Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – Today is the Day, pt 2

By Melissa Voelker

This has to have been one of the best episodes of the entire series. In fact it was so good, and so much better than “Today is the Day, part 1,” that I am just going to pretend Part 1 didn’t exist. That episode was dumb, and didn’t feel right to me one little bit, so it no longer exists. POOF! (I can do that; I’ve decided it’s my superpower now.)

In Part 2 of “Today is the Day,” the submarine mission led by a cyborg goes horribly wrong, John Connor grows a brain and some testicles, and John Henry paints some models. (Okay, the painting models thing isn’t quite as epic as the other two plot points, but it was pretty amusing so I mentioned it anyway.) In the present Jessie goes for a swim and thinks back to her past-future submarine days, when her crew picked up a mystery package for John Connor and then started to go a little crazy. But it was exactly the right kind of crazy. They wanted to know what they were risking their lives for, why they weren’t getting any details from their cyborg commander, and whether or not they should even be trusting their cyborg commander. When no answers were forthcoming, they took it upon themselves to learn what was in the mystery package. Of course opening it led to even more problems, as a liquidy cyborg popped free, killed a crew member, and then took off into the bowels of the ship. This did not sit well with the human members of the crew, and soon they were at each other’s throats and violence ensued. When Captain Queeg the cyborg commander refused to stand down though Jessie demanded it, she took matters into her own hands and destroyed him.

After her flashbacky moments in the pool, present-past Jessie returns to her hotel room to find John Connor waiting for her. Angry but calm, and a little bit more badass then we are used to seeing him, John reveals that he knows it was she that killed his little blonde love interest, Riley. In fact he knew for a while that she was from the future and working with Jessie on some secret mission. But though he is obviously pissed off and more than a little hurt, John doesn’t kill Jessie for what she did. He just sends her away, after telling her that her plan to turn him against Cameron wouldn’t have worked even if he hadn’t known the truth. Jessie flees the scene, only to run into Derek waiting for her in a parking garage. He is obviously just as (if not more so) pissed off than John was, and doesn’t seem to be feeling as generous about sparing her life as his nephew was.

And while John and Derek and Jessie are working through their emotional trust issues, John Henry is working through some issues of his own. He has been learning a lot from Agent Ellison, and has begun to consider the human man his friend. But he has stumbled upon some unsettling information in Catherine Weaver’s personal files – a letter of resignation from Agent Ellison that says he is leaving for a job in another country, but that has no date on it yet (and obviously wasn’t written with Ellison’s knowledge or approval.) John Henry wants to know if Weaver is going to kill his one and only friend; an idea that doesn’t look like it sits well with him.

For the most part this was a truly strong and interesting episode. The reaction of the human crew on the submarine when they weren’t told what was in the mystery box – and then their degeneration into a mutinous bunch of paranoid psychos – was exactly what we should have seen last week. It doesn’t matter if a cyborg has been wiped of its original programming and is supposedly a good guy now, none of these human soldiers would have really trusted it. Having spent most of their lives fighting against SkyNet and its robot soldiers, they would have been extremely wary of serving with machines. So to see them lose their cools and start fighting with each other and their “captain” was satisfying to watch. A little dark and sad and violent and ugly, but still satisfying.

It was also quite nice to see John stand on his own two feet for a change. Every once in a while he shows us that he could actually grow up to be the savior of humanity and a military genius, such as in this episode. Not only was he able to figure out that Cameron didn’t kill Riley, but he knew exactly who had really done it. And he revealed that he had known about Riley and Jessie for a long time before his girlfriend’s death. While I don’t know that I would have let Jessie live like he did, I could understand the reasons for his actions. Humans are not replaceable, even ones that do yucky nasty things to other people because they feel they have some really important reason to do so.

One of the most intriguing parts of this episode was the scene with John Henry and Catherine Weaver when he asked if she is going to kill Agent Ellison. This came after all of his lessons on the importance of human life, and the moment when he first seemed to decide Ellison had become his friend. I have a feeling that if and when Weaver tries to make a move against Ellison, John Henry is going to interfere and probably put a stop to it. Maybe that has something to do with Judgment Day, and maybe it doesn’t, but it will still be interesting to watch.

There were a couple of missteps in this episode. Jessie’s angry verbal attack on Captain Queeg sounded a little forced and unnatural to me. Maybe it is because of her accent, or maybe she just didn’t know how to play the scene well. The scene between her and Derek where he pulled his gun out to shoot her was a little forced as well. It was set up to be heart-wrenching and emotional, and I almost fell for it, but then we didn’t actually see Jessie die, which means in all likelihood it didn’t happen, and that is a bit of a cheat.

But even with those few blips in the story, this remains probably the best episode of the entire series. It moved along quickly, it felt realistic, it didn’t rely on time-travel nonsense, and it was entertaining from beginning to end. If the writers can manage to stick to this formula for the rest of the season, this show might actually become worth watching.

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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.