Cromartie is a T-888 sent from the future to kill John Connor.

Season One
The T-888 first appeared in the guise of a substitute teacher called Mr. Cromartie at Crest View High School in New Mexico. While taking attendance in a class including John Connor and Cameron Phillips, Cromartie identified Connor. He cuts open the flesh covering his leg in order to get at a hidden pistol and shoots at John. Unknown to Cromartie, however, Cameron is also a terminator sent back from the future, and she shields John from the bullets with her body. John escapes the classroom, but Cromartie tries again to kill him in the school's parking lot. Cameron is able to prevent that assassination as well by running over Cromartie with a car. Cromartie chased John, Cameron, and Sarah Connor for several days, eventually finding them at the Security Trust of Los Angeles bank where they are breaking into a vault. Just as Cromartie was about to break down the vault door, the trio used a stashed time machine to travel to 2007. Just prior to chronoportation, Sarah blasted Cromartie with a plasma weapon which reduced him to fragments, with his head being transported into the future.

After arriving in the future, Cromartie's CPU communicated with the rest of its body which was stored in a junkyard (evidently recovered from the destroyed bank back in 1999). The headless body killed the junkyard's attendant and beheaded him, proceeding to wear his victim's lifeless head until he reunited with his original skull. Cromartie was able to find a scientist who was willing to make living tissue to cover his body and also underwent plastic surgery to resemble George Lazlo, a previous patient of a private surgeon.









Once he recovered from this regeneration, he took on the identity of FBI agent Robert Kester and used this disguise to try and track down John Connor. He has yet to make direct contact with Sarah, John or Cameron in 2007, although he did visit Sarah's former fiancee, Charley, and Cameron recruited one of John's classmates to play decoy in order to throw Cromartie off the scent when he visits their school. Kester was eventually tracked down by Agent James Ellison, who led an FBI strike team to apprehend him. Kester killed the entire team, suffering moderate damage to his skin in the process. The only survivor was Ellison, whom Kester spared for unknown reasons.


Cromartie meets his demise in "Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today" (season 2, episode 8), where he is terminated in a church in Mexico, by Cameron, Sarah, Derek and John.

Alias

• Cromartie
• Agent Robert Kester (FBI)

The origin of the name Cromartie is unknown and there is no indication that the Terminator himself refers to himself by this name other than as an alias when he is disguised as a substitute teacher (presumably if there was a real Mr. Cromartie, the T-888 may have killed him and took his identity). Since this is the only name they have to use, John, Sarah and Cameron continue to refer to the T-888 as Cromartie. (Similarly, John had earlier dubbed the T-800 that had protected him in Terminator 2 "Uncle Bob".)

Behind the scenes

Cromartie was played by Owain Yeoman in the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Garret Dillahunt took over the role for the following episodes. A TVGuide feature illustrates Cromartie's transformation below:

Cromartie has since been made a series regular for Season 2 of the Sarah Connor Chronicles. [1]

Appearances

• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
  • "Pilot"
  • "Gnothi Seauton"
  • "The Turk"
  • "Heavy Metal"
  • "Queen's Gambit"
  • "Vick's Chip"
  • "What He Beheld"