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- TV Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Episode: The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter Part 2
- Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones, Brian Austin Green, Shirley Manson, Garret Dillahunt, Levin Rambin, and Stephanie Jacobsen
- Written By: Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz
- Directed By: Guy Normal Bee
- Network: Fox
- Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Sarah Connor Chronicles: Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter Part 2
Glub Glub Glub By
Rob Vaux
March 21, 2009
Thomas Dekker pulls in a strong performance as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter Part 2(2009).
© Mania.com/Robert Trate
John (Thomas Dekker) and Derek (Brian Austin Greene) have a heart-to-heart about Riley's death, Cameron's trustworthiness and other sage issues… including Derek's life in the future. Later, John speaks to Sarah (Lena Headey) about seeing Riley's body and reaffirms his trust in Cameron (Summer Glau). That doesn't stop Sarah from forbidding Cameron from following John when he leaves.
Meanwhile, Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen) takes a dip in a pool somewhere, which facilitates flashbacks to her voyage on the Jimmy Carter. Her team has brought a strange box onboard at the behest of John Connor. Captain Queeg the cyborg (Chad Coleman) takes custody of it, much to the consternation of the team. They're not happy that Connor needs it--or that "friendly" cyborgs are apparently on every Resistance base--and decide to open the box on their own.
Guess what? It's a T-1000, which kills one of the crew and slithers off into the air duct while Queeg makes like Kevin Bacon in Animal House and assures everyone that all is well.
Back in the present, John Henry (Garret Dillahunt) begs off being shut down for the evening because he's painting fantasy miniatures. Ellison (Richard T. Jones) stays late to help, and John Henry asks if the act makes them friends. After Ellison leaves, Weaver (Shirley Manson) makes a visit and John Henry reveals that he has accessed many of the corporation's files. They contain a number of resignation letters, none of which are dated and some of which are connected to employees still working for the company. She tells him to be prepared for humans to disappoint him.
Aboard the Jimmy Carter, paranoia is on the rise. The T-1000 can imitate anyone, which means anyone might be metal. A near-mutiny quickly ensues, which Queeg thwarts by killing one of the ringleaders. Jesse confronts him about the summary nature of the execution and relieves him of command. Queeg claims that she has no authority on the boat and orders her back to her bunk. She appears to comply, then shoots Queeg in the head and sabotages the controls. The sub heads to crush depth and she orders the crew to abandon ship. Before she can reach the escape pod, however, the T-1000 appears. "Tell John Connor the answer is no," it intones.
Back in the present, John waits for Jesse in her apartment, gun at the ready. She arrives and he asks her for her weapon--he knows she won't shoot him. He tells her about the events of the first two films, then explains why he sent a machine (Schwarzenegger's heroic T-800) back to protect himself when he was a boy. Machines are expendable; people aren't. He then tells her that he's known Riley's true origins for awhile, and orders Jesse to leave: she can live with the guilt of killing the girl.
In 2027, Cameron debriefs Jesse and leverages her into revealing the T-1000's message. Cameron tells her that John wanted the T-1000 to join them, and that Jesse was pregnant at the time she scuttled the ship. Had she completed the mission, the T-1000 might be in Resistance hands and she might be having a baby.
Outside her apartment, Jesse runs into Derek, who condemns her for killing Riley and tries to shoot her dead. She makes a break for it and Derek takes aim at her back: we don't find out if he has the nerve to pull the trigger. He goes up to speak to John about more sage issues. Back home, John breaks down crying in his mother's arms.
The Good
My lord, an actual non-sucking episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles! I'd forgotten what they look like. The usual tail-chasing conversations are jettisoned for actual dramatic progress, as Jesse's plot is finally revealed, the need to hunt Skynet is mentioned again, and a genuine killer robot shows up and starts killing people. The business on the submarine contains an appreciable amount of drama, and the episode handles Jesse's departure with admirable mystery and intrigue. More importantly, things felt like they were finally moving forward after several weeks of wandering aimlessly about the landscape.
The Bad
They're playing awfully fast and loose with serious canonical elements. Was this T-1000 the Robert Patrick version? Is it Weaver? How many of them are there? And why the hell would everyone behave so cavalierly after it iced one of their shipmates and took off in the ducts? Yes, the crew was upset; they clearly weren't upset enough. It's like the chest-burster showing up in Alien, followed by the crew sitting down to finish their meal over John Hurt's mangled remains. Furthermore, the message about Jesse's lack of trust onboard the Carter felt extremely heavy-handed, and they still haven't worked out why Connor allows so many machines in his Resistance. As things stand, the show may never provide a satisfactory answer to that question.
The Prognosis
Despite a reasonable improvement in quality, it's too little, too late for SCC. We're basically playing out the string here, which means plot development and story arcs take a back seat to whatever rabbits they can pull out of their hats right the hell now.
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Mr. Vaux, I think you are still stinging from the sucky shows that came before. This show deserved an A- or at the least a B . No one has been harder on this show than me. The stories have been uninteresting and filled with too much padding. For several episodes preceeding the last 2 there was not enough hard core Terminator action or mythos developed. This episode did what I thought was not possible. It focused the storyline and gave the show new dramatic heft and direction. I felt most of the characters moved forward in their development as they came to realizations of the future and what their roles would be. I believed John Connor as he began to accept that he could not be a kid anymore and must start making the kind of hard decisions it takes to be "the leader of the resistance". The weight of this responsiblity and the realization of all the people to come who will die for him is what, I believe, makes him break down at the end of the episode. This episode ranks right up at the top of best episodes from this or the first season. Hopefully, we will see more shows like this the remainder of the season and more hopefully, this series will be renewed for a third season.