Summer Glau

This episode was a definitive step up for the series. I have one or two minor quibbles about it, but this episode has been the highlight so far.

The viewer is presented with the story of Derek Reese, who is Kyle Reese’s brother and John Connor’s uncle. This is done in the style of "future-flashes" in which we see Derek’s story post-Judgment Day and learn a lot of new information that answers some questions and creates a few more. I also got a little nerdy thrill out of myriad of references to the first Terminator movie (more on that shortly).

I should have recognized the set used for the Resistance shelter. Was the "Hang In There Baby" lion picture in the first movie? If so, I don’t recall it. I did like how they retouched the Linda Hamilton photo to put in Lena Headey’s image instead. It’s like one those time changes from the movie Back To The Future in which you see time changing around the travelers.

CameronThis actor change did not stop with Sarah Connor. Kyle Reese also changed actors for the future-flashes. No doubt Michael Biehn was similarly unaffordable. Thankfully, they didn’t show future-John (except for a segment at the end in a shadow that is obviously Thomas Dekker who plays John at 16). I think showing another actor as future-John would not have been good for continuity, which is shaky enough as it is.

For those who didn’t notice, there were a LOT of references to the first Terminator movie. The used several lines directly from that movie, including the last line "There’s a storm coming". The future-flashes happen around the future-flashes of that movie. I do admit I miss the mountain of human skulls that were shown in the first movie, but there were probably budgetary concerns.

We now know what Derek Reese was doing when the Terminator attack from the first movie was going on. He was kidnapped (alongside future Andy Goode, who looks very similar to his young self) and used for some nefarious Skynet purpose which I could not discern. What was Skynet doing to those humans anyway? My guess is creating casts for Terminator bodies.

CharlieNotice that the Terminator keeping the resistance fighters hostage was one of the old style ones with the rubber face that Kyle referred to in the first movie. He described the type as "easy to spot". I’m glad the producers of the show are doing their homework in that regard.

And somehow in the middle of all this is Sarah’s ex, Charlie. Charlie learns (almost) the whole story of Sarah and John. It would be a good send-off to the character but somehow I think he’s going to turn up again. Probably dead.

Derek ReeseI did notice that the girl suicide at John’s school wasn’t mentioned in the episode, thankfully. I’m sure we’ll go back to it, but most of this episode dealt with the future-flashes and Charlie. Agent Ellison wasn’t around either.

Then, of course, there is the issue of Andy Goode. We now know that Derek Reese killed him, yet in doing so we now have another chronological paradox. If Andy was killed in the present, he could not exist in the future. So what’s the deal?

TerminatorAnd the final coup-de-grace of the episode: what’s up with Cameron? They all but set up her own turn to evil in the future-flash when one of the captured Terminators revert back to shooting people and Cameron responds after defeating it, "Sometimes they go bad. We don’t know why." In the next scene, she’s pocketing the CPU of the fallen Terminator. Is Cameron a double-agent of Skynet?

I liked the juxtaposition in the story of Cameron hacking up the Terminator from last episode while John is nursing Uncle Derek back to health. My favorite Cameron quote from the episode: "He’s not a guy. He’s a scary robot."

So we’re left wondering what event will turn Cameron down the road of Connor-killing machine. My guess is that she’ll have sex with John and in a perfect moment of happiness will lose her soul. But I could be wrong.

A very good episode. I hope they’ll make more like this before its inevitable cancellation.