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Episode 1×03: The Turk

By Allergygal

SCS.net Forums Admin

When Sarah Connor was in the mental hospital, she became obsessed with science. Well, scientists anyway. And more specifically, nuclear scientists. This, she tells us in a dream while standing among the “fathers of our destruction.” She tries to stop them, but the scientists rise up from her gunshots, turn into metal endoskeletons and surround her. Gone, it seems, are the nuclear nightmares that sparked emotional reaction. They’ve been replaced by a more calculated focus on cause and effect. Sarah isn’t fighting a future enemy, she’s fighting mankind’s seemingly unstoppable march toward self-destruction.

Armed with photos from the resistance fighter’s safe, Sarah picks up the hunt for Skynet. A visit with Terissa Dyson gets her a lead on former Cyberdyne intern, Andy Goode. He’s just a cell phone salesman these days, but he spends his free time building an AI chess-playing computer he calls “The Turk”. It seems harmless to Sarah, but John pushes her to take it more seriously. What she learns is disturbs her. Andy’s project isn’t just about chess anymore. The Turk has moods and he doesn’t know why. But he hopes someday Turk will tell him.

The resistance fighters’ safe house is now a crime scene and Ellison confers with lead investigator, Greta Simpson. He’s got a ballistics report linking her triple homicide to the murder of his informant, Enrique. The cases share another link too — they’re both very peculiar. Some “almost human” blood (no red blood cells) was found at Enrique’s house and the fingerprints of one of the dead men at the safe house matched a 4-year-old boy living in Ohio.

After helping himself to a cooler of Type-O Plasma at a hospital, Cromartie (still cloaked from head to toe) nabs a scientist and gives him a formula for growing skin. It uses a synthetic oxygen carrier, eliminating the need for red blood cells. When the concoction is ready, the scientist fills his bathtub and Cromartie stips down to his endoskeleton. “What are you?!”

A series of cryptic paintings have been appearing on the walls of John and Cameron’s school. It seems a cheerleader had a relationship with a guidance counselor and an artistic person with a grudge is trying to expose it. There’s word of a jumper on the roof — it’s the cheerleader. John wants to go help her, but Cameron restrains him so he doesn’t draw attention to himself. The girl leaps to her death. John is angry over the whole event. What’s the point of being a hero if you can’t save anyone?

The scientist’s house is abuzz with cops as Ellison arrives. It’s a gruesome crime scene. The scientist is dead on the bathroom floor and his eyes are missing. In flashback, an icky figure with skin still forming emerges from the blood-filled tub. The scientist uses a scalpel to cut open the eyelids and Cromartie’s red, mechanical eyes stare back.

Under the cover of night, Sarah watches Andy arrive home. But she’s not there to kill him; she chose instead to kill his creation. His house is ablaze and The Turk is destroyed. As Sarah walks away, she tells us in voiceover of Oppenheimer’s reaction to first atomic bomb blast. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” His colleague put it more simply: “Now we are all sons of bitches.”

How far is Sarah willing to go to change the future? It’s a question originally set forth in Terminator 2, with Sarah’s attempt to kill Miles Dyson (something we’re reminded of quite well when she visits his widow). The developers of the atomic bomb may have understood the implications of their work, but Dyson didn’t. And neither does Andy Goode. Herein lies the dilemma. There is no clear bad guy in this battle. Skynet isn’t the result of some evil plot to destroy the world. Rather, it’s being created unknowingly by it’s own future victims.

In a crisis of conscience, Sarah struggles with what to do about Andy. He’s an innocent man — a nerd with enthusiasm for chess and computers. But taking that one life now might save countless lives later. At the same time, John wants to save the life of a suicidal girl. But doing something heroic could expose him and endanger the survival of the entire human race. It’s the contrast with which these stories play out that makes for such a compelling episode.

Coming on the heels of explosions, chases, fights and gunplay, The Turk has a noticeably slower pace than its predecessors. And with it’s difficult moral questions, historical tie-ins, epidermal science and echoes of Terminator 2, there’s a lot to process. But it’s a thoughtful and important episode. While the pilot and Gnothi Seauton set the stage for the series, The Turk kick-starts the mission and throws us straight into the heart of the story and the hearts of the characters.