Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – The Turk

by Melissa Voelker

It is dreaming with Sarah Connor again, as she fantasizes about killing the scientists that invented the nuclear bomb. As usual this turns into a nightmare about terminators, and as usual ends badly for her. When she wakes up she and John hash out the real reason the resistance fighters were sent from the future – to hunt down SkyNet. Sarah makes plans to visit Miles Dyson’s widow again for information, while John and Cameron head out for their first day of school. I wonder if the first day in a new school is harder when you are not only a hormonal, emotional, teenager, but also a cyborg from the future and/or the future leader of humanity who also happens to be a time traveler.

John tries to give the terminatrix some pointers on fitting in at school but it looks like they both might need it in this current day high school environment. Of course first thing they have a problem when Cam sets of the metal detectors with her metal skeleton. John has to do some quick thinking and quick talking to get them the rest of the way inside.

Sarah finds Dyson’s widow at the cemetery. She isn’t exactly happy to see Ms. Connor, but they get along okay, even sharing a few pleasantries before getting down to business. Unfortunately this time Mrs. Dyson doesn’t want to help and almost lets Sarah go away with nothing. At the last minute she changes her mind, but there is some verbal bitch slapping that goes along with her intel.

FBI Agent Ellison checks out the scene of the murders where the future resistance fighters met their demise. He isn’t met with much enthusiasm by the cops working the case, and even though they give him nothing concrete to work with, he refuses to just give up and believe it was nothing more than the scene of bunch of drug dealers getting executed. The Connor’s last terminator friend is on the prowl as well, breaking into a hospital to stock up on possibly useful items, like bags of blood.

[nms:terminator,2,0]

Sarah stalks the one guy Mrs. Dyson gives her as a former CyberDyne employee, which means he may be a link to SkyNet. Andy now sells cellular phones, and tries flirting a little with Sarah. She buys three phones from him which leads to him calling her on one and following her out of the store to ask her to dinner. At first she seems totally against the idea but after a few minutes seems to rethink her decision and eventually agrees.

At school, John tries to fit in with the regular kids but finds that difficult with Cameron following him around to his classes. She isn’t the only one on his tail, though. Agent Ellison is following in the Connor’s footsteps, showing up at Enrique’s nephew’s house to have a little chat. The nephew and his gang don’t seem too afraid of him, but he doesn’t act too afraid of them either, even when they work their intimidation techniques on him.

Later that afternoon, the kids return from school and give Sarah the usual teen responses to her inquiries about how the day went. Then Sarah fills them in on finding her first possible link to Cyberdyne/SkyNet, and the fact that she will be having dinner with him. John seems a little surprised she has a date with Andy, and Cameron seems a little surprised she isn’t going to just kill him.

The terminator kidnaps a doctor and demands he build something from a very complex formula. At first the doc says it isn’t possible, but after a few minutes realizes it is in fact something he can do. Still knowing nothing about the killer robot who tagged along on their jump through time, Sarah goes off on her date. She tries to grill Andy for information on his background, seeking to weed out whether or not he is the SkyNet threat. At first it seems like he is nothing more than a geeky cellphone salesman with a rather boring past, but after finding a chess poster with a suspiciously familiar robot hand on it, she demands to know what it is he really does. And that turns out to be designing an A.I. called The Turk that can beat any person or machine in chess. But this secret spy mission is cut short when Sarah catches sight of a prowler outside, though her quick glimpse doesn’t reveal what is shown in the bushes moments later – the “prowler” has a barcode tattoo he would have gotten in a SkyNet work camp in the future.

Back at home John gives Sarah the fifth degree on The Turk. For once he actually sounds like the man he is destined to become. He wants to know if this is just a machine that plays chess, or an A.I. platform that needs to be eliminated. Then, after making himself sound so together and in charge, he reminds her that SHE promised to take care of the cyborg threat to humanity. But maybe that threat came with them through time; the terminator and his captive doc are making some great strides in cyborg manufacturing. It looks like it won’t be long before a monster robot that was in pieces is fully operational once again and back on the hunt.

Sarah gets her test results from the oncology lab and it looks like a clean bill of health, but she wants to know what to do to prevent cancer from showing up at a later date. Unfortunately there isn’t much her physician can tell her to do to prevent it, when she currently is completely healthy with no risk factors. Still, knowing she is probably on borrowed time pushes Sarah to make a decision regarding Andy.

Back at school, John tries to flirt with a girl from his Chemistry class though it doesn’t seem to be getting him anywhere. Cameron runs into some girls in the restroom that don’t like her attitude, and when she tries to console another girl who is being hazed it doesn’t go over too well. She just doesn’t seem to be able to relate properly to other teenagers. While things go not so great for the kiddies, Sarah meets with Andy for a walk in the park. He talks some more about The Turk, and things start to look bad for him. He isn’t just building the ultimate chess player and Sarah recognizes they have a problem and she may have to kill him after all.

Cameron and John meet up at school and it is very apparent that she doesn’t understand what is going on with the people around her. Moments later her “new friend” who she did not console very well in the bathroom shows up ready to jump off the gym and John wants to save her. Cameron refuses to let him, even when he orders her to. The girl throws herself off the roof and Cam tells John to run. He is pissed that he wasn’t allowed to do anything to help, but Sarah sides with Cameron. Once again John shows his inner leader, before storming off in a huff. Cam doesn’t waste time on John’s anger, instead telling Sarah that Andy must die. But Sarah can’t do it, instead burning down Andy’s house with The Turk inside.

And rising from a bath of blood, the terminator is reborn into the waiting arms of his doctor helper, new flesh having grown over his metal form. This probably does not bode will for the Connor clan.

The writing for this episode was consistent with that in the last, still not as strong as it could be but not losing anything in this second week. It moved away from the episodic feel of having a new terminator threat each episode and started into what seems like the much broader idea of hunting down the scientists that create SkyNet. The problem with this, however, is that it is not feasible to believe they can stop every single spark of A.I. that pops up in the world. They can certainly keep burning up chess playing robots and thinking computers, but there will continue to be more and more scientists working on the technology so its really a never-ending battle. And who is to say that even if they stopped SkyNet, another computer defense system wouldn’t be built and take its place as the instigator of the robotocalypse?

And I’m a little confused as to why Cameron is so bad at assimilating into teen society. When John first met her she was undercover at his high school and he had no clue she was a cyborg. She laughed, flirted, and talked like a completely normal girl. So why has she suddenly lost her ability to fit in? Her dialogue gets more stilted and inhuman the more she talks. This bothers me, as it doesn’t seem to make sense. Shouldn’t she act more human as time goes on, instead of less?

Another plot point that rubs me the wrong way is how informed Sarah and John seem to be with current technology and society. Are they spending their free time reading up on everything they missed over the last eight years? Are they learning how to use the computer and cellphones and digital cable and DVR’s? Because it sure seems like they are catching on to things a little too easy. John just jumps into his classes at school and they don’t show him struggling or anything. Except for needing 9/11 explained to her, Sarah doesn’t seem to be confused by anything either. That just strikes me as a little unrealistic. Sure their jump through time didn’t span centuries or even decades, but it was still long enough that there should be some problems fitting in.

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About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.

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