Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles/Headscratchers

• We know that Jesse wants to provide John Connor with a girlfriend to keep him from getting too attached to Cameron. So she picks a young attractive woman out of the refugees and sends her back to pose as a high school girl and hook up with John. But Jesse herself is reasonably attractive and not much older than the woman she picks. So wouldn't it be simpler to just do the fake girlfriend bit herself?
  • ...Jesse isn't a teenager. And Cameron knows her.
  • ...are you dense? Do you want me to list the reasons why this is a terminally retarded idea?
    • Sarah's reaction to an older woman coming onto her son would be, well, unpleasant to say the least.
    • John's not a moron. An older woman who is at least in her mid-twenties coming on to him is going to set off warning bells.
    • The "girlfriend" is intended to bait Cameron into killing her to alienate John from Cameron. Somehow, I don't think Jesse is willing to go that far. And last, and most important of all,
    • Derek Reese is sleeping with Jesse. I don't know about you, but I think the idea of Jesse trying to seduce John while she is in the middle of an active sexual relationship with his uncle is not the smartest idea.
• Is the T-1001 that assumes Mrs Weaver's form meant to be the same T-1001 that Jesse was contacting in the future?
  • This is strongly implied to be the case, with her echoing back "will you join us?"
  • Its pretty much confirmed, considering how Cameron reacts to the "Will you join us" message, too.
    • But the answer she/it gave was no, so wouldn't it make more sense if it was another T-1001?
    • Would another T-1001 know the code phrase? It was implied that the T-1001 that was on the Jimmy Carter was at least partially in charge of the "pro-peace" machine faction, or at least a representative.
    • Well there is a chance that they sent the message to more than one machine. Ah well guess I'll never know for sure.
• Why was it cancelled? Why does god hate me so?
  • Because Fox hates good shows, and keeps crappy ones around.
    • I hope you aren't implying that Family Guy is a crappy show! :O (Although, to be fair, they DID cancel it ... several times)
  • There's also the fact that the producers decided that the episodes that would lead in after the mid-season break were "The Good Wound" and "Desert Cantos," which were themselves among the weakest episodes of the entire second season. Leading in with them following the lengthy break didn't help ratings.
  • Because people stopped watching it after seeing a bunch of weak episodes, and never came back.
  • Also, it got really expensive.
    • Or more accurately it was not a Fox show and so they weren't as willing to shell out for the third season. SCC was a Warner Brothers production with a lot of the secondary rights (DVDs, etc.) being held wholly by WB. At the end of the second season, with ratings low (both for SCC itself and the block of time it shared with Dollhouse), Fox was looking to for a significant discount on the show (they did the same for Dollhouse), the WB wasn't willing to do so, and hence Fox dropped the same.
• In the series finale, John goes into the future. As such he never existed as the leader of the resistance. Instead, Kyle Reese seems to be the leader, and as he has no reason to go back in time... John will never be born. Kind of a stable time loop where John should cease to exist the moment he jumps into the future. So why is he still there?
  • I think it is called "FOX Just Cancelled Us" and the production team decided to throw out the biggest cliff hanger possible, regardless of logic or real-world space/time problems.
  • Different model of time travel in TSCC.
  • There's also never been any indication or refutation of the Grandfather Paradox in the series prior to that moment, though that scene confirms that Grandfather Paradox works. Time-jumping apparently gives you Chrono Trigger-style time-traveler's immunity.
  • The time travel used in this (and arguably, throughout the Terminator movie series) is iterative time travel, wherein paradoxes can seemingly occur, but really don't. Because even if you erased a future or past event, it still DID exist at one time. Think of a streambed that changes course... the old streambed is still there, the river just isn't flowing in it at the moment.
    • I believe that in the series, everyone is possibly Wrong Genre Savvy about how the timeline works. they think that time travel follows a predestination model, but in reality it is all iterative. For example, Kyle Reese doesn't matter to the past; in fact, his act of impregnating Sarah eliminates the John Connor who sent him back and replaces him with a new one. Of course, it turns a big part of T3 into a Shaggy Dog Story, but that's a bit of bitter, delicious irony.
• The Aborted Arcs from S1 drive me a little nuts. Who was targeting the girl who suicided, and why? What was up with the blonde girl who John liked? What was going on in the basement in "Dungeons And Dragons" and why were Derek and the others suddenly let go?
  • That last question probably would have been answered as the series progressed, if it hadn't been canceled. As it was, it appeared to be connected with Cameron and how Derek recognized her, and Cameron's comment in "To The Lighthouse" about how Derek had broken under interrogation before, but didn't realize it.
    • There's a good chance that what was happening in the basement of "Dungeons and Dragons" was part of the interrogation/teaching sessions that were later shown in "Complications." That may also show a connection with similar interrogations like the one in "Allison from Palmdale." Fisher shows the machines how to become like humans by interrogation, and the Cameron cyborg uses those techniques while interrogating Allison to become her.
• Ignoring the fact the future saviour of humanity seems like a big mama's boy who exhibits little in the way of initiative most of the time... the MO for him and his mother is pretty much to avoid detection and to prepare John to lead humanity against the machines. So, what do they do? Go to LA and enrol him in high school, of course! They aren't even deterred by the fact that their arrival there is naked, videoed and shown on TV. What was wrong with staying in Mexico and training John? Not to mention the fact that Sarah's pathological inability to use a surname other than Reese is clearly a death wish. Needless to say - it seems rather unlikely that the risk of regularly attending school (fake identity or not) is far greater than the rewards of a high school education. Granted, one might argue that there's a necessity for normal social interaction... but if you go down that road, there's a lot to be said about the relationship between Sarah and her son.
  • Because a show based entirely on John sitting in the jungles of Mexico complaining endlessly wouldn't have been fun to watch. Plus, T1 and T2 are both set in L.A., so call it an homage.
  • They stay in LA because they've chosen to stop running and are hunting Skynet - supposedly, though Sarah waffles back and forth on that issue, which is understandable, considering she's batshit insane. And Sarah does eventually realize that John being in public school is a bad idea, as she does pull him out and starts homeschooling him instead.
• One point that always seemed incongruent... why travel FORWARD in time and thus, lose extra years to stop Skynet? Surely if they knew a time frame and location - they could have just left a note? Also, said time travel breaks about the ONLY rule ever established in Terminator - a big ol' terminator head flies through the time vortex... but the gang lose their clothes and fancy gun.
  • They traveled forward in time to escape pursuit and to avoid Cromartie. Jumping forward several years effectively got the FBI off their backs and made them disappear. As for Cromartie's head, that's a case of Executive Meddling; in the original version, Cromartie's head was supposed to still have its skin on it when it went through the portal, but the suits at FOX thought that was too gruesome (in a Terminator series, I know....) so it had to be changed to a metallic skull instead.
  • They also traveled forward because Sarah had originally died of cancer during those years. They jumped over her date of death, which is why Sarah is so concerned with cancer for the rest of the series.
  • It's the problem with all Time Travel stories -- why not simply go back far enough in time to radically alter the Industrial Revolution or Oppenheimer and his bomb, or make sure Andy's parents never hook up and thus never invent Skynet? Or, for that matter, go back and rescue Kyle? If Future John actually has his own machine then it seems a little short sighted to constantly be sending people back to the early 1990s.
• Why does Sarah inherently distrust Cameron just because she's a machine? After T2, you'd think she'd have learn that some reprogrammed Terminators can be trusted. Her monologue in T2 even mentioned how Arnie ended up being a better father figure to John than any of the human father figures in his life. Why wouldn't she trust Cameron? (Granted, there's reason to distrust her in the second season after she starts glitching up and acting unpredictably, but Sarah distrusts her from day one.)
  • She doesn't really distrust Cameron. If she did distrust Cameron, she'd never have let her near John in the first place, let alone allow Cameron to operate on her while wounded, or follow her into the future based entirely on her word. She dislikes Cameron, but it is very, very clear that she does trust her up until she glitches the first time.
    • There's also the part that unlike Arnie, Cameron explicitly only really takes her orders from future John and will readily go behind their backs, kill people she's told not to and lie in the pursuit of her own unknown objectives.
• Wouldn't a teenage boy who suddenly ended up naked with his mom have a Squick reaction?
  • A normal teenage boy, yes. John Connor, however, does not count as normal by any stretch of sanity.
  • He's much too busy watching a naked Cameron kick some ass...
• Is there any in-universe reason why, in the pilot, when Sarah has a nightmare about a humanoid Terminator, it doesn't look or sound like ANY of the ones she's actually encountered?
  • We only know the Terminator in the pilot is different in hind-sight, very easily if the show had continued they could have guest starred that actor again. Also, it is first time the audience sees a SCC terminator, they needed an Arnie stand-in, which this one does, at least this one dresses similarly (versus Cromartie who is about as un-Arnie as one can get)
  • .....because it's a dream? Shockingly enough, when you're in the middle of a dream, the human mind is not at all concerned with little things like "logic" or "consistency".
    • Yes, but one would think the faces of 2 of the most traumatic incidents in her life would have made enough of a dent to haunt her nightmares for a long, long time.
    • And again, dreams are not logical. That's why they're dreams. Dreams do not follow logic or consistency, regardless of how much of a "dent" they put in someone's mind. Yes, the Terminators are going to leave an impression on her mind, but that doesn't mean that the Terminators in her dreams are going to be perfect, exact replicas of the Terminators she's dealt with before, esepcially considering of their skeletal forms, one was only seen during a frantic chase and fight where she's not going to remeber the exact layout of every widget and piece of the machine, and the other was an amorphous blob.
      • Perhaps she has met a stoney-faced 6 foot plus human who she thought was a Terminator, an encounter that so terrified her that she still has nightmares about it.
    • He's pretty clearly supposed to represent a T-800. Sarah herself looks different from the movies, why can't you accept the same logic for the Terminator in the pilot?
    • It's obvious, isn't it? Sarah already knows Terminators can look like anyone. What's scarier to dream about: a recognizable face you can easily pick out of a crowd, or knowing that anyone, anyone could be one of them here to kill you and your son?
• After you get over the shock of the finale, and what it does to the timeline and the fact that we'll probably never see a season three, does anyone else get a little pissed that after a season of teasing around with him, we just got guaranteed that they never intended for us to ever see Future Badass John Conner on screen?
  • No. They were deliberately keeping future!John as The Faceless; he's been a background character throughout the first, second, and third movies, and even in the fourth he was just a byproduct of that other John Connor who started the whole thing. Hell, even in the second movie, we only got one short glimpse of him. Giving him a face and a personality would have ruined the Shrouded in Myth nature of the mysteious future messiah character.
  • In the movies he is this mysterious future messiah and indeed a background character, in TSCC he is much more involved, with scenes where Derek and Jesse wonder what he is thinking, a history with Allison and the man behind whatever convoluted scheme Cameron is involved in that causes her to join John Henry and probably the only one that completely knows why what happened. He was The Faceless but it was very much played with and Cameron refused to let people see him for what I presume to be in-story reasons. From what I thought, they were building up to something.
    • They probably were. Things happened.
• In 'Today is the Day', when John is confronting Jesse in her hotel room (And yes, I do feel bad about nitpicking what is possibly the series' biggest Crowning Moment of Awesome), he tells her about Skynet sending a Terminator after him "When I was twelve". If he were supposedly born in November of '83 now, would that not make him thirteen in July of '97? Now it's true that John may be simply misremembering things, but it still smells of continuity error to me.
  • John's dominant emotion at the moment is tightly controlled fury, and he's off-handedly recalling a chaotic and tumultous point in his history, which is largely irrelevant to the point at hand. John doesn't give a flying fuck about remembering precisely how old he was when that happened, especially when time is such a hilariously mutable thing in this series.
    • • In this timeline, the T-1000 was sent after him when he was twelve (probably sometime in 1996). John, Sarah, and Uncle Bob run and hide in the desert for some time and the blowing up Cyberdyne event (climax where T-1000 is terminated) happens in 1997, not long before Judgment Day was set to happen. Keep in mind that as the "looping" timelines go by, with John sending Kyle to follow and stop the T-800, the T-800 and Kyle are sent back at an earlier date every time in order to erase the mistake of the previous failing of the T-800. As timelines go by, they go a littler earlier each time to erase the previous incarnations of them. The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a later timeline than the one we experience in T1/T2. The events of T1/T2 remain, just occurring on different dates. There's definitely an element of fate and destiny that keeps key moments intact, but as the timeline goes further, the future drastically changes, creating more time travelers that go back in time and create an infinite branching path of eternal possibility. It doesn't make any timeline less important. Your life matters and your timeline is all you know. If it doesn't meet your satisfaction, you go back in time and attempt to change it. The alternate timeline of T3/Salvation would be a further along timeline (possibly the last, depending on what happens in T5/T6) as John Connor is born in 1981 in that timeline. The cycle of the T-800 and Kyle going back earlier and earlier in time would eventually have to end. Hopefully it ends with the upcoming films. (~by Xyberfaust)

• Just watched the episode where Ellison and a SWAT team tries to take down Cromartie and all get killed except Ellison. The fight concludes with Ellison the only one left standing, held at gunpoint by Cromartie... Who just walks off. What reason did he have to let Ellison live?
  • Its explained in the second season. The short version is that by letting Ellison live, Cromartie can watch him in the belief that he will lead Cromartie to the Connors.
• What the hell was Future-John thinking when he decided to send a terminator with the appearance of a ridiculously hot girl back to protect Past-John? It's pretty obvious that the scene with Cameron spontaneously ranting about being in love with John before he pulls her plug and the other one in the last (or second-last?) episode under the Does This Remind You of Anything? classification both really fucked him up in the head with UST. Future-John could have spared himself those freaky situations by sending another Arnold-Terminator back, but instead Past-John is left with the only thing resembling a girl he knows is a killing machine which... the scene when has to stick his hand in her and... I'm really unable to find the right words. Does anyone see what I'm getting at here? The only explanation I can think of is that Future-John wanted to traumatize Past-John for some reason.
  • Its strongly implied in the finale that there was an ulterior motive to sending Cameron back that extended beyond simply sending a bodyguard. Note that future-John was using Cameron as his own personal advisor and laison, and it is worth noting that future-John Connor was strongly implied to at least know Allison Young personally. But the problem here is that we don't know what his motivations were or what he was planning, because the series got canceled. All we have is speculation. Maybe future-John cared about Cameron enough that he wanted to preserve her by sending her back. Maybe Cameron is the only Terminator he trusts enough to carry out what appeared to be a cross-time Batman Gambit. We don't know.
    • • John Connor got close to the terminator that killed Allison and impersonated her to get into the camp, after reprogramming it. Perhaps it was his connection to Allison that he couldn't seem to let go of. Cameron could also become a predestination object, like Kyle, or the photograph (inserting itself in the past and eventually becoming self-sustaining).

On the sub, in Jesse's future (past), she is on a mission setup by "John Connor" (who no one was allowed to see) to bring the box which contains the T-1001 (Catherine Weaver) to "John Connor" to setup peace between the resistance and a rebel faction of machines. Cameron was the one speaking in John Connor's place because she accidentally killed him. Cameron is loyal to John and continues his mission to bring peace. When the Jesse/sub mission with the T-1001 goes bad, that plan is ruined. Cameron has failed. Cameron decides to send herself back in time to protect John and make things right. "She" gets close to him, ensuring he falls in love with "her", thus ensuring his protection of "her" and "her" life. There is a self-aware desire to live. Cameron, in that sense, is independent and crosses against the light, like John Henry. It's no coincidence, that by the end of it all, they are one and the same. In the final moment between John Connor and Cameron, Cameron tries to get John to understand that "she" is a machine that deep down is made to kill him. And she warns him of what might happen (what did happen). Cameron: "You need to understand how it works." John: "What?" Cameron: "This chip. This body. The software is designed to terminate humans. The hardware is designed to terminate humans. That's our sole function." John: "Not you." Cameron: "No. Not anymore. But what was there is still there... and it will always be there." John: "So down deep... you want to kill me." Cameron: "Yes. I do." John: "Then why don't you?" Cameron: " I might someday." (~by Xyberfaust)

• • Also I'm confused as to which of the above experiences you think would be any less traumatic for John if Cameron were in the form of a teenage male or, say, an old man.

• In in the final episode of Terminator SCC, how is Cameron able to give John Henry her chip? Weaver's computer system was hooked up through the CPU port in his head, so even if Cameron managed to remove her chip before deactivating, how would he install it in himself without removing the wires, rendering himself immobile?
  • Its entirely possible that he programmed his body to extract the chip by itself and switch them out. We know that terminator bodies can be remotely controlled, as Cromartie's own body has shown when it tracked down its own head. John Henry codes up a simple set of movement orders and uploads them into the body, and the body extracts and switches out Cameron's chip. Presto.
    • John Henry extracted Cameron's chip (with Cameron's consent) and placed it in his own head. He could then upload himself onto this sophisticated computer chip from the future. The real question is, "Is it just John Henry on that chip with Cameron erased? Is it just Cameron still on the chip in control of this new body? Do they share the chip? If they share it, which one is in control? Cameron, John Henry, Lily Tomlin, or Steve Martin? Is Cameron now on The Turk? Oh the possibilities...
• It's been a while since I saw the episode "Alice from Somewhereoranother", but I don't recall ever quite getting how/why Cameron suddenly starts manifesting Allison's personality and memories as a programming glitch. It seems to me that that wouldn't be possible unless those things were put in her chip, and I can't fathom a reason for that happening.
  • Cameron doesn't have Allison's memories. She has memories of Allison talking about her memories when she was interrogating Allison so she could mimic her. Note that when the counselor is asking Cameron about her past, she begins reciting, word-for-word, what Allison said in the interrogation room. The episode in question strongly implies that Allison was either a close friend or intimate of John Connor, so Cameron had to mimic her very closely in order to fool John. Also, Cameron's CPU apparently has the ability to at least fake emotions to the point that Cameron herself can be overcome by them (i.e. she panics, she breaks down crying, etc.) which suggests she was designed to be a very deep cover agent. From this, we can conclude that Cameron was going to impersonate Allison to the point that she could be her in every aspect. Cameron basically took all of the information Allison gave her, built up a personality around that, and used it to infiltrate John's base.
• A slight case of Did Not Do the Research: the episode Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today takes place mostly in Mexico, on the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated November 2nd. This episode takes place a few episodes after we've been told, through the Connors' old phone code, that the date is November 18th (note that John also makes a joke about the Mexican restaurant they're in having a great Thanksgiving special, which fits more with the later date than the fact that we're told that the Day of the Dead festival is celebrated that very evening a few minutes earlier). Maybe they just happened to be in a Mexican village that celebrates the Day of the Dead a few weeks late, but that's a stretch.
  • That's because it's always the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
    • John and Riley did go in 2007, but not on Nov1 or Nov2 (when Dia De Los Muertos traditionally is celebrated). The celebrations were postponed because of the great floods in Mexico that happened around that time in 2007. Tropical Storm Noel devastated the area at that time. (~by Xyberfaust)

• What the FUCK happened during "Some Must Watch"? I have absolutely no idea what I just saw.
  • I thought it was quite clear. Sarah was captured by the agent and held in the back of his van. Every time she was in the sleep clinic, she was actually having a vivid dream after being drugged into unconsciousness. None of the stuff that was happening while in the clinic was real; the only stuff that was real was in the van.
    • For who agent was working? Since transmitter, which he implanted in Sarah, was used later by unknown force, including terminators, who attacked both John and Savannah. While agent, as far as I understood, worked for Mrs. Weaver initially.
    • He was definitely working for whoever was trying to take down Weaver and the Connors. He was apparently just a spy inside the manufacturing plant.
      • He was working for Kaliba. (~ by Xyberfaust)

• As we know, Cromartie eventually was taken down using two MP-5 sumbachine guns and 12-gauge shotgun. So how it could be he survived attack of FBI HRT earlier? FBI HRT consisted from ~20 soldiers, armed with MP-5, shotguns and even M-4A1 carbines, and, consequently, could provide much more firepower (Besides, if Cromartie was defeated in the way we saw, then he was wrong in the pilot serie where he identified SWAT team, as well armed with MP-5 submachine guns, as "Treat: none"). This could be partially justified by fact that Sarah, Derek and Cameron could have knowledge of structural weakness of T-888 and knew where to aim to incapacitate him, however still Curb Stomp Battle of Cromartie vs. FBI HRT seems to be inconsistent technically.
  • The submachineguns are zero threat to a Terminator. They just bounce off his endoskeleton, which should not be any surprise, considering that they're designed for close-quarters combat against humans and aren't designed to overpenetrate. They're essentially firing pistol rounds, and those just smash into the metal, deform, and fall off. Note that when Sarah and Derek were firing on Cromartie, they weren't doing any damage at all to him. It wasn't until Cameron entered that any appreciable damage was being inflicted. Cameron appeared to be using solid slug ammunition, and was aiming for vital points. She also had some distance on Cromartie, and he was distracted by returning fire at two spaced-out enemy targets. The FBI HRT team went after Cromartie with submachineguns exclusively and were fighting him in close quarters, and were likely aiming for center of mass. Also, keep in mind that Cameron, being a machine, is not going to be affected by things like fear, shock, surprise, or panic. She knows exactly what she's up against, knows exactly how to take it down, and is loaded with exactly the right weaponry to take it down. Her aim isn't going to waver, she doesn't need to retreat to get to cover, and she's not going to be panicking at the deaths of multiple teammates.
  • Word of God is the ammunition Cameron was firing at him was depleted uranium rounds, which would pack a punch much stronger than the regular ammo the FBI was using.
• Cromartie's head travelled with Sarah, John and Cameron to year 2008, but his body remained under debris of bank building. And nobody cleaned up debris, since nobody found it... I can't believe it. Besides, it is unclear, how his headless body was able to walk without seeing obstacles and where it is going, since optic inputs of terminator still are in its head. And nobody spotted it while it was walking!
• It's been established that many of the show's characters are from different "parallel future timelines" but how come everyone who travels back in time ends up in the same "present timeline"?
  • They don't. Each act of travelling back in time creates a new timeline, and people from those timelines go back in time and end up in a timeline that resulted in their timeline of origin forming, only now they're creating a new timeline by being there.
  • I mean the "present" story takes place in one and only one timeline. so how do people from many different "future timelines" end up in the one specific timeline TSCC takes place in?
    • They're not. Every time someone travels back in time they're making a new timeline, and people from that alternate future are travelling back to their past. We don't see that change happening, so it looks like one "unbroken" timeline in the present.
  • but that practically begs people to ask what happened in the one timeline when the next episode picks up in a different one. the audience isn't invested in the future timelines because they don't really matter but the audience is invested in the present timeline(s).
    • • That's right. The only timeline that matters is the one you are experiencing. There are infinite possible timelines due to time-travel. Every time someone travels back in time, it creates a new timeline with a new future (where in turn you have people coming back from that new future, thus creating another new future/timeline). They are constantly bombarded by people from an ever-changing future. It also appears that each person that comes back from the future only slightly changes the future to where its similar and not too drastic of a change. (~ by Xyberfaust)
• Sarah's decision at the end of "Born to Run" bugs the heck out of me. So, she's just found out that Catherine Weaver is a T-1001 and that John Henry, possibly a proto-Skynet, has absconded to the future with Cameron's chip. So when John, greatly distressed, wants to travel to the future to save Cameron, she lets him! All his life, she's tried to protect him, keep him alive and prepare him for his destiny. Now, suddenly, she lets go. She doesn't try to convince or force John not to follow Cameron; she doesn't go with him so that she can protect him. She steps back and watches as he disappears, with a T-1001. What The Fuck?!
  • Yeah? She's spent two entire seasons essentially having to deal with the fact that John is growing up and making his own decisions, and finally realizing that John should control his own fate. As much as she hates it, she has to let him make the decision himself. Its called Character Development.
    • Letting him control his own fate means letting him remove himself from the timeline? That's a win for Skynet right there. I can see why John makes that decision, blinded by 'love', but Sarah letting him do that, not even calling him out on it? Okay, maybe the heat of the moment didn't allow them to consider the consequences. Sarah still let John leave with a T-1001. Letting your son commit suicide does not seem like Character Development to me.
    • Letting him leave with a T-1001 that's repeatedly shown an honest desire to help them, right up to deliberately shielding them from an attack by an explosive drone. If Weaver had wanted them dead, she could have just stepped aside, or simply killed them then and there. And what does moving ahead in time do that lets Skynet "win"? The time travel in the setting essentially allows for infinite do-overs, and John has a T-1001 who has already demonstrated an express interest in keeping him alive to watch his back. And taking John ahead into the future effectively removes him from Skynet's reach for decades and ensures he survives Judgment Day, which, considering the ruthless way in which the family was being hunted over the last few episodes, was a win.
    • Up until she turned into a shield for them, the Connors had no idea Weaver was a Terminator. How has she repeatedly shown an honest desire to help them? Sarah doesn't even trust Cameron, who's been specifically been programmed to protect John, and who's saved John's life several times (and tried to kill him once, but that's irrelevant here). She just trusts Weaver to protect John? As far as she knows, Weaver orchestrated the removal of Cromartie's body, stole the Turk and used it to create John Henry, who for all the world looks like a proto-Skynet and who's now absconded to the future with Cameron's chip, which she seems to have handed over willingly. Nothing in this scenario should lead to her trusting Weaver. Yes, obviously Weaver could have killed John many times over if she'd wanted to. Allowing for that does not mean she can be trusted with John's well-being. As for moving forward being a 'win', while the time-travel mechanics allows for do-overs, it does not erase (there's no evidence that they do) already created timelines. John is integral to the Resistance winning the war. Now there is no John Connor leading the Resistance. There's a 16/17 year old kid who's in over his head. It is very possible that even if John returns to the past, this particular timeline is fucked and that just seems irresponsible. In any case, I don't have a problem with the 'move-foward'. It was a nice setup to exploring just how important John Connor is to the survival of humanity. It's Sarah's response that bothers me. I would have liked her to show a little more emotion. She just steps back and promises John she'll 'stop it'. It's like she's not even surprised by her son's decision to jump into the far future where who knows what awaits him.