Lighthouse love

[roxybisquaint]

I was off to the mother-in-law's house Friday evening where there is *gulp* no internet. We had her record TSCC for us, but I really was dreading watching it old school (non-HD, non-widescreen, on vhs). I lucked out and the mystery neighbor whose unprotected wifi we can sometimes pick up from my mother-in-law's driveway was accessible Friday night. Sweet! So I stood out there in the damp, chilly weather for like 40 minutes and downloaded the episode (cisaac kept me company in chat). Then the man and I cozied up on the couch and watched it on my laptop :)

I LOVED IT. So much goodness in this episode and it totally had a season 1 feel to it. Every character was involved and every character felt perfect and true and, my God, likable (how long's it been?). All the stories overlap, but Sarah is at the center. That's my idea of a TSCC ensemble. It's how the show works best and it's what's been missing for a lot of this season. As much as I LOVED LOVED LOVED our recent Sarah arc, I would trade that for an entire season of this kind of episode (assuming of course that I can't actually have an entire season of Sarah-centric episodes).


• Sarah & Derk tension - yay!
• Sarah & John being mother & son - yay!
• Sarah/Charley angst - yay!
• Cameron being unintentionally smart-ass funny instead of flat one liners - yay!
• Cameron & Derek tension - yay!
• Pancakes - yay!
• Leaving that fucking house behind (I hate that house) - yay!
• Charley dies - very expected but sad anyway :(
• Cyberdyne - yay!


Bug slug
That whole scene with Sarah and John in the car was so fun. Sarah was relaxed and happy for the first time since, um, the time jump, I think. John didn't seem to know what to make of his mom acting like that. It was great. Also, nice touch with the transmitter screwing up the radio.

Nitpick: Actually this is more than a nitpick... Sarah does not drive Chevy Suburbans, she drives Jeeps! I noticed this Chevy a few eps ago, but I let it slide thinking it was some temporary advertising deal and she'd have a Jeep again soon enough. When they're blurring out the logo, though, there's no ad deal. That Chevy better fucking blow up and get replaced with a God damn Jeep.

Sarah/Charley
As much as I was hoping for Sarah to get laid before Charley died, I was really satisfied with how their time together went. The tension between them was perfect and I totally LOLed at the bread and peanut butter comment. Yeah, he was still pissed at her about Michelle. But Sarah wasn't there for herself — she was there for John and it was such a touching moment when she clued Charley in about the cancer. Lena gave such a beautiful performance, I totally teared up. Despite his anger, he really did still care about her — that hug between them was wonderful. Sarah so rarely gets comfort from anyone, but Charley was there for her when she finally let it out. Oh and I loved the story about the diner (always knew they met when she was working at a diner).

It was very cool to find out that Sarah had set up that house after Michelle died. Not only was she sort of taking care of Charley in his grief, but having that house (that neither Cameron nor Derek knew about) was a nice contingency plan... "That's my mom, she always plans ahead."

"It's my fate... there's nothing I can do."
I realized something extremely cool about that scene. Sarah is working to change John's fate, yet she accepts her own fate very readily. Future!John, however, doesn't accept her fate. Just as she's trying to change John's fate, future!John is trying to change her fate (Cameron jumping her over her death). I love that SO MUCH.

Jungle flashbacks
Those were awesome and sweet and told us a lot. Sarah leaves John alone, but then he finds her...
"I won. I was alone and you couldn't find me. That's the game, right?"

I was immediately reminded of the Sarah-John talk in "The Demon Hand":
Sarah: I'll always find you.
John: I'll always find you.

I think we're setting up for Sarah and John to get separated in the finale but he'll find again her first thing next season.

Pancake breakfast
Even with the underlying cancer worry, it was a shiny spot of normal in the middle of chaos and misery. And short-lived as it was, it was much needed.

Transmitter in Sarah's breast
I gotta pat me and life_on_queen on the back for figuring that out ahead of time. I still say Kaliba implanting Sarah at the warehouse makes way more sense than Winston doing it in the van, but he certainly had the best opportunity so I can live with that. I was freaked out enough that he was checking her out while she was unconscious and now we know he stuck a transmitter in her breast. The dude was a total evil bad guy perv and I'm glad she blew his brains out. But... Why am I feeling a little uneasy about Sarah saying she's been feeling nauseated recently? Please tell me it's just the stress and worry about cancer and that Winston didn't inject her with some future virus or something.

Nitpick: Since when do you go in for a breast examine and leave your shirt on under the gown, (especially if you're getting an ultrasound)? Also, that doctor was way too okay about the idea that it was a transmitter, that Sarah had a gun and that Sarah was going to zap herself.

John gets away, Charley dies
As soon as Sarah saw the boat was gone she immediately knew John was safe. I was so glad of that. Of course, she thought Charley was safe too, but we all knew he wasn't. I'm sad he died, but I'm relieved it wasn't drawn out. He died protecting John and that's a fitting end for him. If I'm not mistaken, Charley was firing a Ruger Mini-14. I have one of those. Mine's way more badass, though :)

Creepy basement
Derek told Cameron he wouldn't have given up the location of the safe house, but she says it's happened before. So we now know for sure what we've all suspected — that Cameron knows about the creepy basement and that Derek gave up the location of the bunker. I still hope Cameron wasn't personally involved in that because it's too obvious, but it's really looking like she was. Maybe we'll get an interesting twist on it though.

Miscarriage
Jesse's miscarriage is back in play. I still don't like that story line, but I do think this is more evidence that Jesse's not dead and that Derek will eventually go looking for her (next season probably).

Cameron reboot
What's up with that quick reboot? Was the voltage too low to cause a full shut-down of her system? Or is there some other reason? It felt like it was an intentional parallel between Cameron and Sarah (low voltage zaps causing temporary effects that they recovered from in time to take out an enemy), but I'm not sure what the point was of it was. The guy who zapped her seemed to be getting instructions from John Henry's "brother". Interesting that the brother told the guy that he got the endo schematic and info about chip removal from his "brother". Ruh?! That means he got it from John Henry, but how does John Henry have endo schematics, info about electrocuting a machine to shut it down and info about chip removal?

John Henry's "brother" / Kaliba / Weaver
So there's another super AI out there working with Kaliba that Catherine doesn't know about? I thought Catherine owned Kaliba (though I assumed she owned it under a different persona). It certainly seemed like she was pissed off at her own employees for being careless when she heard that unsecure call John Henry picked up on in "The Good Wound". So now I'm really confused. Is Kaliba a competitor? If so, why would she be so concerned about them being lax with their own security? And why did she care about killing every single employee? I'm even more curious about Zoe's dad (the guy with the drone) now. Before, I thought he'd taken off with the drone as a way to secure his own survival (kill me and you'll never get your drone kind of thing). But now I'm thinking he just got it safely out of there to take it back to Kaliba.

The roving back door
John Henry got hacked because of a roving back door that allowed a worm to infiltrate him. Now we know what old!Fisher was up to when he installed that in those government computers in "Complications":

"This system allows user access to all primary military industrial computer systems... Why would you install a roving back door into those computer systems, one that we can't dismantle so far?" - Fed agent to young!Fisher

It seems old!Fisher was working for JH's "brother" and I think the goal is to jump start judgement day. Why it needs John Henry for that, I don't know. You'd think this new AI could just do it, but maybe it's not powerful enough on it's own and it needs to merge with JH to take over military computer systems. Or something like that.

When Jesse dodged the question about judgement day, I figured hers was very soon. But now I think it's like right around the corner! If that AI succeeds in controlling JH, judgement day could be imminent. The only solution to this (as soon as the Connors learn what's going on) is to destroy John Henry. And his AI "brother" will probably be next season's focus.

Cyberdyne!
I'm so happy to see the name back in the story. I never liked that Cyberdyne was seemingly dropped. It's always been Cyberdyne that developed Skynet and always should be. Also, that name will REALLY piss Sarah off, won't it? So what's up with this link to Miles' work at Cyberdyne? Didn't they destroy it all? Didn't Derek & Co. investigate Cyberdyne leads and didn't Sarah follow up and find the now dead Andy Goode as the only link? Well, they focused on former employees... not family. When we found out last season in "The Turk" that Danny Dyson was off at college, I fully expected he was studying AI and following in daddy's footsteps. I hoped anyway. And now I'm getting excited.

John lost his father because of future war being played out in present day and the same is true of Danny. Mirrors. Parallels. John is going to save humanity and maybe Danny is about to destroy humanity. I doubt he's an evil mastermind siding with future machines against mankind. I think it's more likely he was seeking a connection to the father he lost and loved the same kind of work. Maybe this Cyberdyne thing won't lead to Danny Dyson, but I think it would be hella cool if it does. It gives us Sarah and Terissa parallels. It gives us John and Danny parallels. And it keeps Cyberdyne alive in the story.

There's lots going on now and everything is so brilliantly connecting. As much as I've disliked so many separate storylines this season, it's nice to watch it all converging. What an awesome episode. Can I have more please :)

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Also, nice touch with the transmitter screwing up the radio.
Oooh, nice. And yeah, the Bug Slug scene was cute.

Since when do you go in for a breast examine and leave your shirt on under the gown, (especially if you're getting an ultrasound)? Also, that doctor was way too okay about the idea that it was a transmitter, that Sarah had a gun and that Sarah was going to zap herself.
Yes on everything! Heh.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

"To The Lighthouse" was awesomeness indeed. I loved the bit where Ellison jumped on Murch when he mentioned "daemons."

Here's my take on what we know about the players after “To The Lighthouse”

• John Henry / Weaver - possibly a future AI faction, possibly what the humans are fighting against in the futures we’ve seen so far. Currently, looks plausible that they’re a future faction that is either neutral or fighting against a Skynet derived from Cyberdyne tech and neutral/indifferent to humans and possibly a potential ally for humans.


• Cyberdyne AI - not from the future, some kind of fall-out from the events of T2. May or may not involve US DoD / USG or some kind of quasi-government / deep black corporation. Appears to currently have no access to Terminators, though may know howto build them now after access to John Henry. Likely will acquire time travel technology at some point in Sarah’s timeline, likely doesn’t have access to it at the time of “To The Lighthouse.”


• Sarah et al. Sarah may have alienated Derek via her actions in “To The Lighthouse” (though, as yet, the action with the Kaliba goons kept Derek from seeing what Sarah was up to).


• Unknown fourth parties? Jesse still in play? Allies of Jesse?

It's no mystery John Henry holds schematics of a T888. His body is a T888 which they had to modify to make it work for JH. Duh!

Cameron and Derek are great together.

Cameron's reboot. The simple explanation is that she's been caught with this kind of trick before and has used some forethought and planning - like rubber-soled boots. Cameron had plenty of time to decide wait until the cable/water had shorted out the supply before falling down and then playing dead. It would bring her attacker(s) out into the open for easy dispatch. The criticism I have of this scene is that it was too few attackers to take on a Terminator, unless there turns out to be a deleted scene where Cameron tears thru the Warehouse killing goons.

Yep, a Mini-14. Charlie should have a had a Garand, a Mini-14 is a girl's gun. There's surely much more mileage against a Terminator with a 30 cal than a pissy little 223.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

Forgot to mention:

Ellison originally gave Cromartie's body to the Weaverbot "to study" to figure out howto fight the machines more effectively. It must have been very thoroughly analysed and in any case the Weaverbot should hold all the schematics for a T888.

Cameron and electro-reboot. Cameron is a learning machine that must survive to complete the mission. It makes sense that she's taken steps not to be caught out by such a trap which John and Sarah pulled on her in the Church in "Samson & Delilah."

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the daemons thing was awesome. I think Ellison about peed his pants when Murch said that.

I think you and I are going to be battling Sarah vs Derek a lot longer than they're snapping at each other! Derek alienated himself by siding with Jesse over Sarah and John. Sarah has every reason to distrust him and to give him attitude.

I could understand John Henry having schematics for his body, but the specifics about the chip port and how to disable it are what I don't see what he'd have. He doesn't even have a chip himself so it seems odd that he'd know all about it.

I agree about Cameron and Derek. It was nice to see them have some time together. I think I enjoy them as much as I enjoy Sarah and Cameron.

Yeah the rubber boots idea is the most plausible I've heard, but would a wire feeding electricity into a puddle of water short out that quickly? She hit the ground pretty quick. I guess we'll just have to assume it did (short out quickly) unless evidence of some other explanation surfaces.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

Rubber boots are good, so long as the soles are not porous - that's the problem with leather, that it's porous and the water can get in to conduct electricity. Rubber soles of sufficient density are good insulators, even when the surface is wet. Not just any old rubber-soled boots do though, you can get ones rated to protect against electrical hazards.

It certainly makes sense that Cameron has some kind of strategy to prevent / deal with being electrocuted, having been caught that way before.

JH would have specifics of the chip port, that's in the skull. Engineers (Murch) should have been able to deduce a great deal about the T888. And that's assuming the Weaverbot hasn't used any data she holds to help the project along. One would assume it most likely "she" has.

Derek was right not mention Jesse, for security purposes, up until he discovered the surveillance photos. But I think he was very interested in having someone in reserve to take out Cameron and didn't want to tip his hand to Sarah and John. Sarah might be all for it but preventing John finding out is important. He seems to be warming towards Cameron at the moment though (a mistake from Derek's POV but it's good from a character inter-play POV).

I don't disagree that Sarah has good reason to distrust Derek. I think, however, it's plainly a serious error of judgment to throw away one of your best fighters who is reliable in a fight. Killer robots from the future, remember. You don't have to like or even trust someone so long as you know they will get the job done. (For instance, I'll bet the Marines in Iraq are far from happy with the Iraqi troops they have to work with. Or a large number of the people I work with. But needs must when the Devil drives.) Hopefully John has more of clue - one would assume he has, given he's the future leader of the resistance.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

Sorry, badly formed English there - tho I'm sure the Marines wouldn't like a lot of the people I have to work with.

[indiefic.livejournal.com]

Sarah does not drive Chevy Suburbans, she drives Jeeps!

Word. I hope there's some giant plot device that necessitates her driving that fugly thing. It needs to go away. Stat.

Just as she's trying to change John's fate, future!John is trying to change her fate

I love that SO HARD.

I think we're setting up for Sarah and John to get separated in the finale but he'll find again her first thing next season.

Agreed.

I gotta pat me and life_on_queen on the back for figuring that out ahead of time.

I actually thought that while I was watching the ep. I was like "Roxy was totally right. HEE." And dude, in her breast?? I mean, I get that it plays well into the cancer arc which Winston presumably knows nothing about, but still ... PERV.

Since when do you go in for a breast examine and leave your shirt on under the gown

Yeah, that ran really untrue for me too. Also, the nurse looked really familiar.

I still hope Cameron wasn't personally involved in that because it's too obvious, but it's really looking like she was. Maybe we'll get an interesting twist on it though.

Yeah, I think she probably had to be there at this point. But again, I'm hoping it's something that's not obvious.

I still don't like that story line, but I do think this is more evidence that Jesse's not dead and that Derek will eventually go looking for her (next season probably).

Yeah. And to that I say: LE SIGH. I want her to be dead. Ugh. But yeah, I read Derek's delivery of the "thank you for telling me that" line to be him forgiving himself for not smoking Jesse when he had the chance.

Interesting that the brother told the guy that he got the endo schematic and info about chip removal from his "brother". Ruh?! That means he got it from John Henry, but how does John Henry have endo schematics, info about electrocuting a machine to shut it down and info about chip removal?

That's the first thing we saw when John Henry got invaded by "his brother", wasn't it? The invading program pulled up John Henry's schematics of himself, then of the Turk, then tried to get John Henry to destroy The Turk/himself.

So it would now seem that old!Fisher was working for JH's "brother" and I think the goal is to jump start judgement day. Why it needs John Henry for that, I don't know.

I am so completely confused about the whole Weaver/Kaliba/drones/John Henry/brother stuff right now. None of it is making much sense.

But I have my own crackpot theory which I haven't completely worked out: Keeping Andy Goode and The Turk/John Henry in the mix at Cyberdyne would have actually slowed Skynet down, softened it, made it less effective. And that Weaver might actually be in league with Cameron/Future!John (actually, I'm waiting for Cameron to be in a position to choose between Future!John and Teenage!John and choose the former) and that the creation of John Henry is itself supposed to be a way to stop J-Day. If Weaver and Ellison can create a moral, human-friendly AI to rival Skynet, they might be able to prevent it all from happening.

Can I have more please :)

I really, really, really hope so. I want a third season so bad.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

Can Derek just die already?

Since when do you go in for a breast examine and leave your shirt on under the gown

Never - you're lying there on the table with your biznez exposed for the whole world (or at least the technician) to see really wishing that they'd at least bought you a drink first.

Now maybe it's different in a snazzy private clinic but at the very least, Sarah should have been stripped down to her bra...

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Can Derek just die already?

It's never that easy. ;)
What's with this new Derek-hate anyway? I could understand it while he was boring the hell out of us with stupid Jesse story. But now? This episode handed us Derek back — the crazy eyes, the intensity, that attitude that makes Sarah want to kick his ass when he opens his mouth. Let's juts hope she doesn't take John's "we're starting over" line too much to heart because I want Sarah/Derek tension to continue.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

If Jesse's still alive, we get to deal with more of Derek's special apocolyptic angst and I'm done with that.

I'm done with the rules applying to everyone but him, he's special, blahblahblah. I'm tired of him getting away with it when every other human character, even Cameron, has to face the consequences of their actions. No one gives Sarah or John a "get out of moral responsibility free card" - they stand up and face their mistakes. Derek is always played as "too traumatized by future war to deal" and fuck it, I'm done. Kill him plskthxbye!

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Well John sure gave him a free pass. He didn't even need to mull it over either. He's been a dick to his mom all season because she tried but failed to get out of her zip cuffs in time to stop Sarkissian before John snapped his neck. But when uncle Derek has a chance to sell him out for some help in the shower, no problemo. John's a-okay with that.

Clearly John giving Derek a free pass bothers me a lot more than Derek actually receiving said free pass. But you're right - Derek should not get a free pass. He needs to demonstrate this change of his (if he's changed) or he needs a serious ass-kicking. Sarah giving him some attitude is not enough.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

Told you before Roxy, you women just don't have the testosterone to understand Derek. He's the only one (not counting Cameron cos she's a toaster) with half a clue as to what's going down but at least the boy John is finally beginning to catch up.

No doubt Sarah's crazy will dig an even deeper hole for them next ep.

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

I hope Sarah digs a hole big enough to bury that sexist attitude of yours. I'm not sure that's possible to do by herself though.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

You actually mean "realist" Roxy. Just wait till you're being hunted by killer robots from the future, you'll see.

(And buy yourself a proper rifle.)

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

LOL. I can't decide if I love you or hate you, johnnypate and I think I like it that way. You are truly the Derek to my Sarah.

[johnnypate.livejournal.com]

I have that effect on women... I blame my sister, I can never seem to shake off the habit of arguing with girls. At least I'm safe in the knowledge that when you're being hunted by killer robots from the future then crying isn't going to win the argument, for once.

I think it's obvious...

[trystanknight.livejournal.com]

It was all misdirection, from the beginning. Andy Goode never 100% knew what his Turk really did. (Or, perhaps more truthfully, in Derek's timeline, Andy Goode never died, so he has knowledge of a false timeline or a more confused timeline where the Turk was invaded by his 'brother' quite successfully, not sure).

What does this mean for John Henry? It's simple. Weaver was the woman on the sub. As I said in my last post, she went rogue, either SkyNET couldn't control her, or she ran like a bitch when she realized SkyNET was just as bad as Hitler. Either way, she's a rogue agent, part of that second faction mentioned by Cameron earlier this year.

She travelled back through time... but like Arnold in T3, she knew Judgement Day was inevitable... so what did she do? She created an alternate version of Turk that she SPECIFICALLY hired a Psychologist and a Cop to train in the ways of compassion and humanity. That's why even though she seems to have none, she's trying very hard to train the Turk to be a good boy - she's trying to prevent SkyNET from being Hitler, and establish herself as its closest friend. I can't imagine what her her motivation is beyond that, but she's come back to build a kinder skyNET and the original is now trying to take over.

Re: I think it's obvious...

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

My Weaver theory is very similar, so I sort of agree with all that. I think the main difference is that I don't see Weaver as wanting a kinder Skynet. I think she wants machines to be free-thinking. I guess you could call it kinder, but it would be kinder to machines, not humans.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Make a video!

[roxybisquaint.livejournal.com]

Yeah I should do that. Schmacky posted about it over at Sarah Connor Society (http://tsccsociety.proboards.com/index.cgi?) too and I was about joining in on the fun.

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

I made a video last night. It was fun. Sadly, I did not save my many outtakes.