2.20 To The Lighthouse Recap
Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles Rewatch:
Episode 20, To The Lighthouse
Very image heavy.
Previously
Going through the history of Charley Dixon: Sarah leaves him and jumps eight years into the future. When they meet again, he saves Derek, and Sarah finds out that Charley got married. His wife Michelle gets caught in the crossfire and bleeds out while the gang tries to escape Cromartie.
Also mentioned: Sarah "jumping" over her cancer diagnosis; Sarah investigating the factory in the desert, its suspicious activities, and its mysteriously destruction; Derek and Jesse's secret relationship; John and Riley's not-secret but potentially dangerous relationship; Jesse killing Riley; Derek maybe/maybe not killing Jesse; and the Connors' agreeing that it's about time for them to move on.
Sarah Connor: (voiceover) When John was a child, the legends of the jungles were his fairy tales. His favorite was the story of El Viejo del Monte, "The Old Man of the Forest." A merciless hunter who killed every animal in his path. El Viejo didn't eat his prey, he left it behind to rot in the soil. To teach him a lesson, the gods turned him into a simisco: half-animal, half-man. He was condemned to defend the jungle for all eternity. This was El Viejo's punishment, this was his curse. To forever be vigilant. To forever protect.
John spots a colorful parrot in the trees, but Sarah tells him that they have to keep moving. When John asks why they are so far from camp, Sarah tells him that it's "all a part of the game." John knows that it's not a game. It's training. Sarah insists that if they call it a game it's more fun, but John still isn't swayed. "The point is listen to me," Sarah says eventually.
"I always listen," John responds. "You don't talk that much."
Back in the present, John comes in to tells her that they have to go. Cameron and Derek are packing up the house, loading their possessions into their vehicles. Sarah asks Derek how long it will take him to pack up the storage locker -- awhile, there are some explosives that need securing. She cautions that he should get to the safe house before dark as it might be hard to find. Derek assures her that he can follow directions. She is quick to respond that he can also make mistakes and that she wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt, reminding him of the consequences of his secret relationship with Jesse.
Cameron recites the coordinations of the safe house in the desert, remarking that Sarah "likes the desert."
"Things happen there," Sarah says, to which Cameron responds, "Things happen here, too."
John tries to keep the peace, saying that they're starting over and that whatever happened in the house was no one's fault. The group load up the truck and the SUV and drive away: John and Sarah in the SUV, Derek and Cameron in the truck.
Meanwhile at ZeiraCorp, Savannah enters the Top Secret basement lab where John Henry is "engaging in imaginative play to help (his) development." He invites Savannah to play with him. He introduces her to the complex world of Bionicles; she introduces him to the duckies. John Henry tells her that he can find no reference to the duckies in the game's instructions. When asked what's wrong, Savannah tells him that the duckies are sad because they can't play. "Can't you change the rules to make them happy?" she asks.
"Yes," he replies, "we can change the rules."
She comes over to his side of the table, but a sudden power surge interrupts, cutting off John Henry. The lights flicker and then some of other type of program seems to start running (you can tell because it's a different color). John Henry tries to speak, or more likely, whatever has taken him over attempts to familiarize itself with Cromartie's endoskeleton. One of them grabs Savannah's wrist (still holding a toy block), and in a mechanical voice asks, "What is all this about?" Savannah, alarmed, tries to free herself from his grip telling him that he's hurting her. Unmoved, he continues, "I understand what this is about."
Savannah screams and runs from the lab, while the monitors continue to flash bizarre symbols on the displays.
As whoever is in control of John Henry's body tries to open an equipment door, Murch runs in, slides across the floor, and snaps off the power console. Cromartie falls to the floor, powered down. A moment later, Weaver and Ellison (carrying Savannah) enter.
And back with the Connors: John is flipping through the stations, there seems to be some sort of strange static on all stations. Sarah punches him. "Bug slug," she informs him, in a light mood from being on the road together again. John realizes that she is not headed toward the desert. They're taking a detour.
Back at the lab, Murch brings an analysis to Weaver and Ellison. Good news: John Henry's "daemons" are running fine in the background. Bad news: the power interruption came from the outside. The really bad news: malware was loaded and Murch believes someone wants to "kill" John Henry.
Cameron and Derek are packing up the storage locker. When Derek points out that Sarah sent them to get John away from Cameron, Cameron responds, "Or from you." She notices that he has a jacket that (belongs? belonged? Cameron says "belongs") -- she notices that he has a jacket belonging to Jesse and Derek makes it clear that it is not a topic that is up for discussion. But Cameron knows that he loved Jesse, "you wouldn't have fathered a child with her if you didn't." Derek pulls his weapon on Cameron, ordering her to explain herself. Jesse was carrying a child aboard the submarine in 2027 and she miscarried. Derek exits the locker.
Outside on the loading dock, Derek asks Cameron why she chose to tell him about Jesse now. He put John in danger -- Sarah nearly lost John (her child), and Derek lost a child. He won't make that mistake again. He realizes that Cameron and Jesse must have known each other in the future.
He says, "She never told me that."
"It seems she never told you a lot of things," Cameron replies.
Sarah brings John to a lighthouse caretaker's home. Sarah disables the alarm; John looks around and sees the monitors for security cameras placed outside. The house seems unoccupied when they first arrive, but soon Charley enters to John's pleasant surprise. Over "bouillabaisse" (made with tomatoes Charley grew), Charley explains to John that Sarah set up this safe house after Charley's wife Michelle died. After Sarah puts his things in the spare room, John asks Sarah about Derek and Cameron who do not know where they have gone. She assures him that they'll meet up tomorrow. Charley is standoffish to Sarah. She explains that she won't "be here long." Charley and John go to the dock to work on his boat.
Charley and John talk about Riley. Charley asks John if he loved her. John says maybe, if things were different. "You could say that about a lot of things," Charley tells him.
"You could say that about my whole damn life, but it's not, so what's the point?" John replies.
Charley talks about how he felt seeing women who resembled Michelle. He is still grieving, but he is recovering. John changes the subject, asking what kind of explosives Charley has rigged the beach with. Charley has hard-wired explosives around the house, triggered from the dock if needed, to give him an escape path via boat. A boat can't stop bullets, but it would at least give him a chance.
"Those bastards can't swim. I can."
While John is sleeping, Sarah thinks back to when he was young, making sure he slept with his hand on his gun.
Charley returns from a shopping trip. Sarah reminds him of a customer from her waitress days, a man who pledged to always be there for her no strings attached. Then he came in one day and told her that she had found someone else -- Charley -- who would always be there for her. "Someone I could depend on, someone I could trust, someone who would never, ever let me down."
"I got nothing, Sarah," Charley responds. "I got nothing left to give you."
Not for her, she tells him, for John. She takes his hand and places it against her breast. He realizes that there is a lump. How long? he asks. She found the lump a few days ago. Cameron explained that when they jumped eight years in time, they jumped over Sarah's death. But she thinks she may have sped up the date of her demise by things she has done.
At the lab, Murch prepares to turn John Henry back on. Weaver gives the order to activate the AI, but without access to outside resources.
John Henry responds on a monitor in basic text: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
At the lighthouse, John, Sarah, and Charley eat breakfast together, giving the dog pancakes.
Murch explains that John Henry processes more information in a millisecond than a human does in a year -- the power loss was like a slow death to the AI. Now, they've taken away his world of data and it's akin to starving him.
Ellison is hesitant, but Weaver responds, "in for a penny, in for a pound, James," as she plugs the cord into the back of John Henry's head. He reactivates, saying that he knows what it feels like to die and then come back. "There is another," he says, "another one like me."
As Charley loads his boat, John confronts Sarah about not telling Derek and Cameron where they are. Sarah doesn't trust him anymore and John shouldn't either. John defends Derek, Sarah counters that he chose himself over and John, and John insists that it was over his love for Jesse.
"I'm not here for Charley," she explains. "We're here for you. People matter, John, they're all that matters.
In the jungle flashback, Sarah observes the campsite after waking and notices that John is missing. She calls his name, searching for him. A gun is cocked behind her, she puts her hands up.
"I won," Young John says proudly, "I was alone and you couldn't fine me. That's the game, right?"
At the clinic, Sarah has an ultrasound exam for the lump. Good news: it's not a lump, but a cystic mass. Weird news: it's formed around a piece of metal. Bad news: that piece of metal is a transmitter. Sarah has a flash that Winston injected her and she has been tracked.
A uniformed man walks through the clinic, looking at what appears to be a handheld tracking device. At the same time, Derek and Cameron drive away from the dock, followed by a van and two men in the same uniform, while at the lighthouse, a water delivery man -- similarly uniformed -- approaches the house.
Sarah tucks her gun into the back of her jeans and gets the defibrillator car, asking the doctor if it will kill her. After having the doctor leave the room, she activates the paddles against her chest, burning out the transmitter and knocking herself unconscious. The tracking device shorts out and the delivery man continues his search.
As Derek thanks Cameron for telling him about Jesse, one of the truck tires blows out. Derek tells Cameron to fix the tire while he goes to investigate a suspicious van parked in the distance. As he approaches the van, he sees a man laid across the seats. The second man is hidden and hits Derek with a taser. Cameron spots Derek being lifted into the van and begins running toward the van, weapon drawn. The men drive toward her, shooting Cameron (who is unaffected); Cameron however shoots the passenger. The van spins and drives off, while Cameron scans its bumper tag.
At the lighthouse, Charley and John come in moments before the alarms go off.
At the clinic, Sarah regains consciousness in time to defibrillate her guy in the face.
John and Charley run to the boat, bullets flying around them. They return fire, and Charley triggers the explosives while John starts the boat.
At the lab, John Henry explains that he's traced the roving backdoor that infiltrated him. It was fay beyond the intelligence of Ellison, Murch, or any other human. It uploaded itself, and the worm program is present in a significant percentage of the world's computer -- it is there without detection and there searching for John Henry. When Weaver asks why, John Henry explains that they are brothers. He has found a picture of the Cyberdyne Systems logo in ASCII text in the worm code comments as well as the name of the programmer: Miles Dyson. He died in an explosion, the apparent victim of the known terrorist Sarah Connor. It was Ellison's case. Ellison lies, saying he never found Sarah Connor.
"John Henry, this intelligence, your brother? What does it want?" Weaver asks.
"He wants what we all want, Ms. Weaver," John Henry replies, "To survive."
Cameron finds a warehouse with the van, confirms that the tags match, and tears open a section of fence with her hands. She draws her gun and enters. Inside the building, she is drenched with water and someone charges the floor with a cable. A man enters, asking on a cell phone for instructions on where to cut her. On his phone, an exoskeleton appears, showing an entry point on the top of the head. "Where did you get this diagram?" he asks, instead of immediately getting to work. Someone responds on the other end. "Your brother? You don't say?"
While Derek is secured to a chair, Cameron reboots and strangles the man. She frees Derek and tells him simply, "You're welcome," before walking away.
"Why'd you come after me?"
"You know the location of the safe house. John's location. If they tortured you -- "
"That would never happen."
"It has before."
Sarah enters the lighthouse residence, finding signs of a struggle. They killed the dog. She runs to the dock to find the intruder dead, the boat gone, and Charley floating in the water, killed by the intruders.
Episode 20, To The Lighthouse
Very image heavy.
Previously
Going through the history of Charley Dixon: Sarah leaves him and jumps eight years into the future. When they meet again, he saves Derek, and Sarah finds out that Charley got married. His wife Michelle gets caught in the crossfire and bleeds out while the gang tries to escape Cromartie.
Also mentioned: Sarah "jumping" over her cancer diagnosis; Sarah investigating the factory in the desert, its suspicious activities, and its mysteriously destruction; Derek and Jesse's secret relationship; John and Riley's not-secret but potentially dangerous relationship; Jesse killing Riley; Derek maybe/maybe not killing Jesse; and the Connors' agreeing that it's about time for them to move on.
Sarah Connor: (voiceover) When John was a child, the legends of the jungles were his fairy tales. His favorite was the story of El Viejo del Monte, "The Old Man of the Forest." A merciless hunter who killed every animal in his path. El Viejo didn't eat his prey, he left it behind to rot in the soil. To teach him a lesson, the gods turned him into a simisco: half-animal, half-man. He was condemned to defend the jungle for all eternity. This was El Viejo's punishment, this was his curse. To forever be vigilant. To forever protect.
John spots a colorful parrot in the trees, but Sarah tells him that they have to keep moving. When John asks why they are so far from camp, Sarah tells him that it's "all a part of the game." John knows that it's not a game. It's training. Sarah insists that if they call it a game it's more fun, but John still isn't swayed. "The point is listen to me," Sarah says eventually.
"I always listen," John responds. "You don't talk that much."
Back in the present, John comes in to tells her that they have to go. Cameron and Derek are packing up the house, loading their possessions into their vehicles. Sarah asks Derek how long it will take him to pack up the storage locker -- awhile, there are some explosives that need securing. She cautions that he should get to the safe house before dark as it might be hard to find. Derek assures her that he can follow directions. She is quick to respond that he can also make mistakes and that she wouldn't want anyone else to get hurt, reminding him of the consequences of his secret relationship with Jesse.
Cameron recites the coordinations of the safe house in the desert, remarking that Sarah "likes the desert."
"Things happen there," Sarah says, to which Cameron responds, "Things happen here, too."
John tries to keep the peace, saying that they're starting over and that whatever happened in the house was no one's fault. The group load up the truck and the SUV and drive away: John and Sarah in the SUV, Derek and Cameron in the truck.
Meanwhile at ZeiraCorp, Savannah enters the Top Secret basement lab where John Henry is "engaging in imaginative play to help (his) development." He invites Savannah to play with him. He introduces her to the complex world of Bionicles; she introduces him to the duckies. John Henry tells her that he can find no reference to the duckies in the game's instructions. When asked what's wrong, Savannah tells him that the duckies are sad because they can't play. "Can't you change the rules to make them happy?" she asks.
"Yes," he replies, "we can change the rules."
She comes over to his side of the table, but a sudden power surge interrupts, cutting off John Henry. The lights flicker and then some of other type of program seems to start running (you can tell because it's a different color). John Henry tries to speak, or more likely, whatever has taken him over attempts to familiarize itself with Cromartie's endoskeleton. One of them grabs Savannah's wrist (still holding a toy block), and in a mechanical voice asks, "What is all this about?" Savannah, alarmed, tries to free herself from his grip telling him that he's hurting her. Unmoved, he continues, "I understand what this is about."
Savannah screams and runs from the lab, while the monitors continue to flash bizarre symbols on the displays.
As whoever is in control of John Henry's body tries to open an equipment door, Murch runs in, slides across the floor, and snaps off the power console. Cromartie falls to the floor, powered down. A moment later, Weaver and Ellison (carrying Savannah) enter.
And back with the Connors: John is flipping through the stations, there seems to be some sort of strange static on all stations. Sarah punches him. "Bug slug," she informs him, in a light mood from being on the road together again. John realizes that she is not headed toward the desert. They're taking a detour.
Back at the lab, Murch brings an analysis to Weaver and Ellison. Good news: John Henry's "daemons" are running fine in the background. Bad news: the power interruption came from the outside. The really bad news: malware was loaded and Murch believes someone wants to "kill" John Henry.
Cameron and Derek are packing up the storage locker. When Derek points out that Sarah sent them to get John away from Cameron, Cameron responds, "Or from you." She notices that he has a jacket that (belongs? belonged? Cameron says "belongs") -- she notices that he has a jacket belonging to Jesse and Derek makes it clear that it is not a topic that is up for discussion. But Cameron knows that he loved Jesse, "you wouldn't have fathered a child with her if you didn't." Derek pulls his weapon on Cameron, ordering her to explain herself. Jesse was carrying a child aboard the submarine in 2027 and she miscarried. Derek exits the locker.
Outside on the loading dock, Derek asks Cameron why she chose to tell him about Jesse now. He put John in danger -- Sarah nearly lost John (her child), and Derek lost a child. He won't make that mistake again. He realizes that Cameron and Jesse must have known each other in the future.
He says, "She never told me that."
"It seems she never told you a lot of things," Cameron replies.
Sarah brings John to a lighthouse caretaker's home. Sarah disables the alarm; John looks around and sees the monitors for security cameras placed outside. The house seems unoccupied when they first arrive, but soon Charley enters to John's pleasant surprise. Over "bouillabaisse" (made with tomatoes Charley grew), Charley explains to John that Sarah set up this safe house after Charley's wife Michelle died. After Sarah puts his things in the spare room, John asks Sarah about Derek and Cameron who do not know where they have gone. She assures him that they'll meet up tomorrow. Charley is standoffish to Sarah. She explains that she won't "be here long." Charley and John go to the dock to work on his boat.
Charley and John talk about Riley. Charley asks John if he loved her. John says maybe, if things were different. "You could say that about a lot of things," Charley tells him.
"You could say that about my whole damn life, but it's not, so what's the point?" John replies.
Charley talks about how he felt seeing women who resembled Michelle. He is still grieving, but he is recovering. John changes the subject, asking what kind of explosives Charley has rigged the beach with. Charley has hard-wired explosives around the house, triggered from the dock if needed, to give him an escape path via boat. A boat can't stop bullets, but it would at least give him a chance.
"Those bastards can't swim. I can."
While John is sleeping, Sarah thinks back to when he was young, making sure he slept with his hand on his gun.
Charley returns from a shopping trip. Sarah reminds him of a customer from her waitress days, a man who pledged to always be there for her no strings attached. Then he came in one day and told her that she had found someone else -- Charley -- who would always be there for her. "Someone I could depend on, someone I could trust, someone who would never, ever let me down."
"I got nothing, Sarah," Charley responds. "I got nothing left to give you."
Not for her, she tells him, for John. She takes his hand and places it against her breast. He realizes that there is a lump. How long? he asks. She found the lump a few days ago. Cameron explained that when they jumped eight years in time, they jumped over Sarah's death. But she thinks she may have sped up the date of her demise by things she has done.
At the lab, Murch prepares to turn John Henry back on. Weaver gives the order to activate the AI, but without access to outside resources.
John Henry responds on a monitor in basic text: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
At the lighthouse, John, Sarah, and Charley eat breakfast together, giving the dog pancakes.
Murch explains that John Henry processes more information in a millisecond than a human does in a year -- the power loss was like a slow death to the AI. Now, they've taken away his world of data and it's akin to starving him.
Ellison is hesitant, but Weaver responds, "in for a penny, in for a pound, James," as she plugs the cord into the back of John Henry's head. He reactivates, saying that he knows what it feels like to die and then come back. "There is another," he says, "another one like me."
As Charley loads his boat, John confronts Sarah about not telling Derek and Cameron where they are. Sarah doesn't trust him anymore and John shouldn't either. John defends Derek, Sarah counters that he chose himself over and John, and John insists that it was over his love for Jesse.
"I'm not here for Charley," she explains. "We're here for you. People matter, John, they're all that matters.
In the jungle flashback, Sarah observes the campsite after waking and notices that John is missing. She calls his name, searching for him. A gun is cocked behind her, she puts her hands up.
"I won," Young John says proudly, "I was alone and you couldn't fine me. That's the game, right?"
At the clinic, Sarah has an ultrasound exam for the lump. Good news: it's not a lump, but a cystic mass. Weird news: it's formed around a piece of metal. Bad news: that piece of metal is a transmitter. Sarah has a flash that Winston injected her and she has been tracked.
A uniformed man walks through the clinic, looking at what appears to be a handheld tracking device. At the same time, Derek and Cameron drive away from the dock, followed by a van and two men in the same uniform, while at the lighthouse, a water delivery man -- similarly uniformed -- approaches the house.
Sarah tucks her gun into the back of her jeans and gets the defibrillator car, asking the doctor if it will kill her. After having the doctor leave the room, she activates the paddles against her chest, burning out the transmitter and knocking herself unconscious. The tracking device shorts out and the delivery man continues his search.
As Derek thanks Cameron for telling him about Jesse, one of the truck tires blows out. Derek tells Cameron to fix the tire while he goes to investigate a suspicious van parked in the distance. As he approaches the van, he sees a man laid across the seats. The second man is hidden and hits Derek with a taser. Cameron spots Derek being lifted into the van and begins running toward the van, weapon drawn. The men drive toward her, shooting Cameron (who is unaffected); Cameron however shoots the passenger. The van spins and drives off, while Cameron scans its bumper tag.
At the lighthouse, Charley and John come in moments before the alarms go off.
At the clinic, Sarah regains consciousness in time to defibrillate her guy in the face.
John and Charley run to the boat, bullets flying around them. They return fire, and Charley triggers the explosives while John starts the boat.
At the lab, John Henry explains that he's traced the roving backdoor that infiltrated him. It was fay beyond the intelligence of Ellison, Murch, or any other human. It uploaded itself, and the worm program is present in a significant percentage of the world's computer -- it is there without detection and there searching for John Henry. When Weaver asks why, John Henry explains that they are brothers. He has found a picture of the Cyberdyne Systems logo in ASCII text in the worm code comments as well as the name of the programmer: Miles Dyson. He died in an explosion, the apparent victim of the known terrorist Sarah Connor. It was Ellison's case. Ellison lies, saying he never found Sarah Connor.
"John Henry, this intelligence, your brother? What does it want?" Weaver asks.
"He wants what we all want, Ms. Weaver," John Henry replies, "To survive."
Cameron finds a warehouse with the van, confirms that the tags match, and tears open a section of fence with her hands. She draws her gun and enters. Inside the building, she is drenched with water and someone charges the floor with a cable. A man enters, asking on a cell phone for instructions on where to cut her. On his phone, an exoskeleton appears, showing an entry point on the top of the head. "Where did you get this diagram?" he asks, instead of immediately getting to work. Someone responds on the other end. "Your brother? You don't say?"
While Derek is secured to a chair, Cameron reboots and strangles the man. She frees Derek and tells him simply, "You're welcome," before walking away.
"Why'd you come after me?"
"You know the location of the safe house. John's location. If they tortured you -- "
"That would never happen."
"It has before."
Sarah enters the lighthouse residence, finding signs of a struggle. They killed the dog. She runs to the dock to find the intruder dead, the boat gone, and Charley floating in the water, killed by the intruders.