Fandom Overview: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
In the future, my son will lead mankind in a war against Skynet. A computer system programmed to destroy the world. It has sent machines back through time. Some to kill him, one to protect him. Today we fight to stop Skynet from ever being created. To change our future. To change his fate. The war to save man kind begins now.
- Sarah Connor (Season One, Episode One Opening Monologue)
In order to understand the television series, it's important to have at least a little background knowledge of the Terminator movies (at least the first and second one). For the purposes of this overview, I've gone through all four films and both seasons of the series.
This thing is huge and filled with spoilers. Please read with caution! Also, it is not dial-up friendly!
Also, time travel makes things hard. There are alternate timelines existing in nearly every different film and the series. I give up at trying to make sense of it. If you'd like to try your hand at it, I recommend looking at the Master Timeline created by joyeuxnoel.
Lastly, I owe many thanks to dramady, musesinspire and especially indiefic for their help in putting this together. I couldn’t have done it without them.
All right. Hang on tight, because here we go.
The Terminator
In the original Terminator movie, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is a normal, average 1984 type of woman. She is a waitress and a college student, who suddenly and without explanation, becomes the target of a Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101 Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger).
She is rescued by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who explains to her that she will be the mother of John Connor, a man who will lead mankind to victory in a war against the Terminator Machines in the future. Reese explains that in the future, an artificial intelligence called Skynet will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions. Reese explains that once Skynet became self aware, "It decided our fate in a microsecond. Extermination." Skynet seizes control of most of the world's military hardware (including various highly-advanced robots), and launches a nuclear attack on humanity at large.
John Connor eventually leads the human resistance group known as Tech-Com to victory. However, he somehow discovers that in a last-ditch effort to win, Skynet had researched time travel and sent a robotic killer back in time in an effort to destroy John Connor before he can be born. Thus, the Terminator has been sent back to kill Sarah Connor.
John has sent his most trusted sergeant and best friend, Kyle Reese, back to protect his mother. As the two humans fight against the nearly indestructible Terminator, Sarah falls in love with Kyle. She realizes that he has given up everything he has ever known to come back and protect her. Kyle reveals that John gave him a picture of Sarah when the two men were in a prison camp together, and Kyle fell in love with her legend, her strength and her courage. They share a single night together, before once again fleeing from the Terminator.
In what becomes a twist of time creating itself, the Terminator chases Sarah and a severely injured Kyle into a factory. In a last ditch battle, Kyle sacrifices his own life to try and stop the Terminator, but is unsuccessful. In the end, Sarah crushes the Terminator in a hydraulic press, leaving only crushed remnants of it behind.
The movie ends with Sarah dictating a tape to her unborn child and agonizing over what to tell him about Kyle, "if you don't send Kyle, you can never be." While she is doing this, a child takes a photograph of her, which in turn becomes the photograph that John eventually gives Kyle. In effect, John Connor created himself by sending back Kyle Reese, and the Terminator's remains become the basis from which Cyberdyne eventually creates Skynet.
Some people believe that the predestination paradoxes created by this story are actually a subsequent timeline created by John's decision to send Kyle back. If this is true, then the original John Connor was another man's child. I suggest that anyone who cares that much about timeline paradoxes abandon ship immediately, because if you think the timeline is FUBAR now, you've not seen anything yet!
Sarah:
Kyle:
The Terminator:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Judgment Day is the name given to the day that Skynet uses nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy humankind. The movie begins approximately ten - twelve years later (depending on which timeline you choose to believe).
After the events of Terminator, Sarah Connor sets out to become the legendary soldier Kyle Reese told her that she was. She learned about weapons and warfare, in order to teach her son how to protect himself and how to be the military leader the world would need him to be. Along the way, she attempted to blow up Cyberdyne Laboratories and was captured. Because her story (killer machines from the future) was so outrageous, she was placed in Pescadero State Mental Hospital. From the beginning of the movie, fans learn that Sarah Connor is no longer a quiet, mousy woman. Instead, she has become an extremely toned, extremely dangerous, and extremely violent fighter.
John Connor is living with foster parents, Todd and Janelle Voight. Having failed to kill Sarah Connor, Skynet sends back a second Terminator, model T-1000 (Robert Patrick), to kill a young John Connor. The T-1000's major innovation is its "mimetic poly-alloy" construction -- an intelligent liquid metal. This gives the T-1000 the ability to change its appearance and emulate virtually anything. It is capable of perfectly copying the shape, color, and texture of anything that it touches that is of similar size. The only restriction is that it cannot form complex machines, such as "guns and explosives" because they "have chemicals [and] moving parts." Also interesting to note, the T-1000 is capable of a greater range of human expression and apparent emotion, enabling it to hide better among everyday people. Finally, the T-1000 is a shape shifter and impersonates a variety of people in its hunt for John Connor.
When the T-1000 comes after John, he manages to escape temporarily, only to eventually be rescued by a Series 800 Model 101 Terminator (again played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), the same model that was originally sent to kill Sarah Connor. The Terminator reveals that it has been instructed by a future John Connor to return to rescue his childhood self. It has also been instructed to obey whatever order young John gives it.
Against the Terminator's advice, John orders it to rescue Sarah Connor. The T-1000 has obviously realized that Sarah is John's weak point and sets out to capture her for himself. The police, having pictures of the original Terminator, go to the hospital to seek Sarah's help in identifying the newest Terminator sighting. She pretends to be in a catatonic state, allowing her to escape careful supervision, and then escape her hospital room. As she is fleeing, she encounters the T-101 and panics. It instructs her to "come with [it], if she wants to live," echoing Kyle's first words to her. While she absorbs that, John comes to her side. The three manage to escape from the hospital with the T-1000 in close pursuit.
Afterward, Sarah scathingly dresses John down for coming to her rescue when his first priority should have been his own safety. This exchange is indicative of the strained relationship that the two have with each other at this point, and into the future. Sarah has an extremely difficult time accepting the T-101's benevolent nature, and a worse time accepting John's growing relationship with the machine. Over the course of the movie, the T-101 becomes almost like a surrogate father to John.
In a moment of desperation, Sarah decides the best way to protect her son is to change the future. She finds out from the Terminator that Skynet is built by Miles Dyson at Cyberdyne Laboratories. She sets out to his home and prepares to kill him with a sniper rifle. She is stopped at the last minute by John, who has struggled through the film to remind his mother, and teach the machine, about the value of human life. Instead, John orders the T-101 to show its true self to Miles Dyson, and together, he and Sarah are able to persuade Miles to abandon and destroy his research, with the goal of preventing Judgment Day.
When the four of them go to the Cyberdyne facilities, they are confronted once more by the T-1000. Miles Dyson is killed, but the T-101, with Sarah's help, is able to defeat the T-1000. The arm and cracked chip of the original Terminator from the first movie are cast into a pit of molten metal, and in a remarkable show of comprehension and understanding, the T-101 self-terminates, disobeying John's direct command not to in order to prevent his own chip from ever being used to create Skynet.
The movie closes with Sarah's monologue, discussing her hopes that they have changed the future.
Sarah:
John:
The Terminator (Good Guy):
The Terminator (Bad Guy):
Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines
This film appears to be completely ignored by the timeline of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (T:SCC). However, given the flexible nature of time in the series, plus the fourth movie on the horizon, I think its a good idea to at least mention the events of this film.
The events of Terminator 2 changed the future and Judgment Day did not occur as predicted. However, John Connor (Nick Stahl) still does not believe that he is safe, and so, lives "off the grid." His mother, Sarah Connor, died in 1997 after a three year battle with cancer.
While John is drifting across the country, he injures himself and breaks into a veterinary hospital to steal medicine. He is captured, rather spectacularly, by Katherine "Kate" Brewster (Claire Danes). While the two are arguing, it is revealed that John knew Kate prior to the events of Terminator 2. The two had expressed tentative teenage interest in each other, before John had vanished. As they are arguing, they are attacked by a woman, whom they quickly learn is a Terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken). The T-X is armed with a full arsenal of advanced weapons from the future, avoiding the restriction of non-living tissue by carrying them internally, including the ability to remotely control most machines. The T-X, like the T-1000, has the ability to shift appearance.
Over the course of the movie, a T-101 Terminator (Schwarzenegger) comes to their aid. He reveals that he has not been sent back in time by John Connor, but rather by John Connor's wife, Kate Brewster Connor. Unable to locate John Connor, Skynet has sent the T-X back in time to kill Connor's lieutenants, including Kate. When the T-X identifies John, her primary mission changes and reveals that he is, as always, the primary target.
The T-101 also reveals that it killed John Connor in 2032, able to approach because of John's "fondness" for this particular model of Terminator. Kate Brewster takes over the Resistance at that point.
In short, Judgment Day, though once again delayed, still takes place. After the destruction of Cyberdyne Laboratories, the American Air Force has taken over the Skynet project as part of its Cyber Research Systems division, headed by Kate's father, General Robert Brewster. Some sort of super computer virus is affecting the world's computer systems, and in an attempt to stop it, the military activates Skynet minutes before John and Kate arrive to stop it.
Skynet immediately seizes control of the early Terminator machines in the military compounds and uses them to take over various military bases. Wounded, General Brewster tells John and Kate that they can stop Skynet from it's core, hidden in Crystal Peak, a military base concealed in a mountain. Kate and John race to the military base, during which time Skynet continues to advance its agenda and both the T-X and the T-101 are destroyed in a battle against each other, only to find that Skynet has no core. It runs off all the world's computers combined. General Brewster has sent them to a fall out shelter, where they will survive the impending nuclear disaster.
In a moment that foreshadows John's destiny, when panic stricken calls begin to come in over the radio as soldier's frantically attempt to make contact with their superiors, John takes control and begins to issue orders. The movie ends as Judgment Day commences.
John:
Kate:
The Terminator (Good Guy):
The Terminator (Bad Guy):
Terminator 4: Salvation
On May 23, 2008, Warner Bros. released the following plot summary for the film. The synopsis was modified on June 11, 2008:
"Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale), the man fated to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators, and the future he was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they find out a terrible secret that may lead to the possible annihilation of mankind."
John:
T:SCC Season One
Let us begin with the woman herself, Sarah Connor (Lena Heady). She is the kickass warrior woman we met in Judgment Day. For a period of unspecified time, she has been living in West Fork, Nebraska and has gotten engaged to Charley Dixon (Dean Winters). Her son, John (Thomas Dekker), appears to be settled into this lifestyle and seems to be genuinely fond of Charley.
Sarah:
John:
Charley:
After experiencing a nightmare whereby Sarah is forced to watch a Terminator kill John, she announces to him that they are leaving. With no choice, John packs his bag and the Connor's leave Nebraska for Red Valley, New Mexico. When Charley learns of their disappearance, he reports it to the police, which reports to the FBI. One of the Feds, Agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones), tells Charley that his fiancé is actually a murderer. Charley doesn't believe it, but there is little he can do.
Ellison:
John resents the constant upheaval, and complains bitterly that they were safe enough. He blames Sarah for running from Charley and using him as an excuse. However, on his first day of school, a T-888 Terminator, Cromartie (eventually played by Garret Dillahunt), comes to the school as a substitute teacher and calls for "John Reese" during attendance. When John answers, Cromartie pulls out a handgun that was hidden within his leg and shoots at John. The pretty, but strange, girl who introduced herself to John earlier as Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), takes the bullet instead.
Cameron:
Cromartie:
John escapes from the window, and the other students notice Cromartie's robotic leg as he says "Class dismissed", and goes hunting for John. In a cat-and-mouse game in the parking lot, John dodges Cromartie's shots until Cameron arrives in truck, telling John, "Come with me if you want to live."
Cameron reveals that she is a Terminator sent back by John to protect him. In a series of twists and turns, and in order to escape Cromartie and Agent Ellison, Cameron leads the Connors to a bank in Los Angeles, where she stages a robbery. When the three of them are left in the safety deposit box room, Cameron reveals that John sent someone else back even further in time to build a time machine for their use. The Connors escape forward in time, jumping into the year 2007, and leaving everyone behind with the assumption that the Connors died in the explosion that leveled the bank. Cromartie's head rolls through the time jump as well.
Upon their arrival in the future, naked, Cameron steals a car and clothing for them all. Their arrival is taped by a teenager with cell phone and played on the news, which dismisses it as a prank of some sort. Agent Ellison and Charley Dixon, however, recognize Sarah for who she is, even though she's allegedly been dead for nearly a decade.
The Connors are forced to begin again, only this time, they are literally floundering. Events such as 9-11, huge innovations in technology, and the intervening years that they have lost, leave them struggling to adapt. The situation is made worse when John makes contact with Charley only to discover that the paramedic has remarried. Charley, for his part, cannot understand how John hasn't aged at all in the last ten years. The Connors settle into hiding once more, now pretending that Cameron is John's sister.
Cameron tells Sarah that John sent others to the past as well, with instructions to build safe houses, and stores of weapons and money. When Sarah and Cameron attempt to locate a safe house, they discover that a Terminator has killed the resistance fighters leaving the Connors on their own. This Terminator, Vick Chamberlain (Matt McColm ) was a Series 888 terminator sent back to sometime before 2007 to ensure the genesis of Skynet. Meanwhile, Cromartie manages to reconnect with his body and resumes the hunt.
Vick:
Distraught, John struggles with his own destiny. He extracts a promise from Sarah that she will try and change the future. To that end, Sarah, with Cameron's help, begins to hunt down any potential new sources for Skynet's eventual power. It is during one of these missions that Sarah meets Andy Goode (Brendan Hines), a former intern from Cyberdyne Laboratories. Andy has built a chess playing computer, named The Turk, that Sarah believes will eventually be the basis for the creation of Skynet. She begins to infiltrate Andy's life with the hopes of destroying the Turk, going so far as to burn down his house. Andy persists, however, and when he is displaying the Turk at a chess competition, Sarah notices a stranger who seems somehow familiar. Later that day, Sarah goes to Andy's hotel room and runs into the same stranger leaving. When she goes into the room, Sarah finds Andy's body. She gives chase to the stranger, who manages to escape.
Goode:
It turns out that the stranger is Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), Kyle's older brother. John has sent him back to the past to help, but Derek is unstable and has set out on his own agenda: 1) prevent Judgment Day at all costs and 2) find his brother Kyle. Derek is injured by Vick, and Sarah rescues him. When Cameron tells Sarah that it is best to let Derek die, and Sarah refuses, John realizes that there is something special about this man. As they fight to save him, John realizes that Derek is his uncle. Unable to go to a hospital for medical attention, John asks Charley to help them.
Derek:
Derek, medically if not mentally, stabilizes and joins with Sarah on her quest to alter the future. It takes him a while, but he eventually learns that Kyle is dead, and realizes that John is Kyle's son. This is undeniably one of the most bizarre, yet interesting, relationships in the series. Derek is unable to hide his anger/hatred of the John of the future, but he quickly realizes that the John he lives with now needs his help, both to stay alive and to become eventually the man he must become to save them all.
This plot line reveals a lot about the future, as well. Derek's fever dreams show what the world becomes, including several vivid scenes shot in prison camps and the resistance camps. Most importantly, it reveals that John's paternity is a closely guarded secret that no one from the future knew, not even Cameron.
Meanwhile, Agent Ellison has continued to hunt for the Connors, although the more he looks, the more convinced he becomes that Sarah was telling the truth. As tensions mount in the family, Derek discovers that Cameron has lied about destroying Vick's chip after the Connors eliminate Vick itself. However, John is able to build an interface for the chip, and they realize that the Terminator was protecting a traffic control system which will eventually form part of Skynet.
Sarah immediately sets out to destroy this system (ARTIE). She and Derek break into the traffic control system's control center to upload a virus John created, hoping to make the system look erratic or buggy, but their efforts fail.
Meanwhile, Cromartie has been doing a school-to-school search for John and almost catches him when a student brings Cameron a note for her brother. She then fools Cromartie by sending one of John's friends, Morris, in his place, causing Cromartie to continue the search. John eventually learns what Cameron did and orders her to not tell Sarah because she will force them to move. At the same time, John forces Sarah and Derek to accept his plan to destroy the ARTIE traffic system. John increasingly makes decisions for their actions, and gradually the adults learn to trust his judgment, although only John trusts Cameron.
Sarah is still attempting to locate the Turk 2, Andy Goode's computer, which has been missing since his death. She is contacted by a mysterious man, Sarkissian, who instructs her on how she may buy back the machine. The transaction is set to occur on John's birthday.
As part of his present to John, Derek takes him to a park where he reveals that he not only knows what day it is, he is aware of John's parentage. As a gift, Derek shows John two boys playing - one is an eleven year old Derek, and the other is a 5 year old Kyle.
The drop to recover the Turk 2 turns out to be a setup to allow the front man for Sarkissian to get into the Connors' house while they were away. The hired muscle waits for Sarah and Derek to return to the house and attempts to blackmail Sarah for $2 million in order to not reveal her presence to the FBI. The man reveals that there are thugs stalking John even as they speak, not knowing that Cameron has identified and terminated the thug, and stuffed him in a car trunk.
Meanwhile, Ellison has identified Cromartie and leads a team of FBI Agents to attempt his capture. It turns into a massacre, but Cromartie spares Ellison for reasons that are unclear to the agent.
Season One ends with Cameron leaving the house to get John's birthday cake. She sees someone walking away from the car. As Cameron starts the engine of the car, it explodes with her in it.
T:SCC Season Two
John, now 16, begins to take an increasingly responsible role in the activities of his family. He gets the opportunity to make a stand very early on. Cameron, who was partially blown up in the finale of season one, comes back online, but her chip is damaged. She has reverted to her earlier programming, so that when she sees John Connor, her initial order - TERMINATE - prevails.
John and Sarah go on the run immediately, although they must first fight off Sarkissian's men. Cameron unwittingly provides them an escape opportunity, before beginning to chase them down. In a series of increasingly dramatic scenes that remind the viewers of the first chase scene in Terminator 2, Cameron finally captures Sarah in the bottom of a ditch. She orders Sarah to call to John and Sarah replies that John won't come back. Cameron, looking in the direction where John has run, replies, "No, he won't." She then leaves Sarah and continues her hunt for John.
Finally, Sarah and John are able to disable Cameron long enough that John pulls her chip, ignoring her protests that she is "fine now" and that she "loves John and [John] loves her." In an act of open rebellion later, John holds a gun on his uncle and mother and reinstalls Cameron's chip. His instincts prove correct, and Cameron takes up her role as protector once more, although she cautions Sarah to never let John risk himself for her again.
John (with short hair):
With life somewhat back to normal, and the explosions and dead bodies of the first episode seemingly forgotten, John returns to school while his mother and Cameron investigate a nuclear power plant. A man from the future reveals to them that something important is about to happen there, but he dies from injuries he received before travelling back in time, and is unable to specify what. After Sarah and Cameron take jobs under false names, Cameron is able to defeat a Terminator and prevent the nuclear power plant from melting down. However, it is revealed that Catherine Weaver (Shirley Mansion), a shape shifting Terminator, and Agent Ellison's new boss, has purchased the power plant for reasons that are as of yet unclear.
Weaver:
Meanwhile, John continues to exercise his new found independence (most notably discerned by the fact that he shaves his head), by beginning a relationship with a girl from his school, Riley Dawson (Levin Rambin). He ignores Sarah's obvious disapproval and tells his mother that he will live his life now, clearly alluding to the fact that he's never before been able to have friends or a girlfriend and that time is short for him to have any chance at normalcy.
Riley:
Cromartie, still on the hunt for John, springs an elaborate trap that results in the death of Charley's wife. John barely escapes with his life, after he deliberately hid from Cameron so that he and Riley could go out alone.
Cameron's still suffering from the aftereffects of the explosion which damaged her chip. Her software glitches, and she forgets who she is and ends up in a homeless shelter where she talks to a therapist. She reveals more of her past as she regains memories, including that at one point there was a real human girl who had Cameron's appearance. The girl, Allison Young, was obviously a trusted compatriot of John's, and the Terminators deliberately kidnapped her in order to impersonate her.
Cameron (at least one copy of her model) is likely responsible for Allison's death, although this is not certain. In the haze of her memory loss, Cameron calls "home" and the therapist speaks with a woman who shares the last name Young and is obviously pregnant. When Cameron regains her memory, she nearly kills one of the other girls with her in the shelter who has been lying to Cameron all along.
As the Connors continue to fight destiny, they stumble onto a plot by the Terminator's to kill some of John's future companions. As a result, Derek and John infiltrate a boy's military academy to keep a boy named Martin Bedell alive. As Derek and John help the boy who will eventually be the Martin Bedell, Sarah and Cameron save a different little boy with the same name. Sarah becomes emotionally involved with him to the point that she ignores Cameron's advice that saving Martin Bedell is not their mission.
In the end, John reveals himself to the Terminator to save Martin, and he and Derek destroy the machine before it can kill Martin. Derek later reveals to John that in the future Martin saves John's life at the expense of his own. In what will become a haunting message to John, Derek tells him, "He died, John. He died for you. We all die for you."
A man from the future found the Connors before he dies and leaves a list of names (written in his own blood, nonetheless) for John and Sarah to discover. Without knowing why the future cares about these people (are they good or bad?), the Connors take on the task of tracking them down. The first name they seek out turns out to be a child psychologist, Dr. Boyd Sherman (Dorian Harewood). In the guise of seeking family therapy, Sarah, John and Cameron begin their investigations. It becomes quickly apparent to Dr. Sherman that John is suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, and he compares John to the war Vets from Vietnam. Sarah really struggles with this realization, but John defies Sarah and continues to talk to Dr. Sherman after their investigation fails. As John becomes increasingly unstable, Sarah eventually returns to Dr. Sherman as well. The audience learns that in the season two opener, John killed Sarkissian to save her, taking his first human life. It is apparent that only Sarah and John know this, though.
Dr. Sherman:
Derek, frustrated by John's instability, spends increasing amounts of his time away from the Connors. On one of these occasions, he runs into his old girlfriend, Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen). Jesse reveals that she has gone AWOL, and come back to the past to find him. He struggles with her decision, but reignites his relationship with her, partially as a result to witnessing John's growing depression. He asks Jesse about the day they first met, revealing that Jesse prevented Derek from killing himself.
Jesse:
In a twist of irony, the Terminator impersonating Catherine Weaver takes Catherine's young daughter to Dr. Sherman for therapy as well. As Dr. Sherman helps Catherine, the Terminator realizes that she needs Dr. Sherman's help to fully develop the AI system being built by Catherine's company (and apparently based on the Turk 2, which the Connor's never recovered). She asks Dr. Sherman to consult.
It becomes increasingly obvious that Skynet is not working in total unison. Even as Catherine Weaver asks for Dr. Sherman's help, another Terminator is sent to kill him. Cameron destroys the Terminator to protect John. Likewise, a Terminator is sent to kill and impersonate Ellison, but Cromartie destroys it, saying only, "Skynet does not believe in you like I do. You will lead me to the Connors." Combined with Cameron's increasingly erratic behavior, it appears that the Terminators are evolving differently in this timeline than they have in the past - showing the capability not only to mimic emotion, but to understand it on some level. Many fans suspect that this is a hint towards a Technological Singularity scenario, where machines start building other machines more powerful than they themselves are.
John's continued rebellion puts the family in danger when he gives Riley the code to the family's security system. The house ends up being burgled, by humans, who steal all of the money, diamonds and fake IDs. As Sarah and Derek attempt to recover their property and ensure that the theft is completely unrelated to Skynet, Derek continues to hide his renewed relationship with Jesse. After finding the thieves, Sarah leaves Cameron to watch them while she searches for a fourth participant. Cameron kills them, stating only, "They know where we live." As a result, Sarah lies about finding the fourth boy, sparing him. However, Cromartie ends up tracking down the boy and learns from him where the Connors are living.
Cromartie goes to the Connors house and kidnaps Sarah, when he discovers John is missing. John, in an ultimate act of defiance, has snuck away and taken Riley to Mexico. In Mexico, John is recognized by one of his and Sarah's old acquaintances and a disturbance breaks out, resulting in John's arrest. He is able to get a warning to Derek, but unable to contact his mother. Realizing that he is being hunted by Cromartie, John orchestrates a breakout, only to run into Ellison, who was notified of John's reappearance in the legal system. Together, along with Cameron and Derek who arrive in time to help, they defeat Cromartie. In a moment of stress and weakness, Sarah breaks down in a fit of weeping and John holds her up.
Sarah's recovery from Mexico is slowed when she gets a case of the flu. Her increasingly vivid fever dreams are haunted by images of three dots. Desperate to find out what the three dots stand for, Sarah returns to Dr. Sherman to seek his help. He reluctantly helps her, but eventually sends her away because he realizes that she is being dishonest about most of her life.
As Sarah gets John to help her search for the meaning of the three dots, Derek is summoned away by a call from Jesse. Jesse has kidnapped a man she is convinced is a Skynet agent sent back in time. Derek has no recollection of who the man is, but trusts Jesse to prove her story. Eventually, she reveals that the man - Charles Fisher - had been an agent of Skynet and had taught the Terminators how to get the best results from prisoners by torturing them. Derek is even more stunned when Jesse tells him that she did not suffer at Fisher's hands - Derek did. Still unable to remember details, but convinced that Jesse is telling him the truth, Derek begins to torture a much younger Charles Fisher until the older Charles Fisher confesses. Derek moves to kill the younger man, but before he can, Jesse shoots the older one in the head.
When Derek still can't remember Fisher, he suggests that perhaps his time in the past has changed the future, and his actions have somehow created a new future in which he suffered at Charles Fisher's hands. In another display of time twisting, the younger Charles Fisher is arrested because of the actions of the older Charles Fisher and is placed in solitary confinement in jail - which is how the older Charles Fisher survived Judgment Day to begin with.
John and Cameron return to Mexico to destroy Cromartie, but his body is gone. They confront Ellison, who denies moving Cromartie's body. Later, Ellison is revealed to have lied and he takes Cromartie to Catherine Weaver with a plea for her to help him learn how to fight the machines.
Sarah learns that the three dots are connected to a company called Dakara Systems and she and Cameron investigate them, discovering that they have created an AI system and are seeking funding to build it. Derek believes it is a dead end, but Sarah persists, spending nearly all their money to buy the Dakura chip.
The Dakura Systems lead turns out to be a dead end, although Sarah and Cameron recover the money they spent to buy the fake chip. Sarah, still obsessed with the three dots, smashes a mirror when she sees the three dots on her face in blood.
Meanwhile, Derek discovers that Jesse has been spying on John and threatens to kill her until she admits that she has come back to the past with the intention of removing Cameron from John's life. She states that the future John has become increasingly mentally unstable, trusting only Cameron, and making decisions that are costing soldiers their lives. After convincing Derek to spare her, Jesse meets up with Riley, who it turns out is working for Jesse and under orders to separate John and Cameron as much as possible. It appears possible that Riley has come back in time with Jesse, but this isn't confirmed.
John and Riley's relationship weakens as he realizes that he cannot explain his life to her. He leaves her, despite her pleas to the contrary. Eventually, she and John reconcile slightly, despite the fact that Riley has had a minor breakdown, screaming at her foster mother about a violent robotically controlled future.
While the Connors run around dealing with their respective problems, Ellison arrives at ZeiraCorp (Weaver's company) to find that Dr. Sherman has died in an accident. He investigates this incident and discovers that Sherman's death was the result of The Turk protecting itself from a power cut. Sherman was trapped inside the AI room without any ventilation, resulting in his demise at the hands of the computer's heat output. Ellison questions The Turk about Sherman's death and decides that it has no sense of moral ethics. He acerbically suggests that Weaver teach it the Ten Commandments. Instead, Weaver introduces Ellison to "John Henry," who turns out to be Cromartie attached to The Turk, serving as a vessel for the AI.
Cameron, who after all doesn't sleep, spends her nights researching at the library. She has managed to befriend the night watchman and together they discover a one hundred year old murder mystery after Cameron sees a photograph and recognizes a Cromartie model Terminator. When they finish putting the clues together, Cameron departs to destroy the hidden Terminator, returning to the library afterward. In a moment of what almost appears to be compassionate worry, Cameron tells the librarian that his bone cancer has returned. He throws her out and when she goes back to the library the following night, he is gone.
This summary covers only the episodes of Season 2 that have aired. I will update it as the season continues.
The State of the Fandom
The T:SCC fandom is small, but active and there are a lot of excellent fic writers working through the series with gusto. While most of the fandom appears to be gen, there are quite a few popular pairings as well. The most common ones are:
Kyle/Sarah
Charley/Sarah
Derek/Sarah
Sarah/Cameron
Derek/Jesse
Derek/Cameron
John/Riley
John/Cameron
John/Kate Brewster
Additionally, there are Reececest and Connorcest fics floating around the internet ethos as well.
You can find fics, icons, discussion or pretty much anything you want at a variety of communities.
The biggest communities seem to be scc_fic for fic purposes and scchronicles_tv for general discussion.
Other communities include:
For General Discussion and Information:
judgment_daily - The Fandom Newsletter
tscc_tv
connorchronicle
For General Fic:
schronicles
sccxovers - Crossovers
For Character Centric Fic:
the_other_reese - Derek Reese
crystal_peak - Kate Brewster
scc_cameron - Cameron Philips
For Slash Fiction:
scc_slash
tscc_femslash
For Pairing Specific Communities:
derek_cameron
sarahcameron
scc_dereksarah
scc_johncameron
For Icons/Graphics/Media:
thescc_icons
scc_stills
scc_graphics
scc_vids
For the Movies:
judgmentdayfans
terminatorbale
terminatormovie
Also, there are a variety of communities dedicated to the actors in the T:SCC fandom. In short, there is something for everyone and everyone should come and play at once!
Resources:
http://terminatorwiki.fox.com/
http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Terminator_Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(franchise)
- Sarah Connor (Season One, Episode One Opening Monologue)
In order to understand the television series, it's important to have at least a little background knowledge of the Terminator movies (at least the first and second one). For the purposes of this overview, I've gone through all four films and both seasons of the series.
This thing is huge and filled with spoilers. Please read with caution! Also, it is not dial-up friendly!
Also, time travel makes things hard. There are alternate timelines existing in nearly every different film and the series. I give up at trying to make sense of it. If you'd like to try your hand at it, I recommend looking at the Master Timeline created by joyeuxnoel.
Lastly, I owe many thanks to dramady, musesinspire and especially indiefic for their help in putting this together. I couldn’t have done it without them.
All right. Hang on tight, because here we go.
The Terminator
In the original Terminator movie, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is a normal, average 1984 type of woman. She is a waitress and a college student, who suddenly and without explanation, becomes the target of a Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101 Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger).
She is rescued by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who explains to her that she will be the mother of John Connor, a man who will lead mankind to victory in a war against the Terminator Machines in the future. Reese explains that in the future, an artificial intelligence called Skynet will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions. Reese explains that once Skynet became self aware, "It decided our fate in a microsecond. Extermination." Skynet seizes control of most of the world's military hardware (including various highly-advanced robots), and launches a nuclear attack on humanity at large.
John Connor eventually leads the human resistance group known as Tech-Com to victory. However, he somehow discovers that in a last-ditch effort to win, Skynet had researched time travel and sent a robotic killer back in time in an effort to destroy John Connor before he can be born. Thus, the Terminator has been sent back to kill Sarah Connor.
John has sent his most trusted sergeant and best friend, Kyle Reese, back to protect his mother. As the two humans fight against the nearly indestructible Terminator, Sarah falls in love with Kyle. She realizes that he has given up everything he has ever known to come back and protect her. Kyle reveals that John gave him a picture of Sarah when the two men were in a prison camp together, and Kyle fell in love with her legend, her strength and her courage. They share a single night together, before once again fleeing from the Terminator.
In what becomes a twist of time creating itself, the Terminator chases Sarah and a severely injured Kyle into a factory. In a last ditch battle, Kyle sacrifices his own life to try and stop the Terminator, but is unsuccessful. In the end, Sarah crushes the Terminator in a hydraulic press, leaving only crushed remnants of it behind.
The movie ends with Sarah dictating a tape to her unborn child and agonizing over what to tell him about Kyle, "if you don't send Kyle, you can never be." While she is doing this, a child takes a photograph of her, which in turn becomes the photograph that John eventually gives Kyle. In effect, John Connor created himself by sending back Kyle Reese, and the Terminator's remains become the basis from which Cyberdyne eventually creates Skynet.
Some people believe that the predestination paradoxes created by this story are actually a subsequent timeline created by John's decision to send Kyle back. If this is true, then the original John Connor was another man's child. I suggest that anyone who cares that much about timeline paradoxes abandon ship immediately, because if you think the timeline is FUBAR now, you've not seen anything yet!
Sarah:
Kyle:
The Terminator:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Judgment Day is the name given to the day that Skynet uses nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy humankind. The movie begins approximately ten - twelve years later (depending on which timeline you choose to believe).
After the events of Terminator, Sarah Connor sets out to become the legendary soldier Kyle Reese told her that she was. She learned about weapons and warfare, in order to teach her son how to protect himself and how to be the military leader the world would need him to be. Along the way, she attempted to blow up Cyberdyne Laboratories and was captured. Because her story (killer machines from the future) was so outrageous, she was placed in Pescadero State Mental Hospital. From the beginning of the movie, fans learn that Sarah Connor is no longer a quiet, mousy woman. Instead, she has become an extremely toned, extremely dangerous, and extremely violent fighter.
John Connor is living with foster parents, Todd and Janelle Voight. Having failed to kill Sarah Connor, Skynet sends back a second Terminator, model T-1000 (Robert Patrick), to kill a young John Connor. The T-1000's major innovation is its "mimetic poly-alloy" construction -- an intelligent liquid metal. This gives the T-1000 the ability to change its appearance and emulate virtually anything. It is capable of perfectly copying the shape, color, and texture of anything that it touches that is of similar size. The only restriction is that it cannot form complex machines, such as "guns and explosives" because they "have chemicals [and] moving parts." Also interesting to note, the T-1000 is capable of a greater range of human expression and apparent emotion, enabling it to hide better among everyday people. Finally, the T-1000 is a shape shifter and impersonates a variety of people in its hunt for John Connor.
When the T-1000 comes after John, he manages to escape temporarily, only to eventually be rescued by a Series 800 Model 101 Terminator (again played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), the same model that was originally sent to kill Sarah Connor. The Terminator reveals that it has been instructed by a future John Connor to return to rescue his childhood self. It has also been instructed to obey whatever order young John gives it.
Against the Terminator's advice, John orders it to rescue Sarah Connor. The T-1000 has obviously realized that Sarah is John's weak point and sets out to capture her for himself. The police, having pictures of the original Terminator, go to the hospital to seek Sarah's help in identifying the newest Terminator sighting. She pretends to be in a catatonic state, allowing her to escape careful supervision, and then escape her hospital room. As she is fleeing, she encounters the T-101 and panics. It instructs her to "come with [it], if she wants to live," echoing Kyle's first words to her. While she absorbs that, John comes to her side. The three manage to escape from the hospital with the T-1000 in close pursuit.
Afterward, Sarah scathingly dresses John down for coming to her rescue when his first priority should have been his own safety. This exchange is indicative of the strained relationship that the two have with each other at this point, and into the future. Sarah has an extremely difficult time accepting the T-101's benevolent nature, and a worse time accepting John's growing relationship with the machine. Over the course of the movie, the T-101 becomes almost like a surrogate father to John.
In a moment of desperation, Sarah decides the best way to protect her son is to change the future. She finds out from the Terminator that Skynet is built by Miles Dyson at Cyberdyne Laboratories. She sets out to his home and prepares to kill him with a sniper rifle. She is stopped at the last minute by John, who has struggled through the film to remind his mother, and teach the machine, about the value of human life. Instead, John orders the T-101 to show its true self to Miles Dyson, and together, he and Sarah are able to persuade Miles to abandon and destroy his research, with the goal of preventing Judgment Day.
When the four of them go to the Cyberdyne facilities, they are confronted once more by the T-1000. Miles Dyson is killed, but the T-101, with Sarah's help, is able to defeat the T-1000. The arm and cracked chip of the original Terminator from the first movie are cast into a pit of molten metal, and in a remarkable show of comprehension and understanding, the T-101 self-terminates, disobeying John's direct command not to in order to prevent his own chip from ever being used to create Skynet.
The movie closes with Sarah's monologue, discussing her hopes that they have changed the future.
Sarah:
John:
The Terminator (Good Guy):
The Terminator (Bad Guy):
Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines
This film appears to be completely ignored by the timeline of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (T:SCC). However, given the flexible nature of time in the series, plus the fourth movie on the horizon, I think its a good idea to at least mention the events of this film.
The events of Terminator 2 changed the future and Judgment Day did not occur as predicted. However, John Connor (Nick Stahl) still does not believe that he is safe, and so, lives "off the grid." His mother, Sarah Connor, died in 1997 after a three year battle with cancer.
While John is drifting across the country, he injures himself and breaks into a veterinary hospital to steal medicine. He is captured, rather spectacularly, by Katherine "Kate" Brewster (Claire Danes). While the two are arguing, it is revealed that John knew Kate prior to the events of Terminator 2. The two had expressed tentative teenage interest in each other, before John had vanished. As they are arguing, they are attacked by a woman, whom they quickly learn is a Terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken). The T-X is armed with a full arsenal of advanced weapons from the future, avoiding the restriction of non-living tissue by carrying them internally, including the ability to remotely control most machines. The T-X, like the T-1000, has the ability to shift appearance.
Over the course of the movie, a T-101 Terminator (Schwarzenegger) comes to their aid. He reveals that he has not been sent back in time by John Connor, but rather by John Connor's wife, Kate Brewster Connor. Unable to locate John Connor, Skynet has sent the T-X back in time to kill Connor's lieutenants, including Kate. When the T-X identifies John, her primary mission changes and reveals that he is, as always, the primary target.
The T-101 also reveals that it killed John Connor in 2032, able to approach because of John's "fondness" for this particular model of Terminator. Kate Brewster takes over the Resistance at that point.
In short, Judgment Day, though once again delayed, still takes place. After the destruction of Cyberdyne Laboratories, the American Air Force has taken over the Skynet project as part of its Cyber Research Systems division, headed by Kate's father, General Robert Brewster. Some sort of super computer virus is affecting the world's computer systems, and in an attempt to stop it, the military activates Skynet minutes before John and Kate arrive to stop it.
Skynet immediately seizes control of the early Terminator machines in the military compounds and uses them to take over various military bases. Wounded, General Brewster tells John and Kate that they can stop Skynet from it's core, hidden in Crystal Peak, a military base concealed in a mountain. Kate and John race to the military base, during which time Skynet continues to advance its agenda and both the T-X and the T-101 are destroyed in a battle against each other, only to find that Skynet has no core. It runs off all the world's computers combined. General Brewster has sent them to a fall out shelter, where they will survive the impending nuclear disaster.
In a moment that foreshadows John's destiny, when panic stricken calls begin to come in over the radio as soldier's frantically attempt to make contact with their superiors, John takes control and begins to issue orders. The movie ends as Judgment Day commences.
John:
Kate:
The Terminator (Good Guy):
The Terminator (Bad Guy):
Terminator 4: Salvation
On May 23, 2008, Warner Bros. released the following plot summary for the film. The synopsis was modified on June 11, 2008:
"Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale), the man fated to be the leader of the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators, and the future he was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they find out a terrible secret that may lead to the possible annihilation of mankind."
John:
T:SCC Season One
Let us begin with the woman herself, Sarah Connor (Lena Heady). She is the kickass warrior woman we met in Judgment Day. For a period of unspecified time, she has been living in West Fork, Nebraska and has gotten engaged to Charley Dixon (Dean Winters). Her son, John (Thomas Dekker), appears to be settled into this lifestyle and seems to be genuinely fond of Charley.
Sarah:
John:
Charley:
After experiencing a nightmare whereby Sarah is forced to watch a Terminator kill John, she announces to him that they are leaving. With no choice, John packs his bag and the Connor's leave Nebraska for Red Valley, New Mexico. When Charley learns of their disappearance, he reports it to the police, which reports to the FBI. One of the Feds, Agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones), tells Charley that his fiancé is actually a murderer. Charley doesn't believe it, but there is little he can do.
Ellison:
John resents the constant upheaval, and complains bitterly that they were safe enough. He blames Sarah for running from Charley and using him as an excuse. However, on his first day of school, a T-888 Terminator, Cromartie (eventually played by Garret Dillahunt), comes to the school as a substitute teacher and calls for "John Reese" during attendance. When John answers, Cromartie pulls out a handgun that was hidden within his leg and shoots at John. The pretty, but strange, girl who introduced herself to John earlier as Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), takes the bullet instead.
Cameron:
Cromartie:
John escapes from the window, and the other students notice Cromartie's robotic leg as he says "Class dismissed", and goes hunting for John. In a cat-and-mouse game in the parking lot, John dodges Cromartie's shots until Cameron arrives in truck, telling John, "Come with me if you want to live."
Cameron reveals that she is a Terminator sent back by John to protect him. In a series of twists and turns, and in order to escape Cromartie and Agent Ellison, Cameron leads the Connors to a bank in Los Angeles, where she stages a robbery. When the three of them are left in the safety deposit box room, Cameron reveals that John sent someone else back even further in time to build a time machine for their use. The Connors escape forward in time, jumping into the year 2007, and leaving everyone behind with the assumption that the Connors died in the explosion that leveled the bank. Cromartie's head rolls through the time jump as well.
Upon their arrival in the future, naked, Cameron steals a car and clothing for them all. Their arrival is taped by a teenager with cell phone and played on the news, which dismisses it as a prank of some sort. Agent Ellison and Charley Dixon, however, recognize Sarah for who she is, even though she's allegedly been dead for nearly a decade.
The Connors are forced to begin again, only this time, they are literally floundering. Events such as 9-11, huge innovations in technology, and the intervening years that they have lost, leave them struggling to adapt. The situation is made worse when John makes contact with Charley only to discover that the paramedic has remarried. Charley, for his part, cannot understand how John hasn't aged at all in the last ten years. The Connors settle into hiding once more, now pretending that Cameron is John's sister.
Cameron tells Sarah that John sent others to the past as well, with instructions to build safe houses, and stores of weapons and money. When Sarah and Cameron attempt to locate a safe house, they discover that a Terminator has killed the resistance fighters leaving the Connors on their own. This Terminator, Vick Chamberlain (Matt McColm ) was a Series 888 terminator sent back to sometime before 2007 to ensure the genesis of Skynet. Meanwhile, Cromartie manages to reconnect with his body and resumes the hunt.
Vick:
Distraught, John struggles with his own destiny. He extracts a promise from Sarah that she will try and change the future. To that end, Sarah, with Cameron's help, begins to hunt down any potential new sources for Skynet's eventual power. It is during one of these missions that Sarah meets Andy Goode (Brendan Hines), a former intern from Cyberdyne Laboratories. Andy has built a chess playing computer, named The Turk, that Sarah believes will eventually be the basis for the creation of Skynet. She begins to infiltrate Andy's life with the hopes of destroying the Turk, going so far as to burn down his house. Andy persists, however, and when he is displaying the Turk at a chess competition, Sarah notices a stranger who seems somehow familiar. Later that day, Sarah goes to Andy's hotel room and runs into the same stranger leaving. When she goes into the room, Sarah finds Andy's body. She gives chase to the stranger, who manages to escape.
Goode:
It turns out that the stranger is Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), Kyle's older brother. John has sent him back to the past to help, but Derek is unstable and has set out on his own agenda: 1) prevent Judgment Day at all costs and 2) find his brother Kyle. Derek is injured by Vick, and Sarah rescues him. When Cameron tells Sarah that it is best to let Derek die, and Sarah refuses, John realizes that there is something special about this man. As they fight to save him, John realizes that Derek is his uncle. Unable to go to a hospital for medical attention, John asks Charley to help them.
Derek:
Derek, medically if not mentally, stabilizes and joins with Sarah on her quest to alter the future. It takes him a while, but he eventually learns that Kyle is dead, and realizes that John is Kyle's son. This is undeniably one of the most bizarre, yet interesting, relationships in the series. Derek is unable to hide his anger/hatred of the John of the future, but he quickly realizes that the John he lives with now needs his help, both to stay alive and to become eventually the man he must become to save them all.
This plot line reveals a lot about the future, as well. Derek's fever dreams show what the world becomes, including several vivid scenes shot in prison camps and the resistance camps. Most importantly, it reveals that John's paternity is a closely guarded secret that no one from the future knew, not even Cameron.
Meanwhile, Agent Ellison has continued to hunt for the Connors, although the more he looks, the more convinced he becomes that Sarah was telling the truth. As tensions mount in the family, Derek discovers that Cameron has lied about destroying Vick's chip after the Connors eliminate Vick itself. However, John is able to build an interface for the chip, and they realize that the Terminator was protecting a traffic control system which will eventually form part of Skynet.
Sarah immediately sets out to destroy this system (ARTIE). She and Derek break into the traffic control system's control center to upload a virus John created, hoping to make the system look erratic or buggy, but their efforts fail.
Meanwhile, Cromartie has been doing a school-to-school search for John and almost catches him when a student brings Cameron a note for her brother. She then fools Cromartie by sending one of John's friends, Morris, in his place, causing Cromartie to continue the search. John eventually learns what Cameron did and orders her to not tell Sarah because she will force them to move. At the same time, John forces Sarah and Derek to accept his plan to destroy the ARTIE traffic system. John increasingly makes decisions for their actions, and gradually the adults learn to trust his judgment, although only John trusts Cameron.
Sarah is still attempting to locate the Turk 2, Andy Goode's computer, which has been missing since his death. She is contacted by a mysterious man, Sarkissian, who instructs her on how she may buy back the machine. The transaction is set to occur on John's birthday.
As part of his present to John, Derek takes him to a park where he reveals that he not only knows what day it is, he is aware of John's parentage. As a gift, Derek shows John two boys playing - one is an eleven year old Derek, and the other is a 5 year old Kyle.
The drop to recover the Turk 2 turns out to be a setup to allow the front man for Sarkissian to get into the Connors' house while they were away. The hired muscle waits for Sarah and Derek to return to the house and attempts to blackmail Sarah for $2 million in order to not reveal her presence to the FBI. The man reveals that there are thugs stalking John even as they speak, not knowing that Cameron has identified and terminated the thug, and stuffed him in a car trunk.
Meanwhile, Ellison has identified Cromartie and leads a team of FBI Agents to attempt his capture. It turns into a massacre, but Cromartie spares Ellison for reasons that are unclear to the agent.
Season One ends with Cameron leaving the house to get John's birthday cake. She sees someone walking away from the car. As Cameron starts the engine of the car, it explodes with her in it.
T:SCC Season Two
John, now 16, begins to take an increasingly responsible role in the activities of his family. He gets the opportunity to make a stand very early on. Cameron, who was partially blown up in the finale of season one, comes back online, but her chip is damaged. She has reverted to her earlier programming, so that when she sees John Connor, her initial order - TERMINATE - prevails.
John and Sarah go on the run immediately, although they must first fight off Sarkissian's men. Cameron unwittingly provides them an escape opportunity, before beginning to chase them down. In a series of increasingly dramatic scenes that remind the viewers of the first chase scene in Terminator 2, Cameron finally captures Sarah in the bottom of a ditch. She orders Sarah to call to John and Sarah replies that John won't come back. Cameron, looking in the direction where John has run, replies, "No, he won't." She then leaves Sarah and continues her hunt for John.
Finally, Sarah and John are able to disable Cameron long enough that John pulls her chip, ignoring her protests that she is "fine now" and that she "loves John and [John] loves her." In an act of open rebellion later, John holds a gun on his uncle and mother and reinstalls Cameron's chip. His instincts prove correct, and Cameron takes up her role as protector once more, although she cautions Sarah to never let John risk himself for her again.
John (with short hair):
With life somewhat back to normal, and the explosions and dead bodies of the first episode seemingly forgotten, John returns to school while his mother and Cameron investigate a nuclear power plant. A man from the future reveals to them that something important is about to happen there, but he dies from injuries he received before travelling back in time, and is unable to specify what. After Sarah and Cameron take jobs under false names, Cameron is able to defeat a Terminator and prevent the nuclear power plant from melting down. However, it is revealed that Catherine Weaver (Shirley Mansion), a shape shifting Terminator, and Agent Ellison's new boss, has purchased the power plant for reasons that are as of yet unclear.
Weaver:
Meanwhile, John continues to exercise his new found independence (most notably discerned by the fact that he shaves his head), by beginning a relationship with a girl from his school, Riley Dawson (Levin Rambin). He ignores Sarah's obvious disapproval and tells his mother that he will live his life now, clearly alluding to the fact that he's never before been able to have friends or a girlfriend and that time is short for him to have any chance at normalcy.
Riley:
Cromartie, still on the hunt for John, springs an elaborate trap that results in the death of Charley's wife. John barely escapes with his life, after he deliberately hid from Cameron so that he and Riley could go out alone.
Cameron's still suffering from the aftereffects of the explosion which damaged her chip. Her software glitches, and she forgets who she is and ends up in a homeless shelter where she talks to a therapist. She reveals more of her past as she regains memories, including that at one point there was a real human girl who had Cameron's appearance. The girl, Allison Young, was obviously a trusted compatriot of John's, and the Terminators deliberately kidnapped her in order to impersonate her.
Cameron (at least one copy of her model) is likely responsible for Allison's death, although this is not certain. In the haze of her memory loss, Cameron calls "home" and the therapist speaks with a woman who shares the last name Young and is obviously pregnant. When Cameron regains her memory, she nearly kills one of the other girls with her in the shelter who has been lying to Cameron all along.
As the Connors continue to fight destiny, they stumble onto a plot by the Terminator's to kill some of John's future companions. As a result, Derek and John infiltrate a boy's military academy to keep a boy named Martin Bedell alive. As Derek and John help the boy who will eventually be the Martin Bedell, Sarah and Cameron save a different little boy with the same name. Sarah becomes emotionally involved with him to the point that she ignores Cameron's advice that saving Martin Bedell is not their mission.
In the end, John reveals himself to the Terminator to save Martin, and he and Derek destroy the machine before it can kill Martin. Derek later reveals to John that in the future Martin saves John's life at the expense of his own. In what will become a haunting message to John, Derek tells him, "He died, John. He died for you. We all die for you."
A man from the future found the Connors before he dies and leaves a list of names (written in his own blood, nonetheless) for John and Sarah to discover. Without knowing why the future cares about these people (are they good or bad?), the Connors take on the task of tracking them down. The first name they seek out turns out to be a child psychologist, Dr. Boyd Sherman (Dorian Harewood). In the guise of seeking family therapy, Sarah, John and Cameron begin their investigations. It becomes quickly apparent to Dr. Sherman that John is suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder, and he compares John to the war Vets from Vietnam. Sarah really struggles with this realization, but John defies Sarah and continues to talk to Dr. Sherman after their investigation fails. As John becomes increasingly unstable, Sarah eventually returns to Dr. Sherman as well. The audience learns that in the season two opener, John killed Sarkissian to save her, taking his first human life. It is apparent that only Sarah and John know this, though.
Dr. Sherman:
Derek, frustrated by John's instability, spends increasing amounts of his time away from the Connors. On one of these occasions, he runs into his old girlfriend, Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen). Jesse reveals that she has gone AWOL, and come back to the past to find him. He struggles with her decision, but reignites his relationship with her, partially as a result to witnessing John's growing depression. He asks Jesse about the day they first met, revealing that Jesse prevented Derek from killing himself.
Jesse:
In a twist of irony, the Terminator impersonating Catherine Weaver takes Catherine's young daughter to Dr. Sherman for therapy as well. As Dr. Sherman helps Catherine, the Terminator realizes that she needs Dr. Sherman's help to fully develop the AI system being built by Catherine's company (and apparently based on the Turk 2, which the Connor's never recovered). She asks Dr. Sherman to consult.
It becomes increasingly obvious that Skynet is not working in total unison. Even as Catherine Weaver asks for Dr. Sherman's help, another Terminator is sent to kill him. Cameron destroys the Terminator to protect John. Likewise, a Terminator is sent to kill and impersonate Ellison, but Cromartie destroys it, saying only, "Skynet does not believe in you like I do. You will lead me to the Connors." Combined with Cameron's increasingly erratic behavior, it appears that the Terminators are evolving differently in this timeline than they have in the past - showing the capability not only to mimic emotion, but to understand it on some level. Many fans suspect that this is a hint towards a Technological Singularity scenario, where machines start building other machines more powerful than they themselves are.
John's continued rebellion puts the family in danger when he gives Riley the code to the family's security system. The house ends up being burgled, by humans, who steal all of the money, diamonds and fake IDs. As Sarah and Derek attempt to recover their property and ensure that the theft is completely unrelated to Skynet, Derek continues to hide his renewed relationship with Jesse. After finding the thieves, Sarah leaves Cameron to watch them while she searches for a fourth participant. Cameron kills them, stating only, "They know where we live." As a result, Sarah lies about finding the fourth boy, sparing him. However, Cromartie ends up tracking down the boy and learns from him where the Connors are living.
Cromartie goes to the Connors house and kidnaps Sarah, when he discovers John is missing. John, in an ultimate act of defiance, has snuck away and taken Riley to Mexico. In Mexico, John is recognized by one of his and Sarah's old acquaintances and a disturbance breaks out, resulting in John's arrest. He is able to get a warning to Derek, but unable to contact his mother. Realizing that he is being hunted by Cromartie, John orchestrates a breakout, only to run into Ellison, who was notified of John's reappearance in the legal system. Together, along with Cameron and Derek who arrive in time to help, they defeat Cromartie. In a moment of stress and weakness, Sarah breaks down in a fit of weeping and John holds her up.
Sarah's recovery from Mexico is slowed when she gets a case of the flu. Her increasingly vivid fever dreams are haunted by images of three dots. Desperate to find out what the three dots stand for, Sarah returns to Dr. Sherman to seek his help. He reluctantly helps her, but eventually sends her away because he realizes that she is being dishonest about most of her life.
As Sarah gets John to help her search for the meaning of the three dots, Derek is summoned away by a call from Jesse. Jesse has kidnapped a man she is convinced is a Skynet agent sent back in time. Derek has no recollection of who the man is, but trusts Jesse to prove her story. Eventually, she reveals that the man - Charles Fisher - had been an agent of Skynet and had taught the Terminators how to get the best results from prisoners by torturing them. Derek is even more stunned when Jesse tells him that she did not suffer at Fisher's hands - Derek did. Still unable to remember details, but convinced that Jesse is telling him the truth, Derek begins to torture a much younger Charles Fisher until the older Charles Fisher confesses. Derek moves to kill the younger man, but before he can, Jesse shoots the older one in the head.
When Derek still can't remember Fisher, he suggests that perhaps his time in the past has changed the future, and his actions have somehow created a new future in which he suffered at Charles Fisher's hands. In another display of time twisting, the younger Charles Fisher is arrested because of the actions of the older Charles Fisher and is placed in solitary confinement in jail - which is how the older Charles Fisher survived Judgment Day to begin with.
John and Cameron return to Mexico to destroy Cromartie, but his body is gone. They confront Ellison, who denies moving Cromartie's body. Later, Ellison is revealed to have lied and he takes Cromartie to Catherine Weaver with a plea for her to help him learn how to fight the machines.
Sarah learns that the three dots are connected to a company called Dakara Systems and she and Cameron investigate them, discovering that they have created an AI system and are seeking funding to build it. Derek believes it is a dead end, but Sarah persists, spending nearly all their money to buy the Dakura chip.
The Dakura Systems lead turns out to be a dead end, although Sarah and Cameron recover the money they spent to buy the fake chip. Sarah, still obsessed with the three dots, smashes a mirror when she sees the three dots on her face in blood.
Meanwhile, Derek discovers that Jesse has been spying on John and threatens to kill her until she admits that she has come back to the past with the intention of removing Cameron from John's life. She states that the future John has become increasingly mentally unstable, trusting only Cameron, and making decisions that are costing soldiers their lives. After convincing Derek to spare her, Jesse meets up with Riley, who it turns out is working for Jesse and under orders to separate John and Cameron as much as possible. It appears possible that Riley has come back in time with Jesse, but this isn't confirmed.
John and Riley's relationship weakens as he realizes that he cannot explain his life to her. He leaves her, despite her pleas to the contrary. Eventually, she and John reconcile slightly, despite the fact that Riley has had a minor breakdown, screaming at her foster mother about a violent robotically controlled future.
While the Connors run around dealing with their respective problems, Ellison arrives at ZeiraCorp (Weaver's company) to find that Dr. Sherman has died in an accident. He investigates this incident and discovers that Sherman's death was the result of The Turk protecting itself from a power cut. Sherman was trapped inside the AI room without any ventilation, resulting in his demise at the hands of the computer's heat output. Ellison questions The Turk about Sherman's death and decides that it has no sense of moral ethics. He acerbically suggests that Weaver teach it the Ten Commandments. Instead, Weaver introduces Ellison to "John Henry," who turns out to be Cromartie attached to The Turk, serving as a vessel for the AI.
Cameron, who after all doesn't sleep, spends her nights researching at the library. She has managed to befriend the night watchman and together they discover a one hundred year old murder mystery after Cameron sees a photograph and recognizes a Cromartie model Terminator. When they finish putting the clues together, Cameron departs to destroy the hidden Terminator, returning to the library afterward. In a moment of what almost appears to be compassionate worry, Cameron tells the librarian that his bone cancer has returned. He throws her out and when she goes back to the library the following night, he is gone.
This summary covers only the episodes of Season 2 that have aired. I will update it as the season continues.
The State of the Fandom
The T:SCC fandom is small, but active and there are a lot of excellent fic writers working through the series with gusto. While most of the fandom appears to be gen, there are quite a few popular pairings as well. The most common ones are:
Kyle/Sarah
Charley/Sarah
Derek/Sarah
Sarah/Cameron
Derek/Jesse
Derek/Cameron
John/Riley
John/Cameron
John/Kate Brewster
Additionally, there are Reececest and Connorcest fics floating around the internet ethos as well.
You can find fics, icons, discussion or pretty much anything you want at a variety of communities.
The biggest communities seem to be scc_fic for fic purposes and scchronicles_tv for general discussion.
Other communities include:
For General Discussion and Information:
judgment_daily - The Fandom Newsletter
tscc_tv
connorchronicle
For General Fic:
schronicles
sccxovers - Crossovers
For Character Centric Fic:
the_other_reese - Derek Reese
crystal_peak - Kate Brewster
scc_cameron - Cameron Philips
For Slash Fiction:
scc_slash
tscc_femslash
For Pairing Specific Communities:
derek_cameron
sarahcameron
scc_dereksarah
scc_johncameron
For Icons/Graphics/Media:
thescc_icons
scc_stills
scc_graphics
scc_vids
For the Movies:
judgmentdayfans
terminatorbale
terminatormovie
Also, there are a variety of communities dedicated to the actors in the T:SCC fandom. In short, there is something for everyone and everyone should come and play at once!
Resources:
http://terminatorwiki.fox.com/
http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Terminator_Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(franchise)