Since you’re playing nice today, we thought we’d give you a little early heads up at this week’s brand spanking new episode, Adam Raised a Cain! Who coordinated the simultaneous attack on the Connors and what do they want? Who or what is John Henry’s “brother”? And what is Weaver’s deal? Only two episodes remain this season…

Adam Raised a Cain
Friday - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

…round of awesome behind-the-scenes factoids, that is! Get the scoop on last Friday’s To the Lighthouse right here and catch up before this coming week’s new episode.

We traveled west for this episode, shooting the actual lighthouse and beach/dock in two separate locations (they were cut together to appear as though the dock was right outside the lighthouse). The dock is located at the Cabrillo Beach Youth Waterfront Sports Center in San Pedro, CA but the lighthouse is actually the Point Vicente Lighthouse, owned by the State of California, and located in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Obviously, this episode marked the return of Dean Winters as Charley Dixon. But did you notice what else was back? Flashbacks to Sarah and Young John Connor (played again by John Devito) in the Nicaraguan jungle haven’t been used since all the way back in Queen’s Gambit. These scenes were shot in the Warner Bros. woods on the backlot.

Oh and speaking of returns — Derek and Cameron had a pretty important conversation in this episode, didn’t they? After Cameron rescued Derek he asked her why she came for him. “You know the location of the safehouse. John’s location.”

But Derek responds, “That would would never happen.”
“It has before,” she reminds him.

But what exactly does that mean? Master of all things T:SCC (see: Josh Friedman) has given me permission to confirm that it indeed does imply that Derek was tortured and gave up John’s location some other time. Yes, then.

In To the Lighthouse we discover that John Henry has a “brother”/shares code with another AI birthed from another descendent of Cyberdyne (we already know John Henry/The Turk’s creator, Andy Goode, interned for Myles Dyson). John Henry flashes a picture of Miles Dyson up on the screen — the first time we’ve seen him since the photo in the Pilot. What you may not know is that we originally shot a different opening for one of the episodes in the first season in which Sarah had a dream that Dyson confronted her with dynamite strapped to his body. Hence the mysterious photo that some of you may have seen from FOX last season.

Speaking of scenes that never made it into the episode, there was originally a scene to take place earlier in To the Lighthouse that featured Sarah, fresh from the shower, examining all her recent wounds and discovering the lump in her breast. It was shot but cut in post-production.

For the religious fans out there, many Christians believe that Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 when he exclaimed, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” in Matthew 27:45-46. This is exactly what John Henry said when plugged back in by Murch in this episode. Thoughts?

Sarah’s voiceover returned this week compliments of writer Natalie Chaidez, who is quite fond of the technique. In fact, every one of her episodes (Queen’s Gambit, Automatic for the People, Earthlings Welcome Here, Some Must Watch…, and To the Lighthouse) feature voiceover. Most also feature the classic Sarah Connor tank top. Nat’s a purist and we love her for it.

Hey astute Chronicler, here’s a little Top Five List of some exciting things to look for in tonight’s all-new episode, To the Lighthouse — trust me, you’ll want to see it live.

5. John Henry accesses some very important information that may inform your opinion of what’s up with our favorite redheaded T-1001.

4. Cameron takes a bath.

3. Sarah Connor voiceover! Sarah Connor flashbacks!

2. Lots of gunfire.

1. More on one of the series’ longest standing mysteries.

To the Lighthouse
Tonight - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

It’s Friday! It’s all-new Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles! Tonight we’re back with To the Lighthouse featuring the return of another fan-favorite character. Check out another spoilery preview from the episode below.

To the Lighthouse
Tonight- 8PM/7PMc
FOX

SPOILER ALERT! Here’s your first, FOX-sanctioned look at our season finale, Born to Run. How do they end up there? What’s this reconciliation like? And what’s going down? Find out in three short weeks.

Friday’s all-new episode is entitled To the Lighthouse, borrowed from the amazing novel by Virginia Woolf. Are you familiar with it?

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
“A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, centering on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporality and psychological exploration. To the Lighthouse follows and extends the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. The novel includes little dialogue and almost no action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. The novel recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships.”

And here’s what I have to say about our To the Lighthouse:
“A landmark episode nearing the end of season two, centering on the Connor family and their journey away from their old house. While we always explore psychological ramifications (we like layers), the plot of this episode is not necessarily secondary to philosophical introspection (this one’s got both), and the prose is not winding nor hard to follow (so get everyone to watch it!). This episode includes both dialogue and action and (as always in this series) recalls the power of childhood emotions and highlights the impermanence of adult relationships.”

To the Lighthouse was written by Natalie Chaidez (Some Must Watch…, Earthlings Welcome Here, Queen’s Gambit, etc) and directed by Guy Ferland. It airs this Friday at 8PM/7PMc on FOX.

Wa-la! Your very special first look at this week’s upcoming episode, To the Lighthouse! Some of you astute video podcast viewers may recognize part of this clip from our special behind-the-scenes preview back in January. Enjoy!

To the Lighthouse
Friday - 8PM/7PMc
FOX

In this concluding half of Today is the Day we begin to say goodbye to John Baum as John Connor rights the wrongs of his recent passivity and forgoes his previous desire to just be normal. But what else was going on behind-the-scenes?

Today is the Day was not originally intended to be a two-parter. But once we shot the original episode, we realized there were still some things we needed and went back in the writers room to rebrake the story beats. Shortly after, Ash and Zack turned out the new pages, Josh concluded his revision, and we were back to shooting the rest — some for Part 1, some for Part 2. In order to avoid any production confusion, we temporarily dubbed this past week’s outing The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter, but eventually returned it to its correct title during the post production process. (Yes, that’s why FOX accidently leaked that title). Side fact: we had previously flirted with doing two-parter episodes a few times in the past (early in the room). Can you guess which episodes?

Jesse’s YMCA scenes were actually all shot inside the YMCA — in Glendale, California — back on February 9th (the week of our return to the air). That’s how quickly everything has been “turned around” as they say (edited, color corrected, scored, sound mixed) for the remaining few episodes.

For this episode, only one new role had to be cast (a first for us!) — that of the “lifeguard” that approaches Jesse at the YMCA. It was played by an actor named Bill Tangradi.

Though we didn’t tell the story of Jesse’s history with the reprogrammed machine captaining her sub until now, we did hint at the story all the way back in Alpine Fields. Jesse’s future/past and how it informed her “plan” to remove Cameron from young John Connor’s life was frequently discussed in the writers room, as early as August (before anything from the season even aired)! This character’s motives were discussed frequently as the season took its shape.

Casting Chad Coleman as Queeg was a cinch — not only are we big fans of The Wire, but Josh actually “accidently” met Chad outside of our offices when he was around, auditioning for another Warner Bros series a few months back. They even spoke briefly! When it came time to finding the right actor for the role, his name came up quickly…

Jim Lima and his visual FX crew really outdid themselves with this episode — specifically on the T-1001 on board the submarine. But could you tell that the establishing shots of the submarine were completely FX? No practical shots of a submarine in water were shot.

John and Derek’s first scene in the truck was not actually scripted to be in the car, it was written on a bench in the park. But when the city was hit with a freak rainstorm (let’s be honest, it doesn’t happen that frequently here), we were forced to think on our feet and we shifted the scene into the truck on the studio lot. Funny enough, since there was only one side of greenery (the other side is actually a WB building), we were forced to flip the truck around to shoot the other perspective.

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