Nearly comatose from his gunshot wound, Derek Reese has
visions of his future-past; Sarah must explain to Charley
what is really going on.
Actor Jonathan Jackson plays Kyle Reese in his brother's
memories in this episode. Kyle was previously played by Michael
Biehn in The Terminator
(1984) and later by Jai Courtney in
Terminator Genisys (2015).
Didja Notice?
episode begins at 43:25>>>>>\
In Derek's flashback at 3:12 in the episode, a painted mural
in the Resistance bunker depicts a lion with a Terminator's
metallic skull in its jaws, with the catchphrase, "Hang in
there baby!" This would explain why the resistance members
in 2007 had a poster of a kitten with the same phrase
hanging in their dilapidated safe house in
"Gnothi Seauton". |
 |
 |
Hang in there lion from this episode |
Hang in there kitten from
"Gnothi Seauton" |
This episode reveals that during the future war, Kyle and
John were prisoners at Century Work Camp and they escaped
together.
In the current 2007 timeline, Andy Goode was killed by Derek
Reese (in
"Queen's Gambit"), but Derek's flashbacks in this
episode reveal that in the prior timeline, Andy joined the
resistance at some point in the future under the alias Billy
Wisher, realizing he unknowingly contributed to the
development of Skynet. The name "Billy Wisher" is a
reference to William Wisher, co-writer with James Cameron of
the screenplays of The
Terminator and
Judgment Day.
At 4:09 in the episode, Kyle is seen holding the photo of
Sarah Connor shot at the end of
The Terminator,
only it shows actress Lena Headey as Sarah, of course. The
photo is not a very faithful interpretation of the original. |
 |
 |
Sarah Connor photo (Lena Headey) |
Sarah Connor photo (Linda Hamilton) |
During Derek's flashback, he seems to refer to H-K Tanks as
"Centaurs".
As Derek, Kyle, Wisher, and Sayles climb out of the
resistance bunker to investigate the Centaur activity, they
are seen to be carrying weapons similar in design to the
Westinghouse M95A1 Phased Plasma Rifle seen mostly used by
Terminators in
Judgment Day and
other stories.
Notice that the neckerchiefs worn as air filters over the
resistance members' mouths have the image of a skull on
them, so that the skull's jaws cover the wearer's jaws.

Cameron reveals that Derek Reese's middle name is Thomas and
that he is a first lieutenant with the 132nd S.O.C.
Operational specialty Tech-Com. Kyle also told Sarah that he
was part of the 132nd division in
The Terminator.
Cameron tells young John that Kyle was "Imprisoned at
Century Sector Work Camp with John Connor, 2015. Escaped
with John Connor, 2021. He was officially declared M.I.A. in
2027, after being assigned to protect Sarah Connor from a
Skynet attack." This seems to imply that Kyle was sent back
in time from 2027, but in
The Terminator
he was from 2029 (the 2027 date was also given in Timeline
TT-1 in Dawn of Fate).
Cameron seems to not be aware that Kyle Reese was John's
father.
At 9:31 in the episode, a container of
Ajax cleanser is seen on the kitchen sink in the Connor
house.
At 15:50 in the episode, notice that Cameron is holding the
pillow in her hands as if she is contemplating using it to
suffocate the unconscious Derek. When Sarah walks in, she
places the pillow under his head as if that were her
intention all along, but was it? Sarah doesn't seem to
notice the juxtaposition though.
Cameron reveals to Sarah that her memory was wiped before
she was reprogrammed by the resistance, which increases the
success of the reprogramming.
Sarah has O-negative blood. Derek is AB-negative, as is
John. Charley remarks that only one-half of one percent of
the population are AB-negative; he is correct. The use of
the rare AB-negative blood type by writers of film and
television has become something of an old trope, meant to
throw a hitch in the plot for their characters. However, it
is actually impossible to have AB blood if Sarah has type O;
AB type only occurs if the parents had A on one side and B
on the other.
Oddly, John
doesn't know what blood type he is until he makes Charley
test him for compatibility with Derek; it's an easy test for
a medical practitioner to perform and is normally done at
birth or the first medical visit a child has thereafter.
During Derek's flashback to the future war, Andy says he was
part of a group of 10 or 15 others who built Skynet. He says
Skynet became angry and scared and he couldn't reassure it,
so he believes Judgment Day was his fault.
During Derek's flashback, notice that the Terminator
that keeps Derek and the other resistance members prisoner
has rubbery skin to make it look humanoid, not the cloned
flesh covering of later models. This suggests it is a 600
series, as stated by Kyle in
The Terminator.
There seems to be piano music playing in the dark room that Derek is
taken to in the house (notice that it gets louder when the door is
opened and he is shoved inside). Why the music?
The music that plays here is Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor
(1830).
After Derek and the others escape the detention house and
find the resistance tunnels have been raided and destroyed,
Derek finds a burnt scrap of Kyle's Sarah Connor photo. In
The Terminator,
we see the photo get burned during a Terminator raid against
the resistance hideout Kyle is stationed at. One might think
that the two raids are one and the same, but when the group
bumps into some survivors of the raid later, Sumner tells
Derek that Kyle was not present when it occurred; Kyle was
present for the raid seen in
The Terminator.
Sumner tells Derek that Kyle and John were investigating
some kind of Skynet complex in Topanga Canyon at the time of
the raid. The implication is that the complex was the
location of Skynet's time displacement chamber, whose
construction was almost complete.
Topanga Canyon is an actual canyon in Los Angeles County.
Why does Cameron cut the flesh off of Vick's robotic body
before burning the metal endoskeleton with thermite?
Thermite is a metallic powder that can
generate an extremely hot burst of heat when combined with a
catalyst. The flesh would burn even more readily than
the endoskeleton with
this substance. And what did she ultimately do with the flesh?
Cameron's description of what she is to Charley ("Cybernetic
organism...living tissue over a metal
endoskeleton...hyper-alloy combat chassis...") is an
amalgamation of Kyle's description of a T-800 in
The Terminator
and the protector Terminator's description of itself in
Judgment Day.
As Cameron watches Vick's body burn at 32:17 in the episode,
notice that an image of her metal skull is very faintly
superimposed over her face! Her eyes also briefly flash
blue.

During Derek's flashback at 32:33 in the episode, notice
that the man Derek is speaking to is Perry (identifiable
from the name badge on his fatigues). Presumably, this is
the Perry who was leader of the 132nd, as mentioned by Kyle
in
The Terminator.
Perry also appears in Dawn of Fate,
though he is depicted with a tattoo on his face there and
without one in this episode. Dawn of Fate
reveals his first name to be Justin.
The resistance bunker that Derek and Perry meet in appears
to be called Depot II (the name is seen a couple of times in
painted stencil on the concrete walls). In
"Heavy Metal", the Terminator
called Carter was locked inside an old military bunker
called Depot 37.
During Derek's flashback, how does he know that Cameron is a
Terminator the first time he sees her? Did he see the same
body model elsewhere? At the house where he and his team
were held by Skynet?
During Derek's flashback at 34:13 in the episode, the
Terminator that raids the Resistance hideout is wielding an
FN
Minimi, a Belgian light machine gun. Derek wields a Desert
Eagle pistol against him.
At 34:04 in the episode, the Terminator's FN Minimi is seen
to have a sort of triangular ammo magazine in it. But
seconds later, when he comes after Derek, it has a
standard-looking square magazine in it. It didn't seem that
he stopped to change it out!
During Derek's flashback, Cameron blasts the errant
Terminator with an M79 grenade launcher.
During Derek's flashback, Cameron tells him that sometimes a
reprogrammed Terminator goes bad again for unknown reasons.
Cameron surreptitiously keeps Vick's chip intact near the
end of this episode. It plays an important part in the later
episode "Vick's Chip". This is the second time that she has
secretly kept material that could potentially be used to
build a Terminator, the first being the bar of coltan in
"Heavy Metal".
Charley shows Sarah the business card given to him by "Agent
Kester", who was really Cromartie in disguise. The phone
number on it is (213) 555-1005. 213 is an actual area code
in L.A.
The
555 prefix of the phone number is a long-time
convention in Hollywood TV and film.
As Charley leaves Sarah's house, he points to the sky and
tells her, "There's a storm coming." This same line was spoken by
the old gas station attendant in Mexico to her at the end of
The Terminator.
At the end of the episode, Sarah is seen cleaning a
Colt
M933 rifle.
Derek sees the time displacement chamber for the first time
at the end of his flashback. Notice that the chamber has jet
engines mounted vertically inside it, possibly as power
sources. This explains why a number of endoskeletons were
seen hauling a jet engine through the ruins of L.A. earlier
in the episode. As we have seen, each licensor of the
Terminator series seems to have its own design for the
time displacement
chamber.

The nod between Andy and Derek in the future as Derek's
group discusses John's plan to send them back in time 20
years to 2007 suggests that Andy has told Derek to kill him
when he gets there in order to prevent him from helping to
design Skynet.
When Derek and his team are shown arriving in 2007, the
ARCO
building of Los Angeles (at City National Plaza) is easily
visible.
The last scene of the episode shows that Derek was the one
who killed Andy in
"Queen's Gambit".
Unanswered Questions
What happened to Derek in the dark room? When he is brought
back from it, he seems to be weakened, but not obviously
injured. It may be that blood was taken from him for use in
human-like Terminators or as part of a Skynet experiment.
The later episode "To the Lighthouse" implies that Derek was
tortured here and that he broke and gave up the location of
the Depot II Resistance bunker.
Why do the machines let Derek and the rest escape the
holding house?
Memorable Dialog
if you were a little smarter you'd be a tin can.mp3
homicidal paranoid schizophrenic.mp3
you look nervous.mp3
robots from the future.mp3
little girl.mp3
scary robot.mp3
he's not a guy.mp3
you're a very scary robot.mp3
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