T:SCC 2x04: "Allison from Palmdale"

[Thanas]

Fellow members of the resistance,

I bring to your attention the episode that has been eagerly anticipated in the fandom, Allison from Palmdale.

Cameron temporarily loses her memory, and ends up discovering her distant memories. Ellison uncovers information about Catherine Weaver.

Expect an episode filled with Summer Glau proving that she is indeed a very capable actress. Finally, we see some more background of the Cameron character.

The title is possibly a nod to House, where the main female character of the first three seasons is named Allison Cameron. I have been unable to get confirmation on it due to my internet being cut off. An idiot construction worker who should be terminated immediately for the sake of cleansing the genpool cut through the glass fibre cable connecting my house. I am posting this from a friends house. [/rant]

My predicition - if the writers come up wih an intriguing tale, it could be the best episode of this season. If not, it will be a terrible episode saved only by Summer Glau's performance.

[eyexist]

I liked this episode a lot, as it kept you guessing from start to finish. Summer got a chance to off her acting chops which is always a good thing.

I'm just glad this episode confirmed what I've been saying to my friends - that Terminators are just Invasion of the Body Snatchers revisited. Skynet doesn't create people from scratch; it uses existing people as a template and replaces them.

With that being said one question was answered, but now there are many, many more. Cameron gleaned some of her past memories and believed she was Allison. This was interesting, as she felt fear, happiness, anger, sadness, and cried(she didn't even do that when she was begging for her life on the first episode) . How does she trigger these 'emotions?' The writers/directors are going through great pains to humanize Cameron. It will be interesting to see how far they go with it. To be honest I was kind of hoping they kept 'Allison' for at least another episode.

Also, Cameron brought up her mission which is to kill John... and place his severed head for everyone to see. Bad girl. That's not very terminator-like of you at all! It almost seems like she holding a vendetta against him. Maybe she knows what her true mission is, but can't act on it due to the 'Protect John' objective overruling the 'Terminate John' objective; kind of like Robocop and his 'fourth objective'. My roommate noticed how defensive she got when John mentioned fixing her which seems to confirm this theory.

Oh, and The top bunk had no problem supporting the weight of both Cam and her friend.

In the end I rated it a 4.

[Peptuck]

First things first: I totally called Cameron being based off Allison before this episode began.

This episode was as awesome as I was expecting it to be. The juxtaposition between Allison and Cameron was absolutely chilling, especially the part where Cameron got angry that Allison lied to her. I was honestly expecting Cameron to have killed Jody, but she didn't. Though at the same time, the fact that it looks like Cameron actually did kill Allison is itself kind of disconcerting.

Now, that being said, I'm wondering how deeply Cameron slipped into the "Allison" facade; her words when she was talking to the counselor seemed honest, as if she had built an "Allison" program in her head that she was following and reverted to. That may also explain the difference between the Cameron encountered in the pilot and how she acts later on - as if she used a personality program to get close to John and once her identity was revealed she switched back to her normal mode of functioning.

Also, it looks like TechCom's deletion and reprogramming process isn't perfect, if Cameron can remember who she was based on.

Anyone else think that the apparent relationship between Allison and future John may have affected how future John treats Cameron?

[Peptuck]

Ghetto Edit: Also, did anyone else catch where Allison said that her mother likes Chopin? Maybe that's where Cameron gets her Chopin fixation from, too.

[Shroom Man 777]

I can't wait to see this episode!

Also, Cameron brought up her mission which is to kill John... and place his severed head for everyone to see. Bad girl. That's not very terminator-like of you at all! It almost seems like she holding a vendetta against him.

Well, maybe putting their Great Military Leader's head on a stick would do wonders for Resistance and TechCom's morale.

[Shroom Man 777]

I just saw the episode and sweet Jesus it was amazing. Goddamn River, she's totally awesome. She's like a female Christian Bale in her propensity for playing totally mentally screwed up characters!

I can't comprehend the sheer enormity and awesomeness of her acting, and the way she characterized Cameron and how her character developed. Goddamn it, they make those robotic killing machines so fucking human. Holy shit, man.

The subtle developments, I don't know, they're hard to get, but they are there and they are very well played. Jesus Christ, not only do the people working on The Sarah Connor Chronicles know their fluff, and have awesome material to base their stories on, but they're really into this whole character development stuff. They're doing wonders, really.

I think River/Cameron, after she remembered who she "really" was - a machine programmed to kill John Connor - just wanted to escape, just wanted to get away from it all, which is why she ran away with that girl. She didn't want to be a programmed killing machine, and even though she wasn't really Allison, she wanted to start out from scratch as that other girl said. Then... I don't know, she recovered her complete memories, including how she was reprogrammed to protect John, and after she nearly killed that girl and after John arrived, she decided that she couldn't escape or something... That was her last jail out of free.

Poor sad River.

Goddamn it, Summer Glau is amazing.


Oh, and we must give props to Lena Headey. Her subplot with the pregnant woman in the hospital was really touching and showed us quite a bit of Sarah Connor, not the action kickass woman but the mother. Sarah Connor isn't just a crazy screaming gun-running psycho, she's also a mother who truly does love her son - and that's really the most important part of her character.


Man, this show is awesome.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, and Shirley Manson T-1000 has a daughter. Another T-1000?

[Faqa]

This was an... interesting episode, I'll give it that. I initially thought that Cameron had done a 'download' of Allison, which would explain her screwed-up mind. I didn't much care for this idea, since one of the themes of the Terminator series is that machines can make their own fate(and Cameron needing a human template to act out seemed opposed to that).

Anyway, glad I was wrong. Cameron apparantly does have SOME sort of screw-up in her circuitry, but it's one she came to independently, and only assumed the Allison persona as a result of that. Although you have to wonder - we know the explosion damaged her chip, but she was obviously 'different' beforehand as well. She had personality quirks, and it seemed like she'd defined her own mission. What broke her, I wonder? What made her need to bury her sentient mind beneath that of a teenage girl she was modeled off of? I think it's the two objectives contrasting each other in her mind - kill vs protect. Kill from her programming, protect from her conciousness. Maybe this was an attempt to wipe both clean and start afresh? But in that case, why would a robot 'revert' to a human girl? Maybe because of some deeply buried axiom that she IS based off of Allison? Which she is, to be sure. And then, when her 'mind' breaks, it takes that axiom and builds on it.

Sidenote - It's fascinating to see the contrast between Summer Glau playing a human and a robot. Makes you appreciate how many little mannerisms she adds on.

You have to wonder though - was the other chick actually planning to leave her there during the break-in? Or was this a newly awakened Cameron running through 'likely human behavior' and coming up with a result? Or perhaps just an excuse to kill someone, to re-affirm her identity? Remember, she really thought she was a human up until that point, and it's possible she subconciously 'needed' to kill in order to prove that. This would also explain why the girl didn't die. I find it very difficult to believe a Terminator could accidentally leave someone alive. If it was still the last vestiges of the human girl, it makes considerably more sense.

I wonder if they will mention John's reaction to this whole clusterfuck next episode. Hope so, since he seemed PISSED at the end of this one. He has every right to be, of course.

What was the point of having Sarah be sidelined in the hospital? The show had no problem shoving Derek off for an episode, why not Sarah as well, if she didn't fit. I'm not complaining, mind you - the plotline was well-written and well-acted, but it just seemed kind of.... pointless. Although a minor point - the cop there said he'd been called away to a break-in, which I assumed meant the house that Allison and her friend burgled, but he mentioned a homicide, which there clearly was not.

The subplot does fit in, though, if we consider that the episode's big 'theme' was birth. We had a pregnant woman, representing possiblities, and we had Cameron/Allison, who not only experienced a kind of rebirth in the episode, but seemed to run out of possiblities by the end(i.e, she was trapped by her identity, she couldn't run). I can't really see how T-1000 Jr fits into this, though.

A very good episode, though it danced too much around the point for my taste.

[Shroom Man 777]

I really want to see them continue on with what they're doing to Cameron's character. She's so bloody interesting, Summer Glau really does the job - exceeding River in sheer awesomeness and fucked-upness. Character development, resolution and all that.

I really wonder what are the implications for Cameron. Will she be more human because of what happened in this episode, with that bit of Allison inside her? Will she be colder and machine-like after she decides to ditch whatever inherent humanity she acquired from this episode? Will she feel regret? I mean, for a very short period of time, she was human. She was crying, she was laughing. I wonder what this all means.

Before she found out that the girl was a compulsive liar, she was willing to go with her. She wanted to go away to Portland to reinvent herself with her new friend. She wanted a get out of jail free.

But when she found out that she was being lied to, I guess that kind of really ruined it for her. So she decided to go back to what she was, John's protecter. She couldn't get out of jail free...

=(

[NecronLord]

Oh, and Shirley Manson T-1000 has a daughter. Another T-1000?

Or perhaps, the same Terminator. I was reminded of the Russel Blackman books when I saw her, with the T-XA, another experiment, this one a larger T-1000 that could split itself into a family, and communicate wirelessly. Or a horde of cats, and such.

Of course, it's more disturbing to imagine she might be in charge of a real kid...

[Shroom Man 777]

I thought of that too. =P

It would be cool to see two T-1000s merge into one person, or one T-1000 to split into several units. But you're right, a T-1000 raising a human child would be quite disturbing.

Especially if the T-1000 turns out to be a decent parent.

[Peptuck]

=(

Really, this summed up my fundamental rection to this episode.

Perhaps I'm just a sucker for a well-done [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie woobie], but I was really feeling sympathetic toward Allison, and seeing her put through an emotional wringer like that before being finally killed just capped an already tear-jerkery episode with a very tragic and disturbing note that shows how scary Cameron really is.

[Peptuck]

Ghetto edit: Fixed link.

[Braedley]

A great episode. Summer just carries this episode from start to finish.

"Did you kill her?"
*gasp*
"Apparently not."

Best part of the episode.

[neoolong]

So Cameron just basically woke up right? I assume that John is going to fix her somehow. Because apparently it's not that hard to fix AI's from the future?

It was a decent episode, but it just ended weird for me. Too bad it might get the axe relatively soon.

[Braedley]

Too bad it might get the axe relatively soon.

For fucks sake, Fox. Stop screwing around with Summer Glau's career. At the very least, do the fans a favour and finish off the season.

[Strider]

Too bad it might get the axe relatively soon.

This is just the sorta thing I could see the Sci Fi channel picking up, but that's probably pointless optimism.

[Oskuro]

A T-1000 raising a human child would be quite disturbing.

Especially if the T-1000 turns out to be a decent parent.

At first I wondered what the deal was with the T-1000's daughter, but being an infiltrator, and a good one at that, the T-1000 might just have taken over the woman's entire life, much like Vick did. Maybe in some future episode the little girl will tell the FBI agent how her mommy is acting strange or something.

[Burak Gazan]

I was waiting for a scene after Ellison left for the daughter to morph and ooze off the couch and rejoin the T-1001/Weaver

The kid never did say anything after all ...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I don't really have anything to add other than this was the first episode of the show I've seen and I liked it enough (gave it a 4) to continue watching.

[Peptuck]

I was waiting for a scene after Ellison left for the daughter to morph and ooze off the couch and rejoin the T-1001/Weaver

The kid never did say anything after all ...

I found it odd that the girl didn't even react to Ellison's presence. He sat down beside her and spoke to her and she didn't even acknowledge his presence. That alone might be a clue.

[Anguirus]

First 5 of the season...of the show, IMO. I loved the interweaving themes of birth, love, and lies. Notice how EVERY character tells a lie in this episode except for John Connor...and that's only if you don't count his use of his alternate identity.

If they kill it now there is no justice.

[Braedley]

First 5 of the season...of the show, IMO. I loved the interweaving themes of birth, love, and lies. Notice how EVERY character tells a lie in this episode except for John Connor...and that's only if you don't count his use of his alternate identity.

Actually, John did lie. Sarah had called him and asked where he and Cameron were, and he lied about being out shopping with her.

[Anguirus]

Oooh, good catch.

Actually, Ellison didn't tell a direct lie AFAIK, but of course he's lying by omission when he talks to his ex-wife.

[Thanas]

Well, I finally got the internet back on after that half-ape severed the cable...

Oh, and Shirley Manson T-1000 has a daughter. Another T-1000?

Or perhaps, the same Terminator. I was reminded of the Russel Blackman books when I saw her, with the T-XA, another experiment, this one a larger T-1000 that could split itself into a family, and communicate wirelessly. Or a horde of cats, and such.

Of course, it's more disturbing to imagine she might be in charge of a real kid...

According to the official podcast, she murdered the husband and her template and assumed her identity.

Also, some questions for discussion:

a) Was Cameron lying to Allison? Did some terminators really want peaceful coexistence with the resistance?

b) Was Allison merely a follower or something more to John in the Future?

c) How did Cameron experience Allison's escape attempts?

Too bad it might get the axe relatively soon.

For fucks sake, Fox. Stop screwing around with Summer Glau's career. At the very least, do the fans a favour and finish off the season.

According to my information, Hinman doesn't know a thing. Also, half of what he posts is just plain wrong. Monday night is a bitch right now with ESPN, Heroes, CW, dancing with the stars all cutting in on the game and little support from a very weak season of Prison Break. No network is really happy with the ratings as they are - every show on Monday has lost viewers en masse. From what I know, T:SCC is actually close to finish the production of the first thirteen episodes and the network is actually still quite happy with the show. Of course, that is subject to change, but from what I know and hear, Hinman has no real basis for the assumption he makes.

Plus, he even admits it is just a rumour. The thing is, when a show doesn't show a ratings gain, a great deal of people will start screamning "cancellation" just for the sake of being the first and generating a buzz to their sites (= ad money). Heck, people far more in the know than Hinman (e.g. Michael Ausiello) were screaming "cancellation" at the end of the first season. They were dead wrong.


As for this episode: A five.