Saturday, August 4, 2012

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E13 "Earthlings Welcome Here"

Sarah drives through the desert, voiceover intoning about the 1400s.  I so don't care.  She's headed to a UFO convention, sitting in on an abductee seminar.  She's still obsessing about those three dots and is trying to follow up on UFO sightings.  At the seminar, she learns about a blogger called Abraham who was reportedly working with an indestructible metal, possibly the precursor to the metal that makes up the Terminator chassis (Note: what the plural of "chassis?").  Sarah wants to meet this "Abraham," but he disappeared six months ago.  She calls home to check in with John, who tells her to be careful.

Meanwhile, John and Riley are working on stripping off the wallpaper from John's bedroom.  She's a little distracted and she admits to him how she flipped out on her foster family.  Cameron pokes her head in, pretty much reminding Riley that she's keeping an eye on her.  Later, John notices a bruise on the side of Riley's face.  She tells him to drop it.

Flashforward to 2037:  Riley is in the tunnels, stealing food, nearly feral.  Jess, carrying a big gun, pulls her aside.  Later, the two women teleport into our time and go to Jess's hotel room.  Riley is fascinated, touching everything, sniffing things.  Taking a shower, washing what looks like decades-worth of built-up dirt, is almost a religious experience for her.  Jess brushes Riley's hair and tucks her into bed.

Now: One of the abductees, a tall, horsey woman, takes Sarah back to her Airstream trailer to show her photos and drawings of UFOs with those three dots.  Over a cup of chamomile tea, they map out a plan to track down Abraham.  They go to a diner where Abraham was reportedly spotted a few weeks ago.  Do we think this woman is Abraham?  We do.  When the woman goes for a pee break, Sarah has a weird vision of herself sitting across the table, spinning a knife, with something I can't read carved into the tabletop - NO FATE, maybe?  Sarah charges into the bathroom and demands the truth about Abraham.  The woman confesses that she is in fact Abraham and she's in hiding, living as a woman now.

Back at the office, Weaver continues to try to convince Ellison to tutor John Henry in all things moral; Ellison's religious faith and paternal demeanor make him the ideal teacher, she thinks.  Ellison is having trouble getting past Cromartie's face on the A.I., recalling the dozens of FBI agents the T-888 slaughtered before being scrubbed and installed with the John Henry intelligence.  He also worries about how powerful the A.I. could become.  Weaver insists.

Back at the Airstream, make-up scrubbed off and wig gone, Abraham still looks like a horsey woman and not the "Alan Park," he claims to be.  Whatever - willing suspension of disbelief.  Park had been at M.I.T. and was recruited by a mysterious company to work on that indestructible metal.  He and his coworkers were transported by blacked-out van to a secret location, so he doesn't know where the lab is.  After a while, he started getting nervous and asked questions about his employer.  Then his apartment got ransacked and his car brakes went out.  The next day Park cleaned out his bank account and went on the lam, but not before stealing a piece of that metal.  Sarah is like, okay, let's go get it.

Flashback to a few months ago:  Jess and Riley sit in Jess's car.  Riley wants to know why Jess picked her.  There's no time for answers now, however, as Jess pushes her out of the car so she can walk up to John for their very first meeting at the high school.  Now:  Cameron accosts Riley in the hallway, asking about her tattoo.  John comes up, wondering what's going on.  Cameron looks at him: "We need to talk."  Riley bails.

After church, Ellison tries to talk to his pastor, needing guidance.  But he doesn't even know where to begin.

Sarah and Abraham/Alan Park go to Park's storage unit.  They open up his safe but the metal is gone.  As they leave, a masked motorcyclist starts shooting at them.  Sarah returns fire but the gunman gets away unscathed.  Back at the Airstream, Park is freaking out, "Who are you? What is going on?"  Sarah snarls that Park is a liar and pulls out her gun: "Who are you working for?"  Later, after they've both calmed down a little, they talk some more.  It gets a little too soul-searchy and I'm bored.  Sarah wants to know about the lab Park worked in, but he'd been blindfolded in the van and can't give her anything.  Sarah looks down at a flier she took from the UFO convention and wonders if maybe hypno-regression therapy might help Park remember something.

Flashback to maybe a day or so ago:  Against orders, Riley shows up at Jess's room, saying that she's been kicked out of her foster home.  She's feeling sorry for herself and is thinking that maybe she and Jess could get an apartment together.  Jess slaps her - resulting in that bruise John noticed on Riley's face - and tells her to finish the job of getting John away from Cameron.

Now: Cameron tells John that Riley has been lying to them.  He refuses to listen to anything negative about Riley (why? she frigging sucks!) and goes back into the house.  Riley has locked herself in the bathroom and won't answer him.  Cameron busts down the door and Riley is on the floor, wrists slashed.  John gathers the unconscious girl up and glares meaningfully at Cameron.

Sarah takes Park, back in his woman disguise, to meet with a hypnotherapist.  She waits in the car, listening in on a bug and ducking down whenever a cop drives by.  Then she hears gunshots.  When she rushes into the therapist's office, both the therapist and Park are dead.  The gunman has gotten away.  Clearly Sarah is getting close to something.  Afterwards, she listens again to the recording, noting the details Park remembers about the drive to the secret lab: sounds, timing, etc.  She follows along in her car and manages to find the warehouse where the lab is.  She loads up her guns and heads in.

Ellison plays chess with John Henry.  The A.I. says it learned a lot from Dr. Sherman and the doctor's absence slows its growth.  Ellison is all, the doctor was worth more than just that.  Blah blah blah, God created everything and we are all God's children blah blah.  John Henry asks, "Am I one of God's children?" Ellison has to admit that the jury is still out on that one.

When Sarah enters the warehouse, there's a guy in the outer office.  Sarah pulls her gun on him and demands to know about the metal.  The guy says he's an A/C installer ... but then pulls his own gun and shoots Sarah in the leg.  They struggle and she manages to shoot him.  She drags herself outside - she really ought to try to stop that bleeding - and has another vision (?) of a weird, possibly alien ship hovering overhead.  She passes out.  Fade to white.

Previously on T:TSCC / next time on T:TSCC

No comments:

Post a Comment