Terminator Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Terminator Wiki

"Everything that happened today... There's nothing we can do to change it... We're alive... It's gonna have to be enough."
- Sarah Connor.
Cameronevil

Cameron acquiring her favorite target

Rocked by the Jeep explosion, John Connor's 16th birthday forces him to confront the reality of his destiny alone. Meanwhile, Agent Ellison faces off with his faith and the Feds in the aftermath of Cromartie's massacre, and a new player is introduced: Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a high-tech corporation.

Synopsis[]

CameronPhillips-SamsonDelilah

Cameron with shrapnel

Camerontrailer26

John ready to fire

Camerontrailer9

The Connors' car getting a kick

201 5 Catherine Turk

Catherine Weaver with The Turk.

Love_scene

Love scene

Cameron tells John she loves him.

Camerontrailer22

The New and Improved™ John Connor

Camerontrailer30

Don't cross this woman...

Cameron slowly reboots following the car explosion which ended Season 1. John and Sarah are grabbed by Margos Sarkissian and a large sidekick of his as they try to exit the house.

Cameron pulls a massive chunk of automotive shrapnel from the back of her head and her HUD displays that her "CHIP INTEGRITY" has been "COMPROMISED." Inside the house, Sarah is getting slapped around by Sarkissian while John works to escape from his restraints. Sarkissian’s henchman finds the hard drive under a mattress downstairs.

Cameron enters the house and terminates the henchman, knocking over flammable fluids and a lit Zippo lighter, igniting a fire as she climbs the stairs. She opens the door and her HUD displays that Sarah and John appear to be okay while Sarkissian lies "DECEASED" on the floor behind them.

After assessing the corpse, Cameron shifts her attention to John. In her display "IDENTIFICATION: JOHN CONNOR" label, a quick shot of Cameron's face is shown, followed by her assessment. "MISSION: TERMINATE." Apparently, Cameron’s reprogramming has failed and she has returned to her Skynet defaults. She raises a gun to fire at John just as she's knocked backwards by an explosion from below. John and Sarah jump out of a window to safety.

Following another recap of Cromartie deciding not to kill Agent Ellison by the pool and Charley’s observation of his departure, he helps Ellison assess the FBI carnage left behind. Ellison is shown the body of George Laszlo and conspires to have the dead man take the fall, rather than trying to explain what really happened to the officials.

John and Sarah begin a frantic getaway, wrecking their van as Cameron limps in pursuit. After hearing a call about the fire on his CB, Charley goes to Sarah's house and finds out Sarah and John are not among the two dead. Charley speaks with Derek at the scene, about The Turk.

At ZeiraCorp headquarters, Catherine Weaver arranges to acquire The Turk for $300,000. She then ominously calls a meeting of her department heads for later that evening. Sarah and John seek sanctuary in a downtown church; Derek and Charley (now in pursuit along with Cameron) have a conversation in the ambulance where Charley assures him he is very married and just wants to make sure they are okay.

Weaver meets with Walsh, who is delivering The Turk, telling him about what makes the small computer so unique. Sarah and John decide that Cameron must be destroyed, and Ellison files his official false report about the massacre.

Eliciting the help of the priest, Sarah and John attempt to trap Cameron by shocking her unconscious using an alarm clock and the holy water. Failing to get Cameron's chip out in two minutes, they're forced to flee again. A chase ensues, and Cameron eventually flips over their stolen car in the L. A. Storm Drain System with one swipe of her arm.

Sarah is injured but alive, and John escapes into a garage. He struggles to hot-wire a truck, and just as Cameron discovers him and attempts to terminate him by flinging a heavy wrench through the windshield, Sarah comes barreling in driving another truck and pins Cameron between the two grilles.

John now has plenty of time to remove the chip; but just before he does, Cameron desperately pleads with him that she is "fixed," crying and saying that she loves him and he loves her. John does pull out the chip, and when Charley and Derek arrive, he concedes that Cameron must be destroyed.

Just before setting her on fire in a junkyard, John turns the tables on the adults, putting the chip back into Cameron's head and handing her a gun to see if she really is back to her old self. Cameron's HUD view initially shows the same red "TERMINATE" from earlier in the show, but this time it gets quickly replaced by a "TERMINATION: OVERRIDE" message.

Cromartie surprises Ellison at Sarah's house, and the FBI agent tells Cromartie to kill him immediately if he thinks he will ever lead the Terminator to Sarah. "We'll see," is Cromartie's reply.

During Weaver's department head meeting she tells everybody that she will be pulling key employees from every department to work on a brand-new "Babylon" division which she says will "change the world". Sarah and Cameron discuss faith back at the church, with Cameron telling Sarah that she should never let John bring her back if she goes bad again. Sarah apologizes to John for not being more supportive given the events of the day, and wishes him a happy birthday. John gives himself an aggressive new haircut to change his appearance.

Two of Weaver's department heads discuss the Babylon-related changes in the men's bathroom at the company. After Matt Murch departs Justin Tuck goes to the urinal saying "God, that bitch pisses me off." To his horror, the entire urinal is revealed to be covered with mimetic polyalloy and Weaver slowly takes shape, standing in front of him. Weaver is a T-1000-like Terminator and terminates the disrespectful department head.

Characters[]

Main Recurring Minor Uncredited
  • Agent Norgaard - Sandra Purpuro
  • TV Field Reporter - Noemi Amarilla
  • Minister - Carlos Sanz
  • Justin Tuck - Marcus Chait

Quotes[]

Cameron: Are you here to kill me John?
John: Are you here to kill me?
Cameron: ...No.
John: Promise?
Cameron: Promise.

Charley: What are you looking for?
Derek: It's a piece of tech, it's called "The Turk". It's another computer, it's a program.
Charley: What does it do?
Derek: Right now, it plays a mean game of chess. In a couple of years, it's gonna get really pissed off... blow up the world.

Catherine: It's going to change the world.

John: She's different...
Derek: She's not different, John.
John: I made her. I sent her back...
Derek: Umm hmm.
John: There's physical damage to her chip, which means that she can be repaired...
Derek: John.
John: I need her. She saved my life. SHE SAVES MY LIFE!

Catherine: They flow from street to street at a particular speed and in a particular direction. Walk the block, wait for the signal, cross at the light. Over and over. So orderly. All day I can watch them and know with a great deal of certainty what they'll do in any given moment. But they're not orderly, are they? Up close. Any individual, who knows what they're gonna do? Anyone of them might dash across the street at the wrong time and get hit by a car. When you get up close, we never follow the rules.

Murch: That was something, wasn't it? Wonder what she's got planned.
Tuck: Eh, who knows what goes on in that brain of hers? I don't know understand what the hell she's talking about half the time anyway. Zen koans and bible quotes. It's all a bunch of bull.
Murch: Well, our options have tripled since she took over, so I wouldn't bite the hand if I were you.
Tuck: Well, that's easy for you to say. She's not cannibalizing your division for some top secret torah study.
Murch: (laughing as he walks out) Okay.
Tuck: (as he goes to the urinal God, that bitch pisses me off.
Catherine: (after she morphs off the urinal) Sorry I piss you off, Mr. Tuck. (impales his head) The feeling's mutual.

Cameron: (seeing John attempting to take out her chip) John. John? You can't do this. You don't know what you're about to do.
John: Yes, I do. You were gonna kill me.
Cameron: No, John. You can't do this. You're not doing the right thing. This is not the right thing, John. Things are good now. Things are fine now. I ran a test. Things are good now. I'm fixed now. You can trust me now. Everything's good now.
Sarah: What are you waiting for?
Cameron: She doesn't know, she doesn't. I'm good now. I'm good, I ran a test. Everything's perfect. I'm perfect.
Sarah: (yelling) John!
Cameron: I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry. It wasn't me. You have to understand. It wasn't me. That wasn't me. You can't let this happen, John. You can't! Please, listen to me. Listen to me. I don't want to go. Please, John, please. John, listen to me. I don't want to go. Please, John. Please. I'm good now. Listen to me. I don't want to go. I'm sorry. That wasn't me. I'm fixed now. I ran a test. Everything's perfect. You can trust me.
Sarah: John Connor!
Cameron: I love you! I love you, please. I love you, John, and you love me.

Agent Ellison: I'll never lead you to her. (Cromartie turns from the safe house and walks up to Ellison) If that's why you left me alive you'd better just kill me now. I'll never do the Devil's work.
Cromartie: We'll see.

Cameron: Do you believe in the Resurrection?
Sarah: What?
Cameron: The story of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection, do you believe in it?
Sarah: Would you, if you've seen what I've seen?
Cameron: Faith isn't part of my programming.
Sarah: Yeah well, I'm not sure it's part of mine either.

Continuity notes[]

  • This episode picks up at the exact moment that "What He Beheld" finished.
  • A significant oversight on the part of the FBI, and perhaps on the show's writers, in finding Laszlo's body after the raid, is that Laszlo had been dead for quite some time. His body would have decomposed to a noticeable degree. An autopsy, which would certainly be performed after such an event would show this, and it would also show the true cause of death.
  • Sarah's discussion with Cameron on faith and the Bible, during which Sarah claims to be an atheist, contradicts Sarah's earlier voiceover in "The Demon Hand", during which she remarks that machines are unable to possess faith or commune with God. For more on the religious themes in this episode, see "Terminating Samson".

Notes[]

  • This is the first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in which there is no voiceover by Sarah Connor.
  • The opening of the episode is without dialogue and is set entirely to music. This is very similar to the ending of the previous episode, "What He Beheld".
  • During the "Samson & Delilah" song, the lyrics show several significant changes from the Grateful Dead version. The first version says, "If I had my way, I would tear this old building down." The new version says, "If I had my way, I'd burn this old building down." This matches the storyline better, as the Connor house burns down.
  • While the "Samson & Delilah" song is playing, it is heavily implied that either John or Sarah killed Sarkissian with their bare hands. However, it is not shown which of them killed him. However changes to the song lyrics strong suggest that John is the Samson of the song, and that he killed the lion (Sarkissian) with his bare hands after the lion attacked his mom.
Grateful Dead version
Now Samson and the lion, they got in a tack,
Samson he crawled up on the lion's back.
You read about this lion, he killed a man with his paws,
But Samson got his hands around that lion's jaws.
He ripped the beast till he killed him dead.
And the bees made honey in the lion's head.
Shirley Manson version
Samson and the lion, got entwined in a fight,
And Samson he jumped up and took on the lion's might.
You all know just how a lion, kill a man with his paws,
But Samson got his hands up around that lion's jaws.
He ripped the beast and he killed him dead.
And the bees made honey in the lion's head.
  • Neither Sarah and John have ever killed another human before, let alone witnessed the other take a human life. Coming to terms with this death is a major theme of the episode and a recurring theme in Season 2.

Deleted scenes[]

(This episode has no information about the deleted scenes so far. Please add one if there is any.)

Terminator references[]

  • This episode draws heavily from scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day:
    • There is a car crash scene in the LA storm drain system, just like in T2.
    • While sitting in a car, John Connor puts his head down below his windshield and then suddenly brings it back up; this is similar to the T-1000 in T2, during the truck chase scene.
    • Cameron attempts to force Sarah to call out to John, just like the T-1000 did in T2.
    • Cameron was deactivated after John took her chip out of her head, just like the T-800 in T2 (when John changed the T-800's chip to "read-and-write" from "read-only").
    • While Cameron's chip is out of her head, Sarah attempts to convince John to destroy the chip; in a similar way, she tried to convince John to destroy the T-800's chip in the director's cut of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
    • When Sarah and John are hiding in the church, Sarah tells John that to kill Cameron, John angrily says "I KNOW!" and stabs the wooden table. This resembles the way Sarah stabbed the wooden picnic table after her nightmare in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
    • The scene where Catherine in this episode uses a mimetic polyalloy finger to kill a person after deactivating her camouflage is extremely similar the scene when the T-1000 in T2 killed the security guard at Pescadero.

Real-world references[]

  • "Samson & Delilah" is a biblical tale about a warrior who possesses great strength. Samson falls in love with a woman called Delilah who betrays him and cuts off Samson's hair, thus breaking his deal with God that gave him his strength.
  • In this episode, John Connor is betrayed by Cameron, who knows all of his secrets. At the end of the episode, John cuts off his own hair.
  • Different from biblical verse, it is Cameron that brings the house down, not Samson. Also, John falls into his enemies' hands before the betrayal, not after.
  • Weaver's project is called Babylon, after the biblical tower of Babylon that was built by man to rival God and reach the sky. In the end, God brought the tower down and chaos upon humanity. A fitting analogy to man's hubris of trying to do like God and create thinking machines (like God created man) which will in the end also kill people.
  • There are many more biblical references in this episode.
    • Agent Ellison tells Cromartie he will never do the Devil's work.
    • Catherine Weaver makes several biblical allusions while talking to her staff.
    • Cameron also asks Sarah if she believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Q&A[]

  • Q: Who killed Sarkissian and how did it happen?
    • A: In the episode ""The Tower Is Tall But the Fall Is Short"", it is revealed in a flashback that, while John Connor and Sarah Connor were tied up, John strangled Sarkissian.
    • A2: See episode 207.
  • Q: Is Catherine Weaver another "advanced prototype" from Skynet's research, or a final "production model" version?
    • A: Skynet advanced the Series 1000 design. It may be that she is another prototype of the series, or she could just be a production model.
      • A2: The producers have identified her as a T-1001.
        • Q2: So, does this not make her a "production" version of the Series 1xxx?
  • Q: Could the unit somehow (however unlikely) be a reconstituted T-1000 from T2?
    • A: Completely impossible. The T-1000's entire structure was consumed in the molten steel.
  • Q: If not, what is her arrival date in this timeline, and possible departure date from the future?
    • A: That has yet to be seen.
  • Q: What is the name of the company Weaver is established as the CEO of?
  • Q: How long ago did she take control? (approximate date)
    • A: Unknown.
  • Q: How (if at all) is it related to any version of Cyberdyne?
    • A: A lot of Cyberdyne's work was passed on to other subsidiaries.
  • Q: What are the other projects she is pulling members from to establish Project Babylon?
    • A: This has yet to be seen.
  • Q: What other examples of Weaver's biblical fixation are evident?
  • Q: How do her capabilities differ from the T-1000 in T2
    • A: This unit seems more sophisticated than the last T-1000 in T2, and has been identified as a T-1001 by the producers.
  • Q: What makes John think that cleaning Cameron's chip is enough to fix her and risk his own life doing so?
    • A: John doesn't believe so. He was just cleaning Cameron's chip in respect(or possibly loving memory) of her, or simply having something to do when he was thinking. He simply put his life in the hands of Cameron, because as the audience may have guessed now, he is quite attached to Cameron now.
  • Q: After beingbpressed by the trucks, was Cameron telling the truth? If not, what fixed Cameron?

References[]

(This episode doesn't have any reference yet. Please add one if there is any.)

External links[]

Advertisement