James Ellison (Terminator)

File:Ellison Terminator.jpg

Richard T. Jones as James Ellison

James Ellison is a fictional character in the television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, portrayed by Richard T. Jones. He shares his surname with science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who, after a lawsuit, was acknowledged as a source of inspiration for elements of The Terminator.

Fictional History

1999

Ellison was once one of the FBI's top agents before he was assigned to the seemingly easy task of apprehending dangerous fugitive mental patient Sarah Connor, who was presumed responsible for the death of Miles Dyson and the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems. He is not fast enough to catch Connor in 1999 before she apparently kills herself and her presumed accomplices while destroying a bank. As a result, Ellison's stature was diminished in the eyes of his fellow agents.

Ellison's troubled career affected his marriage to an FBI agent, Lila Ellison, leading to their eventual divorce and her remarrying.

Present

The episode, "Allison from Palmdale," revealed that Ellison was previously married to an FBI agent, Lila Ellison. They seem to maintain a good professional relationship within the FBI, and his former wife still has concern for his well-being. It is revealed in the episode, "Brothers of Nablus" that Lila has remarried. Ellison's career troubles following Connor's 1999 disappearance are credited with adversely affecting the couple's marriage and leading to their eventual divorce, but it is later revealed that there was another cause: Lila's having an abortion without telling Ellison. When Ellison discovered this, he couldn't cope with it and the marriage ended.

When Sarah reappears in 2007, Ellison still disbelieves her story about Skynet and its Terminators. However, after investigating a series of potentially-related unsolved and eccentric cases, he begins to question some of his past assumptions. The cases include that of an entire high school class witnessing a robotic legged man (Cromartie) seemingly impervious to damage, the death of his contact Enrique Salceda, a murder victim who shared identical fingerprints with a child who is currently lives in Canton, Ohio, and samples of a strange synthetic blood-like substance found from a number of crime scenes. He now has an unrelenting resolve to apprehend Sarah Connor to exonerate himself.

After illegally recovering a T-888's endoarm from the Los Angeles Police in the episode, "Queen's Gambit," reviewing documents on Sarah Connor, and looking into her past, Ellison becomes more convinced that her story about Skynet and its army of machines was accurate. To confirm the information he visits Dr. Peter Silberman, Sarah's psychiatrist from her time at Pescadero State Mental Hospital. While speaking with the doctor, in the episode, The Demon Hand", Ellison is drugged and assaulted by Silberman, who believes him to be an advanced Terminator sent back to kill Sarah and her son John. Ellison informs Silberman he has proof that the Terminators exist and Silberman investigates the evidence. Shortly afterward he is nearly killed when Silberman sets his cabin on fire, but is rescued by Sarah Connor (whom he had believed to be dead). Silberman is then incarcerated in Sarah Connor's former Pescadero cell. Despite the knowledge that the doctor is mentally ill, Ellison has the answer he sought from him of the future apocalypse. The final scenes of the episode show him with a group of people reading a Bible, seeking solace from the terrible knowledge he now has, and making plans for his own mission against Skynet and its machines.

In the episode, "Vick's Chip", while searching for Sarah to learn further about Skynet, he discovers that someone believed to be George Lazlo (actually Cromartie) is masquerading as an FBI agent by the name of Robert Kester, and is searching for Sarah and John. Ellison's partner, Greta Simpson, prepares to arrest Kester/Lazlo. By this point, however, Ellison strongly suspects that the man they are pursuing is a machine and questions what exactly they are getting into; without revealing his suspicions, Ellison convinces his colleagues that an FBI HRT team is appropriate.

In the season finale, "What He Beheld", Ellison leads the team to Cromartie's apartment to apprehend him, but even the FBI Hostage Rescue Team is no match for the T-888. After the battle, Ellison finds himself the sole survivor, face-to-face with Cromartie. The cyborg can easily kill him, but instead simply lowers his gun and walks off, leaving a baffled Ellison to survey the destruction and wonder why he was spared.

In the second season opener, "Samson and Delilah", in the immediate wake of the ill-fated arrest attempt, Ellison finds the real Lazlo's body staged as if killed by the FBI agents. Medical support for the raid was provided by paramedic Charley Dixon, Sarah Connor's former fiancé from 1999. Knowing that the Bureau would not believe the truth, Ellison swears Dixon to secrecy and officially reports that the carnage was caused by Lazlo, who died in the incident. Ellison is ordered to take six weeks of paid leave. At the end of the episode, Cromartie explains to Ellison that he spared Ellison: Cromartie is still searching for Sarah and John, and needs Ellison in order to find his targets. Ellison tells Cromartie that if he was spared so he could lead him to the Connors, then Cromartie might as well just kill him right now, as Ellison will "not do the devil's work". The Terminator responds, "We'll see", before walking away again.

Ellison visits Charley Dixon in the episode, "Automatic for the People", to talk about the incident which has traumatized them both. After he arrives at the Dixons' residence, he discovers that Charley has acquired a firearm for protection, despite the paramedic's dislike of them. Realizing that Charley's stress is approaching a breaking point, Ellison suggests that he leave town for his safety, and gives him a copy of the Bible as a gift, establishing a better relationship. He later attends Dixon's wife's funeral, after she is killed by a piece of Cromartie's bomb's shrapnel.

Catherine Weaver, CEO of ZeiraCorp, whom Ellison does not know is also a Terminator, offers Ellison a job in the episode, "The Mousetrap", to find and capture a Terminator in order to reverse engineer it. In the following episode, "Allison from Palmdale," she blames a Terminator for her (i.e., the real and presumably dead Catherine Weaver's) husband's fatal helicopter crash and tempts Ellison with a piece of the cyborg secretly recovered from the crash site. Ellison takes the offer, determined to hunt down Cromartie. However, Ellison remains suspicious of Weaver and her intentions with the Skynet technology, and checks into her past using FBI resources.

Events that have transpired within the show, including Cromartie sparing his life and Weaver hiring him to hunt down another Terminator seem to indicate that Ellison is somehow involved in the creation of Skynet in the current time line. Ellison also begins to question his role in the impending future of Skynet and is determined to find out if he has any part in Skynet's puzzle. Despite his possible connection, Skynet sends a Terminator doppelganger of him back in time to take his place in the episode, "Brothers of Nablus". Ellison's life is saved by Cromartie, who destroys the doppelganger in the belief that Ellison still can lead him to the Connors despite Ellison's no longer being part of the FBI. This intensifies Ellison's obsession with defeating the Terminator, as he is unwilling to be its pawn.

Complicating matters, a member of the public sees the arrival from the future of an 'Ellison' Terminator, who proceeds to murder another man for his clothing. The witness recognises Ellison from the news coverage of massacre at Lazlo's/Cromartie's apartment complex, and the police promptly arrest and interrogate Ellison for the murder. Given the fanciful nature of what really happened, Ellison turns to Weaver, the only person he knows who will both believe his story and has the financial means to secure his bond. Weaver resolves Ellison's situation, but not as Ellison had anticipated or is aware; the shape-shifting Weaver assumes the appearance of the lead detective and questions the witness again until the man reveals seeing the lighting flashes and energy bubble of the 'Ellison' Terminator's arrival and the superhuman strength he possessed. With the witness shown to be a crack-pot and his testimony useless, the charges against Ellison are dropped.

In the episode, "Mr Ferguson is Ill Today," Ellison works with former suspects Sarah Connor and Derek Reese, and John Connor's reprogrammed Terminator Cameron Phillips to rescue John from Cromartie in Mexico. Ellison is shown presenting an FBI badge and credentials to the Mexican police immediately prior to Cromartie's arrival; minutes later, it is revealed that Ellison made the trip unarmed. After their initial stalemate, Ellison uses himself as bait to lure Cromartie into Sarah's and Derek's intersecting fields of fire, in order to distract Cromartie sufficiently for Cameron to approach and incapacitate him with several shotgun slugs. Ellison and the others temporarily bury Cromartie's endoskeleton in Mexico pending their return with the ability to incinerate it.

In the episode, "Complications", Ellison is tracked down by John and Cameron after they discover the body of Cromartie is missing. Ellison is considered to be a suspect. They attack him when he gets to his house and ask him about the whereabouts of Cromartie. He tells them he doesn't know and John believes him. At the conclusion of the episode, it is revealed that Ellison exhumed the body to show to Catherine Weaver to help them better understand "the robots" and fight them.

In the episode, "Strange Things Happen at One-Two Point," he investigates the mysterious death of Dr. Boyd Sherman, which led him to "Bablylon," the project the doctor was involved before his demise. He learns that Babylon is an artificial intelligence research project, and the AI was connected to ZeiraCorp's power supply, which led the company's building to shut down and trap Sherman in the basement lab. After his experiences with killer machines, Ellison suspects that the AI murdered the doctor when it was taking the building's power. After communicating with it and confirming his suspicion, Ellison is horrified to discover that the AI now has a host body, Cromartie's (the Bablyon team repaired the cyborg's endoskeleton) and is currently identifying itself as "John Henry." Ellison begins to regret exhuming it. In the episode "Earthlings Welcome Here," Ellison begins to tutor John Henry in Dr. Sherman's place, attempting to teach the cyborg the value of morals. Because of his past with Cromartie and the knowledge that the AI killed a man, Ellison remains suspicious of John Henry. Weaver gives Ellison a remote control of the endoskeleton to use to defend himself in case the cyborg goes rogue.

In the episode, "Adam Raised a Cain", he attempts to search for Savannah when she is rescued and taken by Sarah and John Connor. Eventually, the police arrest Sarah Connor, and when Ellison seemed to betray them again, John attacks him and lets him know that he is going to kill him.

In the season finale, Ellison tracks down Chola to reach John Connor and Cameron. It turns out that he bears a message from the T-1001 impersonating Catherine Weaver. Towards the end of the finale, he takes the Connors to Zeira Corp to meet with the T-1001. During the conversation, a drone crashes through the window and Ellison sees that his boss is not human. Down in the basement, as the T-1001 turns on the time displacement equipment, she asks Ellison if he'd be coming along after John Henry. After a pause of hesitation, the T-1001 asks him to pick up Savannah after school.

Name

The character's surname is shared with that of science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. After James Cameron stated in an interview that he had been inspired to make his original The Terminator by two episodes of the 1960s television series The Outer Limits ("Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand"), Ellison – who had written both episodes – sued Cameron for plagiarism. The two settled out of court and the film's end credits now include the simple statement: "Acknowledgment to the works of Harlan Ellison."

Naming James Ellison after Harlan Ellison would be in keeping with series creator Josh Friedman's homage to James Cameron; he named the Cameron Phillips character in homage to the filmmaker, both for the overall concept, and in inspiring him to make "a beautiful, petite teenage girl" the ultimate infiltrator.

Note also that the James Ellison character's first name, although far more common than his surname, is shared with James Cameron, thereby giving the character an amalgam of the names of the two men who created the Terminator idea.

External links

• Fox official website for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles