John attempts to glean information from Vick's chip to stop
a computer program that could become the central nervous
system of the Turk.
Mr. Jennings (mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
Why does Cromartie looks so closely at the snow globe in the
school administrator's office? Could it be that the
miniature city model with simulated snow particles falling
reminds him of the nuclear winter experienced in the future
after Judgment Day?
The "Teach the People" poster in
the school administrator's office is printed with a
quote by Kuan Chung, a Taiwanese politician. The quote is
”If you plant for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years,
plant a tree. If for a hundred years, teach the people. When
you sow a seed once, you will reap a single harvest. When
you teach the people, you will reap a hundred harvests.”
Why does Cromartie say, "Thank you for your cooperation," to
a man he has just killed? No one is there to hear it.
At 2:12 in the episode, as Cromartie looks up the names of
male high school students with a date of birth of 1989-1992,
a number of school and student names are seen. High schools
listed are Cartwright, Campo de Cahuenga, Coldwater, Hills,
Laurel Canyon, and Van Owen; these are all fictitious high
schools (Campo de Cahuenga is the high
school John and Cameron are currently attending). The
student names listed are Jonathan Davoren, Thomas Klein,
Gary Lansing, Jeffrey Mosket, Peter Allen, John Baum (John
Connor's current identity), Steven Valdez, Timothy Cleary,
Matthew Pierce, Roger Casey, Richard Davis, Edward Kroger,
Daniel Mason, Alastair Walsh, Gregory Berman, Shaun Murphy,
and Benjamin Schwartz. He must have entered further details
to narrow the search to only those who'd entered local high
schools recently in order to get such a low number of hits.
While leaving a voice message for Sarkissian, Sarah leaves
her cell phone number, stating it as 818-555-0189.
818 is an actual area code in the Los Angeles area. The 555
prefix of the phone number is a long-time convention in
Hollywood TV and film.
It's amusing that, like a typical teenager, John does not
remove the burning roast from the oven even though he's
almost right next to it, instead calling for his mom to do
it.
At the arcade at 4:57 in the episode, some Colorsource boxes
are seen in the background.
Colorsource is a line of lighting and video products made by
ETC.
As he begins his attempt to get data from Vick's chip, John
asks Cameron to make a 7-11 run for burritos and chocolate
milk.
7-11
is an international chain of convenience stores.
At 7:11 in the episode, John is seen to be using
Dell
monitors on his computer as he attempts to gain access to
the visual records of Vick's chip.
At 7:34 in the episode, video of an assembly line of
Vick-model Terminators is seen.
At 8:19 in the episode a NOHO sign is seen in the side-view
mirror of Vick's car in the video playback of the chip. NOHO
stands for North Hollywood, a neighborhood of Los Angeles.
In this same shot, Vick's wife, Barbara, is seen to drive a
2006
Dodge Charger R/T.
At 8:46 in the episode, the Chamberlains' mail shows they
live at 317 Treadwell Street, Van Nuys, CA 91605. This is a
fictitious address, though Van Nuys is an actual
neighborhood of Los Angeles and
91605 is a zip code of North Hollywood.
One of the envelopes Vick holds reads "A Green
Company" in the bottom left corner. A green company is one
that claims to act in a manner designed to minimize
environmental impact.
A couple pieces of mail are seen to be from Lily
Orvinglal at West Haverbrook Way, Haverbrook, KS 60227 and
Mr. Witherington, 42 Sheffield Place, Nelson, NY 03907.
Haverbrook and its zip code appear to be fictitious. Nelson
is an actual town in New York, though the zip code seen here
is for Ogunquit, Maine.
In Vick's visual memory at 12:09 in the episode, Vick and
his wife are enjoying a bottle of Casa di Fazio merlot. As
far as I can tell,
Casa di Fazio is a fictitious wine company.
Morris tells John and Cameron about an injury he sustained
when he got dropped while crowd surfing at Bjork's "secret show
at the Echo last October".
Bjork is a well-known Icelandic singer/songwriter.
The Echo
is a nightclub in Los Angeles. The secret show Morris
mentions would have been in October 2006, but I've been
unable to find any evidence of such a performance (but, then
it was secret).
John tells Cheri his cover story that he's moved here from
Lawrence, Kansas and that he heard she is from
Wichita,
another Kansas city about 150 miles southwest of Lawrence.
Cromartie comes to John's school trying to find him, first
asking to see Eric Carlson. But this was not one of the
names on the search list he pulled up earlier at the
school administrator's office.
The call slip the student gives to Cameron to give to John
shows that the principal's name is Mr. Jennings.
Cameron uses a photograph printed out from the video footage
from Vick's chip to compare and identify the exact location
where he apparently killed a woman in the woods. But, having
computer memory, she shouldn't need a photo for the
comparison! Possibly, the photo was for the benefit of the
humans with her, particularly Derek since he does not trust
her.
At 26:39 in the episode, the sideview mirror of Vick's car
shows the sign for Many Paths Bookstore. This is an actual
bookstore in North Hollywood.
In the tunnels under city hall, Derek points out to Sarah
the exact location where Kyle was captured by the machines
as a boy and sent to a work camp.
Derek and Sarah use plastique to blow up the walls in the
tunnel under city hall. Plastique
is another term for plastic explosive.
The monitors used on the computers seen at city hall during
Sarah and Derek's break-in are
Viewsonic models.
When Sarah connects the USB drive to the computer at city
hall, a map displays the zones of several cities: Los
Angeles, Pasadena, El Monte, Burbank, Inglewood, Torrance,
Fullerton, Anaheim, West Covina, Pomona, Corona, and Rancho
Cucamonga. These are all actual cities in southern
California.
The programming code seen on the screen during Sarah's
attempt to infect the computer at city hall appears to be
written in Objective-C programming language, originally
developed in the 1980s and still in use today in, for
example, Apple's OS X and iOS operating systems.
As John is about to remove Cameron's chip, she tells him
it's all right, "It's not the first time we've done this."
Presumably, she is referring to a time in the future, before
she travelled back in time.
Notice that Cameron's chip looks a bit different than
Vick's, implying she is a different model from Vick's T-888.
Her actual model is never revealed in the course of the
series.
As Sarah interrupts Derek's shower near the end of the
episode, we see that besides a number of tattoos, he has
several scars on his body from his time in battle in the
future war against the machines.
Sarah confronts Derek with the knowledge that she knows he
killed Andy Goode. It's not spelled out how she suddenly
knows this, but it seems likely that Cameron saw it in
security camera footage during her infiltration of the city
system in this episode (recall that when John asked her what
she saw in there, she responds, "I saw everything.") It's
possible that she gives this information to Sarah because
she sees Derek as a threat to herself since he is constantly
telling Sarah and John that she is likely to betray them all
at some point.
Unanswered Questions
This episode reveals that the T-888 called Vick was posing
as the husband of Barbara Chamberlain, a Los Angeles city
manager who was responsible for the deployment of the ARTIE
computerized traffic management system. Was Vick based on a
real person who existed, a real Vick who was Barbara's
husband and whom the T-888 replaced? It is implied that
"Vick" was in a car accident that left him with his odd
(i.e. Terminator) mannerisms.
Was John killed by a Terminator in the future, just as he is
said to have been in
Rise of the Machines?
Derek implies as much to him in this episode, saying
"Someday one of these things is gonna kill you," as he
threatens to destroy Cameron's chip after the successful
ARTIE sabotage.
Why did Cameron hide Vick's chip in the first place (as seen
in
"Dungeons and Dragons")?
If she suspected they needed data from it, why not tell the
Connors that in the first place?
What was Cheri Westin's secret? Though played up throughout
the season, she is not seen or mentioned again after this
episode (due largely to the writers strike of 2007-2008
which prevented episodes 10-13 of this season from being
completed; the plotline was completely dropped
without explanation
in the second season).
Memorable Dialog
a little marijuana.mp3
crank the juice.mp3
you can't fight city hall.mp3
are you sure?.mp3
you don't have to trust her.mp3
you lie to me again and I'll kill you.mp3
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