In the final episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Connors discover the plans of Catherine Weaver and John Henry. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to finish The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
SO MUCH FOR GETTING CLOSURE, RIGHT?
I’m not going to get over this, not only is this a spectacular finale for season two, but because it shows SO MUCH PROMISE for the third season that should have happened. While I’m going to spend the rest of my life being furious that there isn’t another episode of this show to watch, I do appreciate that the writers committed to an ending that ties up a lot of loose ends and introduces about a thousand more. I don’t even know if they had a chance to re-purpose “Born to Run†as a series finale, but I don’t think that affects me all that much in terms of how I viewed this episode. It was a fantastic story, one that openly demonstrates that these characters never truly get an ending. Within the Terminator universe, John and Sarah Connor will always be fighting Skynet, and “Born to Run†hints at what the next chapter will be.
While crushing my heart into pieces, I should say.
Agent Aulridge
What a pleasant surprise to see Joshua Malina in this show! COULD YOU IMAGINE THAT POTENTIAL, BY THE WAY? What if the third season was Auldridge, Ellison, and Sarah trying to fight Skynet in the past while John, Allison, Catherine, and Derek fight it in the future? Okay, I’m going to need to stop doing shit like this, but seriously. Over the course of this episode, Aulridge realizes that the stories left in the wake of the Connors validate what Sarah’s always been saying. It’s probably the quickest someone has ever come around to believing her, and I love that this is never taken away from us. I did worry that he might have been the Terminator sent by John’s “brother,†but nope! Totally genuine and willing to help Sarah in the fight against Skynet. Unsurprisingly, though, Sarah doesn’t bite; part of me wonders if Aulridge said he believed her just to get her to break down, but I’m not sure that theory sticks. When he tells her about Danny Dyson, that’s out of interest in the case, isn’t it? (I’m so angry we don’t get to see what happened to Danny, NOT FAIR.)
Run
There are a lot of emotional moments within this finale, but few of them hit as hard as the message passed along by Sarah through both Father Bonilla and the (previously!) silent girl from last season. I honestly bought into the notion that Sarah had found a weakness in the prison and was going to tell John how to exploit it. But that’s not who Sarah is, is she? Sarah always puts her son first, above all else, and it makes perfect sense that she would recognize that her vulnerability in that prison was a huge risk to John’s life.
So she told them to leave her behind.
This whole series has been so rooted in Sarah and John’s experience together that I felt immediately sad at the thought of John separating from her and going his own way. (Which is now doubly devastating because THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF THE EPISODE.) They’re inseparable in my mind. However, Sarah would always be willing to do anything to save her son, and if that meant suffering alone in prison (again!), she’d do it. Plus, I had no reason to believe that they would go back for her. John defers to his mom’s judgment frequently, and you could tell that he was going to obey her. That is, until one little twist.
Will You Join Us?
NOT ASHAMED OF HOW LOUD I YELLED WHEN ELLISON SAID THIS. My gods, look at Cameron’s face. She knew exactly who Catherine Weaver was in that moment, and she knew that this was going way over John’s head. He had no idea what the stakes were. I think that this undoubtedly proves that Catherine Weaver (and those Terminators in the oil rig) are all part of some third party, and that Catherine has spent this entire series preparing to join the Resistance. Did she say no in the future because her side weren’t ready? How did this divergence even happen? The show is deliberately vague on the details, which is both a lot of fun and utterly unfair. (Why, FOX, do we repeatedly trust you to air any television show?) But it’s clear that Catherine knew her time had come. Look how callous she is about… well, everything.
The same goes for John Henry, who watched Cameron rescue Sarah Connor and purposely helped  her. There’s no ambiguity here, and there’s no ambiguity when he asks Cameron to join him. Cameron ends up giving up her chip so that John Henry can save humanity. BY TRAVELING THROUGH TIME, MIND YOU. No big deal, there’s just a TIME DISPLACEMENT MACHINE in John Henry’s room. NO BIG DEAL. How was this show expecting me to deal with all of this on top of the return of the Kaliba drone, which tries to destroy ZeiraCorp, forcing Catherine Weaver to reveal that she’s a Terminator? LIKE??? I AM BUT A MAN, SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. I found the final act of this episode to be exhilarating; it was one huge plot twist after another, complete with the emotional weight that has made this journey such a satisfying one. We get to see (albeit briefly) Ellison’s reaction to Catherine’s identity; we get to see John make an agonizing choice between Cameron and his mother; we get to see Ellison refuse to travel to the future.
Again, lots of potential, but I’m being honest here: the sight of John Connor meeting Derek for the “first†time was the least okay thing about this episode. Oh, it’s great, don’t get me wrong, but it only made me crave so much more from this show, knowing that I’ll never get another episode. John finally gets to meet his father. He finally gets to meet Allison Young. THIS IS THE MOMENT WHERE HE TRANSFORMS INTO THE JOHN CONNOR, AND IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH OF THE SERIES. But it also means that The Sarah Connor Chronicles ends with a rather distressing cliffhanger, one that isn’t resolved. (I have no idea what timeline Terminator: Salvation followed.) It sucks. I don’t know how else to express such a simple statement. I am so impressed by what this show was able to do. From the writing to the acting, this was probably the most surprised I was by a show for Mark Watches. Yes, I’m quite excited for Leverage, but I think that I’m genuinely sad that this is over. I wanted so much more from a show that already gave me more than I ever knew I wanted.
Thank y’all for getting me to watch this, seriously. As scheduled, we’ll begin Leverage on Monday morning! This also means that there is currently nothing scheduled for Double Features next. TIME FOR A SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT. After finishing Leverage, I will be tackling the remainder of The Legend of Korra, and then I will also watch/review Series 8 of Doctor Who. Following that, I will watch all 13 episodes of Kings! COMMISSION AWAY, MY FRIENDS. (Note: Individual episodes of Korra do not count double for a commission. They are still one episode per commission.)
The video for “Born to Run†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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