Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles through the current episode, “Brothers of Nablus,” originally broadcast November 3, 2008.

Tonight’s review, I would like to take you on an interesting investigation into something that you can only find on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  It’s a dangerous place that few people can claim to have seen and lived to talk about it.  But it seems to be a place that the writers of the show would like us to go, so I will do my best to show you around.  Let’s journey, loyal readers, into the mind of a Terminator.

This episode brings back Cromartie (gone since “Mousetrap”), and he brings with him some interesting behavior.  I would say he’s acting erratic, but I don’t really know how that can be said.  I think we have to look at “good” and “bad” terminators in a different way, and the movies give us a bit of a skewed perspective on the evil ones.  Since the plot in all three movies takes place over the course of a couple of days, we don’t really see any of the villain machines during “down time.”

We see that, however, in Cromartie.  Since he’s been unable to kill John Connor, and they’ve been unable to kill him, we finally get to see a terminator go back to the drawing board.  It’s a first for a Skynet-run machine.

Or is it?  Cromartie acknowledges in the first scene a strategic difference of opinion between a terminator and Skynet…a sign of independent thought.  I alluded to something like that in my “Allison from Palmdale” review, but I concluded that terminators are simply Skynet’s tools.  That, however, might not be the case.  Either Cromartie is working for Skynet using his own detective skills, or he’s working for someone else entirely.

Because the introduction of Jesse indicates that not everyone is happy with the way John Connor runs things in the future.  If that’s the case, maybe someone else besides Skynet wants him dead.  And maybe they found their own terminator to send back in time.  It isn’t likely, but it’s something to think about.

If Cromartie is still working for Skynet, we have an interesting development.  We’ve seen each of the “good” terminator characters advance themselves, but we’ve never seen anything but cold and logical decisions from the “bad” ones.  They find John/Sarah through simple probability (John needs to save Sarah from the mental hospital, so the T-1000 finds him there).  We don’t see them make hunches, like Cromartie does in saving Ellison.  But we also have never seen a terminator have to move on to Plan B.  Or Plan C.  Or, as in Cromartie’s case, Plans F-H.

Perhaps all terminators are capable of independent thought to an extent.  Skynet gives them a strategy, and if that fails, they think of their own.  It shows signs of free will (otherwise reserved for the “good” terminators) and that means we might even get signs of characterization out of Cromartie.  If that’s the case, the show could easily become much more expansive.

And it comes in line with Cromartie’s behavior in this episode.  We have another example (in a list that’s getting long) of a terminator not killing someone when I think it would’ve.  The girl from the halfway house (in a nice continuity nod from “Allison From Palmdale”) tags along with Cromartie as he searches for the Connors.  She eventually begins to annoy him, and he simply pushes her out of the car to get rid of her.  In fact, he even stops the car before doing so.

Why would he do this?  The T-1000 kills Todd (John’s foster father) in T2 because he was being a nuisance.  It seemed to make sense in a Terminator kind of way…why not simply kill a nuisance if it’s interfering with the mission?  I mean, heck, Cameron (the good one!) murders three people in cold blood because of the chance that it could compromise the mission.  That’s right…in terms of body bags in this episode, the “good” terminator beat out the “bad” one 3-0.

The only reason I can think of is that Cromartie simply wants to stay off the radar.  Senseless murder means cops.  Cops mean attention.  And despite their strength, terminators still seem to like to work in the shadows.  To stalk their prey.  And while Cromartie could easily wipe out a group of police (much like he did at the end of season one), it seems he made the decision to avoid the trouble.

Characterization from a villainous terminator?  An interesting concept.

Although I still want to know how Cromartie hasn’t found the Connors yet.  They don’t seem to have done much to hide themselves outside of getting a new house and new names (and I think they’ve been using the same names for the whole series).  They haven’t left the city, and they’re constantly meeting people.

Cameron brings up moving to Canada, and the thought isn’t even considered.  In the past, Sarah has hid in Mexico and Central America.  As soon as the terminators show up in the second and third movies, the characters’ first reaction is to head to the middle of nowhere.

I realize the issues of keeping them constantly on the run, but I don’t think it’s believable that Cromartie (working 24 hours a day) hasn’t been able to track down John yet because LA just isn’t that big.  But I guess it’s something we’ll have to simply accept and move on.

We also get a little more of “rebel John” – and it’s all summed up in a line from Derek.  “He’s acting less like John Connor and more like John Baum” – it says a lot about John and maybe more about Derek.  He’s legitimately concerned that his friend, leader, and mentor will not exist if John stays on his current path.

Because, deep down, I don’t think Derek thinks Judgment Day is avoidable.  I think it’s why he’s always so concerned about the mission…because he knows he’ll be back in the thick of things before he knows it.  And he knows the world will need John Connor.  Not John Baum.

And all of John’s odd behavior stems from the man he killed in the premiere.  Despite all he’s seen, actually ending a life seems to have been too much to take.  Especially since he’s supposed to be a hard military man who does what must be done.  It’s certainly an interesting dichotomy.

But I hope this is simply a “season two” storyline.  I see the point (and the realism) of what’s happening, but the “triangle” between John, Sarah, and Riley isn’t something I’d like to see too much of.  You can see how John’s getting pulled in two different directions, but I don’t want to see it dragged on.  Now that Sarah knows what’s eating John, hopefully she can get things back on track.  Because long-term teen angst is never good for a series.

I also kinda hope Riley starts asking more questions.  Because after her confrontation with Cromartie (which she handled well), I think she’s gotta start realizing that the Baums aren’t who they say they are.

The rest of the episode dealt with Ellison, and it started with a very cool sequence.  Ellison ends up facing himself…in terminator form.  The terminator reaches up to kill Ellison, but he’s stopped by Cromartie.  Cromartie tells Ellison that he believes the agent will lead him to the Connors.

It had the feeling, at least for me, of a dream sequence.  But once we know it’s real, we’re never told (although I hope we find out) why Skynet wants Ellison dead.  He seems to believe he’s being tested, and I wonder how it involves Weaver.  She also seems to think that Ellison is special…going out of her way to get him out of prison.

So you have to wonder….did she know that Skynet planned on killing him?  You can’t think that she’d go through all this trouble to recruit and convince Ellison if he’s going to be killed.  There was a chance she/Skynet sent the terminator to raise his level of commitment to the job.  But unless she and Cromartie are working together, there’d be no way for her to know that he’d be saved.

Is there a chance that Cromartie and/or Weaver are both working for some kind of third party?  Maybe even a fourth one?  It’s something that we have to consider, but it’s nice to see that Ellison’s story is finally starting to pick up.  It’s taken several episodes, but it’s finally going in a pretty cool direction.

And that’s it for now.  New episodes all month so you better get ready for plenty of new Terminator.