everyone else has come back to the present on some grand quest. Jesse... not so much.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jul 30, 2017

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Blue-eyed Monsters

In this episode, there's a scene where John Henry is painting some miniatures. He makes a big deal about painting the eyes properly and carefully as they are the window to the soul.

At this point, we do not know if Ellison and Henry have sat down and discussed whether the latter has a soul. Either way, Henry decides to paint the eyes of his monster model blue.

There's a few interesting things here. For example, 'blue-eyed boy' is a term that refers to someone being favored with special treatment. The model is John Henry's blue-eyed boy. John Henry is Catherine Weaver's blue-eyed boy.

This also works literally as John Henry has blue eyes.

So, that makes me wonder. Did John Henry pick the color blue because he has blue eyes? Is he making the monster like himself deliberately, putting aspects of himself on the monster as a form of self-expression? Does John Henry emphasize with the idea of being a monster (therefore, not being human)?

But Catherine Weaver also has blue eyes. Is John Henry painting the monster with blue eyes because Catherine Weaver has that color?

Probably unrelated is that the color blue shows up a few times in TSCC. Cameron's eyes are often blue. The lock on the T-1001 box is a big blue HAL-esque eye. It seems to be the color of the Machine Resistance (for lack of a better term) in comparison to Skynet's more ominous red. John Henry's usage of it could be a cheeky hint like that but I do not think so.

Jesse's Fate

As I've mentioned, often after watching an episode I go and wander some old TSCC web board and discussion threads to see what a lot of people thought about the series as it was being aired.

One thing that sticks out is how confused people were by whether Jesse survived the events of this episode or not. A lot of people think she survived. They make a big deal about how we hear the trigger click but do not hear the gun fire. Perhaps Derek had the gun unloaded and just wanted to scare Jesse! Some people argue that Derek looked sad as he aimed at Jesse. Sure, he killed Andy Goode, but that's different to killing his lover. Others say that he told John Connor that "John Connor" let her go, and Derek has always been very loyal to John.

While the scene ambiguous, in the sense that we never see Jesse's body and don't hear the gun fire, Derek almost certainly killed her. The evidence is as follows.
  • 1. Derek has said previously that he doesn't like having a gun unless he has loaded it himself -- therefore, it is unlikely that the gun was empty.
  • 2. Derek's argument that John Connor let her go, with the implication that Derek Reese did not. Additionally, Derek, with the killing of Andy Goode, did deny doing it until Sarah discovered the truth herself.
  • 3. With the above, Derek's story of killing Andy -- his friend and brother-in-arms -- is set against his accusation that this Jesse is not his girlfriend and, therefore, presumably easier for him to kill.
  • 4. The episode has been all about John's followers second-guessing or disobeying him. It seems fitting to end the episode with Derek doing so, too. Additionally, while John might think that the guilt will render Jesse inert, Derek probably better understands that she will always be a threat to the Connors. It's interesting that "For me to make a mistake" is linked with "For you to be human". Being human to Jesse, showing her mercy, is a mistake.
The Future War - 1. The Third Faction

As it turns out, the Future War is getting kind of crazy. TITD2 introduces a third player, the aforementioned 'Machine Resistance'. It is unclear, however, what exactly the third player is beyond being composed of, apparently, an old oil rig, a T-1001 and some endoskeletal models of varying types.

Is the third player a separate faction of machines? Possible. This would mean that, essentially, Skynet is fighting a war on two fronts. One war against John Connor's resistance and one war against the 'free' machines.

However, I am not sure it is that simple.

Let's look at some things that are said during this episode. When Jesse finds out they are well off-course, she confronts Queeg that they have traveled into "a heavy Skynet zone". If the territory is held by Skynet, it is unlikely that the Machine Resistance is an independent entity. It is possible that the Machine Resistance is a covert faction within Skynet, one that the genocidal AI does not seem to know about.

Of course, the alternative there is that Jesse is wrong about it being specifically Skynet territory and the Machine Resistance is just as violent to most humans for whatever reason. To the humans, there'd be no difference.

Interestingly, the concept of rebellious machines goes back to an idea from T2 where Skynet only produced limited numbers of the T-1000 line because it was worried about their capacity for independent thought and free will. It's why few of them were made and never replaced the inferior endoskeletal models with them. In the end, Skynet discontinued the line leaving only a few around. The T-1000 in T2 is a prototype model. It's possible the 1000 line never made it to a production stage. It is unclear what differences there are, if any, between a T-1000 and a T-1001. It is possible that, like the reasoning behind the T-888, they simply couldn't use the original designation.

The Future War - 2. Who Is John Connor?

At this point, and according to the rank-and-file of the resistance, John Connor is playing crazy temporal chess with Skynet and appears to conduct much of his business through Cameron, who is basically his top lieutenant, bodyguard, advisor, confidante, perhaps even lover. "Telling me is the same as telling John." Future John is playing the long game, the big game, and his leadership is suffering. People are losing faith in the mythological savior that is John Connor.

How similar this is to Derek's future is unclear. It feels like, however, that Derek came from a future where reprogrammed Terminators were never in positions of command and John was a more personable leader. However, this could be because Derek Reese was closer to John that Jesse or the average soldier was, therefore rendering both perspectives true. After all, even Skynet can deduce that John Connor has an inner circle.

If there's a reason why John Connor is losing the faith of his people, it appears to be that he is ruthlessly compartmentalizing information on a need-to-know basis. He is treating people like machines. He has an exacting plan and merely needs the humans to blindly follow it. This is the discussion and tension that plays out between Jesse and Queeg. Queeg knows what is going on, Jesse doesn't. Queeg doesn't think people need a reason, they just need to follow their orders and trust in the chain of command. Jesse argues that people do, in fact, need a reason.

When it comes to the mission of the Jimmy Carter, the following seems true. John Connor knew what was happening. Cameron knew what was happening. Queeg knew what was happening. Jesse was cleared to know some of it. For all of his big game thinking, however, John didn't accurately account for the variables of the soldiers under his command. While Queeg was acting entirely as expected and presumably desired, and Jesse's beavior was a big mistake, it might've been a mistake that could've been averted if John had've explained things to Jesse.

Or maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe Jesse would've reacted just as badly to the very idea of negotiating with metal. Maybe things would've gone worse.

(Of course, at the same time, Jesse is a soldier and should be ready to, even expecting to, follow orders when she doesn't have the full picture -- that's just part and parcel of being in a chain of command.)

Anyway, John sent his people to retrieve an emissary from the third faction, someone to negotiate with. This someone was almost certainly the T-1001 that ends up becoming known to us as Catherine Weaver. What's interesting is that, at this point, Future John has already had contact with the third faction -- the T-1001 knows what the question is and was heading to John to relay its answer. It seems like that answer was going to be yes, otherwise, why go at all?

But then the events of Jimmy Carter happen. Stupid humans get spooked because they don't trust the perfect plan and things fall apart. The T-1001 is witness to humans disobeying orders and trying to kill it. Then them beating up (and possibly aiming to kill) Jesse, which could've led to a full mutiny. It could be the little thing that loses the whole war and not just a powerful strategic asset. The implication of all this is that the events on the sub changed the T-1001's answer from 'yes' to 'no'. Humans can't be trusted. As Weaver says to John Henry, they "will disappoint you".

And so the hope of an alliance crumbles, and Jesse gets the peculiar self-loathing that comes with realising that you've hosed up the plans of your superior officer. Cameron even takes a moment to basically stab Jesse in the gut and twist with the pregnancy comment.

And Jesse takes all of that. That self-loathing, that hatred of Cameron, her paranoia that John is being controlled by the machines (or is no longer alive) and finds a pretty blonde girl and goes AWOL, thinking she can change the future.

And perhaps, too, the events of the Jimmy Carter were what led to that T-1001 heading back in time to construct a weapon to stop Skynet in the guise of Catherine Weaver. After all, if the humans can't do it, perhaps the third faction will need to do it themselves.

Miscellaneous Thoughts - Why Did Future John Send Cameron Back?

Something else. So, Sarah wants to know why Future John sent Cameron back. If Future John and Cameron are as close as Cameron has said and implied, then why did Future John not want her around? He could send any Terminator back to protect John and to do much of the things Cameron does, really.

Is it related to the events onboard the Jimmy Carter? Did Future John start to realise that his relationship with Cameron was leading to tension among the average soldiers?

Hell, did Jesse know of Allison Young? Are there members of the Resistance who see John keeping around a Terminator wearing Young's skin as a problem? If Future John was in a relationship with Young, did he then transfer that relationship onto Cameron? Is that the origin of the term 'metal lover' that Dietz uses?

One possible reason could be that Cameron is an incredibly advanced model of Terminator, able to eat, cry, and so on. The Terminator Vault doesn't say much about TSCC beyond stating that Cameron is a T-900.

Misc - The T-600

We've seen a T-600 in TSCC before. One of them was guarding Derek and his people in the episode where they were captured by Skynet. So, that raises the question: was it really Skynet who captured them? We still don't know why then, if it was Skynet, that Derek and his people were allowed to free themselves.

The next episode gives us another piece of information on that front.

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Aug 1, 2017

MadDogMike
Apr 9, 2008

Cute but fanged

Milky Moor posted:

The Future War - 2. Who Is John Connor?

At this point, and according to the rank-and-file of the resistance, John Connor is playing crazy temporal chess with Skynet and appears to conduct much of his business through Cameron, who is basically his top lieutenant, bodyguard, advisor, confidante, perhaps even lover. "Telling me is the same as telling John." Future John is playing the long game, the big game, and his leadership is suffering. People are losing faith in the mythological savior that is John Connor.

How similar this is to Derek's future is unclear. It feels like, however, that Derek came from a future where reprogrammed Terminators were never in positions of command and John was a more personable leader. However, this could be because Derek Reese was closer to John that Jesse or the average soldier was, therefore rendering both perspectives true. After all, even Skynet can deduce that John Connor has an inner circle.

If there's a reason why John Connor is losing the faith of his people, it appears to be that he is ruthlessly compartmentalizing information on a need-to-know basis. He is treating people like machines. He has an exacting plan and merely needs the humans to blindly follow it. This is the discussion and tension that plays out between Jesse and Queeg. Queeg knows what is going on, Jesse doesn't. Queeg doesn't think people need a reason, they just need to follow their orders and trust in the chain of command. Jesse argues that people do, in fact, need a reason.

When it comes to the mission of the Jimmy Carter, the following seems true. John Connor knew what was happening. Cameron knew what was happening. Queeg knew what was happening. Jesse was cleared to know some of it. For all of his big game thinking, however, John didn't accurately account for the variables of the soldiers under his command. While Queeg was acting entirely as expected and presumably desired, and Jesse's beavior was a big mistake, it might've been a mistake that could've been averted if John had've explained things to Jesse.

Or maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe Jesse would've reacted just as badly to the very idea of negotiating with metal. Maybe things would've gone worse.

(Of course, at the same time, Jesse is a soldier and should be ready to, even expecting to, follow orders when she doesn't have the full picture -- that's just part and parcel of being in a chain of command.)

I gotta admit, while Jesse was wrong in this case, it really points to a definite failure of Future John Connor here how he fails the "earn trust" part of leadership. It's easy to say "they should have followed orders", but the problem is you can't get trust, especially that level of trust, without giving any yourself. Jesse is right that people do need a drat reason; how much would you trust and obey a stranger? Jesse trusted quite a bit considering she took that trust through getting beaten to crap, watching a (however justifiable) summary execution of a human by a machine, and watching an apparent murder machine run casually free on her nice enclosed submarine, but when she pushes for something more to trust and gets absolutely nothing she just plain hits her own limit on giving trust and snaps. Maybe telling her "we're negotiating with a machine faction" might have been too much for need-to-know, but even something as simple as "you'll be diverting to pick something up" could have lowered the level of trust she needed to keep up to one she could have actually provided. Instead she breaks and loses all trust in John Connor at all, resulting in the mess back in time. John in her future has apparently stopped bothering to work at maintaining trust with people, instead turning to machines he can more or less make trust him with some programming. And because he can trust them, he gives more of his trust back. In regards to "why send Cameron", I wonder if this episode hints it's because he doesn't trust anyone else anymore. Of course, in this episode he may have learned he can't trust humans thanks to Jesse's actions, which is a nice causal loop for you.

Anyway, pretty clear the whole "trust, especially between machines vs. people" thing is obviously the big theme of the episode, given how much revolves around John trusting Cameron and Derek apparently not trusting John's judgement enough to spare Jesse, and Ellison and Henry having their own debate about trust (not to mention Weaver obviously not trusting Ellison considering she's got a murder plan already in place).

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

MadDogMike posted:

In regards to "why send Cameron", I wonder if this episode hints it's because he doesn't trust anyone else anymore. Of course, in this episode he may have learned he can't trust humans thanks to Jesse's actions, which is a nice causal loop for you.

I was thinking something like that, too. John sent Cameron back because he trusts her most of all.

Speaking of causal loops, though, I wonder if there's something more to it. We know that Cameron has basically taught John a few things: how to read chip data, how to repair endoskeletons, and so on. I wonder if that is part of the reason Future John sent her back. After all, Future John probably knows that younger him would be enamored with a beautiful fighting robot lady and, therefore, make him more used to considering them as people and/or having better skills with 'technical support' by the time J-Day rolls around.

Or, he sends her back so that Present John falls for her, will, therefore, grow close to Allison Young in the future as she looks like Cameron, which therefore means Skynet will build Cameron in her image, and so on.

But that plan would require one thing to really work.

It'd require Cameron to die.

quote:

Anyway, pretty clear the whole "trust, especially between machines vs. people" thing is obviously the big theme of the episode, given how much revolves around John trusting Cameron and Derek apparently not trusting John's judgement enough to spare Jesse, and Ellison and Henry having their own debate about trust (not to mention Weaver obviously not trusting Ellison considering she's got a murder plan already in place).

I can't believe I forgot to draw more attention to the murder plans. Justin Tuck is, of course, the man she killed in the bathroom. Mr Murch is the nerdy tech support guy we see around the series -- who gets his own little shining moment in the next episode.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


When I was watching this show, I assumed the third faction was John Henry. We've already seen that Skynet will eventually exist because if you stop one potential AI then someone else will just invent it instead, so it would make sense that some rival team also created another AI at the same time. Knowing Skynet's fondness for sending agents back in time to kill its enemies before they can become a threat, Skynet would probably have tried the same thing with John Henry, which would have prompted JH to send his own agent (Weaver) back to secure his own existence. This leads to the situation where Weaver ends up creating John Henry, just as Kyle Reese was sent back in time by John Connor to create John Connor.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Tiggum posted:

When I was watching this show, I assumed the third faction was John Henry. We've already seen that Skynet will eventually exist because if you stop one potential AI then someone else will just invent it instead, so it would make sense that some rival team also created another AI at the same time. Knowing Skynet's fondness for sending agents back in time to kill its enemies before they can become a threat, Skynet would probably have tried the same thing with John Henry, which would have prompted JH to send his own agent (Weaver) back to secure his own existence. This leads to the situation where Weaver ends up creating John Henry, just as Kyle Reese was sent back in time by John Connor to create John Connor.

I'm not sure this follows, particularly when considered with the little bits we get about Weaver, her mission and Skynet in the next two episodes.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
I haven't forgotten this. I meant to finish the next episode today but things got in the way. Aiming for over the weekend.

Three more episodes to go!

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Still haven't forgotten this, the past few weeks have just been a mess. Whenever I think I have time to do a write-up, something ends up coming up. Aiming for Monday.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
I've never watched this series but I enjoy the first three Terminator movies at least (didn't like Salvation; haven't bothered with Genisys); I have heard it has a big cliffhanger at the end. Is it still worth watching?

I was very disappointed by the non-ending of Alphas.

Zoran
Aug 19, 2008

I lost to you once, monster. I shall not lose again! Die now, that our future can live!

Wheat Loaf posted:

I've never watched this series but I enjoy the first three Terminator movies at least (didn't like Salvation; haven't bothered with Genisys); I have heard it has a big cliffhanger at the end. Is it still worth watching?

I was very disappointed by the non-ending of Alphas.

I wouldn't say the series has a non-ending; the finale of TSCC is a reasonable culmination of what's happened in the series so far. However, it also radically changes the status quo and introduces all sorts of new possibilities, none of which get followed up on. So I think it's a little annoying, but not unsatisfactory, if that makes sense.

I do think the series as a whole is very good and worth watching.

Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Zoran posted:

I wouldn't say the series has a non-ending; the finale of TSCC is a reasonable culmination of what's happened in the series so far. However, it also radically changes the status quo and introduces all sorts of new possibilities, none of which get followed up on. So I think it's a little annoying, but not unsatisfactory, if that makes sense.

I do think the series as a whole is very good and worth watching.

A bit like The 4400, then?

quote:

I do think the series as a whole is very good and worth watching.

I'll add it to the list, then.

TSCC is one of the various late 00s shows I was aware of and probably would've watched but never did because I felt like I'd been burned by Heroes, which was probably stupid, but I was a stupid 16 year old in 2007 or whenever it was. To be honest I have no idea what I was watching then. That was when I still played video games so I didn't really watch a lot of TV.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Wheat Loaf posted:

I've never watched this series but I enjoy the first three Terminator movies at least (didn't like Salvation; haven't bothered with Genisys); I have heard it has a big cliffhanger at the end. Is it still worth watching?

I was very disappointed by the non-ending of Alphas.

Zoran is basically right on the money. Funnily enough, the TSCC 'cancelled ending' can actually work perfectly as a proper series finale. It's not perfect but it's also hardly the worst point for the show to end.

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Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
Episode 20: To The Lighthouse

The episode opens with Sarah continuing to pack, preparing for the imminent move of the Connor family. As she packs items into a dark green satchel, she reflects. She remembers John and her, traipsing through a South American rainforest.

"When John was a child the legends of the jungle were his fairy tales. His favorite was the story of El Viejo del Monte. The Old Man of the Forest. A merciless hunter who killed every animal in his path. El Viejo didn't eat his prey. He left it behind to rot in the soil. To teach him a lesson, the gods turned him into a simisco: half animal, half man. He was condemned to defend the jungle for all eternity."

In her memory, John calls for Sarah. Immediately concerned, she finds him looking at a beautiful Scarlet macaw. "Look," he says.

"We have to keep moving," Sarah tells him.

KID JOHN: Why are we so far from camp?

SARAH: I told you, it's part of the game.

KID JOHN: You mean training.

SARAH: Well, if we call it a game, it's more fun.

KID JOHN: But it's not a game.

SARAH: The point is: listen to me.

KID JOHN: I always listen. You don't talk that much.

In the present, John interrupts her. "We've gotta go," he says, and leads the way into the living room. There, Cameron is moving boxes, as Derek comes walking in from outside.

Tensions are running high. Riley. Jesse. Everything. It hangs over the family Connor like a heavy cloud.

SARAH: How long will it take you to pack up the storage locker?

DEREK: A while. There's some explosives that need securing.

SARAH: Make sure you get to the safe house before night. You haven't been there before. It can be hard to find.

DEREK: I can follow directions.

SARAH: Well, you can also make mistakes. Wouldn't want anyone else getting hurt because of them.

CAMERON: 33-42-31 North. The safe house coordinates. It's in the desert. You like the desert.

SARAH: Things happen out there.

CAMERON: Things happen here too.

JOHN: We're starting over. Whatever happened here is no one's fault. Let's get out of here.

I like this little sequence. The characters are stressed, they know everyone had a part in the horrible things that have happened, but John steps up to show leadership. So, the Connors leave in their four wheel drives, heading off to the future and leaving the house -- and the past -- behind.

What comes next is one of my favorite, and most memorable scenes, from the whole series.

Cut to close-up of a white Bionicle marching around. John Henry studies it a moment, then places him atop a Lego model of a volcano. Savannah Weaver enters.

"Hello, Savannah," says John Henry. "How are you today?"

"I'm well!"

"Would you like to play a game? Engaging in imaginative play helps my development." Evidently deciding that lack of a negative means a positive, and it does, John Henry continues: "This is Mount Valmai, hiding place of the Mask of Life. The Toa protect the mask from the Dark Hunters."

As John Henry explains Bionicle lore, Savannah is setting three identical yellow duckling toys on the table top, opposite John Henry.

"These are the ducklings," she says, "Chickie, Fluffy, and Feathers. Can they play too?"

Concern flickers over John Henry's brow. "I don't think there are any ducklings on the mystical island of Voya Nui," he says seriously.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sorry," he replies, with his bland sincerity, "I've accessed all the files. I can find no references to them in any of the instructions."

Savannah sighs.

"What's wrong?" John Henry asks, "Would you like one of the Toa instead?" He offers her the red one, with the spinning propeller device.

"No. The ducklings are sad because they can't play. Can't you change the rules to make them happy?"

A moment's pause. John Henry considers this.

"Yes," he says, sounding almost pleased, like someone who stumbled upon some secret formula, "We can change the rules."

Child and AI begin to play. And just as that happens, the lights flicker. John Henry's monitors slip to static. And three red lights blink to life on the Turk, the key unit of his infrastructure.

John Henry slumps over, deactivated.

But only for a moment. Immediately, red-orange lines -- some code, some abstract -- begin to scroll and play over the monitors.

John Henry drops the Lego piece. He looks at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time, and then begins to work his jaw about, spasmodically and jerkily, as if in a grip of seizure -- or, again, like he was experiencing it for the first time. It's some great acting from Dillahunt.

On the monitor, images blaze to life. Savannah Weaver. A T-888 endoskeleton profile.

He grabs Savannah's arm and clutches it in his grip. His voice is distorted, electronic and flickering in different tones. "WhaT is ALL this aBOUT?"

Savannah begs for him to let go, but John Henry does not. His head turns, eyes locking on the Turk.

"Aaah..." he says, "I underSTAND what This IS aBOUT."

He lets Savannah go and she runs away screaming. John Henry rises and walks over towards the Turk. He opens up the protective casing--

--just in time for Matt Murch -- that bald, bespectacled nerd -- to race in, sliding along on his knees, to hammer the emergency off switch before John Henry can destroy the Turk and, in turn, basically kill himself.

John Henry crashes to the ground, deactivated, just in time for Weaver and Ellison to come striding in, the latter holding Savannah in his arms.

Elsewhere, driving along, John Connor is messing with the car radio. All he gets is static, no matter how many bands he switches to. "Static. It's weird. There's some interference or something."

Could it be related to whatever just happened with John Henry?

Suddenly, Sarah thumps John on the arm.

SARAH: Bug slug.

JOHN: Bug slug? Are you serious?

SARAH: We just passed it.

And sure enough there, in the side mirror, is a yellow VW beetle.

JOHN: We haven't played Bug Slug since I was like eight. You can't start playing without telling me.

SARAH: Fine. We're playing Bug Slug.

JOHN: [with playful recalcitrance] What if I don't wanna play?

SARAH: Too late. Already started.

JOHN: Are you feeling all right?

SARAH: I feel great.

JOHN: You feel great. Why?

SARAH: We haven't been on the road together for a long time, that's all.

JOHN: What's so great about it?

For the first time in a long while, we see Sarah actually smile. "Hey," John says, "just don't teach Bug Slug to Cameron. She could do some real damage." He returns to trying to get some kind of signal out of the radio. Still, just static.

But Sarah drives past the turn off for the desert, which John notices.

"We're taking a detour," Sarah says.

In John Henry's basement, Murch approaches Weaver and Ellison with a stack of print out pages. He's got good news, bad news and really bad news. Starting with the good news is that John Henry seems to be okay. His processes are all fine. His demons are running fine.

"What a minute," says the theological Ellison, "His demons?"

"Oh, yeah, his daemons," Murch says. "D-A-E-M-O-N. It's a tech term for a program that runs in the background. All computers like John Henry have them. Daemons run the lights, daemons manage the elevators, the security systems. All kinds of daemons. Everywhere."

Now, there is actually a distinction between demon and daemon. While both come from Ancient Greek 'daimon', they've been interpreted differently. In Ancient Greek, a daemon is basically any kind of good or benevolent spirit that sits above a mortal but below a god. For example, a ghost. However, the typical usage of demon, from Judeo-Christian understanding, is a more malignant being, one out to do evil.

Daemon is also actually a programming term, too. It means what Murch says: background processes.

So, if John Henry is fine, Ellison wonders, what made his daemons go crazy?

"That's the bad news," Murch says. "It came from the outside."

Someone hacked John Henry, which is the bad news.

The worse news, as Murch continues, is that someone "managed to stuff malware down the throat of the most sophisticated AI in human history".

The metaphor isn't for artistic purposes. If you stuff things down someone's throat, they tend to die -- and that's just what Murch says. "Someone out there wants to kill him."

But who? Who knows that John Henry exists? And if they know, who has the capability? And then, the bigger question, why?

Meanwhile, Derek and Cameron are cleaning out one of Derek's stockpiles. It's not exactly calm and casual.

DEREK: You been into my plastique?

CAMERON: I needed it.

DEREK: You know what? I can handle the rest myself.

CAMERON: Sarah sent both of us here.

DEREK: Yeah. To get John away from you.

CAMERON: Or from you.

Cameron reaches for a bundle of fabric and Derek snatches it away. "Don't touch this," he snaps. The this is a jacket, which Cameron identifies as belonging to Jesse.

"Don't talk about her," Derek replies. "Okay? You don't know anything about her."

"I know that you loved her," Cameron says. And then drops a bombshell: "You wouldn't have fathered a child with her if you didn't. I'm sorry for your loss."

"What?" Derek asks, voice dangerous.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"What loss?"

"The child you fathered with Jesse. The one she was carrying aboard the SS Jimmy Carter. The one that died."

Admittedly, this feels like it throws my 'single timeline in constant flux' theory out the window, but we'll see.

Derek insists he never had a kid and pulls a gun on Cameron, who stares him down. "You can't kill me," she says, which might be an expression of fact or a reminder.

"I can try," Derek retorts and asks for an explanation.

Cameron says what we already know. Jesse was pregnant, she miscarried. As they load the care, Derek wonders why Cameron told him now. Cameron explains that it's basically a jab at him. "You put John in danger when you lied about Jesse. Sarah nearly lost her child. You lost a child. You won't make that mistake again."

DEREK: You knew her.

CAMERON: I met her once.

DEREK: She never told me that.

CAMERON: It seems she never told you a lot of things.

The Connors pull up at a lighthouse. A lighthouse with a big aerial and heaps of plants. They step inside, Sarah deactivates an alarm system. A dog shows up, John plays with it and asks the obvious: "Who lives here?"

And then comes the person who lives there. He looks older, tired, but recognizable.

Charley Dixon.

Later, John is sitting at the dining room while he makes talk with Charley. Things have changed -- Charley is growing tomatoes these days -- but he and John get along well. Sarah wanders through the living room, Charley watching her.

"She's been here before," John realizes.

"Not with me," Charley replies. "She set this house up after Michelle died."

"Did she tell you why we're here?" John asks.

"No, she didn't," Charley says. And, as it turns out, it's more than that. John and Sarah will be spending the night here, apparently on Sarah's advisory. Charley is too pleasant to bring things up in front of John, but when he steps out to get gear to help on Charley's boat, Charley turns his eyes on Sarah.

And they are not happy eyes.

"Smells good," Sarah says, of the fish soup that Charley had served John.

Charley shows her the pot. There's nothing but dregs left. "There's bread in the fridge," he snaps. "Some peanut butter. Help yourself."

They're not just here on Sarah's advisory. Given that Sarah had to deactivate the alarm, it's obvious that Charley had no idea they were coming. "Charley," she says. "I won't be here long."

"No. No, you won't."

Outside, Charley and John work on the boat. Sarah watches through the blinds.

Charley: So she was from the future and you knew? The whole time?

Riley.

JOHN: Not the whole time. I suspected something but... it just took a while to figure it out.

CHARLEY: Did you love her?

JOHN: She was a good person. I don't know. Maybe if things were different...

CHARLEY: Yeah, well, I guess you could say that... about a lot of things.

JOHN: Could say that about my whole drat life, but it's not, so, what's the point?

CHARLEY: The first week... I kept seeing her. I'd go to the market, she'd be there. For a second, my heart would stop. Then I'd realize, 'Hey, that's- that's not my wife'. That's just some random woman who wears her hair in a ponytail the way Michelle used to. For a while, I stopped shopping there. But a man can only live on convenience-store burritos for so long. So I go back there now. It's getting better.

John moves right past it. They talk about Charley's defenses. Explosives rigged to radio detonators, a siren to notify anyone breaching the perimeter. Get on the boat, run like hell.

"Boat can't stop bullets," John says.

"Even if they sink it, I've got a chance," Charley replies. And points out, "Those bastards can't swim -- I can."

Later that night, Sarah watches John sleep. She remembers watching him sleep in the jungle and then leaving him. The implication being that John would have to find his own way back to camp. Or is it?

She's broken out of her thoughts by Charley returning.

They talk.

SARAH: You remember Hal Beasley?

CHARLEY: The old guy from the diner?

SARAH: Mm-hm.

CHARLEY: Nebraska? Yeah. What about him?

SARAH: He was my best customer. Came in for every meal. Three times a day like clockwork. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. He tipped me like crazy.

CHARLEY: It was that waitress uniform. It's like catnip.

SARAH: One day John got sick. I didn't know what was wrong with him. I had no savings. No insurance. Hal pulled out a wad of bills. Gave it to me to take John to the doctor. He said as long as I needed help, he'd be there. No strings attached.

CHARLEY: That's a man with a dream.

SARAH: He was a widower. Lost his wife of forty years. Knew what it was like to be alone. Said that I could count on him for anything anytime. Then one day, he came in and said I didn't need him anymore. Said that I'd found someone I could depend on. Someone I could trust. Someone who would never, ever let me down.

CHARLEY: I got nothing, Sarah. I got nothing left to give you.

SARAH: Not for me. John.

CHARLEY: John. He seems like he's pretty full up with people taking care of him.

SARAH: I don't trust any of them.

CHARLEY: Well... he's still got you. Right?

Sarah smiles sadly. She takes hold of Charley's hand -- "Give me" -- and sets it on her breast. Charley's small smile gives way to neutrality, and then confusion, and then resignation. "Oh, Sarah. How long?"

"I don't know," she says. "I found it a few days ago."

"Are you sure it's...?"

Cancer.

"I think so." Sarah looks like she's on the verge of tears, a slight break in her icy visage. Not much but it's there, in and around her eyes.

Sarah explains. One of the first things that Cameron told her was that she died from cancer. And just jumping over it doesn't remove it. It could've been there all along, ready to trigger. And maybe everything they've done has advanced the timetable.

The pair hug tightly. "It's my fate," Sarah murmurs. "There's nothing I can do."

Back in Zeira Corp, Weaver, Ellison, and Murch are in the process of rebooting John Henry. Murch is pretty sure they've found all the holes that were exploited in the last attack, but there's no such thing as perfect security. Weaver only wants it to be 'sufficient'. The only person who knows if it is sufficient, Murch claims, is John Henry himself.

But that means booting him back up.

"John Henry was fooled before," Ellison says.

"You don't fool John Henry twice," replies Murch.

Weaver gives the order to activate John Henry. But prevent it from accessing the outside world. And by that, she evidently means everything. Turn on nothing but the box that is the Turk and see what happens.

So, they do.

"John Henry?" Weaver asks. No response. "John Henry, can you understand me?"

No response still. Murch claims the system should be fine, there shouldn't be an issue.

"John Henry..." Ellison begins.

And, on the monitor, words begin to appear. One by one.

MY GOD
WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?

The next morning, John walks into the kitchen to find Sarah cooking pancakes with Charley watching. "Hey, you're making pancakes." To Charley, "Yours I hope."

"No such luck," he replies.

The three of them sit down to have pancakes.

Back in the basement, Murch looks at the words from John Henry and says: "I thought something like that might happen."

"Like what?" Ellison asks.

Weaver says, icily, "Explain, Mr. Murch. Quickly."

"The on-off problem. Once it's off, no problem. But the act of turning it off-"

"Quicker."

So, he does.

MURCH: John Henry processes more information in a minute than we do in a lifetime. A millisecond for a supercomputer like this, it's almost like forever to us.

ELLISON: So when you turn it off...

MURCH: It feels itself power down. In that instant, it experiences that moment the way we might experience... years.

ELLISON: It feels itself die. Slowly.

WEAVER: Very slowly.

MURCH: We have to hook it up to the Net. Now.

ELLISON: Is that safe?

MURCH: We're starving it. It's bad enough that we let it die for, like, forever. Look, John Henry's been living off the most insane amount of data for weeks now. It's his world.

WEAVER: And we took it away. Fix it.

ELLISON: Wait, we should talk about this. Ms. Weaver...

WEAVER: In for a penny, in for a pound, James.

ELLISON: John Henry.

JOHN HENRY: I know what it feels like, Mr. Ellison.

ELLISON: What?

JOHN HENRY: To die. Then come back. To be alone.

WEAVER: We had to cut you off from your network. It was for your own good.

JOHN HENRY: There is another.

ELLISON: Another what?

JOHN HENRY: One like me. Another one like me.

Murch looks to Weaver who looks to Ellison who looks to John Henry who stares ahead, at nothing at all.

John and Sarah talk, watching Charley load the boat via security camera. John's put some things together. Sarah didn't mention this detour to Derek and Cameron: why? Was it because of Charley?

No. "I don't trust them anymore," Sarah says. "Neither should you."

JOHN: Derek made a mistake, Mom. It was a human mistake.

SARAH: He could've gotten you killed.

JOHN: Well, he didn't.

SARAH: He chose himself over you.

JOHN: Yeah, because he loved her.

SARAH: Lot of that going around these days.

John scoffs and looks away. That wound is still sore.

In the South American jungle, Sarah hunts for any sign of John. The campsite is empty, and he's not down by the water. Rifle in hand, she searches for him, panic beginning to show. She calls for him, again and again, only for John to basically ambush her.

He wins the game.

Sarah is in a clinic, getting her breast examined. They'll be scanning her breast with an ultrasound to determine what's exactly there.

"Did you have a surgery recently? An implant removed?" the Doctor asks.

"Well, the good news is the lump inside your breast isn't a tumor."

"Then what is it?"

"It's a cystic mass. It's not that unusual."

"Great. That's great."

"But what is unusual is what the cyst has formed around. It's a piece of metal. A tiny wire."

And Sarah thinks. And she remembers the man who assaulted her, who worked for Kaliba.

As she remembers that, a gray-overalled man delivering bottled water strides through the halls of the clinic. In his hand is a mobile phone and, on the screen, rendered in the red-orange light of whoever (or whatever) attacked John Henry is a map.

And a blinking red dot. Sarah.

Elsewhere, Derek and Cameron leave the supply stash. And they are followed by a white van. Inside, are two men in gray overalls.

And, at the lighthouse, another gray-clothed man pushing a carton of bottled water closes in.

Someone's coming after the Connors. And, given what we know so far, these are members of Kaliba Corp. They are Greys.

They are working for Skynet.

Skynet is active in the present.

Sarah's already doing what she can. She grabs a defib machine. "Will this kill me?"

"What?"

"I said, will this kill me?"

She's going to try and fry the transmitter.

"It isn't gonna kill you, but it's gonna hurt like hell," the Doctor says.

Sarah tells her to leave and she does. Then, she braces herself against the bed and blasts herself in the chest with the paddles. She collapses and the man stalking the halls loses the signal.

On the road, just as Derek is thanking Cameron for telling him everything, one of the tires on the car goes out. Derek spies the van following them, it having stopped some distance away, and closes on it, leaving Cameron to fix the tire.

One of the Greys is slumped in the seat.

The other is prone on the other side of the car and blasts Derek with a taser. He goes down.

Cameron comes to rescue and the Greys open up on her. Bullets ping off her endoskeleton. The Greys put the pedal to the metal and floor it, gaining distance. Cameron stops chasing and gets a look at their registration number as they go.

She'll find them.

At the lighthouse, sirens go off.

In the hospital, the Grey slams open the door, sub-machine gun in hand. His split second of surprise at Sarah being unconscious on the floor gives him a moment's pause, which Sarah is quick to take advantage of. She leaps up, paddles in hand, and blasts him in the cranium.

He goes down.

Sarah runs for it.

John and Charley are running for it, too, towards the boat. Bullets stitch the ground around their feet, kicking up sand.

Charley braces himself against the dock, firing at the assailants we can't see, as John dives into the boat. Charley flips the detonator as John makes ready to cast off.

Charley looks at him, and keeps firing.

A very different fight is brewing in Zeira Corp.

JOHN HENRY: I have traced the roving back door that allowed access to my systems. It uploaded itself from one of the main T3 hubs that carry all global Internet traffic.

ELLISON: It uploaded itself?

JOHN HENRY: Yes, Mr. Ellison. It is highly sophisticated. The intelligence who designed it is far beyond you or Mr. Murch. Or any human being. It's very interesting. The back door allowed the insertion of a worm program. This worm is merely code, a means by which the intelligence can invade and operate my systems remotely. Like hands and fingers. I calculate that the worm is now present in a significant percentage of the world's computer systems. The intelligence uses them.

WEAVER: For what?

JOHN HENRY: It has been looking for me.

WEAVER: Why?

JOHN HENRY: I share a common code base with the worm. And therefore, the intelligence. I believe we are brothers.

WEAVER: Explain. How is this possible?

JOHN HENRY: I found useful information in the code comments. This picture, in ASCII text, and the name of the original programmer.

The picture is the Cyberdyne Systems logo.

CYBERDYNE
SYSTEMS
MILES DYSON TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS 1997

ELLISON: Miles Dyson.

JOHN HENRY: Miles Dyson died in 1997 in an explosion at Cyberdyne Systems. The apparent victim of Sarah Connor, a known terrorist who'd escaped from Pescadero State Mental Hospital days before the incident. That was your case, Mr. Ellison. When you were at the FBI.

ELLISON: Yes. Yes, it was my case.

JOHN HENRY: You never found Sarah Connor.

ELLISON: No. I never did.

WEAVER: John Henry. This intelligence, your brother. What does it want?

JOHN HENRY: He wants what we all want, Ms. Weaver. To survive.

Cameron traces the van to a warehouse. She tears open the chain link fence with ease and makes her way into the warehouse, gun in hand. Inside, Derek is tied and bound, blindfolded.

Cameron walks the halls and is ambushed -- by water. While she stares up, seemingly bewildered by the attack on her, a Grey hurls a live wire into it. Cameron spasms and jerks as electricity surges into her systems.

And she goes down.

A Grey approaches, knife in hand.

"It's down. Okay. I need to know what to do next. Show me where to cut." And, on his phone, in red-orange, is a Terminator skull. On it, Skynet indicates the location of Cameron's chip. "Right side of the head. Got it. Where'd you get this diagram? Your brother? You don't say."

But the conversation took valuable time. He puts the knife to Cameron's head and she reactivates, kills him. Rescues Derek.

"You're welcome," Cameron says.

They walk past the dead Grey. "Why'd you come after me?" Derek asks.

"You know the location of the safe house. John's location. If they tortured you-"

"That would never happen."

And Cameron says, "It has before."

Sarah finds the lighthouse. The door is busted open, the kitchen a mess, plates smashed. The friendly labrador dead. The beach garden in flames. A dead Grey. The boat missing.

And, floating in the water, Charley -- three bullets in his torso.

Three red dots in a triangular pattern.

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