I recently finished watching The Sarah Conner Chronicles. I watched it a few years back but was curious to watch the ending again. I remembered that John had jumped forward to the future and then the series ending. I rewatched it from the beginning, and was pleasantly reminded that it’s a pretty good show. There are a few slow episodes and the odd weird choice (like late in S2 when there is an episode that is between Sarah in the back of a van being interrogated and her in a mental hospital). But overall its interesting and it certainly finished as a cliffhanger!
And that’s what most of this is about… what we know in the end.
So in the final moments, John and the Catherine Weaver (the liquid metal) jumped forward. She disappeared as John met his uncle. His uncle and his father, and neither know who John Conner is. He’s clearly not the leader of the resistance. Enough has been altered in the past to wipe his part out. And as the screen goes black, we are left with Cameron, or by the reaction of the dogs, the human who gave Cameron her form. She clearly doesn’t recognise John either.
The future has changed a lot.
We also know that the Cromartie body, with Cameron’s chip inside is already here. But is it the protector Cameron, or due to damage in her prison assault has she defaulted to her Terminator programming? She hinted at this earlier in the episode. That doesn’t seem quite right as she probably would have laid waste to any humans she came across in the future, which doesn’t seem to have happened. What if it is actually John Henry in this chip? We have no idea what he might do… or a mix of them both, or of John Henry and the default Terminator. Who in the future would appear to be hunting someone who didn’t actually matter.
But the Catherine Weaver Liquid Metal knows what happened in the future, or at least one version of the future. Remember she mentioned the “No I won’t join you” interaction from her, Jessie and Cameron in the past. And it seemed as if the other Terminators from Skynet were attempting to destroy her, so they are enemies? So now we have two Terminator factions.
Or are they two Skynets, but from different futures? Or were the new Terminators just targeting the Weaver faction, simply because they identified John Henry and decided it was a threat.
But if the second Skynet isn’t being opposed by John, then why did it carry out such an elaborate hit, to hit them all? Or again, there were standing orders to eliminate any other Terminators around… and they were actually after Cameron – that doesn’t fit, they left her behind to snatch Derek.
Did the Catherine Weaver recognise John or Sarah? I am not entirely sure. I think she didn’t recognise John, though at the psychiatrist’s office, they may not have actually seen each other. Seems odd for a Terminator not to assess everyone they have around them. But then she must know who he was, or how would she know about the joining interchange.
I am really stumped with what might have happened next. Someone, not John, was clearly in charge of the Resistance. Kyle was still alive, so going back to protect Sarah hasn’t happened? That’s why John isn’t the “Great Leader’. So are the other Terminators (not the Weaver faction) after a new “Great Leader”. Who is this? And is it because John jumped forward and not lived forwards…..
Time travel always makes for problems.
Anyway, I just wanted to dump my thoughts here. It was a well done show, and I would have loved to have seen what happened next. I am sure it wouldn’t have answered every question and tied it all up nicely.
But life is messy.
As an added weird thought…. What do we do with all of these Terminators littered through history all with perhaps slightly different “stories of the future past”. What if Cameron, Cromartie, Uncle Arnie, Evil Arnie, the other Terminators from the Chronicles, and the TWO liquid metals. What if they all ended up meeting somewhere, kind of like the Dark Fate movie. What a mess. And Derek, his team, Jessie and even Kyle…
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