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- TV Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Episode: To the Lighthouse
- Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones, Brian Austin Green, Shirley Manson, and Garret Dillahunt
- Written By: Natalie Chaidez
- Directed By: Guy Ferland
- Network: Fox
- Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Sarah Connor Chronicles: To the Lighthouse
Pancakes! By
Rob Vaux
March 28, 2009
Sarah (Lena Headey) thinking about John's future in TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE(2009).
© Mania.com/Robert Trate
As Sarah (Lena Headey) prepares to leave the house, she recalls the Central American myths which served as John's (Thomas Dekker) bedtime stories growing up. She chides Derek (Brian Austin Green) for being careless about Jesse just before they all head to the rendezvous at their new hideout. Down in the basement of Zeira Corp, John Henry (Garret Dillahunt) plays a game with his toys. When Savannah Weaver (Mackenzie Brooke Smith) asks if her toy ducks can join, he replies that they are not a part of his game. She then asks if he can change the rules to accommodate them and he replies that he can. The act triggers a violent reaction in him and a technician is forced to shut him down as he prepares to access the mainframes.
Derek and Cameron (Summer Glau) are clearing out the arsenal. Cameron reveals that she met Jesse in the future and that Jesse had a miscarriage aboard the Jimmy Carter--Derek was the father. Meanwhile, Sarah and John take a detour on their way to their new hideout in the desert. They arrive at a lighthouse on the coast, run by Charley Dixon (Dean Winters). The two men bond over dead women they love and Charley tells John that the grief gets better after awhile.
Also that he has a getaway boat in case the machines come after him. Later, Sarah asks Charley to look after John for her: she's discovered a lump in her breast and he's the only one she can trust with John in case she dies.
At Zeira Corp, the techies believe that John Henry was hacked by an outside entity. They reboot him, but deny him access to outside information. He promptly drops some quotes from the Crucifixion and gives everyone the willies. The tech explains that John Henry "feels" the time he is shut down and that he needs access to the Internet in order to keep absorbing information. Otherwise, it's like starving him. Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) orders him hooked up to the net again. When they do, John Henry awakens and reveals that whatever hacked him is very similar to him.
Sarah tells John that she hasn't revealed the lighthouse's existence to either Derek or Cameron. She then goes to visit the doctor about the lump in her breast. The doctor discovers that the "lump" is actually a cyst surrounding a piece of metal… inserted by Ed Winston (Ned Bellamy), and now being used to track her. Evil men carrying Sparklets bottled water are closing in on her, John, Cameron and Derek as they speak. Sarah shorts out the chip by defibrillating herself, then defibs the Sparklets water guy IN THE HEAD when he comes through the door. Cameron and Derek blow a tire and spot the tail. Derek goes to check it out while Cameron changes the tire; he gets tasered by the Sparklets water guys. Cameron pursues them, but they drive off after she tags one of them with a bullet. Charley and John are alerted by the lighthouse's alarm system and shoot their way to the escape boat.
In the bowels of Zeira Corp, John Henry reveals that the entity which hacked him planted a worm in his system. He also found the name of a company and a designer in the worm's data: Cyberdyne and Miles Dyson. Cameron tracks the van which abducted Derek to an abandoned warehouse. He's blindfolded and duct-taped to a chair. The remaining Sparklets water guy shorts Cameron out with a puddle of water and an electric cable. He has some T-800 schematics--apparently from John Henry's "brother--and is preparing to remove her chip, but he doesn't know about the automatic reboot. Cameron wakes up and snaps his neck before releasing Derek.
Sarah returns to the lighthouse to find John gone and Charley dead.
The Good
The last twenty minutes make up for the first forty: action, intrigue and funky ways to disable incoming assassins… all the stuff this show was supposed to be full of when it started. Winters gives a fine curtain call as Charley, and the script takes care to invest his death with some genuine meaning. The gang at Zeira provides more fun and games, and now there's the question of how John Henry's "brother" came into existence.
The Bad
The show took its damn time getting to the payoff this week, stuffed with more of the boredom and circular dialogue which has driven it to the brink of cancellation. The producers remain unduly stingy with the action scenes--yeah, yeah, I know times is tough, but the title of the show still carries obligations in the "blow things up" department--while the underlying human drama still struggles to regain its footing after a lengthy stretch of dreadful episodes.
The Prognosis
Pity this episode didn't pop up six weeks ago, when it might have done some good. As it is, it's just enough to remind us of the show's potential… right before they turn out the lights.
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I loved this episode. And I disagree just because it has Terminator in it's name that it has to be full of wham-bam-bam all the time or even half the time. I like the story/character driven parts and to me it gives everything and everyone meaning and a purpose. If it didn't have all the stuff people complain about it just be Crank the Series or Transporter the Series.
The scene when John Henry went ape-shit was tense. I thought he was going to kill that little girl. I thought they were actually going to go through with it. The sad thing is now with the show under threat of being cancelled we might never know completely what's in store for our protagonists. That sucks, even if we have a movie coming out - I mean it's one small caveat except for they don't have anything to do with one or another. I always wondered how they pulled that off anyway. You never see a show on TV and a movie that's not related come around the same time.
Man, I want to talk more about this but it's friggin' five in the morning. Imsomnia is killing me. Thunderstorm ontop of that. Jeesh. More tomorrow. I can't think clearly.