Saturday, August 11, 2012

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E15 "Desert Cantos"

Vigil.  Sarah, John, Derek and Cameron head out to Charm Acres, the created community where all the factory/warehouse workers lived.  They're funeral-crashing, hoping to talk to folks and learn more about the factory.  As they drive along, they pass a small pond with a bunch of dead cows lying around it.  Nobody seems to notice.  In the town square, large photographs of the dead workers sit on easels.  Sarah pauses next to the photo of the guy who shot her.  By the way, she's walking with nary a limp after last episode's gunshot trauma.

John meets a sour, sarcastic girl about his age, Zoe, whose dad worked at the factory.  She says that she picked out a suit this morning to bury him in.  Another boy, Henry, comes to get her for the candle lighting ceremony, giving John a dirty look: Henry likes Zoe but she's not buying what he's selling.  She tells John that it was nice to meet him and then goes to stand with her mother next to her father's photo.  Meanwhile, Sarah meets the wife of the man who shot her.  Diana (wife) is sad and misses her husband (Ed).  Also meanwhile, Derek bumps into a squirrelly little guy.

Service.  Sarah sits with her new friend Diana at the funeral service.  Diana talks a lot about Ed, how frustrated she was with the company (Calipa? is that the company's name?) that kept her husband on the job seven days a week.  Nobody in town dared complain when things were going well, but during the service Diana has had enough and stands up, shouting that there should at least be a representative from the company here to pay their respects to the dead employees.  She runs out and Sarah follows.  They talk some more and Diana says that none of the families knew what went on at the factory - whenever she would ask, Ed would just clam up.  Sarah notes that sometimes people just get caught up in things.  Diana pulls out a key ring, saying it seems to be to a storage locker but she's been afraid to check it out.  Sarah says she'll do it.  At the storage locker, there's furniture inside, and sports equipment, and what looks like bloody clothes.  When she goes back to Diana, Sarah says the storage locker was empty.

Out in the church vestibule, the squirrelly guy is on the phone with Catherine Weaver: his name is Walsh and she's hired him to track down one of the factory workers whom Weaver believes is still alive.  Back at Weaver's office, Ellison notices that most of the employees are wearing plaid; it's the anniversary of Catherine's husband's death.  Catherine comes out of the elevator and greets Ellison with a cheery (for her), "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"  Ellison thinks this might be weird on the anniversary of her husband's death.

Processional.  Derek, having flatted Walsh's tires, offers the squirrelly guy a ride out to the cemetery.  Walsh tells him he's an OSHA investigator, trying to determine the cause of the explosion.  "So, what do you think about what happened?" asks Derek, "People say it wasn't an accident, something was going on up there other than heating and air conditioning."  His questions make Walsh even more squirrelly and the little guy hops out at the next light.  "Good luck with your investigation," sneers Derek.

Diana drives with Sarah to the cemetery, saying that she didn't know her husband at all.  Sarah is feeling a little conflicted because she likes this woman but she's the one who shot her husband.  Meanwhile, Henry drives Zoe, John and Cameron to the cemetery.  Henry is all cranky at the extra company and gets even more cranky once Zoe tells John about her ex-boyfriend Mike, whose family up and left Charm Acres without saying goodbye after some rumored issues with Mike's mom at the factory.  Cameron notices Henry's bitchface and pipes up: "Zoe doesn't love you the way you love her."  Infuriated, Henry pulls over and refuses to drive further.  John sees a cop heading their way so he jumps out, hauls Henry out of the driver's seat and stuffs him in the backseat, then gets in to drive himself.  Zoe announces that she can't deal with another funeral right now: "You want to see something really messed up?"  She directs them to the pond with all the dead cows, "One day they're here but the next they're just gone."  Cameron, checking out the carcasses: "Just like Mike."

Burial.  At the cemetery, they're now burying Henry's dad.  Zoe mentions to John that now everyone in town is rich because the company agreed to pay big time life insurance on its employees.  She also thinks the company wasn't doing HVAC; her theory is that it was a government project and the explosion wasn't an accident.  John gets his thinky face on.

Derek rejoins the rest of the Connor group at the burial and asks Sarah if she's learned anything more about that drone aircraft she thinks she saw when she got shot out at the factory.  "Not thinks," she snarls.  When Walsh leaves the cemetery, Sarah follows him since he doesn't know who she is.  He goes to a house in town and jimmies open a window, climbing in.  Sarah waits for a bit, then follows him.

After the burial, John talks with Zoe some more, asking if Henry is okay.  He tells her that his dad died before he was born, so he kinda knows what they're going through.  Zoe says, yeah, well, my dad is a pile of ashes so I guess we're both screwed.  John: "I thought you picked out a suit to bury him in?"  Zoe narrows her eyes and backs away, "Why am I even talking to you?"  She leaves quickly.  Cameron:  "She's not crying."  John: "She's not doing a lot of things."

Back at the office, Weaver and Ellison talk, Ellison sharing a story about how he felt when his father died - they had a difficult relationship but he still missed him.  He asks her how little Savannah is doing on the anniversary of her father's death.  Weaver's all, she's fine, then says, "Would you excuse me please, I'm feeling emotional."  With a completely flat affect.  Heh.  After Ellison leaves, she calls her assistant and instructs her to bring Savannah to her.

Wake.  John, Derek and Cameron sit down with their plates of funeral food in Zoe's backyard and rehash what they've learned.  Cameron notices that neither Zoe nor her mother ever look at the photo of Zoe's dead dad.  They observe the two of them for a little while and decide that no, Zoe's dad is not actually dead.  Cameron: "We should find him before he is."  Meanwhile, Sarah wanders through the house Walsh broke into.  It's totally empty, locked from the inside, and Walsh is gone.  She finds a secret door leading to an underground system of tunnels and rooms, with monitors from cameras placed all over town.  There are old pizza boxes too, indicating that someone has been spending a lot of time down here, watching.  Sarah also finds a fairly fresh smear of blood.

John makes his way upstairs to Zoe's parents' bedroom, searching through the bureau drawers.  Zoe catches him in there.  John: "Your father's alive, isn't he? Let me help you!"  Zoe's all, you can't!, and points to a camera in the ceiling.  Down below, Sarah wanders the tunnels, gun drawn.  She finds a ladder and climbs it, emerging through another trap door in Zoe's family's garage.  Derek calls her to see what's going on and she raps on the garage window; he turns around and sees her there.

Recessional.  Now Sarah, Derek, John, Cameron, Zoe and Zoe's mom are all down in the underground monitoring room.  Zoe's mom accuses them of being terrorist and Sarah like, yup, we kind of are.  Derek says that this video arrangement is like the work camps in the future, set up like that with cameras and humans watching their neighbors for the machines.  The Connor gang presses about what was going on at the factory.  Zoe's mom says that she didn't ask any questions about her husband's work, and she didn't ask any questions when he said he was going to play dead so they could escape.  Cameron pulls up some archived footage: Zoe's dad and Ed shooting Mike and his family.  Zoe is stunned.  John finds a pair of muddy boots: "Mom, I think I know where he might be."

As they head out to their car, Diana runs up and wants some answers about who Sarah is and what she's doing.  Sarah: ""Sometimes it's better not to ask too many questions."  Which is funny because she was just yelling at Zoe's mom for not asking enough questions about the factory.

At Weaver's office, she observes Savannah crying.  Drawing the little girl near, she tells her about her own father's death, but she's using Ellison's exact words about his dad and has clearly appropriated his story as her own, trying to comfort the little girl.  She asks Savannah what she misses about her daddy.  [Some of this I missed because the DVD skipped.  No biggie.]

By the time the Connors get to the dead cow pond, it is fully nighttime.  Walsh is there, dead on the ground.  Suddenly the pond starts bubbling and the drone aircraft that Sarah saw bursts up out of it.  They all stare, dumbstruck, as it flies away.  Where does it go?  It goes down the road a bit to where Zoe's dad is waiting with a semi truck.  The ship hovers, folds in on itself and lands in the trailer of the truck.  Zoe's dad closes the doors, climbs into the cab and drives away.

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

No comments:

Post a Comment