Spoilers are ahead for Terminator Zero season 1's ending.

In its very first season, Netflix's Terminator movies, Terminator Zero further complicates things by interrogating the nature of fate.

Since the first film, the Terminator saga has established multiple branching timelines. While Terminator Salvation continues the original trilogy, it introduces a few retcons; on the other hand, Terminator Genisys is a soft reboot that suggests a different path for Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger's cybernetic assassin. The most recent film, Terminator: Dark Fate, wipes the slate clean of three films and installs itself as a direct sequel to 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The constantly changing story and canon make it difficult to track the saga's timeline, but Terminator Zero definitely has some major implications for the wider franchise.

Terminator Zero Mostly Takes Place In 1997

The Terminator & Resistance Soldier Eiko Both Travel Back To The '90s

Set in Japan, most of the events of Terminator Zero unfold during 1997, just over 24 hours before the Terminator's fateful Judgment Day, which is when the hostile AI, Skynet, comes online, deems humanity awful, and lays waste to the species with nuclear attacks. In most Terminator stories, the Judgment Day event marks the beginning of Skynet's war — a brutal conflict that pits machines, like the Terminators, against the human resistance. In a compelling twist, scientist Malcolm Lee (André Holland), a key member of Terminator Zero's cast of characters, has foreseen Judgment Day and aims to stop it.

Malcolm hopes KOKORO is unique enough to counteract the soon-to-be-launched Skynet and subvert its deadly decision...

After leaving his children — Kenta, Reika, and Hiro — in the care of a nanny named Misaki (Sumalee Montano), Malcolm heads to work and frets over whether to release his AI system, KOKORO (Rosario Dawson). While he hopes KOKORO is unique enough to counteract the soon-to-be-launched Skynet and subvert its deadly decision, Malcolm can't say in certain that KOKORO won't eventually draw the same genocidal conclusions as Skynet. Meanwhile, two beings from the future — a Terminator (Timothy Olyphant) and a resistance soldier named Eiko (Sonoya Mizuno) — try to find Malcolm and his family.

Terminator Zero Takes Place In An Alternate Terminator Timeline

The Prophet Explains How Time Travel Works In The Terminator Universe

By time travel in the Terminator universe to Eiko by asking the soldier if she's ever traveled back in time before. "Not that I'm aware of," Eiko replies.

The point Eiko is traveling to and the point she's traveling from exist in different timelines.

"Up until you go back in time, that past never happened," The Prophet clarifies. "You’re traveling to a past that never took place." That said, traveling through time will send Eiko back to a past, not the past. The point Eiko is traveling to and the point she's traveling from exist in different timelines. All this time, Skynet and the Resistance were never changing a given future by going to the past, they were creating a new present. If Eiko succeeds in stopping Judgment Day, she'll make a past for a completely different future — not the one she's from.

Terminator Zero Goes Far Into The Future (& Beyond The Movies)

Malcolm Lee's Storyline Allows Terminator Zero To Explore New Time Periods

The last few episodes of Terminator Zero season 1 reveal that Malcolm is also from the future. Born in 2024, Malcolm is Eiko's son who grew up in the dystopian future that viewers know from (most of) the Terminator movies. Technically, the Eiko we follow didn't give birth to a son, but an Eiko in a previous timeline did. This revelation makes Eiko wonder if her life is stuck in a loop, but, ultimately, it doesn't quite matter since the future she knew no longer exists to her. Needless to say, this adds more fascinating wrinkles to the franchise's timeline.

Malcolm's AI is free to decide what it wants to be, theoretically positioning it to draw different conclusions than Skynet.

Terminator Zero also goes beyond the movies, showcasing the saga's furthest point in the future — or a future — ever. (Technically, Gabriel Luna's advanced Terminator, Rev-9, is from 2042 in Terminator: Dark Fate.) In the future thread, Malcolm grows up in the Resistance, but becomes frustrated by the endless cycle of violence. Believing that machines hold the answer to stopping Skynet, Malcolm develops the forerunner to KOKORO, an AI called Misaki. The idea is that Malcolm's AI is free to decide what it wants to be, theoretically positioning it to draw different conclusions than Skynet.

How Terminator Zero Connects To The Movies

Terminator Zero Takes A Similar Approach To Dark Fate

The decision to center the show around 1997 deliberately ties Terminator Zero to the original timeframe established in early Terminator films. Although it took 33 years, James Cameron's Terminator 2 has a sequel that not only digs into some of the same complex plot points and themes, but reflects a similar arc of events — at least in Malcolm Lee's original timeline. The timeline in which Malcolm grew up is defined by 1997's Judgment Day and a raging war between humans and machines in the 2020s. That said, Terminator Zero charts its own course, all while paying homage.

Terminator Zero season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.