T:SCC 2x22 "Born To Run"

[His Divine Shadow]

I wonder where does the present day skynet to be get these terminators? It didn't even know what they where until a few episodes. I know it has the flyers in present-day so thats understandable, but where does a skynet that a few episodes before didn't know about terminators, get them?

[charlemagne]

I wonder where does the present day skynet to be get these terminators? It didn't even know what they where until a few episodes. I know it has the flyers in present-day so thats understandable, but where does a skynet that a few episodes before didn't know about terminators, get them?

Who said they where sent by present-day Skynet? There's been Terminators after Weaver/Savannah before (Pretzelator), and that was clearly long before the Cyberdine-AI knew about Terminators, so they only could've been sent by future Skynet. I think that both Cyberdine and Skynet are after Weaver, the thing we don't know is if they work together by now or still work seperate agendas.

[His Divine Shadow]

Who said they where sent by present-day Skynet? There's been Terminators after Weaver/Savannah before (Pretzelator), and that was clearly long before the Cyberdine-AI knew about Terminators, so they only could've been sent by future Skynet. I think that both Cyberdine and Skynet are after Weaver, the thing we don't know is if they work together by now or still work seperate agendas.

Well thats the impression I've been getting from people talking as if the same faction sent both the T-800 (888?) and the drone. Maybe people just mean what you mean, it's very confusing.

[PREDATOR490]

I would assume the T's are coming back from the future otherwise we have a Skynet in the present with the ability to construct drones and possibly Terminators.
Incidentally, they still didnt tie up the loose end of Carter sitting in that silo which NOW looks like Future Skynet was sending it back for it's PAST SELF.

I was really hoping this episode would at least demonstrate some understanding of how time travel works in TSCC. Instead we have Connor jumping to the future which will be created by a past day Skynet with access to drones and T-888 information. We also have the rather obvious problem of the power plant which Weaver supposedly secured for her faction.
Additionally, given they showed Allison, the year they jumped to should be approximately 2025-2027. Hence, Connor has literally jumped over the war into a compeletly different future where Derek wont be celeberating his 30th Birthday like the previous one.
Is this the same year that John Henry jumped to as well, or did he jump to the start of the war ?
Why jump to a point so late in the war rather than actually fight in the PRESENT and STOP judgment day like they set out to do ?

I'm left with the strong conclusion this is essentially writing Connor out of the series while we get to see an unburdened Sarah Connor go after Skynet on her own without the obvious character shield Connor has due to the premise of the show. If this is the case, it is little wonder the series is hovering on being cancelled.

[Anguirus]

If this is the case, it is little wonder the series is hovering on being cancelled.

Your thesis that the show is about to be canceled because you don't like the sound of your own wild plot speculations borders on the downright bizarre.

[Alyeska]

That was a pretty fun episode. With how they ended it I will be most disappointed if they cancel the series.

[Kettch]

Who is running the John-less future resistance?

How about some one who has been trained for life by a woman who has already fought Skynet many times?

Who's father was killed by a Terminator?

Who is smart beyond their years?

Who has incredible charisma?

And who inherited billions and could have stocked away arms caches for use by the resistance?

The new resistance leader is Savannah Weaver!

(Yes I'm assuming Sarah Conner takes over raising her when John does not return to her time line and Ellison finally heroicly dies defending her from a T-8XX who is sent back in time to kill the future leader of the resistance.)

Side note: Sending John to the future and then back has the possibility of him getting hands on experience fighting the other Skynet units like the HK's. Also, if the go to Season 3, they may get some of T4's left over props.

[neoolong]

If it is Savannah, the Resistance would be more metal-friendly I'd think, given her friendship with John Henry.

[Old Plympto]

I just saw this awesome, awesome episode... though I suspected Shroomy might have a negative reaction to it. Anyway...

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

They killed the Umber Hulk with a natural 20 with a Vorpal sword!!!!!1111

[Feil]

And the wildly inconsistent terminator dexterity continues. Can't aim a gun better than a normal human, but he can choose to roll anything he wants on a 20-sided die.

[Singular Intellect]

And the wildly inconsistent terminator dexterity continues. Can't aim a gun better than a normal human, but he can choose to roll anything he wants on a 20-sided die.

Derek's death at the hands of a Terminator was one of those realistic encounters you'd expect, along side with Arnold in T2 with his knee cap shooting sprees.

Let's face it, if Terminators were portrayed more realistically, anyone encountering them would pretty much end up dead, except in the case of extremely unfavourable circumstances for the Terminator.

[Imperial Overlord]

The episode was awesome coated awesome with chewy awesome center.

If FOX kills the series, the episode is a good closing point.

But they better not fucking kill it, because there is so much potential there, screaming to be used.

[Anguirus]

And the wildly inconsistent terminator dexterity continues. Can't aim a gun better than a normal human, but he can choose to roll anything he wants on a 20-sided die.

Since when don't Terminators have good aim? They simply don't have perfect aim.

The always-rolling-20 was pretty crazy, but let's not forget that John Henry is a HELL of a lot more brainpower than the chip that usually runs that endoskeleton.

[Paradox]

The episode was awesome coated awesome with chewy awesome center.

If FOX kills the series, the episode is a good closing point.

But they better not fucking kill it, because there is so much potential there, screaming to be used.

They definately need to bring it back for a 3rd season, but only if they stay on track, and don't have too many filler episodes.

CBS pissed me off when they canceled Jericho, and then half-assed it when they brought it back for a short 2nd season to tie up the plot lines.

[Peptuck]

And the wildly inconsistent terminator dexterity continues. Can't aim a gun better than a normal human, but he can choose to roll anything he wants on a 20-sided die.

You do know aiming a gun at a hostile, moving target during combat with a significantly weaker CPU is a lot different from rolling a die in a controlled environment using a much more powerful CPU, right?

Derek's death at the hands of a Terminator was one of those realistic encounters you'd expect, along side with Arnold in T2 with his knee cap shooting sprees.

Let's face it, if Terminators were portrayed more realistically, anyone encountering them would pretty much end up dead, except in the case of extremely unfavourable circumstances for the Terminator.

To be fair, most of the Terminators that have had slow reaction times were actively hunting specific targets, e.g. Vick and Cromartie, and were trying to pick them out from multiple people. The Terminator in the Weaver house was the only one I can remember in the series that has basically been in "kill everyone I see" mode. Since it doesn't need to waste time identifying targets, it just shoots.

[PREDATOR490]

Incidentally, anyone notice the glaring fuckup with Weaver coming through naked ?

Weaver dosent wear clothes so why would she be naked on the other side ?

[Crazedwraith]

Incidentally, anyone notice the glaring fuckup with Weaver coming through naked ?

Weaver dosent wear clothes so why would she be naked on the other side ?

Robert Patrick was naked when he came through in T2 as well.

[Paradox]

Incidentally, anyone notice the glaring fuckup with Weaver coming through naked ?

Weaver dosent wear clothes so why would she be naked on the other side ?

Nothing dead can go through, so she would have lost mass because the clothes wouldn't go through.

Nothing with the T-1000 going through time makes sense, may as well not start now.

[neoolong]

Her clothes would be part of her poly-mimetic alloy though. We see it transform with her when she flattens into the metal wall.

That said, in T2 I believe we don't see the T1000 come in directly, but only see the aftermath. I think they even mention it specifically in the commentary as something they didn't explain. Was he in a meatsuit or something? Who knows.

But, the show showed it directly. Makes no sense as said though.

[PREDATOR490]

I always figured the T-1000 somehow bypassed the rule of time travel in its creation somehow. However, this episode cearly contradicts this by having her clothes vanish which would logically be part of her. Unless of course that Eel thing was really some sort of T-1000 Time shell that would be shed during the process leaving Weaver intact.

The other thing that bugs me about time travel is why the hell do they always arrive kneeling, other than the obvious fact it keeps the scene 'TV friendly'.
That said, I am rather curious to know what Weaver feels like. Will she FEEL human, have a pulse, generate body heat, what about her hair ?
Granted, by the time someone gets close enough to discern this they will most likely be dead.

[fuzzymillipede]

Wasn't the T-1000 in T2 supposed to arrive in some sort of flesh cocoon, but the scene never made it into the film? Therefore, the "cocoon" wouldn't be canon, but it would still make much more sense. Either way, T:SCC can't be blamed for a problem originating in T2, since T:SCC follows the T2 canon.

[NetKnight]

Perhaps Weaver dispensed with her clothes to appear human if their transit was observed? It'd be inopportune, to say the least, if a Tech-Com squad, say, observed a transit resulting in naked John and clothed Weaver, and got the drop on them. That would be unlikely, to be sure, but without a modesty taboo at play, there would be no reason not to try to pass as human like this.
This is a rationalization, to be sure, and doesn't do anything to explain exactly how T-1000s can time travel without a fleshy covering, but at least it makes more sense then the parts of a T-1000 that are simulating clothes, and those only, failing to come through.

[Alyeska]

Perhaps Weaver dispensed with her clothes to appear human if their transit was observed? It'd be inopportune, to say the least, if a Tech-Com squad, say, observed a transit resulting in naked John and clothed Weaver, and got the drop on them. That would be unlikely, to be sure, but without a modesty taboo at play, there would be no reason not to try to pass as human like this.
This is a rationalization, to be sure, and doesn't do anything to explain exactly how T-1000s can time travel without a fleshy covering, but at least it makes more sense then the parts of a T-1000 that are simulating clothes, and those only, failing to come through.

That does make the best explanation so far.

[Peptuck]

Perhaps Weaver dispensed with her clothes to appear human if their transit was observed? It'd be inopportune, to say the least, if a Tech-Com squad, say, observed a transit resulting in naked John and clothed Weaver, and got the drop on them. That would be unlikely, to be sure, but without a modesty taboo at play, there would be no reason not to try to pass as human like this.
This is a rationalization, to be sure, and doesn't do anything to explain exactly how T-1000s can time travel without a fleshy covering, but at least it makes more sense then the parts of a T-1000 that are simulating clothes, and those only, failing to come through.

This actually does make the most sense, and fits in with the series' general "do this for this reason, but don't explain why, and let the viewers figure out the logical reasons behind it" mentality of the show. Kind of like how they had the Terminators in "Dungeons & Dragons" salvaging jet engines for the chronoporter, but never explained why - they just had the jet engines appear inside the chronoporter at the end of the episode and let the audience make the connection themselves.

[Thanas]

Well, I am back.

My understanding was they simply switched places: Cameron was downloaded into the Turk and John Henry into her chip. John, going in half-cocked, doesn't realize that even if he finds Future John Henry there's nothing left of Cameron to bring back.

It also explains why Cameron was apprehensive about Ellison's message. "Will you join us" could have been the code word for "You know what to do now." It meant sacrificing herself so the resistance may succeed, but it also meant leaving the person she loves the most.

For Cameron, see below.

One thing that nagged at me was the color of Cam's exposed eye. We've seen her eyes glow blue in the Pilot and she hinted that she is a different model than the other Ts. The producers have said that they wanted to go a different direction with Cameron after the Pilot though, so I can forgive it.

Her eyes always glow blue. It may just be that she has a special lense above her usual red eye or that this was a production mixup. AFAIK the official eye colour has always been blue - as evidenced via her HUD.

As a Season finally it was great and opened a whole truck load of possible stories. Though as a Show finally... too much of a story twist. Nothing was really resolved there.
John has left his mother and seems to work closely with a T-1k1, Camerons involvement in the "Will you join us" story arc and what is with Sarah?
Is she sick, or does she simply suffer stress?!

I agree. Too little things were answered.

About Fox' cancellation practice and the likely doom of TSCC:
"Requested items: One Mark V ECM unit, 1000 km of fullerene cable, one low yield nuclear warhead. Stated purpose: cancellation party at Fox

Quoting Andromeda is not a good omen now, is it? Do you want to tempt the wrath from high atop the thing?

The remote is in Cameron's skull, not her chip.

I really don't know what to think of this, really. I mean, if I knew there was gonna be a continuation. But as an end... It CAN'T BE! *bawls*

I just want more...

more Robot River...

Shit, she's dead. They fucking killed her. I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that she's still in the chip. Maybe she's combined with John Henry - he is still mostly blank. I don't know. God DAMN it! He can't have jumped decades into the future for her, for nothing!

Read on, maybe that will cheer you up.

Here is my take on this - Cameron shouldn't be dead. Before going into the details why it doesn't really make much sense storywise, here is why I do not believe they've killed her off - if she would be dead, the show would loose the vast majority of the plotlines.

Now, for reasons why she won't be "dead" show-wise:

I find it highly unlikely that Cameron sacrificed herself. This would mean she would instantly trust an unknown machine which she does not know to suddenly become an ally. Yes, she recognized the question, but does she strike you as the kind of person who suddenly sacrifices herself with no safeguards at all? No wait, let me rephrase that - do you believe she would sacrifice John and leave him in a building surrounded by an unknown Terminator she had no contact with ever, with which she has struck no agreement? I do not know, but this does not strike me to be a very cameron-ish act.

Her body was damaged in the firefight beyond repair - they even blew her eyes off. But what really counts - her chip - is installed in Cromartie's body. (If the show gets renewed....Cameron being played by Garret Dillahunt...heh). Her body is pretty much replacable in the future. It is the chip that counts.

In fact, I'll go as far as to say that if anybody died in that room, it was John Henry. We already see Mr. Merch commenting that changing a simple fan changed John Henry and that he was pretty much fixed to the infrastructure. In fact, the infrastructure was a part of his personality. That does not strike me as something that can be downloaded or even copied. So here is what I am betting on - he did a massive infodump of what he knew on her chip so that his knowledge survived. Then they switched bodies so that she may appear "intact" to any humans and we all know she can mimic human behaviour perfectly as evidenced in the pilot. Unlike John Henry.

Maybe he copied a tiny fraction of his personality - but I very much doubt that Cameron let him simply overwrite her. Maybe he simply appointed her as his successor/agent, as somebody on another board suggested?

(And I hope Shroomie is back to "normal" after reading this.)

***********************************

A bit more random speculation:

- If we accept that this is all a loop (which I do not), this makes for an interesting possibility - does John Henry pass off the Cameron chip to her original body at some point so that she becomes herself "again"? That would make her the ultimate time traveller. Might make for some interesting fanfic - Peptuck?

- I am fully convinced Weaver is the T-1001 from the sub. I am also fully convince we now know why she killed so many people - because they alert Skynet to her operations. We also now know why she kept the nuclear power plants operational and running - so that the resistance can use them against Skynet.

- Weaver and Sarah have interesting character paralells - both sons are supposed to be the saviours of their respective races, but both leave them to pursue their own goals.

- for anyone wishing for a John/Allison romance, watch his eyes when he sees her for the first time and how his face falls when he recognizes that she is human. And John is still fixated on Cameron. Heck, he was willing to jump right after her into the future, abandoning everything, even his mother. Well, frak me, I didn't expect that.

- Joshua Malina. YAY. It was good to see him again.

- Dyson's son is involved with Skynet. The hints are all there and it fits timeline-wise.

- I still believe Cameron has her own agenda and I do not believe she was sent by a third faction anymore. After all, she wouldn't have asked them to join her, nor would she have an underlying programming of kill all humans. This makes me believe she really is a Skynet agent gone rogue/having been reprogrammed. Which also makes the treatment of Derek and the other humans more sensible - a third faction wouldn't be able to have an aircraft carrier in the open, for instance. Maybe Skynet is trying to reprogram people like the resistence tries to reprogram terminators. Remember the "grays"? It would also explain why Cameron originally stated that she wanted to kill John and why she killed Allison.

- For anyone guessing, the last scene was Sarah standing in the present answering John saying "I love you".

******************

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I really hope Fox gives this show a next season, because this finale, while excellent, didn't wrap enough up.