TV Verdict

“I want to talk to you about the future,” John says to Reese as they discuss Riley’s death.

“Yours?”

“Yours.”

Did John figure out what happened to Riley from his visit to the morgue? Sort of. He was confirming what he already had guessed, as it turns out. It seems he figured out early on that Riley knew he was John Connor, not just John Baum. John confronts Jesse; so does Reese.

The conclusion of “Today Is The Day,” otherwise known as Episode #219 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, also goes back to the sub flashback to let us know what’s in the box–and it’s not a check for one cent. Turns out it’s a liquid metal android; I’ll call her Pandora for now. After paranoid crew members break the box open, Pandora kills a woman, takes her shape for a moment, and then turns back to liquid metal and disappears into the ventilation system.

From there, it’s shades of The Caine Mutiny as Jesse takes over the sub from the android Queeg, damaging the sub’s controls to force an evacuation. Later on, Jesse confronts Cameron, who reflexively drops the bombshell that Jesse lost a child she didn’t know she was carrying as the crew evacuated the sub.

Meanwhile, Ellison’s been wondering if John Henry is friend or foe. Turns out the android is a friend; he’s been poking around into the company files and is concerned because Mrs. Weaver might be contemplating Ellison’s demise. That doesn’t jibe with what John Henry is being taught about the sacredness of human life.

T:SCC continues to do better than average in creating satisfying resolutions to cliffhangers. It was a little surprising to see John Connor playing detective in his showdown with Jesse, but his speech–”Human beings can’t be replaced. … They die, and they never come back”–packs enough of a punch to make the scene work. Reese’s subsequent battle with himself over whether to kill Jesse or spare her also does the job.

There was one more great moment in the ending as Cameron got to look at her bird up close. Riffing on the theme, John Henry also has a fascination with birds, namely peregrine falcons.

Nitpickers might notice that much of the action in Jesse’s flashback takes place in the sub’s mess hall and realize that T:SCC is trying to keep the set budget small.

The next question, I suppose, is who’s going to die? The promo at the end promised another shocker. A two-parter followed by a shocking death? I guess Fox really, really didn’t want us to defect to March Madness. Just in case you did, I believe you can catch up to T:SCC on Hulu and IMDb.