T:SCC 2x10: "Strange Things Happen At The One Two Point"

[Thanas]

The tenth episode of T:SCC will air today.

Sarah's obsession with the three dots pays off, leading her to start catching up to the Turk. Jesse runs into some problems and Ellison meets someone powerful through Weaver.

Also, looks like the cast are dressing up. Judging from the promo pictures, Summer Glau looks fabulous in that black dress. I am already spoiled with regards to this episode, so I'll shut up now, except that I expect Shroomie to swoon over this episode.

The title of this episode is an allusion to the three dots Sarah is seeing as well as to the game of go. As one person has put it, it is

the difference between winning and losing, or losing and losing badly.

Here is the site with quite some interesting commentary about the 2-1 or 1-2 point.

[Xess]

Well that was interesting. Sarah goes nutty over nothing and Jessie is playing Riley to try and pry John away from Cameron. And Cromartie gets a name change!

[Bladed_Crescent]

Those last ten seconds.

God damn.

Skyne- I mean, John Henry - has learned how to kill and how to rank its needs above those of humans. I'm not entirely convinced that this ends well at all.

Jesse is one treacherous bitch and she plays Derek like a flute. That being said, Green does an excellent job; if their meetings you knew that he was going to kill her if she didn't convince him that she wasn't a grey or operating on an agenda: "No one comes back without a mission."
Spoiler

Future John's only advisor is Cameron? And it's implied that they're even closer than that.

Spoiler

Riley's working for her? I guess that explains why she's stuck to John throughout all the weirdness.

I am kind of disappointed, though. The preview I saw on SPACE channel on Saturday had Cameron
Spoiler

searching for a Terminator who'd been sent back to the 1800s for unknown purposes.

[AMT]

Spoiler

the 1800's terminator is a 1900's terminator according to the fox spoilers. and thats next week

[Burak Gazan]

Frak me

Anyone who walked away for the last 30 seconds....

And am I the only one getting tired of Jessie and her Kendra Shaw-esque arrogant bullshit? She's here to stop 'it'?

Forgive me then, as I hope for the scene when 'it' reaches down your fucking throat and tears your heart out, bitch

Sarah seems to be borderline crackup, Riley is another future spy/pawn, and Skynet lives....

[AMT]

Forgot to add. It's good having Chromar... John Henry back. Guy playing him is a fun actor.

[Solauren]

How do we know the Turk becomes Skynet now? For all we know, the T-1001 is trying to make a GOOD version of Skynet as a counter.

That would be the Resistances ultimate counter I think; If you can't stop skynet, reprogram it before it's a problem.

[Thanas]

One thing I forgot to add: This episode was written by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, though I am sure you all know this by now.

[TheLostVikings]

How do we know the Turk becomes Skynet now? For all we know, the T-1001 is trying to make a GOOD version of Skynet as a counter.

That would be the Resistances ultimate counter I think; If you can't stop skynet, reprogram it before it's a problem.

Its interesting how they have managed to keep "Her" relationship to Ellison sort of ambiguous. I mean, it does go around killing people, but then again so does the resistance. And why does it want Ellison to learn the turk the 10 commandments?

To avoid becoming something evil... or just to become better at infiltrating us?

I really like where they are going with this season so far.

[Anguirus]

This ep was ridiculously good. I'm tempted to give it a 5, despite the fact that I didn't quite get who what's-his-name was trying to fool with that fake chip business...his son obviously saw right through it. Still, both of them were acted well (in particular, I recognize the guy who played what's his name from B5 and Stargate and this is definitely the meatiest part I've seen him play).

Highlights:
Riley as a resistance fighter. Totally did not see that coming...and yet it explains a lot of the weirdness in her character that people complained about.

Jessie: ok, her motivations are understandable, but she's still at the very least a manipulative lying bitch. At least she's a hot one.

We haven't seen Sarah this wacko since T2. I like! That's her big flaw that she has to deal with, and I was actually wondering when the show would confront that.

Speaking of which, you know they are fucking with a character when they kill her psychologist (off-screen!) right before she goes nutty. Seriously, I hope/expect that flashbacks will somehow be used to flesh that guy out, as I was very intrigued by the role he seemed to be filling for both the Connors and Weaver. On the other hand, there is something to be said for cultivating the Anyone Can Die mentality.

I know somebody called the whole "Cromartie is used as an avatar for the Turk" idea, so obviously kudos to them. I was a bit hesitant at first, though the idea made sense. I'm very glad that the actor is staying on the show and look forward to seeing what he can do with this now-radically-different character.

I continue to be intrigued by Weaver's machinations. You never quite know what she's going to do, except she seems to have a very serious interest in Ellison (and, of course, her AI). One wonders why she had to "scrounge" Cromartie [if she is working for Skynet in some capacity...as Skynet seems to be very casually spending Terminators. (I'm also half-convinced that Weaver caused the blackout that led to the Turk killing the psychologist...after all, she went to a bit of trouble to secure that power plant...)

[Peptuck]

"Hello Mister Ellison. My name is John Henry." Cromartie's ultra-creepy smile just got made ten times more skin-crawling.

Also, Summer Glau + awesome little black dress + gratuitous Japanese. Squee.

Sarah's crazy, but that's nothing new. I also loved Derek in this episode - he seemed both the singular voice of reason while being batshit crazy at the same time. The scene with Jessie and Derek at the beginning was beautiful because there was no question that he would kill her if he thought she was lying.

Crazy awesome reveal with Riley and Jessie. I mean, crazy. Riley just went from Scrappy-tier to actually-pretty-nifty-tier. And Jessie is a seriously manipulative bitch. I'm hoping Cameron sorts her out

I liked the continued implications that John and Cameron were pretty close in the future. I'm fairly certain that however their relationship worked, it had to have something to do with Allison. Hell, Jesse even calls it "sick!"

Overall, this episode gets a fucking 5.

[Anguirus]

Ok, I just noticed something, and it's either a plot hole or incredibly disturbing.

Where exactly did Weaver find Cromartie's body a spare eye?

[tezunegari]

Where exactly did Weaver find Cromartie's body a spare eye?

It could be the eye she had shown to Ellison to convince him to join her attempts to fight the robots from the future. As for the biological look it could be a simple glass eye or they "salvaged" one from a (not so) volunteering donor.


I'm not really convinced that Jesse is telling the truth in the last two episodes.

In 2x06 she claims to be AWOL. How did she get to a Time Displacement Device? If I were Connor or any other high ranking Resistance General I would have any TDD guarded with everyone even getting close to them being controlled for clearance including myself/Connor.

In 2x09 she shot old Fisher the moment Derek wanted to kill young Fisher and saved Fishers live. By that she actually helped him to get young Fisher arrested (he couldn't explain his injuries and even the container he showed to the FBI was cleaned up). Young Fisher gets his life sentence and turns into a Skynet ally.
All that even with the knowledge that her lover will be tortured for weeks/months to the breaking point? Or was that story about Derek another lie.

In 2x10 she told Derek that she was send back to stop Cameron from acquiring long term influence on John Connor. Who ordered that mission or did she lie? Why didn't she contact Derek immediately after learning that he was with Connor and convinced him of her mission?

I hope they will give John an episode where he can be all mysterious and secretive. For now that part seems to be reserved for the females of the show.

[Peptuck]

Where exactly did Weaver find Cromartie's body a spare eye?

Considering she controls a fairly large and powerful technology corporation, was able to fully repair his head, and is a T-1000....

[eyexist]

Derek's thousand-yard stare can turn a man into stone, and 'Lara Croft' needs to see the business-end of Cameron's death grip.

And seriously, is the recurring theme of Sarah to not listen to her greatest assets: Cameron and Derek?

[PREDATOR490]

Recently started getting into TSCC and have now fully caught up to this point...

I have to say that in hindsight this series seems to be getting a bit odd. The episodes are good but the time-travel theme running through this show is getting to epicly wierd levels. At least in a show like Doctor Who the intricate Time Traveling is small scale, not like TSCC where it's all about saving humanity from an impending 'Judgement Day' and yet these characters are meandering around like headless chickens one episode, only to be super-smart the next.

The 'Terminator / Time Travel / Flashback - of the week' is getting extensively annoying due to the on-going mysteries that keep piling up. I'm all for a little suspense and intrigue but something is going wrong when Skynet is sending dozens of terminators back in time from god-knows-what-timeline / reality to do pretty mundane tasks. In light of the constant time traveling, I'm finding it harder to justify the idea that Skynet can send numerous terminators and yet still remains unable to even locate the Connors let alone attempt a decent attack after Crom. failed.

That said, Cameron is pretty much the highlight of the show and so far Glau has done a superb job at making the character stand out even when she gets little time on-screen. I'm dubious an intimate relationship existed between Cameron and Future-John, it seems a bit much for a TV series to try and play out and brings up a whole host of questions about how 'fully fuctional' Cameron is.
Incidentally, Allison hasnt been born yet from what that episode showed, that means the Allison that was seen being interogated would be 18-20 by 2027 ?
John Connor would be 44 by this time from what I can understand since "Mr Ferguson is Ill Today" had the police officer state John would be 24 without their time-jump.

Hence, John Connor - Allison Young relationship becomes a bit unlikely unless its more of a sister / brother or mentor / student situation by my thinking. Thus, Cameron attempted to infiltrate the base, got captured and somehow Connor may have spared her due to emotional grief over Allison's death.
A.K.A A bit like how Angel had Wesley having a wierd relationship with Illyeria despite her being the very being responsible for killing the one he held most dear.

That aside, I find Jessie's manipulation repulsive but by no means deserving of the reactions getting posted. Cameron has been rather manipulative herself so far and unlike Jessie, she has attempted to kill Connor twice and indicated that intent clearly.
E.G "...shove his head on a pike..."
I think Jessie maybe right in some respect, if Skynet is consistently losing to the Resistance in light of all these timetraveling missions then it seems plausible to me that Skynet could have adapted it's strategy of trying to convert John rather than killing him. Send Cameron to get close to him and establish an empathy so that when the war comes he will be less oppossed to Cyborgs.
This would appear to be the case from what has been seen of the future with Connor having Cameron as a trusted advisor and a cyborg in every cell etc.

The other theroy I can think of is the potential for Cameron to be part of a third faction of Terminators as suggested in "Allison from Palmdale" and John formed an alliance with them to fight against Skynet without the knowledge of the Resistance. Sending Cameron back to setup that alliance early or establish a relationship with John so he is more sympathetic to them seems like a good motive.

Other than that, Babylon, Ten commandments stuff is getting a bit tiresome. I'm getting the impression that Weaver is attempting to create some sort of 'God' personna around the AI / Terminators and Ellison is part of the development process for it to become a religious AI cult. Perhaps attempting to alter the perception of Skynet so that it can manipulate religious zeal and paint Connor as the devil etc. ?

[Shroom Man 777]

Don't blame Robot Rivers for trying to kill Connor, mang. She has damage to her chip and is messing up, and is in fact rather sad about it.

I like Robot River in the dress, but I really like it more when she's going around ruining people's shit. I'd give this episode a 4 or something, since it's pretty cool, but it doesn't have explosions or stuff. Just a false lead on a bunch of Japanese dudes, one of whose noses Sarah ends up breaking.

Oh, yeah, goddamn Riley! And Jesse! What the hell? Man, they're conspiring against Cameron! Poor Robot River, what did she ever do to deserve this? She's sad that she's failing her mission, having almost killed him and thus losing his trust, and now they're out to kill her? Man, and to think she's trying her best to help the Connors out!

At least Cromartie's actor is still around! I wonder what they'll do with him. Hah, serves you right, Turtle Ellison, you dumb fuck!

[neoolong]

I wonder if Ellison is going to fess up to Sarah about being a dumbass. Probably not though.

[lordofFNORD]

5. All the way.
More development of baby Skynet/"John Henry", major new information on Jessie and Riley, moving along with the "stop Skynet" plots, Sarah showing why she was locked up, and even a little bit of asskicking.

I must be playing too much FOIII; I kept expecting to hear "John Henry Eden" when they said "John Henry".

[Thanas]

People, do not use spoiler tags when discussing the same episode the thread title is about, please. They are supposed to be for future episodes.

Skyne- I mean, John Henry - has learned how to kill and how to rank its needs above those of humans. I'm not entirely convinced that this ends well at all.

I am not sure this is a bad development per se, since every living thing has a survival instinct. Granted, it will most likely turn out bad, but the show has twists and turns like crazy, so who knows.

Future John's only advisor is Cameron? And it's implied that they're even closer than that.

Well, this is confirmation of what we have so far. I argued for that since the episode "Dungeon's and Dragons", where it was shown Cameron controls access to John and is the only one we know with an access code to him. That some nutjobs try to stage a preemptive coup against her is quite something, though.

Riley's working for her? I guess that explains why she's stuck to John throughout all the weirdness.

Yeah, Riley came back with Jesse. "This world has many mirrors" and the fact that she knew about Judgement Day confirms that.

How do we know the Turk becomes Skynet now? For all we know, the T-1001 is trying to make a GOOD version of Skynet as a counter.

That would be the Resistances ultimate counter I think; If you can't stop skynet, reprogram it before it's a problem.

I doubt that Weaver is a resistance asset.

This ep was ridiculously good. I'm tempted to give it a 5, despite the fact that I didn't quite get who what's-his-name was trying to fool with that fake chip business...his son obviously saw right through it.

They tried to scam money since their business deal would not go through and they would loose their business.

Highlights:
Riley as a resistance fighter. Totally did not see that coming...and yet it explains a lot of the weirdness in her character that people complained about.

Agreed.

"Hello Mister Ellison. My name is John Henry." Cromartie's ultra-creepy smile just got made ten times more skin-crawling.

Yeah, especially since he can't use the half of his face that is missing and was probably only fixed cosmetically.

Sarah's crazy, but that's nothing new. I also loved Derek in this episode - he seemed both the singular voice of reason while being batshit crazy at the same time. The scene with Jessie and Derek at the beginning was beautiful because there was no question that he would kill her if he thought she was lying.

Yeah, props have to go to the writers - after all, they invented Derek in the first place and this was really the first part of the season where I felt he had a place in the story and wasn't just extra muscle.

Crazy awesome reveal with Riley and Jessie. I mean, crazy. Riley just went from Scrappy-tier to actually-pretty-nifty-tier. And Jessie is a seriously manipulative bitch. I'm hoping Cameron sorts her out

Way I see it, both are very manipulative bitches. Also very capable operatives, too. Too bad for them that going up against Cameron will most likely end bad for either one of them.

I liked the continued implications that John and Cameron were pretty close in the future. I'm fairly certain that however their relationship worked, it had to have something to do with Allison. Hell, Jesse even calls it "sick!"

I am not sure that this is the reason, since if we assume that Allison and John were involved, it would make him a) the 43 year old who shacked up with someone half his age and b) a serious creep and I cannot see John like that.

As for Jesse calling it sick, I believe the far simpler version is that she and Riley just believe that since Cameron is metal, they have to protect their general from being turned into a metal plaything. I doubt that Jesse and Riley have heard a lot about Cameron besides rumors, considering that they must have been very low-placed soldiers. Notice how Cameron never recognized Riley?

Overall, this episode gets a fucking 5.

+1.

I'm not really convinced that Jesse is telling the truth in the last two episodes.

In 2x06 she claims to be AWOL. How did she get to a Time Displacement Device? If I were Connor or any other high ranking Resistance General I would have any TDD guarded with everyone even getting close to them being controlled for clearance including myself/Connor.

Good question. Maybe some subordinates of John want Cameron gone and gave them access? Maybe the tech who let her go "awol" - which was her original story - really was an ally of her who hated Cameron for some reason?

In 2x09 she shot old Fisher the moment Derek wanted to kill young Fisher and saved Fishers live. By that she actually helped him to get young Fisher arrested (he couldn't explain his injuries and even the container he showed to the FBI was cleaned up). Young Fisher gets his life sentence and turns into a Skynet ally.

To be fair, she didn't know how he would turn out.

In 2x10 she told Derek that she was send back to stop Cameron from acquiring long term influence on John Connor. Who ordered that mission or did she lie?

I doubt it was "ordered", I think it is pretty clear that she is a rogue at that point.

Why didn't she contact Derek immediately after learning that he was with Connor and convinced him of her mission?

Because she already got Riley as her operative?

Derek's thousand-yard stare can turn a man into stone, and 'Lara Croft' needs to see the business-end of Cameron's death grip.

"Lara Croft"?

And seriously, is the recurring theme of Sarah to not listen to her greatest assets: Cameron and Derek?

Who she doesn't trust. Yeah, we the viewer know that they are her greatest assets, but what makes you think she does so too? Neither have been very trustworthy in the past.

Recently started getting into TSCC and have now fully caught up to this point...

I have to say that in hindsight this series seems to be getting a bit odd. The episodes are good but the time-travel theme running through this show is getting to epicly wierd levels. At least in a show like Doctor Who the intricate Time Traveling is small scale, not like TSCC where it's all about saving humanity from an impending 'Judgement Day' and yet these characters are meandering around like headless chickens one episode, only to be super-smart the next.

Eh? They have been very consistent IMO.

The 'Terminator / Time Travel / Flashback - of the week' is getting extensively annoying due to the on-going mysteries that keep piling up. I'm all for a little suspense and intrigue but something is going wrong when Skynet is sending dozens of terminators back in time from god-knows-what-timeline / reality to do pretty mundane tasks.

What is your definition of mundane?

That said, Cameron is pretty much the highlight of the show and so far Glau has done a superb job at making the character stand out even when she gets little time on-screen. I'm dubious an intimate relationship existed between Cameron and Future-John, it seems a bit much for a TV series to try and play out and brings up a whole host of questions about how 'fully fuctional' Cameron is.

Note that some of the writers have come from a show that routinely played with that idea and where it was pretty much a given.

Hence, John Connor - Allison Young relationship becomes a bit unlikely unless its more of a sister / brother or mentor / student situation by my thinking. Thus, Cameron attempted to infiltrate the base, got captured and somehow Connor may have spared her due to emotional grief over Allison's death.

Yeah, I agree. Or he spared her due to her value. And then there also is the possibility that Cameron spoke the truth and that she really is part of a third party. Which means we have two main factions and two sub factions - Cameron-haters and peacewanting machines.

I think Jessie maybe right in some respect, if Skynet is consistently losing to the Resistance in light of all these timetraveling missions then it seems plausible to me that Skynet could have adapted it's strategy of trying to convert John rather than killing him. Send Cameron to get close to him and establish an empathy so that when the war comes he will be less oppossed to Cyborgs.
This would appear to be the case from what has been seen of the future with Connor having Cameron as a trusted advisor and a cyborg in every cell etc.

If Cameron was a double agent, she would have killed him. No John Connor, no resistance, Skynet wins by default.

The other theroy I can think of is the potential for Cameron to be part of a third faction of Terminators as suggested in "Allison from Palmdale" and John formed an alliance with them to fight against Skynet without the knowledge of the Resistance. Sending Cameron back to setup that alliance early or establish a relationship with John so he is more sympathetic to them seems like a good motive.

Hmm.I doubt it would take that for him to recognize a good tactical deployment.

Don't blame Robot Rivers for trying to kill Connor, mang. She has damage to her chip and is messing up, and is in fact rather sad about it.

Yeah, and she also has warned John that he should kill her. Plus, it is kinda not her choice to kill John, so it might be argued she is the innocent party here.

Hah, serves you right, Turtle Ellison, you dumb fuck!

Turtle Ellison - LOL. I have to clean my keyboard now.

[eyexist]

Who she doesn't trust. Yeah, we the viewer know that they are her greatest assets, but what makes you think she does so too? Neither have been very trustworthy in the past.

Her main gripe about Cam and Derek is that they see killing people as an option. From Sarah's persepective she should be aware that Cameron knows her shit; so far Cameron's advice has been dead on. On the flip side of the coin almost every single thing that Sarah touched has turned to shit - in fact she's directly responsible for the Turk and Cromartie finding where they lived. I'm willing to bet that this will be addressed in a future episode.

[Anguirus]

They tried to scam money since their business deal would not go through and they would loose their business.

Ok, I got that, but I almost thought there was another dimension going on...guess I read too much into it. Oh, well. Imagine if he found out that Sarah was the one that screwed him (figuratively) in the first place.

[Shroom Man 777]

Next Week's Promo!

Poor, poor Robot River! She can see everything - including hickeys. But hey, she's got a new friend! ^______^


I hope Henry Cromartie makes Turtle Ellison shit his pants. Or, at least, make him sputter like an idiot in front of Weaver.

[Peptuck]

Poor, poor Robot River! She can see everything - including hickeys. But hey, she's got a new friend! ^______^

Yeah, I get the impression that Cameron is about as displeased with what happened as an emotionless robot can potentially get.

I hope Henry Cromartie makes Turtle Ellison shit his pants. Or, at least, make him sputter like an idiot in front of Weaver.

The expression on Ellison's face at the end of the episode pretty much screams "This thing is chewing on my ass and asking for seconds."

[Shroom Man 777]

I think it's fair to say that Cameron does have emotions, though in a way that's not entirely... human.