Note: Last week Today is the Day co-writer Zack Stentz weighed in before Part 1. This week we hear from his writing partner, Ashley Miller, before the concluding chapter.

The Future. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Here’s a fun fact about yours truly. The Terminator was the very first rated-R movie I ever watched. It was on video (“VHS,” he said, dating himself). My brother brought it home and kinda dared me to watch it with him. At the time, on-screen violence freaked me out. Blood really freaked me out. Guys pulling their own eyeballs out of their heads and dropping them in the sink really, really, really freaked me out.

Somehow, I persevered. I loved it. I watched it over, and over and over again. Many reasons why – the quotable lines, the great characters, the exciting story. I connected with all of them. It became a favorite. But of all the things that drew me to this film, the biggest and most important was the Future War (note the caps!).

It bears mentioning right now that I am as much a fanboy of the Terminator universe as I am of a certain franchise involving starships, ray guns and boldly going places – particularly the first and third iterations of said franchise (put a gun to my head, ask me which one I love more — go ahead — then you tell me what the answer should be because hell, you’re the guy with the gun). The future in that other franchise is bright. Optimistic. Occasionally scary, but really… in a world where you can wear your pajamas to work, how scary is your world really? The Terminator universe, on the other hand? Scary. If you’re wearing your pajamas to work, it’s because you had to steal them off your buddy’s corpse. Polar opposite of optimistic. And yet…

There’s this guy: Kyle Reese. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He’s a little screwed up in the head. Tough, resourceful, falls in love with polaroids. Yeah, he’s kind of a romantic. This guy comes back in time to save the girl of his dreams and stop the end of the world. And he’s not wearing pants. Not even pajamas.

That, friends, is my definition of “hero”: a naked, crazy guy with a gun and an unhealthy obsession with women he’s only seen in pictures. Also, a profound appreciation for the world he discovers. Is it pristine? Nope. Peaceful? Uh-uh. But a fine place nonetheless, and worth fighting for. There’s a great moment in the deleted scenes where Reese collapses on the ground in the middle of a field, weeping over a flower and its fate.

To me, that’s the Terminator franchise: loving a single flower enough that you would risk everything to protect it. Because it has value and beauty and meaning. The flower is at the heart of the Future War.

So what does that have to do with Today Is The Day - Part 2? Everything. Tonight’s episode is about a little flower. There are no heroes in this flower story. There are no villains. There is only the flower each character carries with them. It is not sad, it is not happy. It can be neither because, as a story about a flower, it is a story about hope.

Also, for your viewing pleasure there are killer robots, plasma rifles and submarines. There is war, fisticuffs and death. A mystery. A confrontation. There is a reconciliation, and someone learns the truth. In short, it’s a very full hour. Enjoy your visit.

“We rise or fall on your shoulders. Humanity rises or falls.”

If ever there was one to watch live…

Today is the Day - Part 2
TOMORROW NIGHT - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

Our lovely publicity team at FOX has released the official descriptions for the final four episodes of the season. Check them all out here.

Today is the Day - Part 2: The exciting two-parter continues as Jesse’s submarine mission in the future takes a fatal turn that has unforeseen consequences for John, Sarah and Derek in the present. Sarah deals with Cameron, who has become a liability, and John steps up and makes a life-or-death choice. Airs Friday, March 20th.

To the Lighthouse: Fearing for her life, Sarah stashes John in a safe house with the only person she believes she can rely on, Charley Dixon. Cameron and Derek struggle to work together after she reveals a big secret, and Weaver’s entire effort is at risk when John Henry is compromised – but by whom? Airs Friday, March 27th.

Adam Raised a Cain: When John attempts to rescue Skynet’s latest target he finds himself closing in on Weaver, but at what cost? Game plans change leading Sarah and Ellison to reunite, while Weaver learns Ellison’s secrets. Airs Friday, April 3rd.

Born to Run: Fate is changed forever on the explosive season finale episode! The Connors come face-to-face with Weaver in a confrontation that shakes John to the core and changes his reality. Nothing will be the same. Airs Friday, April 10th.

Another crazy preview from this coming week’s concluding half of Today is the Day. Looks like trouble’s abrewing with project Babylon at ZeiraCorp. Theories?

Today is the Day - Part 2
Friday - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

Here’s your early, first look at this week’s Today is the Day - Part 2! Speculate away.

Today is the Day - Part 2
Friday - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

“Complications. That watch. It has complications. Something I learned. Something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Complications?”

Today is the Day - Part 2
Friday - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

Today is the Day continues with Part 2 this Friday! It’s a BIG episode that will answer questions posed both in Part 1 and throughout the season. Don’t miss it…

Discussion of Today is the Day - Part 1 may commence. Keep it clean, Chroniclers!

“Did you know,” a friend told me while touring Stage 28 and ogling the nifty new set you’ll see tonight, “that there’s never been a bad submarine movie?” I bit my tongue and refrained from mentioning Down Periscope, because his general point stands. When you look at the roster of films set on submarines, from The Enemy Below and Run Silent Run Deep up through Das Boot, The Hunt for Red October and Crimson Tide, you realize they’re all pretty entertaining. There’s something inherently dramatic about being trapped in a box under the ocean with only a thin sheet of metal separating you from certain death. No matter how familiar the tropes get— sonar pings, depth charge attacks, sealing off the flooded compartment with the guys still inside to save the boat— they never fail to grab you.

So it should come as no surprise that the writing staff has long wanted to do a Terminator: SCC episode set on a nuclear submarine. The setting always seemed like a natural, especially with On The Beach rattling around our collective subconscious, and the introduction of the Jesse character gave us a natural “in” for doing a submarine story. How, in the middle of an apocalypse, does a petite Australian freedom fighter wind up in the ruins of Los Angeles? The earlier episode Alpine Fields provided the answer in dialogue: courtesy of the USS Jimmy Carter (aside from the obvious humor in the name, do an Internet search to discover why the Jimmy Carter is actually ideally suited for use by the Resistance against the machines).

And if you rewatch that episode, you’ll actually see that we were already planting seeds for tonight and next week’s two-parter episode— Jesse initially expresses confidence in John Connor’s leadership and comfort with the idea of serving alongside a reprogrammed T-triple Eight, leading to the implied question of what happened to Jesse to turn her so passionately against reprogrammed machines, Cameron, and John Connor’s leadership. Today is the day— or rather, tonight is the night— you begin to discover the answer. And of course it all takes place on a submarine.

And another glimpse at tonight’s all-new Today is the Day - Part 1.

Today is the Day - Part 1
Tonight! 8PM/7PMc
FOX