Sorry, sorry. Yeah, the review is late. I’m busy, but you’re not here for excuses, you’re here to read about episode 9 of Terminator: TSCC or as I call it “That Terminator Show.” Or as I call this one, perfect.

OK, that is slightly overstating it but the show was very focused this week, with one main story involving Derek and Jesse and two small subplots. In one, John and Cameron return to destroy Cromartie’s body from last week only to find it dug up. Well, only one other guy knew about that and by the end of the episode, sure enough, Ellison presents it to Weaver. He really had no choice, after Sarah turned him away from joining them. From his point of view, he and Weaver are working on figuring out what these robots are, but it seems far more likely that Weaver is trying to jumpstart SkyNet and Judgement Day to me.

In the second subplot, Sarah keeps having nightmares in which John is in danger. Ultimately, this leads her to see the therapist from a few episodes back. All I can say is smart move, Sarah. You need it. Of course, the therapist has also been recruited by Weaver. Hey, does she just go around tricking the brilliant black men in this show into working for her? What’s up with that? Well, he is ready to help Sarah, and I hope he’s able to shine some light in the dark corners Sarah normally stays in.

The main story was my favorite and has convinced me that Derek is my favorite character on this show. He’s so damaged, but he’s trying to be good. Anyway, Jesse calls him up and says she’s found a guy she was sent back to find, a Mr. Charles Fisher. She’s got him tied to a chair in a cargo shipment container, where no one will bother them. However, he insists that he’s not Charles Fisher, that he’s just a watch maker. Derek wants to trust Jesse but isn’t 100% convinced.

According to Jesse, Charles is a “grey.” A human who works for the machines to give them information. This guy, she claims, helped them understand what makes people tick. She tells Derek that he tortured her. When Derek isn’t totally convinced, Jesse comes up with a novel idea: she kidnaps the current-day Charles Fisher!

A much younger man is forced to say who he is and says his name to the older man, but he isn’t changing his story. Derek tells him that everyone cared about themselves at some point in time and begins ripping out the young man’s fingernails. This makes the older version crack and he says that he worked for the machines. He admits that he was locked up in prison on Judgement Day and was recruited to help explain how people work and that they have sent him back in the past but not for a mission, but as a reward.

Ultimately, Derek decides to stop Charles’ future work by pulling a gun on the younger Charles, but Jesse shoots the elder before Derek can do anything. They let the younger go, hoping they’ve changed his mind about his future. However, we later see that the FBI arrests Charles. They have a record of his fingerprints and eye-scan to get into a secured location that has info on artificial intelligence. Charles is at a loss to explain what happened and his bruisings don’t help the FBI to believe him. We see in flashback that older Charles was the one who did this. He’s already completed his mission, and now his younger self is put in the prison he will eventually be found by the machines in.

Later, Jesse asks Derek why he can’t remember Charles. She explains that it wasn’t her that was tortured, it was Derek. Derek says he honestly can’t remember that and wonders if he came from a future where that didn’t happen. “Is that possible?” asks Jesse. He theorizes that he wasn’t tortured and has changed the future in some way and Jesse came back later from that future. Which would mean that they can change the future, although in this case it wasn’t really for the better.

What a brilliant episode. Full of intrigue, therapy, and time travel paradoxes. I love it when time travel is dealt with in such a fascinating way. It seems like it may be beyond human ability to ever truly understand, but our heroes have to keep trying to make the future a better place and I love them for it.

I give this one five out of five terminator heads!

photo credit: Kadath