An Interestingly Confusing 'Chronicles'

By LillyKat
PTR Senior Staff Writer

Well, that was ... interesting.

And odd.

Somewhat strange.

I guess it might've been a little much to expect two humdinger episodes in a row from the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles gang. But, I guess I'm two for two this week on the "I told you so" tip given that we got our proof Cromartie a) wasn't really terminated, and/or b) got dug up.

However, I wasn't expecting it to be at the hands of Agent Ellison. I confess I was thinking he might lead Shirley to the spot - some sort of I'll - show - you - mine - if - you - show - me - yours thing.

But do it himself?

And lie to John and Cam about it?

Interesting. Note to Agent Ellison: if you think you're really going to "learn" how to "fight these things" by turning over Cromartie's half-toasted metal endoskeleton to Shirley, you need to quit now.

But aside from that nice little twist, this episode was a little off for me.

Like, weird. Strange. Disjointed.

The Sarah nightmare thing didn't really work for me. It just seemed really oddball. I get that she HAS nightmares, and that she IS in need of chatting with someone about her volume of issues, but the turtles, Cam rocking babies, the dots, the hole ... it played like one big acid trip as opposed to a nightmare.

And what is up with Derek's girlfriend Jesse?

She seemed borderline psycho in this ep, so much so that I was completely with Derek in his WTF expressions as to whether she did in fact capture the real Charlie Fisher and/or whether he was even worth capturing. Apparently, he's not such a nice guy in the future (read: traitor) given that he teaches Skynet the ins and outs of how to acquire information from human subjects (read: torture).

Now, I DID love seeing Richard Schiff (Toby on the West Wing) guest star as Fisher. He was convincing BOTH ways - in trying to say he wasn't Fisher, then when he finally fessed up that he was (especially after Jesse went and got the younger version of himself, and Derek started ripping out young Fisher's fingernails to get older Fisher to talk).

Ouch.

And it was interesting to see how older Fisher seemed to set-up younger Fisher to repeat the future. That is, young Fisher gets busted because old Fisher - who has the same eye scan/fingerprints - can break into the same company for which he worked pre-judgment day, at some zero dark hundred hour in the morning, then manipulate the computer system to allow back-end access to which the Feds cannot disable but of which gets young Fisher on the Feds radar. Young Fisher is really just a seismic retrofitter at THIS point in time, but he ends up being brought in by the FBI and locked up in solitary confinement - which is how older Fisher lived through Judgment Day.

All of this then begs the question of how "many" future scenarios do we have, particularly since Jesse is trying to convince Derek HE was tortured by Fisher (since she was supposedly there to watch) whilst Derek has no memory of it.

And doesn't Derek remember EVERYTHING?

Like we said ... interesting, odd, strange.

But entertaining.

The fight to save the world continues.

New episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles air Mondays at 8 p.m. on FOX. You can also watch full episodes online. Visit the Official Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Web site to catch up (or re-watch!)