Tonight’s episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles [NOTE: spoilers follow] brings in “faith” from the very first moments, as a shapeshifting terminator arrives looking for agent Ellison, only to be stopped by another (familiar) terminator. Was the first one intending to kill Ellison? What is the nature of the division between factions among the AIs of the future?
Sarah Connor and compatriots then visit a diamond dealer named Moishe with a background in Rabbinics and the study of Torah, who believes HaShem has a plan for everyone, and in his case it is diamonds.
When agent Ellison, accused of a murder committed by the terminator that impersonated him, thanks Weaver for believing his claim to be innocent, she asks him “What good is faith if you don’t use it?”
Not long after, Genesis 34 comes into a conversation between Sarah and Cameron (having been alluded to earlier by Moishe).
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this episode is how machines and professionals on both sides kill when “it needs to be done”, but young John Connor continues to wrestle with and regret his first experience of taking another’s life.
Not long after that, Ellison discusses having seen a “twin” of himself with Weaver. When asked if he knows why the machine came, he suggests he’s being tested. Weaver asks “Like Job?” The discussion that follows notes how Job didn’t renounce God, and God spared him. “Who spared you?” Weaver asks him. Is this placing Skynet in the role of God?
There is a lot that is interesting, but the Biblical references were laid on rather thick. It will take some reflection to figure out whether there is anything more to the references to Job and Genesis than a mere veneer of religiosity.
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