Lower Decks

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
“Born to Run”
Originally Broadcast Friday, April 10th, 2009

And there it was.  I write this review with a bit of a heavy heart because I know there is a (perhaps very good) chance that I have watched the last episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Say what you want about ratings or expectations, movies or action…this became one of my favorite shows over the course of this season.  I agreed to review it because I was the most interested, but I fell in love.  And if that was the last episode of the series, I am really going to miss it.

Let’s start with the obvious question and get it out of the way.  How does “Born to Run” serve as a finale?

As a season finale, it is great.  It combines all of the elements of the season, getting everyone in the same place.  It features drama, excitement, and tons of revelations.  And it features a cliffhanger that would keep you going through a long summer.

As a series finale?  I’d argue that it would be a terrible series finale.  Absolutely horrible.  Because this wasn’t just a finale that ended on a cliffhanger…it’s a cliffhanger that puts the entire Terminator universe in jeopardy.  It changes everything that we’ve ever known about the entire series, and if that’s how the series ends…I think it went too far.

Because…think about it.  In the future we saw, John Connor didn’t exist to anyone.  He wasn’t able to unite humanity to strike back at Skynet, and while someone might’vestepped up and taken his place (perhaps Kyle or Derek), it points out one simple truth.

Skynet won.  It removed John Connor from the equation.  Because the machines didn’t care if John Connor really died…they simply wanted to remove his leadership.  And without John Connor, perhaps Skynet won’t be destroyed.  Maybe the machines win.

And I don’t like that.  The Terminator universe is dark enough without the knowledge that we do win.

So, for the sake of the series’ legacy, I’m really hoping the show gets renewed.  Or at least picked up by another network.  Because let’s face it…this series ain’t getting a feature film to wrap it up.

The episode begins with Sarah in prison, interrogated by an agent (played by Joshua Malina of West Wing fame).  He and Ellison try to get Sarah to give up John, and she doesn’t budge.  The agent even admits to Sarah that he believes her story, but it doesn’t work.

Meanwhile, John is concerned with saving his mother.  Cameron refuses to help him break out his mother, but he wants to know if Cameron is damaged.  Because if she’s damaged, perhaps that’s what’s giving his mother cancer.

Sarah asks to see a priest (the same one from the season opener in a nice bit of continuity).  She offers an explanation for what happened (in that opener) in exchange for a favor.  He meets with John, giving him some money and arranging for a couple of passports.  Sarah also has a message for John and Cameron – don’t come for her.

Meanwhile, John Henry and Weaver are both very interested in Sarah, and Weaver is interested in meeting with John.  John Henry is also acting a little funny (the technician claims they switched out a wire and it changed him) – he continually says things at the same time as Weaver.

She sentsEllison to meet withJohn, and John refuses to meet with Weaver.  Before he leaves, Ellison passes along a message to Cameron – “will you join us?”

This is a pretty big revelation.  I’ve read the theory online that Weaver was the T1000 from the submarine, and I thought it made a lot of sense.  But this almost certainly confirms the fact that Weaver isn’t working for Skynet – she’s her own force working under her own agenda.

And you have to wonder how that happened.  How did a machine gain the ability to think for itself?  We know that terminators don’t really think for themselves – they simply do what they’re programmed to do.  Cameron doesn’t protect John because she cho0ses to – she protects John because she was reprogrammed to do so.

And, as Cameron admits, deep down she’s programmed to kill John.  And without the reprogramming, that’s what she’s do.

We almost have to assume that Skynetcreated Weaver – after all, they created Robert Patrick’s T1000 from T2.  Did they create Weaver with the ability to make her own decisions?  Or did Weaver somehow overcome her programming?

And if Weaver is truly fighting against Skynet, why would she refuse to join John Connor?  Was it because she knew she was going to carry out this “John Henry” plan?  Did she think that, maybe, Connor wouldn’t go along with it?

Either way, John was right – Cameron was affected by the question.  And you have to think that the question itself changed her entire mission – she knew from the second that she heard the question exactly who Weaver was.  And I think she knew that she’d be handing over her chip to John Henry.

Because she had already said that she wasn’t going to allow John to save Sarah.  Not only does she change her mind, but she brings John face-to-face with a machine that is more-than-capable of killing him.

What does Cameron know that we don’t?  How does handing her chip over to John Henry and then sending him into a post-Judgment Day future help defeat Skynet?  And, specifically, how does it protect John (which, as we said, was her primary mission)?

See, as a season finale…this episode pushes the storyline in interesting new directions.  As a series finale, there are simply too many questions that need answering.

So the terminator comes after Weaver, and it tries to kill her.  Weaver reveals herself as a terminator, and she easily destroys it.  But when she tries to recover his chip, she finds that it has been destroyed – it was programmed to self-destruct if it ever hit the air.  They are unable to use it, and they’re forced to throw it away.

Meanwhile, Cameron wakes up staring at John.  She claims that they need to understand her body and her chip.  This quickly dissolves into an examination of her systems to make sure she’s in working condition.

The way it is done is extremely sensual, though.  Cameron takes off her shirt and her bra, and she has John climb on top of her and feel her breastplate.

As much as I love Cameron’s character (and Summer Glau), I’ve always been weirded out by the idea of a John/Cameron relationship.  I just think its too strange, and I’m glad they haven’t really gone in this direction so far.  All in all, it added up to an interesting scene.

John and Cameron arrange for the priest to re-visit Sarah, who warns her that “she is coming.”  With that, Cameron shows up and uses a lot of non-lethal force to break Sarah out.  She is heavily damaged (about a third of her face is removed, revealing her metal endoskeleton), but she’s assisted by John Henry, who opens doors and monitors her progress.

As soon as they break out, Sarah checks on Cameron because Sarah still plans on visiting ZeiraCorp and destroying John Henry.

And this was the first time, for the whole series, that the show felt rushed.  I realize that Sarah wanted to make sure that Skynet is destroyed, but it seems like she moved a little too quickly on Weaver.

And it made me wonder if, maybe, all the episodes spent on the “three dots” were a good idea.  If an entire episode about a “terminator lost in time” was a good idea.

If the show is renewed, I’d say yes – those episodes offered a lot of very insightful/helpful information on our characters.  It is part of the reason why the show is so great – even though its about the war between humans and machines, this series was about characters.

If the show is cancelled, those might’ve been a waste.  Because I’d rather know more about the fate of Sarah Connor than her inner workings.  Just sayin’.

So John and Sarah go up to meet with Weaver, and Cameron attacks the basement to meet with John Henry.  He welcomes her into his room, and Cameron pulls out a knife.

Meanwhile, Weaver basically outs herself as a terminator to the Connors.  She acknowledges that they’re fighting a common enemy (even referring to it as Skynet), but they’re only able to talk for a few seconds before a drone (from the warehouse) flies into Weaver’s office.  It causes a great deal of damage, but Weaver morphs into a shield to protect John, Sarah, and Ellison.  They all escape and retreat to the basement.

Sarah claims they’re trying to kill her son, and Weaver says they’re trying to kill herson.  That John might save the world, but it won’t be without John Henry’s help.  That she isn’t working for Skynet – she’s working to destroy it.

I have to say that the Connors and Ellison react surprising well to the fact that Weaver is a T1000.  Ellison should’ve been extremely surprised to know that his employer was a machine, and he didn’t know it.  And the whole “liquid metal” idea should’ve been a huge surprise in itself.  And the last time Sarah saw a T1000, it almost killed her and her son…you’d think she’d be a bit more defensive around it.

Reaching the basement, they see that Cameron didn’t kill John Henry.  In fact, she’s deactivated, her chip is missing, and John Henry is gone.  Weaver reveals that Cameron gave her chip to John Henry, and that he travelled in time.  She quickly sets the device to time travel  again, and the room begins to shake.

And Sarah tells John that she can’t go.  That she”ll stop it.  And she steps out of the range of the time travel device, leaving Weaver and John to travel alone.  When John opens his eyes, he realizes that they’re in the future, and Cameron is gone.  Weaver and John walk through the corridors, but John is captured by the human resistance (Weaver disappears).

Emerging from the shadows to defend John is Derek Reese.  John is happy to see Derek, but the soldier doesn’t know John.  In fact, he doesn’t even know the name John Connor.  Kyle, however, shows his face, and John is able to meet his father face-to-face for the first time.  He also sees Allison Young (the human that Cameron is based on).

And Sarah Connor whispers, through time, that she loves her son.

And that’s it.

Let’s break that down again with some more questions.  I have to assume that John Henry needed a terminator’s chip for some reason, but I can’t imagine what that reason could be.  Perhaps John Henry and Weaver believe that Skynet can’t be defeated in the past, but it can be defeated in the future.  That plays into a lot of Terminator themes that Skynet cannot be stopped.

And let’s not forget that John travels to a war-torn world.  That means that Judgment Day happened, and that means that Sarah failed in stopping it.  And since Derek never heard of the name “Connor” – it means Sarah probably isn’t relevant in the future either.

It was an interesting way to bring Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese) back onto the show, but I’m not sure that his character can bring the same impact.  And I’m not just talking about the fact that we’re dealing with, for all intensive purposes, a completely different character.  Derek was an important character because he made the future real.  If John can see the future for himself, that part of Derek’s character is rendered obsolete.  Derek’s connection to Kyle is also irrelevant if Kyle is there in the flesh.

So it’s cool to get his character back, but I’m not sure it would bring the same emotional impact.  And that’s, of course, if the series is renewed.

Withthat, we basically know what the third season would deal with.  John would be with the resistance, learning a lot about the wartornworld he’s supposed to lead.  He’d also be searching (with or without Weaver’s help) for John Henry and Cameron’s chip.  I’m guessing we’d learn a lot about Weaver, her history, and her mission.

Meanwhile, Ellison and Sarah would work together in the past to understand what happened at ZeiraCorp and prevent Judgment Day.  I’m guessing Cameron would be in some kind of limbo, but Summer Glau would be able to appear as Allison Young.

It could certainly be cool, but I was really hoping that the show would’ve ended with some kind of resolution just in case.  I realize that shows have to continue with their plan, whether the show is on thin ice or not, but I also feel like they have a responsibility to the fans to give as much resolution as possible.  And the Terminator writers have known all year that the show might get cancelled…and they wrote this kind of ending.  The Terminator of Cliffhangers.

And I’m not sure it was necessary.  If they wanted to go in this direction, they easily could’ve done that in the season three premiere.  They could’ve ended withJohn and Sarah speaking with Weaver, revealing that she’s helping to fight Skynet.  Maybe end withthe cliffhanger of John Henry gone with Cameron’s chip.

End with uncertainty – that’s fine.  Every Terminator movie has ended with uncertainty, and we’re used to it.  But this was different – they ended with a cliffhanger that put everything we know in doubt, and I just don’t think it was the right thing to do.

I hope I’m wrong, and the series is renewed.  Because if it’s renewed, all of my negative points are null and void.

Because, in the end, this was a great episode.  It was a great season finale to a great season.  Season one showed a lot of promise, and season two banked in on a lot of the promise.  If there’s a season three, it will no doubt build upon that promise.

If the show isn’t renewed, it will still be a great show.  I will still buy the DVDs, and I’ll recommend that my friends watch it.  But if this was the end, it will certainly leave a distaste in my mouth. 

Hopefully it wasn’t the end.

With that, I wrap up the season.  I want to thank FOX for putting on a great show, whether they cancel it or not.  I want to thank the Terminator writers and producers for putting together a great series.  And I want to thank the Terminator cast and crew for bringing the show to life.  All of the above did a great job, and I hope to see more of it in the future.  They took a show with a limited premise and made it spectacular, and that should be commended.

And I want to thank the staff and readers of lowerdecks.com for allowing me to do this.  I had a great time, and I hope you enjoyed my reviews for the season.  If there’s a third season, I hope to be back to review every episode again.

We’ll know soon enough.  Cross your fingers.