The season continues the quest to find the TURK and where it finally ends up in the puzzle, it builds on the mythology of Skynet’s attempts to further its development from the past and expands the notion that there are more that a few people who have come back from the future to prevent Skynet’s plan.
One of the people who has come back is called Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen), she and Derek have a long past, in the future… Funny thing is, when Derek jumped back, he started changing his own future, so it turns out that he and Jessie came from a similar future, not the same. Jesse has her own agenda to prevent John from trusting Cameron in the future. Riley (Leven Rambin), a girl from school has attached herself to John and puts a lot of strain on the relationship between Sarah and John. Sarah and Cameron see Riley as a security risk and are concerned about the danger that she is now in. John understands their concerns, but is more concerned about simply being able to have a girlfriend.
In the course of the season, Ellison has left the FBI and gone to work for Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson), whose company is developing an artificial intelligence of its own. John Henry is what they’ve named it and they begin to teach it as if it were a child. What they are using for the interactive component leads you to believe that they are now creating Skynet. It’s revealed early on in the season that Catherine is a cyborg as well. If you are going to have a cold, emotionless, liquid cyborg, CHOOSE SHIRLEY! She’s most excellent at bitchy.
The events of this season put the characters at odds with one another and it builds great character development. Each character has a lot of depth and you get a good look at each of them, but by the end of the season, you truly understand the great danger they are all in. The writers have a solid plan for season three and the season finale leaves John and Catherine in the future, where they don’t know who John Connor is, past or present. That set up leaves the characters set for another adventure, unfortunately, the series was canceled, so we’ll have to use our imaginations.
[Also read our review of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – The Complete First Season.]
