||SPOILERS|| An introspective episode, capped by moments of great action; "To The Lighthouse" was a very good installment that gave Lena Headey a few touching moments that actually worked, for once...Following the conclusion of the Riley/Jesse storyline in last week's two-parter, "To The Lighthouse" finds Sarah (Headey) taking John (Thomas Dekker) to a brand new safe-house, away from all the bad memories of their season 2 home. This turns out to be a quaint lighthouse on the edge of the ocean, where Sarah's ex-fiancé Charlie (Dean Winters) has been living since the death of his wife. It's a reunion that helps both John and Sarah get over their recent trauma, and Sarah finds Charlie a sympathetic shoulder to cry on after discovering a lump on her breast, and reveals that the cancer she's destined to die of may have come.
I've never felt terribly comfortable with Headey's performance as Sarah Connor in T:tSCC, as it's just too aloof and dull for my taste. However, her awkward style worked perfectly for this storyline. Headey's scene with Winters, confronting her self-diagnosis of cancer, was beautifully handled by both actors.
Elsewhere, John Henry's (Garrett Dillahunt) storyline finally begins to develop, in a surprising and frightening way; while talking to little Savannah (Mackenzie Smith), the serene AI suffers some kind of "malfunction" that leaves him juddering and holding Savannah in a tight grip, scaring her away. Fortunately, ZeiraCorp techie Mr. Murch (Shane Edelman) manages to pull John Henry's power cord to turn him off, so he can assess the damage.Catherine (Shirley Manson) and Agent Ellison (Richard T. Jones) are told that John Henry was the victim of a cyber-attack from an outside source, and upon being rebooted they discover that John Henry considers the moment his first taste of "death". And he didn't like it. After he assesses his own code, John Henry concludes that a similar artificial-intelligence to him was responsible for hacking his mainframe. Not only that, but the computer "worm" that has been trying to find him has infected nearly every computer on the planet in its search, and can be traced back to Cyberdyne Systems.
At the hospital, Sarah is relieved to find that her breast lump isn't cancer, it's just a cyst that's formed around an electrical implant: a transmitter! Sarah realizes that she was tagged while captured by Ed Winston in "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep" and his accomplices at the Desert Canyon Heating & Air cover-operation must be hot on their tail. She's proven right, when strange men in overalls pull of a coordinates attack on her family. Sarah manages to disabled the transmitter by shocking herself with a defibrillator, then using the paddles on one assailant who has traced her to the hospital, while John and Charlie come under attack at the lighthouse. But can Charlie's beach defenses protect them, as they flee to an escape boat moored on a jetty?
Meanwhile, Derek (Brian Austin Green) and Cameron (Summer Glau) have been sent to retrieve weapons from storage, both unaware they're no longer trusted by Sarah, despite John's insistence that Derek just made a mistake in trusting Jesse and keeping her a secret. When returning, both face an attack by the same utilitarian goons after Sarah and John, one of whom manages to kidnap Derek and use him as bait to disable Cameron when she attempts a rescue at a warehouse (by throwing a bucket of water at her feet and electrocuting her.) These guys certainly know how to immobilize a cyborg quickly and efficiently! However, Cameron's more tenacious than they give her credit, and she regains mobility to retrieve Derek (love his silent response to her arrival, which she responds to with a terse "you're welcome.")So, interesting to note that John Henry's brush with death has caused him to consider the possibility of a divine power (he reawakens by displaying the paraphrased Bible quote "why has God forsaken me?" on his screens), and it can't be a good thing when machines find spirituality. If they decide to answer to a higher power, pesky humans just get in the way. Also interesting to discover there's another John Henry-style AI out there somewhere (perhaps in the possession of the men attacking the Connor's), and their worm has infected global IT -- is that perhaps a precursor to Skynet assuming control of the world's computer infrastructure?
Really, it was just great to see a working balance between the human drama (Sarah, Charlie, John), the mytharc (John Henry) and some long-overdue action -- particularly for Cameron, who has been ridiculously marginalized for the latter-half of season 2. Seeing her chase after the kidnapper's car, bullets thudding into her chest was perhaps more satisfying than it might have been, because I can't actually remember the last time Summer Glau was kicking ass. And she kicks ass good.
Overall, "To The Lighthouse" was a great, varied, episode. We had some real developments, a few surprises, and a death that (while not heartbreaking) still dug a pit in my stomach given its relevance to Sarah.
16 April 2009
Virgin1, 10pm
Writers: Natalie Chaidez
Director: Guy Ferland
Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah), Brian Austin Green (Derek), Summer Glau (Cameron), Thomas Dekker (John), Shirley Manson (Catherine), Garret Dillahunt (John Henry), Richard T. Jones (Ellison), Mackenzie Smith (Savannah), Shane Edelman (Matt Murch), Dean Winters (Charlie), John DeVito (Young John), Gina Gallego (Dr. Martinez), Luisa Vitor (Receptionist), Massi Furlan (Delivery Man #2) & Dominic Flores (Male Nurse)
