In the finale for Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, we had explosive action, violence, death, and the best birthday present ever. Before I get into the meat of review, this season really has been an all too short pleasure. With strong women, diverse characters, and plot arcs that actually tied back into what had come before, there really hasn’t been a moment this season where I haven’t first squee’ed, and then thought really overly-thinky thoughts. Here’s to hoping that we get a second season.

In her opening monologue, Sarah Connor told us that when her son was a young child, she wanted to freeze time and save his innocence. As she spoke, we saw the future of 2011, Judgment Day.

Young Derek and Kyle Reese played baseball in the park the day the world ended. There was something so incredibly bittersweet about eight-year old Kyle missing the ball and telling his older brother that it was hard. All the hardness of their lives lay coiled across the barbed wire road ahead of them. Baseball has a sunlit-summer place in the American consciousness. It was interesting to think that this spring day was quite literally the last day of promise for the boys of summer. After this, the sky would be full of nuclear fallout winter clouds.

Sarah went on to tell us that time could not be frozen. Time can be revisited and characters can attempt to divert the flow of time. However, time itself remains a fast flowing river that does not freeze no matter the winter. Children, caught in its inevitable undertow, cannot be protected.

Derek, on the last day of his childhood, stared up at that beautiful blue sky, sliced with white missile vapor, which Kyle called fireworks.

This image dissolved into a present day image that may as well have been what happened next. Machines battled on the screen. However, it was just a video game at the internet café where Sarah and Cameron were to meet Sarkasian.

There's a recurring theme in this episode of identity: the people you recognize and the one’s you don’t. Cameron had learned Armenian because Sarkasian is an Armenian name. This didn’t help her recognize him when he stood in front of her.

When the "clerk" greeted Sarah, his statement for a moment played at being Sarkasian, before pointing to the sign to tell them to pay for their computer time. The joke in this, which played off of Sarah's (and the viewer's) expectations, was that the clerk ultimately turned out to be Sarkasian. He was right there, but because he had already defined his identity, the camera doesn’t even pan over him when Sarah got the message to meet Sarkasian at a food court with $500,000 to buy the Turk.

Meanwhile, the “boys” were stuck in the getaway car. Derek questioned this inversion of gender roles, leading to my favorite line of the series. "Because one of the girls is tougher than nuclear nails." "Yeah, and the other one is a cyborg."

The word choice of boys/girls versus men/women emphasized the theme of childhood and time. After all, one of the more awesome things about Sarah’s character is that she’s not only strong, but she’s an adult-woman, not a child-girl.

The “boys” then discussed Moore’s Law*, the truism about the doubling in computer power, which will end the world in four years. This doubling certainly cannot be prevented by acquiring the Turk.

Rather deliberately, Derek mentioned Kyle and the beginning scene. When the world ended, he took Kyle underground, but didn't tell him that the machines had taken over. He tried to preserve Kyle’s innocence, but that wasn’t possible.

Meanwhile, Agent Ellison met with Charley. Ellison’s earlier experiences with poisoned tea not withstanding, they drank coffee together, while Agent Ellison took a leap of faith. The camera lingered on a Catholic crucifix on the wall, but the cross belonged to Charley’s wife. Charley was a man of a different faith.

Now, before I go any further, I’m going to go on a tangent. It’ll loop back soon enough. When you go to small museums in Europe, they often have one well known piece (that’s tourists visit them) and the rest of the walls are covered in Renaissance paintings of the same three images: the crucifixion, Mary and baby Jesus, and the Pieta. Paintings and sculptures of the Pieta, or pity, are images of Mary holding her adult child, Jesus, who has just died. We see all three of those images in this episode. I’m not the first to note John Connor’s initials are JC, but this really cannot go well.

In any case, Ellison then quoted Revelation 6 and the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, another JC.

I say he quoted Johnny Cash, not only because “Man Comes Around” playing at the end of the episode, but because Ellison skips several versus as he quoted. Revelation 6:1-2 “and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see…” 6:8 “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."** I suppose listing out Famine, War, and Pestilence would be beside the point, although as we’ve seen from the flashes of the future, they’re coming too.

Ellison, having seen with his own eyes and ears, believed that many mad things were possible. He listed them out. For the first time, I heard the name Skynet, and I thought of all those ancient all fathers and sky deities like Marduk, Zeus, and Odin.*** I thought of the episode opening image of the missile vapor trails creating a net of clouds across a sky that would turn the sunny blue into dark storm clouds.

In opposition to this net in the sky, Ellison told Charley that he believed Sarah, mother/woman, was alive. She pulled Ellison from the fire. She passed through the fire of the bank, which was very Biblical of her. Although in another way, it occurred to me that Derek and Kyle took refuge from Skynet and it/his death’s head machines in the labyrinthine tunnels of mother earth.

Charley told Ellison that if Sarah were alive, she’d want to hear that from him. Then Charley gave Ellison the revelation that he really didn’t need. It was knowledge out of order, like breaking the seventh seal first. Charley told Ellison about Agent Kester.

Ellison has been at the Los Angeles office and in the FBI for years. He knows everyone. He did not know Kester.

Then we switched, as through several layers of car window glass to Chola, whose name means girl, and has yet to speak on the show. She watched non-Sarkasian go into Carlos’ home.

Carlos was playing yet another of those video games they so love on this show. I don’t recognize the game, but we see a large green creature throw a motorcycle, a machine. As an iconic image, some sort of Hulk, all I could think was that non-Sarkasian won’t like Sarah when she’s angry.

Non-Sarkasian looked at the sword on the wall and complimented it; he already knew what he was going to do. Then he held up a picture of Sarah and said that he had read her FBI file. That was quick work on Sarkasian part.

Non-Sarkasian talked about how, from his perspective, Sarah purchased an identity from Carlos, and when she had what she wanted, she killed informant Enrique. I thought about what all these events must look like from an external point of view. Sarah wanted the Turk, and now both Andy Goode and Dimitri are dead. If he’s read her FBI file, Sarkasian must believe Sarah to be an anti-technology terrorist who spent three years in a mental institution. According the FBI, she killed Myles Dyson and blew up more than one building in her “delusion.” From his perspective, this is a story of organized crime versus crazy luddites. He doesn’t know what story he is in.

Then non-Sarkasian looked once more at the sword and read the quotation on it, “Los Ninos Heroes”^*, boy heroes, the six who died defending Chapultepec castle. Once again, we have a reference to “boys”, children. In this case, the boys were six military cadets who died in an attempt to defend Chapultepec Castle/Mexico City from the invading American Army during the Mexican-American war. The last boy supposedly wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped to his death from the top of the fort.

Years later, General Ulysses Grant called the Civil War God’s punishment for the war that had proceeded it.^**

So given this very specific historical reference, it was fraught with significance when this white man took down that sword and killed Hispanic young men. It was quite sinister when non-Sarkasian asked Carlos, with his round boy’s face, what kind of boy he was.

While all this was happening, Charley arrived at Sarah’s house. He had a wonderfully childlike belief that now that Ellison believed, the government could protect them.

Sarah knew better. However, she didn’t know who Kester was. She only had his card, and even if she saw his face, she might not recognize him. That’s what they do, get your trust and then kill you.

Sarah didn’t have time for worrying about un-safety; there was a future to save. Cameron sat at the kitchen table counting diamonds, a “girls” best friend. They belonged to Derek once, and we were reminded again of that external view. If Derek had them, he stole them. He didn’t steal enough. They didn’t know yet that Sarkasian wasn’t really interested in negotiation.

As Sarah and Derek went to their meeting to buy the Turk, we were reminded of the mirroring of past and present. The first thing Derek and his men did when they emerged into the past was go to a mall food court. They would have been teens when the world transformed. They would all have remembered all the horribly wonderful abundance of food: Mexican, Chinese, Italian, burgers and dripping grease. Like starving prisoners suddenly confronted with a banquet, they gorged themselves to vomiting. In the future, that place of abundance was a concentration camp.

They arrived at their destination and Derek asked, “Is that it?” All the viewer saw was an ATM, a machine of prosperity surrounded by sunlit people.

However, Sarah and Derek could not make their meet. There were beat cops on that dappled afternoon and our heroes were/are fugitives.

On their return to the house, they found non-Sarkasian lounging in a chair. The dynamics of this entire scene were fascinating. Sarah falling b behind Derek made me think not so much of “protect the little woman” as a general falling back to let the foot soldier deal.

Then there was that wonderfully delicious moment when Derek said the sort of thing that fans so often said while watching t.v.

Non-Sarkasian told them that Sarah’s son was under surveillance, as he clearly knew Sarah had no daughter. I flashed back to the thousand or so times I’ve watched a show where the random bully picked on little Buffy, or skinny Kwai Chang Caine, or David Banner. I’d sit there and grin because, well, you wouldn’t like David when he’s angry. In setting a watch on John and Cameron, Sarkasian had no idea what he was getting into.

As non-Sarkasian went outside, and Derek followed, we flashed to a dashboard Madonna holding her little Christ child.

Non-Sarkasian knew who Sarah was, he read her file, but not her significance. Agent Ellison knew that there was something going on, but he lacked the fundamental details to prevent what ultimately happened. In this universe, ignorance is not bliss, it leads to death.

However, the opposite of death isn’t only life; it is the inevitable passage of time.

On his field trip, John stood in front of the bones of two Titans of an earlier world. A Tyrannosaurus Rex posed in frozen combat with a Triceratops. For all T-Rex’s mighty jaws and teeth, it was now nothing but bones. Cameron noted that John had not spoken in twenty-eight minutes. Those minutes part of the time counting down to his birthday that he feared was forgotten.

Various cultures have different rites of passage. American t.v. would tell us that learning to drive is one of the first passages into teen independence. John told us that he’s been driving since age twelve, adulthood too soon. He was about to pass from fifteen to sixteen, another tick in his clock.

Cameron wanted to know if she had a birthday, a day when she would be celebrated. John suggested that perhaps she had a built day, but they didn’t know it.

Then Cameron’s attention was taken up by Sarkasian’s watching minion through the dinosaur bones. She smiled at the teacher holding her back from her target, and all I could think of was the T-Rex smile.

Post commercial, as she shut the trunk of the car, Morris took Cameron’s wonderful bluntness as sarcasm. After all, it’s too fantastic to believe that she killed someone and stuffed him in the trunk. He thinks her edgy/dark, so he asked her to the prom. That long moment where she stared at him, you could practically hear the processors whirring. She has no answer for that sort of question. Morris was so happy at her yes, not realizing that he had just asked Lady Death out on a magical date to a bad chicken dinner, balloons and clothes that everyone regrets twenty years later.

Morris knew, but did not know Cameron. The clerk thought Ellison knew everyone at the FBI, but it took a picture for Ellison to recognize Kester, Lazlo. However, a picture didn’t give the full information. There was still one more identity to peel back.

As Ellison looked at the photo, Cromartie/Kester/Lazlo/888 went back to the FBI to access Sarah Connor’s files. He was told that Agent Ellison had the box. Cromartie recognized the name, perhaps from eight years ago, perhaps for some reason that we don’t yet know.

When non-Sarkasian called his minion, and heard a voice in response, he thought he recognized it. He knew that Derek followed him, and wanted no more dangerous games. Sarah and co. were to be brought in. However, the voice that he heard was Cameron doing what Terminator’s do, pretending to be something they aren’t.

There was a knock at the door, and the discounted wildcard entered the picture. Chola, the girl who has never spoken a line, Carlos’ blood on her shirt, took them to where Sarkasian lived. Derek was noticeable, so non-Sarkasian noticed him. Chola was silent and discounted, and she followed everywhere non-Sarkasian went.

They went in. Sarah stood right across from actual Sarkasian, but she’d already discounted him. She thought she knew who he was, so she left him behind. Non-Sarkasian hid behind walls that were easier to break than doors. I do wonder what he must have thought in that moment, as fists slammed into cement. Mostly, I’m guessing it was a string of swear words.

Then once again, we flirted with the question of identity as John found not the Turk, but a little girl in a closet. There's something evocative about even typing that, so I'll repeat it. As Cameron smashed through a cinder block wall, John found a little girl at a little desk in a tiny closet. We didn't learn her name. Whether or not her father was the actual Sarkasian, she was a child in a dangerous place. John tried to protect her, but could not even protect himself. Innocence cannot be preserved by hiding.

There was a wonderful tension in that standoff behind the internet-bar. Not-Sarkasian held John hostage. Derek held that unknown little girl. Non-Sarkasian told us that she wasn't his kid. With Derek rather ambiguously responding, "Not mine either." In that moment, he was talking about both the children in the ally. Neither of them was his child.

Yet, as they stood there at the proverbial Mexican standoff, Derek covered the little girl’s eyes. As if by preventing her from seeing him shoot non-Sarkasian, who could well be her father, he could somehow protect her from the knowledge of that moment. He did it all the same.

After non-Sarkasian fell, we had our non-Pieta. Sarah held her son, who seemed to realize that Terminators and Judgment Day aren’t the only things he has to worry about.

Silent Chola drove them back to their home. Cameron first asked the silent girl if she would have to kill her now too. Then Cameron handed Chola a gun, sparse protection in a world where there is no safety.

Ellison was just starting to understand that as he discussed Kester with Agent Simpson. Kester looked like Lazlo, but the blood did not match. Greta listed off all the ways that Lazlo had to be Kester. Kester/Lazlo’s actions made no sense, because they didn’t know the goal. Ellison wondered what kind of monster Lazlo/Kester must be, and Greta told him that he knew full well that some men are monsters.

As they prepared to go face that monster, the long night had moved into day, John’s day. A day he now looked to spend cracking Sarkasian’s files.

In that morning after a sleepless night, Derek wanted to celebrate John’s birthday, because “things to celebrate should be celebrated.” Derek knew as John did, anything could happen. The end could be in four years or four seconds.

Derek knew it was John’s birthday, because he’d celebrated John’s 30th with him. Thirty is another one of those time markers. It was another coming of age for John that had both happened and not yet happened. Derek offered to buy John a beer, but the drunk as a skunk John was in the future. This John was only sixteen, not yet twenty-one.

So they went to the park for sweet child’s ice cream, and Derek rather awkwardly said/asked that Sarah has never killed anyone. She had murder in the windows to her soul, her eyes, but her heart was still pure.

They sat on that sunshine-bright park bench, and Derek talked about doing anything to keep the future from burning this innocent grass.

Then we had one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the season. After John had spent all season looking for a father figure, to know his dead-hero- father, there he was. Little Kyle, at five years old, throwing a baseball with his older brother in a golden California morning, back when the day was still young.

Derek knew Kyle was John’s father, because, “Every time I look at you, I see him.” This was a statement that made me want to go back and re-watch with that knowledge in mind. When Derek stood in the grass and asked Sarah about his brother, he knew. When John talked about foster homes and couch surfing, Derek was looking at John and seeing his lost little brother’s face. It made me wonder when did Derek first see John in the past and understand the Moebius strip of it all.

I missed having that moment of revelation, but in a series and an episode where so much identity was obscured, I loved the idea that Derek got to be perceptive in the face of the truth. What an excellent birthday present.

From the sylvan moment, we shifted to the thing that must be protected against. Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” played and we viewers knew that Agent Ellison and Agent Simpson had no idea what they were in for.

Those nameless FBI busted down the door and what followed was one of the most abstract and horribly beautiful fight scenes that I’ve ever “not” seen.

I realize that we don’t see the battle because of the costs involved, but having the viewer first fall with an agent into the pool, and then be submerged as agents fell was stunning. Ellison’s frantic commands to fall back, came through the comforting cool, but it was all very much too late. Ellison had wondered what kind of monster Kester/Lazlo was. Ignorance was no protection.

Water is generally symbolic of life, the fountain of youth and all that. The end of the primordial comes with splitting of the waters. Those mythological all father gods that I mentioned earlier (Marduk, Zeus, and Odin, oh my), they slew the dragons, fathers, or giants that came before. They split the waters and created the lands.

Fire is so often associated with the end. As Johnny Cash told us, “It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.” And fire/hell will follow after that pale horse.

With the blood of the end drenching the waters of Alpha, the blue pool stained red and black. This was water that filtering through a cloth would not cleanse.

As the Man in Black broke off his song, we panned up another man in black, Cromartie. His face wore the marks of the fight, but he was full of oh so Terminator calm. Ellison, man of the book that he is, prayed in the face of such implacable death. For as the song goes, “Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still.”

As to what Cromartie thought, or why he didn’t kill Ellison, there are a thousand possibilities of speculation.

In the face of those possibilities, Sarah began her closing monologue. Having opened with the inevitable loss of the innocence of her child, she closed with a description of “Lord of the Flies.” She described a boy, Simon, who wept at the death of a pig, which symbolized the end of innocence and the darkness of men’s hearts. What she did not relate was that Simon, returning to his friends, was mistaken for a monster in the dark and killed by his friends in their slide into chaos.^***

As Cromartie calmly walked away, Charley arrived having heard a broadcast about the FBI raid. Charley and Ellison looked at each over the body of poor Agent Geta (Gretel) and they both finally truly understood the face of the monster.

With the ending monologue already read, there was an additional “make a finale” scene.

Sarah stood behind John as he decrypted. He didn’t tell her what Derek knew. He only told her that Derek had remained at the park.

Now John wanted to push forward and it was Sarah clearly delineating the difference between their mission and their lives. “Things to celebrate should be celebrated.” As they discussed going out to dinner, they were a trip wire close to Death’s pale horse.

Sarkasian’s code cracked and they looked at a series of faces. They saw Sarah’s face, a stranger, and Dimiti, and knew that someone else was looking for the Turk. They realized that Sarkasian had been sitting in plain sight all along. I wonder if even his men know.

Cameron, on her cake-drive mission, saw a stranger walk away. It was only as he looked back and she turned the car key, that she recognized the clerk. She didn’t know his significance. Although, I would also imagine that the car blowing up around her was a give away. As Sarah and John reacted the explosion, I wondered that most important of all questions. How can Cameron go to the prom if she has no skin?

Hopefully, there’ll be another season so I can find out.

Source
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

**http://www.htmlbible.com/kjv30/B66C006.htm
http://lyrics.rockmagic.net/lyrics/johnny_cash/american_iv_the_man_comes_around_2002.html#01

*** http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/tiamat.html
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

^* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Ninos_Heroes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapultepec_Castle

^**http://www.jackbloodforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13996
http://www.answers.com/bb/bbsearch.jsp?Q=did%20the%20whigs%20opposed%20the%20mexican%20american%20war

^***http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/summary.html