T:TSCC 0209 – Complications

You know, at this point, I think I want to side with the terminators. They make fewer bad choices and seem to know what they want.

It’s so frustrating to see the humans make obvious mistakes week after week. While I can understand that there is a desire for morality, I can’t help but wonder if that mindset has to be altered in the face of what the future will/might bring? I’m behind the idea that it’s wrong to be cheering this character or that character to kill some other characters…under normal circumstances. The thing is that these are not normal circumstances. The Connor Cadre and Skynet are engaged in a pre-operational guerrilla war. Skynet is the axis of evil and the Connor Group are Delta Force…stuck behind enemy lines trying to get intel as well as to jump on targets of opportunity. Death/murder is a necessary part of this stage of the battle. There is a time to be nice, but now is not that time.

The fact that the young Charles Fischer was left alive totally astounded me. He’s been clued in to the Judgment Day scenario, and Derek was just a quick trigger squeeze away from offing him but gets distracted when Jesse caps the older Fischer out of revenge. Certainly he deserved that, but that didn’t let the younger one off the hook. Kill him now and Fischer no longer helps Skynet in the newly created timeline. Derek’s going soft.

Then again, he’s not any softer than John. There was little doubt that Ellison had done something that resulted in the loss of Cromartie. Whether it was stealing the body himself or guiding another party to it was simply a detail. Without a doubt, Ellison had a hand in it. And John lets him off the hook after Cameron smacked Ellison around a little. Cameron said he was lying. She was right. Just as she was right about Enrique and others. Yes, Cameron can be a single-minded termination machine—she has to be true to herself, after all—but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t also the one entity among the entire Connor Team that seems to understand both what’s at stake and how to win.

And just because Cameron is a remorseless killer doesn’t mean that she isn’t trying to improve herself. The fact that when the beaten Ellison was helpless on her back, she righted him like a turtle before she left (writers, thank you for that laugh), shows that she’s trying to understand humans. She might not quite understand the nuances, but she does try to understand. After all, it makes her a better infiltrator.

John could take a cue from his endoskeletal buddy. Cameron’s comment that John didn’t understand cyborgs (at least beyond the computer aspect) hammered home the fact that she is alone in the trying-to-understand-so-as-to-be-better department. True, she has the extra time—being that she doesn’t sleep—but clearly the Connors, especially John, need to pay more attention to their very special weapon.

Cameron’s coquettish little smiles at John show that she’s trying very hard to wriggle her way into his emotional/hormonal side. As much as I’m a Cameron fan, it’s a little creepy. What is her angle? I ask because of the comment she made back during “Vick’s Chip” when she noticed how a subtle sensual act by Vick distracted his wife an made her more compliant. I’m seeing that playing out now. Last week’s clumsy attempt with the climbing into bed with John obviously didn’t have the desired result. This week’s less obvious act seemed to be more effective. Cameron is learning.

She also seems to be doing more than that. I think her level of sentience is growing. The indulgence to feel sensations seemed to also have a touch of wonder attached. There was a newness to it that other terminators don’t exhibit.

I wonder if Sarah has been picking up on some of that, if only subconsciously. There didn’t seem to be much reason for Cameron to be breast-feeding a turtle(?) otherwise.

Yeah, those jalapeño-fueled of Sarah’s. Weird. It’s so tempting to dive in to try to analyze the clues the writers may (or may not) be sending us. Cameron is the nursemaid who hands her charge (John?) to Skynet. Or Cameron is the source of water from which spring lifelike forms (cactus) that are actually terminators that grab and hold John. Basically, Sarah’s primary fear is that Cameron will feed John’s emotional needs, and that will lead to his capture by Skynet. It’s an understandable fear. As I’ve mentioned before, Sarah has a definite Jocasta complex, and Cameron is her rival. Yeah, Riley might be good for a boink, but Cameron saves John’s life.

Our question has to be whether this is a clue for things that will come, or if it is simply Sarah’s fear manifesting itself? If it’s Sarah’s fear, then it seems that Cameron might find that Sarah evolves into a monster-in-law.

I wanted to think Sarah was growing when she went to see Dr. Sherman because of her dreams, but once again, Sarah’s pathological need to not reveal anything that could possibly risk John gets in the way. With John’s PTSD and Sarah’s tenuous grasp on sanity (and Cameron’s Asperger’s LOL), I think a little truth wouldn’t be a bad thing. I keep shouting that the Cadre needs allies, why not the good doctor? After all, Cameron suggested, “Maybe he helps John.” Being that Cameron is way more right that the rest, perhaps by including the doctor they could not only help themselves but also short-circuit Catherine’s plans (sorry for the pun).

Yeah, I wasn’t surprised at all to see that Catherine’s pet Ellison had secured Cromartie for her. I’m not sure the big paperweight will be of much use to her without the CPU, but now Ellison’s in all the way. With that, he becomes another one of the humans making the wrong choice while the terminator retains focus. I also can’t seem to wrap my mind about how giving Catherine the terminator will help to prevent the future from repeating itself (now that’s a phrase I never thought I’d say). Sarah’s destroying terminators makes sense, but Ellison doesn’t even have details of Catherine’s agenda. Ellison is Judas, selling himself for a few pieces of gold.

I mentioned this in the podcast, but it really seems like Jesse is much more robotic than Cameron. Even so, as with Riley last episode, this is the first time that I thought Jesse had a place. She now seems to be what she seems to be: a tired resistance fighter from a slightly altered timeline. Derek should now switch from thinking with the little head to thinking with the big head. Jesse needs a serious debrief to find out how the future had changed up until the time she chronoported to now. If you are fighting a war, battles are won and lost based on the quality of intel you have.

With Cromartie gone, this season’s story needs to start forking off onto a new path. They need to start looking for the Turk again. As Cameron starts gaining John’s trust, how will this affect Sarah? Will Cameron’s machine-like adherence to phone security protocols make Derek go postal? Will Ellison divulge the existence of Cameron to Catherine? Now that they are back in L.A., will John clue Riley into what’s been happening (as he promised), or will she be hit by a MiB neuralizer and think that her trip to Mexico was nothing more than a Halloween party that got out of hand? Is Sarah’s being ill at all connected to her possible future leukemia?

Overall, not a bad episode. All the characters got to have plot-based screen time. This was one of those bridge episodes that set up episodes to come. After last week’s excitement, I think the chance to catch our breaths was necessary.