Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles through the current episode, “Complications,” originally broadcast November 17, 2008.

I’ve said it in previous reviews: Derek Reese is the most interesting character in this series.  And I think it could be argued, rather easily, that he’s also the most important character in the series.  He’s more than simply a weapon against the machines, and he’s more than just John’s uncle.  He’s a connection to the future, and he’s the key to unlocking a lot of the mystery of the future.  Without Derek Reese, Fischer’s story can’t be told correctly, and that would be a shame.

This season of Terminator is really turning the future on it’s ear.  In the first movie, it was black and white…the humans were good and the machines were bad.  Terminator 2 revealed the possibility that John Connor could capture and reprogram a machine to be good, and that formula was continued into the third movie and the first season of this series.  Humans were good, Skynet is bad, and the machines simply served their programmers.

But this season, anything’s up for grab.  From the idea of sentient anti-Skynet machines (later revealed to be a trick but still cool) to humans that don’t believe in the war (Jesse), things were much more gray.  Then, in this episode, we introduced the Grays…humans who actually decided to fight with Skynet.  That’s quite a step from the communal sense we got from humanity in the original film.

But, of course, it makes perfect sense.  In every human war, there are people who decide to join the other side…from the Loyalists of the American Revolution to Vichy France.  While most people can be heroic when captured, some simply choose survival at any cost.  It happens to all of us.

And even in a situation where humanity is literally fighting for it’s life, people would turn on each other to save themselves.  So while it seemed unthinkable, it’s a very realistic situation.

If Derek weren’t there, it would be possible to tell this story.  John and Sarah could come upon a Gray, and they could learn that humans worked for Skynet.  And while they’d be surprised and horrified at the idea, it wouldn’t mean much.  But with Derek, you can see in his eyes that Grays are despised.  Just like with the future itself, Derek makes the idea of the turncoats real.

And I think the way they presented Fischer (teaching the machines what makes people “tick”) was pretty realistic.  We’ve seen repeatedly that terminators have trouble understanding the behavior of humans.  And since Skynet’s goal is to continually make terminators more like humans, it needs to understand why they do certain things.  And something like that could only be done by a willing human participant.

It was all simplified by Cameron’s confusion about the tortoise.  She simply couldn’t fathom why Sarah would even bother helping the stranded animal because it wouldn’t even enter her equation.  With no “empathy” (as she theorized), there was no reason for her to even consider the turtle’s distress.  Cameron, like Skynet, simply didn’t know what makes the human mind tick the way it does.

The entire mystery of Fischer was very interesting, I thought.  It reminded me, a little bit, of the “Henry Gale” storyline from LOST’s season two (and that’s a nice compliment) isolated in a single episode.  I never thought for a second that Fischer was telling the truth (although I think we were supposed to doubt Jesse as well), but it was still interesting to see Derek try to figure things out.

I especially liked the idea of grabbing young Fischer.  It’s something that I don’t think I would’ve considered, but it also makes perfect sense.  Even for a cold human like Fischer, the sight of himself at a more innocent time had to bring him back to reality for a bit.

And the epilogue with Fischer getting arrested (for his future self’s transgressions) was pretty cool as well.  It shows both sides of fate…while the Connors believe they can escape it, Fischer cannot avoid his destiny.  His arrest saves his life, but it also drives him into the machines’ service.  Very interesting.

Which makes me wonder why they left young Fischer alive.  Derek was going to kill him, and I don’t really see why he wouldn’t still do it.  At the very least, Fischer witnessed Jesse commit a murder…an act that has the potential to involve Derek (which could compromise John Connor’s safety).  At most, this was a man who gave Skynet invaluable information.

They choose to hope that Fischer can save himself….knowing who he becomes.  But it’s a lot like the idea of killing Hitler before he had the chance to rule the Nazis.  Would you try to save him from falling into the darkness, or would you simply avoid the risk that he’d become the same monster either way?  It’s certainly not an easy decision, and I’m surprised Derek let the young man go.

Then there’s Jesse.  I’m still not really sure to make of her.  The photos of Sarah and John underneath her bed lets us know that she’s hiding something, and it’s hard to take her at her word about anything.  But even though I don’t trust her, I still don’t really know where she’s headed with this.  She certainly was quick to kill the elder Fischer…making me wonder what she has to hide. Is there a chance that she’s a Gray as well?

And I guess we’ll have to wait to see if she’s lying about the “alternate future” thing. Although that’s pretty cool….the idea that Derek changed something about his own future before Jesse went back. A lot of uncharted and interesting territory the show’s deciding to go in.

Then there’s the Cromartie stuff. I said last week that he needed to be dead, and I hoped that his appearance in this week’s promo was a dream sequence. It ended up being a dream, but the revelation at the end (that Ellison stole Cromartie’s body) isn’t very encouraging. First of all, there’s the chance that Weaver will be able to rebuild him, and that’s something I just don’t want to see.

Then there’s the whole fact that Ellison betrayed the Connors.  Whether or not he has their best interests at heart, he did deliberately lie to John and Cameron…risking his own life.  And just one week after he risked it to help them.  I’m still intrigued by what the Weaver/Ellison partnership has to offer, but I was hoping that the Connors would also form a bond with the former agent.

I guess we’ll see soon enough.

The rest of the episode dealt with Sarah’s own psyche.  One of the reasons that Cromartie’s death was so important (and why I don’t think it should be undermined) is the fact that it took so much out of Sarah emotionally.  That’s why it makes so much sense that she’d dream about him as soon as she had a moment to think.  It took everything she had (mentally and physically) to defeat him.

And I thought it was interesting continuity that she went back to the therapist from earlier in the season.  I was hoping to see more about how he was helping “counsel” Weaver’s machine, but I guess we’ll get more of that next episode.

I was very excited to see the return of the “blood wall” – that’s something we have to see more of before the season is over.

Before I finish, I wanted to mention something kinda funny.  In the final commercial break, there was an add for Cisco.  The ad featured a song that started out “only people know how to talk to people.”  Considering Fischer’s work in the future, I thought that was an interesting piece of irony…only people can teach the machines about people.

If that’s not a perfect place for that ad, I don’t know what would be.