The Pullbox

TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Season 2: Episode 9 – “Complications”

Written by: John Wirth & Ian B. Goldberg
Directed by: Steven DePaul

Once again, I have to apologize for the lateness of this review. Its been a pretty crazy week for me and my roommates. I’ll post an entry explaining everything over at Title & Registration. I’ve just been so busy, sometimes real life takes over and there’s not much time left for the Internet. At any rate, after posting this Terminator review, I’ll updated Title & Registration and hopefully move on to reviewing HEROES before heading off to work. Worst case scenario, the HEROES review will be written tonight after work, or first thing tomorrow morning.

You can read my spoiler filled review of “Complications” after the jump…

- SPOILER ALERT -

In true T:TSCC tradition, after a kick ass, action packed episode, there’s usually a more relaxed/calmer episode. This week’s episode centered mainly around Sarah. In the final moments of “Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today,” Sarah had a nervous breakdown of sorts. Cromartie’s body’s been buried out in the desert and everyone went home with intentions of coming back to destroy Cromartie’s body later.

On the road home, Sarah becomes sick. One action that caught Cameron’s eye is that Sarah picked up a turtle that was on its back. She turned it over and moved it off the road. She has questions about this she poses to John later. I love those conversations between Cameron and John. She’s always learning and tries hard to apply what she’s learned as best she can. Its doesn’t always work though. Cameron does tell us though that she’s capable of feeling. Not necessarily emotion but physically she feels warmth, cold, wind, etc. I never doubted she could. If the Matrix taught us anything, its that “real” (what you can feel, see, hear, smell, etc.) is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain. I’m more than confident that the machines are advanced enough to replicate that.

Sarah begins to have dreams about three baby turtles in little bassinets. They’re always in a very specific formation. They represent three dots she can’t seem to figure out where she’s seen them until the end when she notices them marked in blood on “The Wall of Weird” (as I like to call it. That’s a Smallville reference.) In her dream, Cameron is holding one of the baby turtles. Sarah holds out her hand to receive it when Cameron walks past her and hands the baby turtle over to Cromartie. Before this she had a vision of Cameron watering the ground where they buried Cromartie, and metallic cacti sprouted and grabbed John. These visions don’t make much sense to us right now. I’m sure they’ll be explained later in the season. T:TSCC doesn’t drag its mysteries and questions out for very long before answering them and revealing everything to the view, so I doubt we’ll have to wait long.

If I’d have to guess, I’d say the desert vision meant to tell us that by burying Cromartie out there, more machines are going to begin sprouting, and they’ll have come from Cromartie himself. Almost as if he were the seed planted to create more like him. This makes sense to me because Ellison turned Cromartie’s body over to Weaver, which one can assume she’ll be using to copy the technology and create new Terminators.

I’m beginning to think that Weaver has been sent back from the future to create a paradox parallel to John’s. In Terminator, we get the infamous terminator time paradox where John in the future sends his father to the past to protect Sarah, and conceive John. If John hadn’t sent Kyle Reese back in time, he would never have existed. Its a very “Chick or the Egg” type situation. I believe Weaver is the Kyle Reese to Skynet’s John Connor. Skynet sends Weaver back in time to develop the Turk into the AI programing of Skynet, and to create the first Terminators. She’s conceiving Skynet. That’s my theory anyway.

Then there’s the vision of the three baby turtles and the three dots. I have to say, I have no idea what those three dots mean. But I took the Cameron handing over the baby turtle to Cromartie, as a metaphor for John. John is Sarah’s son, in the dream represented by a baby turtle. Cameron holds him in her arms. In last week’s episode Sarah mentioned she doesn’t like the way John responds to Cameron. Cameron definitely has some kind of influence or hold on him. Then in the vision Cameron hands the turtle over to Cromartie, representing the mistakes she’s made, or a possible future betrayal, that will put John in danger from the Machines. Again, that’s just my speculation.

Jesse calls Derek. She’s captured a man she believes to be Charles Fisher; an ally to Skynet in the future. He’s apparently been sent back in time and even though Derek doesn’t seem to remember him, Jesse insists that Derek knows Fisher, and he needs to be killed. This entire story line was very interesting to me. When we get the full story and realize that Derek was tortured to some degree by Fisher, and has mentally blocked all memory of him, you get a pretty clear picture of what Derek’s gone through, and what its like during the war in the future. “Dungeons and Dragons” in season one gave us a good idea of the hell the resistance goes through, but this episode really amps it up. The real question, posed by Derek himself, is whether Derek mentally blocked his torture, or never experienced it. Did he come from a future where it never happened, and Jesse comes from a future where it did happen. More paradoxes. I love it!

I also thought it was amazing casting when we meet the Charles Fisher of our time, who, of course, is much younger, but the actors playing the two different Fishers looked very much alike and played off of each other in a great way. Its also made very clear just how strongly Jesse feels about Derek. She had so much hatred and rage toward Fisher for what he did to Derek, but didn’t really take it out on the younger Fisher because that version hadn’t betrayed the resistance or committed any sins against Derek and Jesse, yet.

The flashback scenes of the experiments and tortures in the future were once again done brilliantly. You always get a clear sense of what time you’re in. Its such a stark contrast to what we see as present time.

The third story line in the episode involved Cameron and John going to dig up Cromartie, only to find he’s gone. It had to have been Ellison. He was the only other person who knew about it. Cameron thrashes him around quite a bit but Ellison sticks to his story that he had nothing to do with it. In a sort of surprise twist (but not really), it turns out Ellison did dig him up and we see him turn the body over to Weaver.

This was another great episode. This series is on a roll and not letting up. Even the slower episodes like this one are incredibly interesting and entertaining. They’ve got a killer writing and directing staff.

The A-Train’s “Complication” Rating: 4 out of 5 Greys.