Sorry, I’m running a bit behind on my recapping. On this week’s Sarah Connor Chronicles, we finally learn the secret behind those three bloody dots on the wall that have been driving Sarah to distraction …
RECAP DETAILS AHEAD (don’t read if you haven’t watched it yet) …
The secret? “It’s just a fucking logo, you crazy bitch!” Or maybe it’s not, but it’s as much as we know for now. Sarah’s obsession with the three dots leads her to a small start-up company called Dakara Systems, a Japanese father and son operation that’s working on … you guessed it … a new kind of artificial intelligence. She and Cameron use some deception and play acting to learn as much as they can about Dakara, so that they can “burn it down” before it gets off the ground. Unfortunately, it turns out the father is deceiving them right back, and he swindles them out of millions of dollars. Sarah gets the money back, but in the process realizes that her zeal to take down Skynet has turned her into a paranoid nut, seeing patterns where there are none and generally comprising both her and the family.
We finally learn — as many of us have suspected all season — that Riley is not what she seems. Apparently, she’s been sent back in time along with Jesse by a faction from the future that is alarmed by how much time Future John spends with Future Cameron behind closed doors, because Future John is making bad decisions. Jesse admits to Derek that the plan is to “stop” Cameron here in the now, arguing that if Cameron and John spend the next 20 years together, Cameron will change what John is supposed to become. In return, Derek shares with Jesse the fact that he’s John uncle … but Jesse doesn’t tell Derek about Riley. Meanwhile, Riley is a bit unhinged, particularly after John breaks up with her — she clearly has developed feelings for him — but Jesse gives her a pep talk, and Riley gets her head back in the game, winning John back over again.
Over at ZeiraCorp, Doc Sherman has died as the result of actions that the Babylon A.I. took to protect the resources it needs, and this prompts an internal investigation by Agent Ellison, who learns that during his time with Babylon, Doc Sherman had begun referring to it ironically as “John Henry” — the folk hero — a man who “defeated the machines, but couldn’t stop progress.” Ellison determines that the doctor’s death was accidental, that John Henry exhibited no malice, and that the only reason it didn’t try to save the doctor’s life is because it didn’t care enough to — it has no ethics or morals to drive its behavior, only procedures. And the big reveal for the episode is …
That’s right. Cromartie’s back. Sort of. It’s Cromartie’s body, but what’s inside is the John Henry A.I. Good news for Garret Dillahunt (the actor)! Not so good news for humanity, though. Because you gotta figure, this is kind of a fast forward for robot-kind, isn’t it? In the original timeline, robots progressed to the human cyborg with A.I. stage over decades. Still, it looks as if the Cromartie body is tethered to that bank of computers — presumably because ZeiraCorp has no ability to manufacture the kind of chip Cromartie used to have yet. (Look at that picture above, and reimagine Cromartie as a ventriloquist dummy. I think that pretty much sums it up.) So there’s plenty of time for the Connors to “stop progress” on this operation before it gets too far.
As Cameron explains, the title of the episode refers to a Chinese game Go — in particular, a point in that game where anything can happen. It’s a metaphor.
You know, I was kind of annoyed that Derek kept freaking out on Sarah for going after this company. Even if the 3 dots were a coincidence the company was still working on developing AI which is what they’re working against anyway.
Jesse, however, annoys me period. I’m very interested to see how the Riley thing plays out though.
Well, but has it ever been established that the Connors are 100% anti-AI? That’s kind of unrealistic, isn’t it? That’s like going back in time to stop the internal combustion engine from being invented, because so many people get killed in car-related accidents every year. A) You’re never going to be successful, if that’s your goal; and B) it’s questionable whether it’s a fair thing to deprive humanity of the internal combustion engine, considering all the good that’s come from it, in the form of commerce and whatnot.
I thought the point was that Skynet is bad, so they have to stop anything that they know is an early precursor of Skynet. And that’s kind of what they’ve been struggling with in this series. Computers in general are a precursor of Skynet, but they’re not destroying all computers, or attacking companies who create more advanced processors. They’re not attacking companies who build robotics. And presumably, there are dozens or hundreds of companies working on AI solutions that will do some good for humanity, right? So they kind of have to limit themselves to companies that they get a tactical “tip” from the future about. Which is what Sarah thought she was getting, but it turned out she wasn’t.
If this series gets a chance to run its course, my guess is that Josh Friedman’s end game is to create a scenario in which, for lack of a better way of putting it, man and machine learn to live together in relative harmony. In other words, the Connors will somehow steer AI technology past the point where Skynet is inevitable, toward a future where AI is at first a tool for good, and then, after cyborgs progress to the point where they demand equal rights, you reach a point where Humans and Camerons and Cromarties live side by side.
Maybe that’s even what John and Cameron are cooking up in the future behind those closed doors.