Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E22 "Born to Run"

Sarah sits in an interrogation chamber, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and a stubborn expression.  A smug, slick FBI agent does his best to threaten her with Miles Dyson's murder, the bank vault explosion, the fire-fight at Weaver's house and Savannah's kidnapping. He tries to get her to give something up about John but Sarah is resolute: "John is dead."  The FBI guy tells her to think about it.

Hiding out at a motel, John is nervous, pacing.  Cameron tells her that they are safe.  She also tells him that she won't let him try to break Sarah out.  What he wants right now, though, is a computer to research shielded nuclear power sources - "Like mine?" asks Cameron - to see if being around them all the time might have given his mom cancer.  Meanwhile, the T-888 is alive and well and patching itself up.  And over at John Henry's lab, Mr. Murch is playing D&D with the A.I.  Weaver interrupts them and asks Murch how long it would take to disassemble the lab in case John Henry gets attacked again.  Murch thinks that would be a bad idea: any changes to the current hardware and software would change John Henry - he exists only in this exact set-up.

Ellison goes to visit Sarah, swearing to her that the cops followed him to the theater, that he wasn't in on it.  Sarah is still a little cranky about it all, understandably so.  He encourages her to tell the FBI the truth, the actual truth about the rise of the machines.  She reminds him that the last time she tried that she ended up in a psych ward.  She asks him where Savannah is and he tells her she's back with her mother.  "She's not safe," mutters Sarah.  Then she shouts "She's not safe!" directly into the CCTV cameras where the FBI guy is watching.  Also watching: John Henry, who has tapped into the feeds.

Sarah has asked to see a priest.  A specific priest, in fact - the one in whose church the Connors took refuge when Cameron was glitching in S1.  The priest is not sure why Sarah wanted to see him again.  She asks him if he believes in the devil, the actual devil.  She says that she believes that someone or something wants this world to burn.  He tells her that he has desperately been trying to understand what happened that day in the church.  Sarah says she'll explain it to him, and then she'll ask him to do something for her.

When Ellison returns to John Henry's lab, he is displeased to find the A.I. and Weaver watching Sarah on the CCTV feed.  Weaver tells him that she wants to meet John Connor since (1) he was at her house when Savannah was attacked, (2) his mother thinks he's a messiah and (3) he and his "cyber-companion" are somehow connected to John Henry.  Ellison protests that he doesn't know how to reach John.  "Well, I do," smirks Weaver.

The T-888 goes to a gun store and buys more guns.

Back at the motel, John asks Cameron how much weight Sarah has lost.  "She was healthy before you showed up," he complains.  Cameron says that her sensors would tell her if her core was leaking.  "But things do go wrong with you, don't they?" John points out.  They are interrupted by a phone call: it's the Mexican priest.  Sometime later, a dark-haired girl picks up a package from the priest's confessional.  When she walks out of the church, Ellison follows her.  She isn't Cameron because they're being sneaky, not showing her face.  Then there is a knock on the motel door.  When Cameron opens it, it's the silent, dark-haired Latina bad-ass from S1.  She has brought passports for John and Cameron.  She has also brought a message on Sarah's behalf: "Leave this place, do not think of her, do not come for her, leave."  And Cameron is to make sure John does.  When she gets up to go, she tells John, "We lose everybody we love." Cameron pipes up, "Hasta luego!"

After the girl has gone, Cameron checks out the window, remarking, "That's interesting."  Then she goes out and drags Ellison back inside.  He tells them that Weaver wants to meet them, that Sarah was going to meet with her.  He says that Weaver has a question for Cameron: "'Will you join us?' Do you know what that means?"  Cameron is all, no, please leave, Mr. Ellison, and I won't ask you again.  When Ellison has gone, John looks closely at his terminator and asks if Ellison upset her.  Cameron: "You said it yourself, John, I'm just a machine."

That night, FBI guy tries a different tack with Sarah: "I believe you.  I believe in time travel and killer robots and the end of the world ... I've had 38 phone calls from people who've met John Baum and Sarah Baum ... I want to help you and your son - help me do that."  Sarah: "My son is dead."  Well, it was worth a shot, I guess.

The T-888 breaks into the garage under Weaver's building and shoots the security guard.  Then, when Weaver herself has appeared to investigate, it tries shooting her.  It's puzzled when that doesn't work.  Weaver spikes the terminator and electrocutes it, and then brings its chip to John Henry.  Unfortunately, the chip is coated with a compound that renders it useless once extracted.  When Ellison then shows up to work, Weaver tells him that she is disappointed in the Connors' response to her overture.

John wakes up with a start because Cameron is sitting there, staring at him.  She tells him that he needs to understand how her hardware and software work.  She was designed to kill humans and even though she's been reprogrammed, deep down she still wants to.  "I need to show you something," she says, taking off her shirt, then her bra.  She lies down on the bed, on her back, instructing a bemused John to climb on top of her.  She pulls out a knife and tells him where to slice in, because if she's damaged, they should know about it.  The camera angle is close up, focused on their faces, John's hands and Cameron's body out of the shot, making this all look like sex.  John reaches inside.  "What does it feel like?" Cameron asks him.  "It's cold," he replies, shakily, "That's good, right?"  Cameron: "That's good.  It's time to go."

The Mexican priest gets a phone call.  The voice on the other end sounds like Cameron.  The priest then goes back to see Sarah with a message: "She's coming."  Out in the prison, Cameron strides through the hallways, shotgun in hand.  Officers fire on her, shredding her clothes and her face, but she moves on, unstoppable.  John Henry watches from his lab and, unbidden, opens the locks.  All the locks: all the prisoners, male and female, burst free.  By the time Cameron finds Sarah, she (Cameron) looks like hell.  They get out and jump in the car John is driving.  Sarah snaps, "I sent you a message." John: "Bad John Connor - so ground me."  Sarah wants to know how bad off Cameron is because it's time to go see Catherine Weaver.

Hilariously, Sarah and John cool their heels in the lobby for a while.  This gives John the chance to ask his mom if she's sick.  Ellison arrives before she can answer.  As they ride the elevator up to Weaver's offices, Cameron batters her way into John Henry's lab.  They look consideringly at each other.  John Henry asks, "Will you join us?"  Cameron pulls out her knife and closes the door.

Weaver takes over the meeting immediately: We have a common enemy against whom we cannot fight via conventional means.  She means Skynet.  Ellison breaks in with a WTF as an drone comes smashing its way in through the window behind Weaver.  She snaps, "Get down!" and morphs into a shiny metal shield, protecting the three humans from incineration.  "Run!" she growls, and they do.  She catches up with them in the stairway and tells them to go to the lab.  Sarah: "They're trying to kill my son."  Weaver: "No, they're trying to kill mine.  Your son may save the world but he can't do it without my son."

Down in the lab, John Henry is gone and Cameron's chassis is there, defunct, chip removed.  John is frantic, saying he's got to get her back.  Weaver checks the remaining computers and flips a few switches.  When John demands to know where John Henry is, she smiles and says, "Not where, but when."  John and Sarah gape as they see the Turk computer in the tangle of hardware.  Weaver looks at Ellison, "Are you coming, Mr. Ellison? To fetch John Henry?" Ellison stutters no, and she shrugs, "Then would you pick Savannah up after gymnastics then?"  The blue sparking time travel bubble begins to grow around Weaver and John and Cameron's body.  Sarah backs away from it, saying she can't go.  John pleads with her to come with him - I love you - but she won't do it.  "I'll stop it," she promises, and the lights flash and John and Weaver are gone.

They reappear in the future, in the tunnels, John naked and Weaver clad in clothes of her own devising.  John finds a coat and puts it on, and they start to wander the tunnels.  When a patrol finds them, Weaver disappears and the soldiers question John grimly.  After a couple tense moments, John is thrilled and overjoyed to see Derek, who of course doesn't know him - nobody yet knows the name "John Connor" as this is where that all begins.  To make this reunion even sweeter, Derek's brother, Kyle, John's father, walks up and it's his coat that John has appropriated.  And then, finally, walking up behind Kyle is Cameron, pretty and smiling - and I think she's still human at this point.  John's eyes go soft and he's speechless when he sees her.

And back behind them in the tunnel, as the time travel flash echoes and reverberates, Sarah's voice: "I love you too."

Thus endeth Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  It finished strong, after I was about to lose hope in the Riley era, and I actually wouldn't have minded to see where the story would have gone from there.  Guess we'll never know.

Previously on T:TSCC

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E21 "Adam Raised a Cain"

Sarah stands at the edge of a potters' field, looking out over the unnamed graves from the year 1984.  Derek joins her and she admits that she doesn't know which grave is Kyle's.  He tries to chide her for ditching him to go to Charlie's but she retorts that she really just doesn't trust him much right now, what with all the Jessie-secrets he's been keeping.  John walks up, rejoining them after the escape from the lighthouse.  He shows them a phone he found on the dead bad guy: there's a picture of Savannah on it.  John remembers her from the shrink's office - she must be important somehow.

Savannah, meanwhile, is at school and gets in trouble for chatting on the computer with John Henry during class. The teacher calls Weaver in to express her worry that Savannah may be being stalked by a predator.  Weaver promises to talk to her daughter.  She does so out at recess, asking Savannah why she was chatting with John Henry.  The little girl was teaching him a song that her daddy used to sing with her.  Weaver says that maybe she could sing it with her instead.  Savannah rolls her eyes: "You can't sing!"  Which is funny because of the whole Shirley Manson thing.  Weaver tells Savannah that she shouldn't chat with John Henry during class, plus she shouldn't tell anyone about John Henry either.

Blah blah blah - Ellison and John Henry talk at the lab.  Boring, except for the part where John Henry wants to figure out what the proto-Skynet A.I. is up to.

After school, Savannah is at home with her nanny.  John Henry calls her while she's doing her homework; she puts him on a headset so she can talk and work on math problems at the same time.  In the background, a yellow delivery van pulls up out front.  John Henry is watching on the security monitors as the delivery guy, a T-888, goes to the front door and shoots the nanny in the head.  As the T-888 stalks through the house, John Henry tells Savannah how to hide.  When the machine moves to another part of the house, John Henry sends Savannah down to the garage, making a point to avoid the dead nanny in the foyer.  Unfortunately, when Savannah gets to the garage, the headset is out of range of the phone she left in the living room and she can't hear her friend anymore.

The T-888 comes down the stairs to the garage.  Savannah hears him and runs around behind the car - right into John's arms.  Sarah and Cameron come up behind the T-888.  Cameron engages it while John, Sarah and the little girl run for it.  They make it outside, but Derek is still in the house, searching.  He rounds a corner and comes right up against the T-888, which promptly shoots him in the face.  Damn.  That was abrupt.  Cameron fights the T-888 again and throws it off the deck into a ravine.  The Connors go back through the house and find poor Derek's body.  John is in shock; Sarah has the presence of mind to take Derek's phone out of his pocket.  She tells her crew to keep moving, as they can hear the security company's approaching sirens.

Back at Weaver's office, a detective tells Weaver and Ellison that Savannah has been taken, the whole security team is dead and they found an unidentified dead body in the living room (Derek).  The detective questions Ellison pretty closely and says they should talk to Savannah's friends.  So after the police leave, Ellison goes downstairs to talk with John Henry, who asks him why he stopped looking for Sarah Connor - who is right up there on the security footage, clearly not dead.  Ellison confuses the A.I. by asking him to keep all this a secret from Weaver, saying that their best chance to get Savannah back is for Ellison to handle it himself.

The Connor gang goes to ground in an old warehouse.  Sarah gets a call from Ellison - John Henry procured her phone number for him - who asks if Savannah is safe.  He tells her that she's on the security tapes but at this point he's the only one who's seen them.  Sarah agrees to meet with him.  At their meeting, she tells him that it isn't safe for anyone, Savannah, Weaver, him - Derek's dead, Charlie's dead.  She's keeping the little girl safe and wants to meet with Weaver.  Ellison doesn't like that idea but finally agrees to try to set something up.  Sarah reminds him that she told her to stay out of this.  Ellison: I tried - everywhere I turn, there you are.

John, rallying from his grief over Derek, talks with Savannah who remembers him from Dr. Sherman's office. As they talk, she tells him about John Henry, her friend who lives in the basement of her mommy's office and has a cord in the back of his head.  John: Do other people talk to John Henry?  Savannah: Mr. Ellison does because he works for my mommy and is teaching John Henry stuff.  John, hoarsely: What kind of stuff?

Weaver is annoyed when John Henry says he can't access the security footage from the attack on her home. When Ellison gets back, he tells her that Sarah wants to meet with her.  Weaver is all, I have to stay her to protect John Henry.  Ellison is outraged: JOHN HENRY?!!?  Weaver says that Savannah's survival, Ellison's survival, may someday depend on John Henry's survival, and that's why she's so focused on the A.I.  She agrees to meet with Sarah.  Down in the building lobby, the detective corners Ellison and starts insinuating that he's involved in Savannah's kidnapping: they've identified Derek, you see, and know that he used to be Ellison's case.

When Sarah and Cameron get back to the garage, John tells them about John Henry.  Sarah's like, I destroyed that chip.  Cameron: You destroyed A chip.  John doesn't think it's Cromartie, but probably something worse like Skynet.  Cameron remarks that she should have killed Ellison.  Sarah, seeing Savannah listening to them, says strongly that no one is getting killed.  Ellison calls Sarah and tells her that Weaver will meet with her but she's got to hand over the girl first.

Weaver goes to the basement lab and scolds John Henry for lying to her about the security footage at Ellison's behest.  He reminds her that he's lying to Ellison about her being a Terminator.  Weaver's like, well, yes, you could tell Mr. Ellison about that ... but it wouldn't be very healthy for Mr. Ellison.  Back at the warehouse, John apologizes to Cameron for ditching.  Cameron replies that Sarah ditched them because she was intending on ditching John with Charlie.  John: WTF?  Cameron: She found that lump in her breast (John: it was a transmitter) and she's lost a bunch of weight recently.  John's expression is all, fabulous, I just lost my uncle and now my mom has cancer.

The Connor gang goes to a movie theater to hand Savannah over.  Ellison comes in, tells Sarah that he'll be in touch to arrange the meeting.  Sarah leaves the darkened theater ahead of John and Cameron.  As she goes outside, she finds dozens of cops waiting for her, guns drawn.  To create a diversion and let John get away, she fights with some cops and gets a beating for her trouble.  John and Cameron slip out the back, but not before Cameron has to pull a murderous John off Ellison, who bewilderedly swears that he didn't know about the cops.  John doesn't believe him.  Outside, as Sarah is manhandled into the police car, the T-888 watches from the gathering crowd.

We end with a musical montage, as John Henry and Savannah sit in his lab, singing the song that she taught him:  Savannah is reunited with her "mother;" Sarah is marched into police HQ in front of television cameras; John and Cameron watch it all on the evening news, John gritting his teeth; Derek's ashes are buried under a 2009 marker in the potters' field.  R.I.P., Derek.  You were very brave but not nearly shirtless enough.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E20 "To the Lighthouse"

It's the homestretch, folks - the action should start taking off now.  But first, quite a lot of talking.

Sarah, showing more cleavage than she usually does, pauses in the midst of finishing her packing to give us a dreary voice-over about her time in the South American jungle when John was but a wee lad.  Flashback: Sarah and John, tromping around in the jungle, with guns.  They make camp, Sarah telling John that this is a game they're playing.  But he knows better, calling it "training."  Later, when he's asleep, Sarah sneaks off to watch him from afar, to see how he takes care of himself, without her.  She dozes off and when she wakes up with a start, he's gone, nowhere to be seen.  She calls for him and he sneaks around behind her, surprising her.  Clearly the boy can take care of himself.

Back in the now, the house is all packed up.  The plan is to meet up at their new safe house, out in the desert.  Sarah and John are to head there directly; Derek and Cameron head to the weapons storage locker to clean it out.  Over at John Henry's lab, he's playing action figures with Savannah when something happens, a glitch running through the servers, shutting them down momentarily.  When they come back up, John Henry is different, scary, another consciousness seemingly running through him.  He grabs Savannah's arm, hurting her.  She shrieks and runs away.  Moments later, Mr. Murch, the techie, races into the lab and hits the kill switch, shutting everything - including John Henry - down.  Weaver and Ellison stand in the doorway, concerned.  Murch explains that John Henry has been hacked, infected with a malware code.

In the Connor SUV, John is annoyed when the radio won't tune in - some kind of interference.  When he notices that his mom misses their exit, she explains that they're taking a detour: to a cottage near a lighthouse.  Sarah walks right in to the cottage, disarming the alarm.  A fat yellow lab comes out of the back of the cottage to greet them - John is definitely a dog person! Aw.  He asks his mom: What is this place?  And then Charlie walks in, answering that question.  Sarah found him this cottage after his wife died.  Over at the storage locker, Derek is a little testy with Cameron, snapping at her when she brings Jessie up.  As they talk, he realizes that Cameron knew Jessie back in the future.  Cameron explains: "I met her once."  Derek: "She never told me that."  Cameron:  "It seems she didn't tell you a lot of things."

John and Charlie catch up, clearly happy to see each other.  Charlie is less happy to see Sarah and lets her know exactly that when John goes to the car to fetch his tools.  Sarah: "I won't be here long."  Charlie: "No, you won't."  While John and Charlie work on Charlie's boat, John opens up a little about Riley, which is what Sarah was hoping for all along.  Then, when he's done talking about his feelings, John asks Charlie how he's got the beach rigged.  Explosives, Charlie explains, hard-wired to a switch on the dock, enough to give him about sixty seconds to get down to his boat in the event any more T-888s come after him.

That night, after John has gone to sleep, Sarah corners Charlie in the kitchen.  They talk a little about old times, then she takes his hand and presses it to her right breast.  At first he thinks she's coming onto him ... and then he feels the lump that she found there a couple days ago.  "Oh, Sarah," he says, voice cracking.  "It's my fate," she says quietly, "There's nothing I can do."  Charlie pulls her into a hug.

Weaver tells Murch to start the A.I. back up, but keep him off the internet.  When he does, the computer basically moans and laments, "All alone - why have you abandoned me?"  They figure that John Henry is so used to having such an incredible input of data that when he was pulled off it, it was like dying slowly.  Murch says that they need to hook the A.I. back up to the internet immediately so it doesn't starve.  Ellison isn't sure this is a good idea, what with the recent malware infection, but Weaver insists.  They bring John Henry back up and he immediately tells Ellison that he now knows what it feels like to be alone, to die and to come back.  He also tells them that "there is another - another one like me."

Now things start to pick up.  The next day, Sarah goes to the doctor for an ultrasound.  The lump isn't cancer after all: it's a cystic mass that has formed around a tiny wire, a transmitter that was injected into her when she was kidnapped during that dream episode.  Out in the hallway, a bad guy approaches, dressed like a water delivery guy.  Other bad guys follow Derek and Cameron; another one walks towards the lighthouse.  Sarah grabs a couple of cardiac paddles and slaps them on her breast, shorting out the transmitter and knocking herself temporarily unconscious.  Derek's truck gets a blowout and while Cameron changes the tire, Derek notices a skulking van and goes to check it out.  The bad guys Taser him and drive off with him in the van.  Cameron gives chase but can't catch them.  She does note the license plate.  At the lighthouse, the alarm sirens go off.  John and Charlie grab guns and run for the dock.  John unties the boat while Charlie covers him, flipping the switch for the beach explosives.  Back at the hospital, Sarah takes out the guy stalking her and grabs his gun, heading back to Charlie's.

John Henry tells Weaver and Ellison that the other A.I. has installed a worm in nearly all the world's computers (uh-oh, sounds like Skynet's making its move), trying to find him.  John Henry says that his own code is closely related to the other A.I.'s code.  Weaver asks what the other A.I. wants.  John Henry: "What we all want - to survive."

Cameron has tracked the van to a warehouse.  She marches right in and is immediately doused with a bucket of water, then electrocuted, shorting out her chip.  The bad guy gets instructions on how to remove her chip from his phone - Bad Guy: "Where'd you get this diagram?  Your brother?  You don't say." - but her doesn't move quickly enough and she comes back online and snaps his neck.  She frees Derek and, when he just gapes at her, says, "You're welcome."  Derek: "Why'd you come after me?"  Cameron:  "You know the location of the safe house."

When Sarah gets back to the lighthouse, the cottage window are shattered, the poor sweet lab has been killed, the bad guy is blown to bits on the beach.  She runs down to the dock and sees that the boat is gone - John has gotten away.  She also sees poor dead Charlie, shot three times in the chest, floating face-up in the water.  She almost cries for him.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E19 "Today Is the Day Part 2"

John sits in the car with Derek, who says how sorry he is about Riley.  John asks his uncle how long he thinks he could survive against Cameron, face to face with no weapons, if she wanted to kill him.  Derek: "No weapons? You already know the answer to that, John.  If she wants me dead, I'm dead."  John sighs and says he wants to talk about Derek's future.  Meanwhile, Jessie goes for a swim at the local Y (doesn't look like a hotel pool), thus allowing her to continue the submarine flashbacks outlined in the prior recap.  By the way, there are a LOT of submarine flashbacks in this episode - since I did them all last time, this should be a short recap.

When John goes home, he expects Sarah (who is hardly in this episode, but slightly moreso than Cameron) to scold him for taking the risk of going to the morgue.  No, says Sarah, I meant that you should have to remember Riley like that.  She asks if he got what he needed there and he says yes, then looks up at Cameron lurking in the doorway and tells her he's sorry he doubted her.

Back at John Henry's lab, the A.I. has gotten into painting D&D figurines as a way to hone his/its fine motor skills.  Ellison helps with the painting and John Henry asks if this means the two of them are friends.  Ellison doesn't have an answer for that.  Later, after Ellison has gone home, Weaver stops by, noting that John Henry convinced Ellison to leave the body up and running for the evening instead of shutting him/it down.  John Henry says that he's found some interesting things hidden in the corporate while he was doing inventory, like resignation letters and transfer orders and moving bonuses, all undated, for all the members of the Babylon project (which is him) - including Ellison who seems to be moving to Copenhagen.  John Henry says, "Mr. Ellison is our friend.  Are you going to kill him?  Human life is sacred."  Weaver: "We have to be prepared for any contingency ... humans will disappoint you."

Later, Sarah questions Cameron: Have you ever thought about why you are here with us right now?  John sent you away from him in the future - why didn't he want you around?  Sarah, stop messing with the toaster's head.

When Jessie returns to her hotel room, John is there waiting for her, gun drawn.  There's a lot of talking, mostly by John, about how humans are irreplaceable, how Derek loves Jessie and how John and Jessie are all he has, how Riley used to make small mistakes in the things she said which tipped him off that she might not be who she said she was.  So he started following her and discovered Jessie, and figured out her plan.  He throws her duffel bag at her feet and tells her to go, go now.  "If I have to live with this," he says bitterly, "So do you."  Jessie asks if her plan would have worked, would have made him divorce himself from Cameron.  John says no.  Jessie: "Well, it's a damn shame.  It's a damn waste."

Derek is lying in wait for her outside.  He knows how she's betrayed him and he pulls out his gun (not a euphemism).  "I don't even know you," he says, voice shaking slightly, "I don't know who you are.  You're not my Jessie - you never were."  She's crying.  Derek says, "John Connor said to let you go.  I'm not John Connor."  Jessie drops her bag and sprints away.  Derek raises his gun, finger tightening on the trigger.  Then the scene cuts to Derek walking into Jessie's hotel room where John is still pacing.  John asks Derek what the future people think of him.  Derek says that not everyone agrees with what John does, and not everyone loves him, but he leads them and they - "we" - follow, humanity rising or falling on John's shoulders.  "But we're always watching."  John: "For me to make a mistake?"  Derek: "For you to be human."  John asks if Derek killed Jessie and his uncle replies, "John Connor let her go."  But his eyes are a little teary so we don't actually know if he pulled the trigger or not.  I think yes.

That night, Sarah, John and Cameron sit on the couch, watching t.v. or maybe staring into the fireplace.  John is sitting noticeably closer to Cameron and Sarah looks a little forlorn.  But then he breaks down, finally crying, and leans into his mother, sobbing in her arms.  Cameron just sits there, unmoved and unmoving, because when you come right down to it, she's still a machine.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E18 "Today Is the Day Part 1"

Note:  This episode was just called "Today Is the Day" and the next episode, "Part 2," was "The Last Voyage of the Jimmy Carter."  They changed it on the DVD because, I guess, "TLVotJC" was kinda of dumb.  Gotta agree with them there.

In these two episodes, we get to see exactly why Jessie hates the machines so much via flashbacks to her past, which are actually in the future.  In a nutshell, because this is the Sarah Connor Chronicles, not the Jessie Whatshername Chronicles: Jessie used to be second in command on a rebel submarine (the USS Jimmy Carter), serving under a T-888 captain, Queeg.  She trusted Queeg, "he's a good bloke," despite Derek telling her that no, he's not a bloke, and no, he can't be trusted.  Captain Queeg has mad sub-handling skillz but he's also got secret orders: to pick up a package for John Connor himself.  When they get to the pick-up location, the package is handed over by a T-888 and two metal-only Terminators.  The package contains one of those liquid metal Terminators which gets loose (and freaks the shit out of the submarine crew as they have apparently never seen one of these before), morphs into a crew member and starts racking up a body count.  When Queeg refuses to back down on his order to deliver the "package" to John Connor, Jessie shoots him in the chip and scuttles the sub after loading her remaining crew onto the escape pod.  The liquid metal Terminator manages to escape too.  And that's why Jessie really, really, really hates the machines.  (BTW, all the flashbacks are spread out over both episodes but I don't see the point in dragging it out any further so you're getting it all in Part 1.)

In the non-Jessie-flashback storyline, Sarah has decided that it's time to move again.  "Seems like about time," snarks John, heading out to the garage to tell Cameron to hide all those Terminator spare parts she's got lying around.  Meanwhile, after dumping Riley's body somewhere, Jessie goes to a bar and picks a fight with four Navy aviators, thus giving her an excuse for all the cuts and bruises Riley gave her.

Sarah learns about Riley's body being found, fished out of the river by the police.  She tells John as gently as she can, but she assumes that Cameron is the one who killed the girl.  John's first thought is that Cameron did it too.  He asks her about it and she says that she didn't do it.  He reminds her that she's lied to him before.  Cameron says yes, but she's not lying now.  John struggles mightily to keep it together.

Derek has to bail Jessie out of jail and is rather displeased about it, what with being a fugitive and all.  He frets when she won't tell him why she picked a fight with those guys.  As he bandages her hands, he gets a call from Sarah, letting him know about Riley.  He too assumes that Cameron did it, but he gets a little suspicious when Jessie tells him, adamantly, that it is not for him to kill the machine - John has to do it for himself.

Savannah Weaver wants her mother to play hide and seek with her but Catherine counsels patience instead and blows her off.  The poor little girl starts to wander around the office and, like magic, doors open in front of her, hallways light up for her, leading her down to the basement lab where John Henry waits.  It is all Very Creepy.  John Henry just wants to play, though.  Some time later, Weaver shows up in Ellison's office to tell him that Savannah is missing somewhere in the building.  They go to see John Henry, because he knows everything that happens in the complex.  He knows where the girl is but he wants them to play a game with him first: he'll think of something, they'll try to guess, and if they get it right he'll give them a clue as to Savannah's whereabouts.  Ellison is outraged that the computer would keep a secret like this from them but Weaver, terribly, creepily, is eager to play the game, fascinated with how the A.I. is growing.  Ellison gets angrier and more frustrated, both with the computer and with his boss.  They finally guess enough correctly to figure out that Savannah is hiding in the helicopter up on the roof.  It is horrible how Weaver beams with pride at John Henry but is so cold to her "daughter."  Afterwards, Ellison returns to John Henry's lab to more calmly express his displeasure with the A.I.'s secret-keeping.  John Henry tries to understand what he/it did wrong.

While packing for the move, Sarah comes across John and Cameron's stash of Terminator parts.  She's COMPLETELY pissed, about the parts, about what happened to Riley.  John tells her that he believes that Cameron didn't do it and he's going to figure out who did.  First, he goes to Riley's foster home, playing dumb in front of the foster dad, until Cameron calls the house, using Riley's voice, so the foster parents won't worry about her absence.  She breaks from the plan, however, and asks to speak to John on the phone, including telling him that she/Riley loves him, which freaks him out to no end.  Afterwards, he tells her to piss off for a while: he's got somewhere to go and he's going alone.

When Cameron gets back to the house, she finds Sarah burning up all the spare Terminator parts.  Sarah tells her that she had considered waiting for her with Derek's sniper rifle and thus wiping out 50% of her problems with one shot.  But she didn't because John would be so upset.  Cameron's like, yes, this is all about John - we're all a threat to him: Skynet, you, me.  Everything he cares about makes him vulnerable and the only way for him to be safe is for him to be alone.  Sarah: "What kind of life is that?"  Cameron: "John's life, someday."

Poor John, meanwhile, has broken into the morgue and found Riley's body.  Steeling himself (and Thomas Dekker is doing great work here in these episodes), he looks at her injuries, particularly noting the damage done to her hands and fingertips, which are pretty much shredded.  He tells her that he's sorry but he still doesn't cry.  (He does, however, appear to be leaving fingerprints all over the morgue drawers - hope this doesn't bite him in the ass later.)

... To be continued!

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E17 "Ourselves Alone"

It's a good thing we're nearing the end because I've about had it with this show.  I'm definitely finishing it at this point, and don't necessarily regret watching it, but I totally remember why I gave up on it when it was on T.V.  It's dour and slow, relying too much on dialogue, which is not its strength, and lately shying away from Summer Glau and the action-y bits, which are totally its strong points.

Cameron's left hand is glitching, which she discovers when she inadvertently crushes to death a pigeon that had been trapped in their house, which John had instructed her not to kill.  Sarah sees Riley for the first time since the wrist-cutting; Riley is weirdly smug - I'm not sure if the character is supposed to be or if this is just an odd acting choice.  Derek and Jess do some target practice and he asks her to help him snatch up a lawyer who might have some intel on Skynet/Skynet-to-be.  Jess reminds him that she's not here to stop the war - she's here to win it - but she reluctantly agrees to help out.  Sarah asks Cameron about Riley and they decide they should know more about her.  Cameron offers to go talk to the foster parents but Sarah says she'll do it.  Cameron goes out to the shed and slices open her left arm, trying to figure out what's wrong.  Riley peeks inside the shed and sees her.  She's freaked out but less so than a regular person would be.  Cameron hears her outside and, going to the doorway, sees her walk off, a considering look on her (Cameron's) face.

When John goes out to the shed, he thinks that maybe he could patch Cameron up and she pulls out some spare parts that she saved from some of the T-888 carcasses.  John is pissed that she kept those parts but she tells him that Future John told her to do it, just for this scenario.  Meanwhile, Riley goes to Jess, afraid that Cameron is going to kill her.  Jess: "If she knew you saw, you'd be dead already."  Riley says that she won't go back and Jess says, yes, you will, but I won't let anyone hurt you.  Sarah goes to see Riley's foster dad, who tells her that Riley freaked out on them, shouting about the world burning and bleached skulls.  Interest piqued, Sarah asks about the bruise on Riley's face and the foster dad gets defensive, telling her that he thinks John is a bad influence ... and the guidance counselor thinks so too.

Sarah gets the guidance counselor's number and arranges a meeting: the counselor is Jess, of course, who makes pointed comments, trying to rile Sarah up.  When Sarah returns home, she tells John that Riley told this guidance counselor all about John and Sarah and Derek, and Mexico, and the end of the world.  John insists that he didn't tell Riley ANYTHING but his mom doesn't believe him.  He says he'll talk to his girlfriend and Sarah says that maybe instead he should prepare himself for what's going to happen when Cameron finds out what Riley's been saying.

Riley comes over that evening and Sarah pounces on her, telling her that she owes John an explanation for all the things she's been telling people.  Riley insists that she hasn't said anything to anyone.  They are interrupted when a woman from DCFS shows up to chat with the Connors about Riley.  Riley and Cameron hide out in the shed and Riley is super-scared that she's about to get killed there and then.  After the DCFS woman leaves, John goes to the shed and asks Riley to wait for him outside.  He asks Cameron, "Were you going to kill her?"  Cameron: "I don't know."  John: "Since when do you not know?  This isn't your decision to make."  Cameron: "It's usually not a decision."  John: "Well, this time it is and it's not yours.  What's happening to you?"  Cameron: "I don't know."  Then John goes out to talk to Riley.  He looks at her pointedly and asks, "Is there anything you want to tell me?  Because tonight is the night for it."  He totally gives her the opportunity to say, "Yes, John, yes, I am a crazy person recruited from the future and sent back here to try to make you love me and get you away from your sister, who isn't a girl but is really a very scary pet robot, and the trouble is I actually kind of like you and I'm completely terrified that your pet robot is going to kill me," but what she actually says is, "No."  John's very scary robot sister and equally scary human mother watch them from a distance.

Derek is in Jess's hotel room when she gets back.  He's ready to move on snatching up that lawyer he's been stalking.  She drags her feet a little but agrees to meet up with him later tonight.  Later tonight, Derek waits at their meeting spot but Jess never shows up and the lawyer gets away.  Why does Jess never show up?

Because Riley has gone after her in her hotel room, shrieking that she figured out that Jess's plan all along was for John to care about her and then Cameron to kill her because that's the only way John would turn away from Cameron.  "How could you do this to me?  I trusted you, I loved you!"  And then they have a big ol' chick fight, wrestling and clawing and stabbing and kicking and bludgeoning.  Riley actually appears to be getting the upper hand until Jess grabs a gun she's stashed under the couch and shoots her in the chest.  Thus endeth Riley.  Can't say I'm going to miss her much.

That night, John finds Cameron out in the shed. He's worried that he hasn't heard from Riley but Cameron has something more important on her mind, literally.  She's installed a tiny explosive in her own head and crafted a detonation switch out of an old pocketwatch, which she gives to John.  She says that she doesn't seem to be fixable and is incapable of self-termination, so she's given him the means to terminate her if it ever comes down to that.  He seems more upset by that thought than by the fact that he can't find Riley.  But when he heads back up to the house, he sees another dead bird - ostensibly crushed to death, I guess - and wonders if Cameron is maybe right about this.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E16 "Some Must Watch While Others Sleep"

Oh joy of joys: we open with another Sarah voiceover, droning on about nighttime demons (witches, succubi, and the like) and dreams.  So this'll be a dream episode then.  I can hardly wait.

Sarah is in an industrial part of town, investigating Western Iron and Metal, a shop that supplied specialty metals to the factory (Calipa?  did we decide that's the name of the company?).  She calls John to check in - he's dismayed that she's not asleep since it's around midnight - and asks him to poke around online to see what he can learn.  She is about to break into the building when she is distracted  by a coyote ... and doesn't notice the masked man sneaking up behind her and Tasering her until she falls down, twitching.

And wakes up in a sleep clinic, electrodes stuck to her face.  She sits up as the nurse chastises her, saying they won't get a good baseline if she doesn't leave the electrodes on.  They're trying to figure out why she isn't sleeping (uh, stress maybe?) since it's been weeks since she's gotten any decent shut-eye.  The nurse says she'll be right back and Sarah hears a noise from the other side of the curtain dividing her room: it's her roommate, Dana, a pudgy, charming British lass who is afflicted with a sleep disorder, smokes, drinks, overeats and may also be a sex addict.  John pokes his head in the room: it's visiting hours and Sarah goes out to the courtyard to talk with him and Cameron.  Sarah frets that she should be out there, fighting against the rise of Skynet, but John says no, she's useless so tired, and he needs her to stay here and get better.  As the kids leave, Sarah notices an orderly with a coyote tattoo on the back of his next.

That night, electrodes in place, she dreams.  She's in a van, held captive by Ed the factory warehouse guard she shot.  "You're dead, I killed you," she says.  "And I killed you," he replies, "One of us is going to have to step it up."  Ed pulls the van over and climbs into the back with her.  There's lots and lots of talking, punctuated by Ed beating on Sarah.  He wants to know who she works for, who blew up their factory.  When she won't talk, he fills a syringe with some sort of truth serum and leans towards her.

Sarah wakes up in the clinic.  The nurse confirms that Sarah's insomnia and night terrors are psychological, not physiological.  Sarah says that therapy didn't work for her and she's not interested in drugs.  That'll make treatment more challenging.  When she and the nurse get back to Sarah and Dana's room, the nurse is upset to find one of Dana's cigarette butts and says she has to go file a report.  Dana comes out of the bathroom and she and Sarah talk about their respective nightmares:  Sarah's is being chased, naturally, and Dana's is burning alive.  "Do the bad guys ever catch you?" Dana asks.

Back to the van.  When Sarah opens her eyes, Ed lets her know that he undressed her while she was unconscious; he's seen all her scars, including the one from an emergency C-section, so he knows she's a mother.  Sarah quashes her horror at the violation and tells Ed that it was his own company that killed its people and blew up the factory.  Ed thinks she is being very dramatic.  She asks him what Diana (his wife) would think if she could see him now.  Ed gets angry at that, handcuffing Sarah and throwing her around.  She fights back, kicking him into the wall of the van.  He accidentally sticks himself with the syringe and slumps down, but not before pulling his gun.

Back at the clinic.  Sarah wakes up and checks on Dana.  She can't wake her and notices an injection site on her neck, which seems unnecessary since Dana was given sleeping pills at bedtime.  Sarah sneaks into the hallway and follows the nurse down into the basement.  The nurse lets herself into a room with an electronic keypad so Sarah can't follow her.  In the morning, the nurse notices that Sarah's electrodes are off again and asks her if she is a sleepwalker.  Sometimes, says Sarah.  The nurse is miffed that Sarah didn't mention this before.

John and Cameron go back to the clinic to visit.  Cameron asks questions about what it's like to dream: how do you know what's real or not?  "Sometimes you don't," admits John.  Sarah joins them and tells John that she thinks something's going on here at the clinic.  Her son thinks she's being paranoid, even for her.  She tells him that she's been dreaming about Ed.  John's like, what happened is okay - you were defending yourself.  "I'm not supposed to defend myself," Sarah says, frustrated, "I'm supposed to defend you."  The nurse comes over and tells Sarah it's time for a nap.

Back to the van.  Ed asks Sarah how Diana looked at his funeral.  They begin to talk, Ed answering her questions because he got stuck with the truth serum.  He tells her that his job is to kill people for the company.  She tells him that he was her first kill and he laughs, saying he figured a bad-ass gal like her had a high body count to her credit.  She tells him that she can help him and Diana get away from the company and disappear.  Ed is hesitant, saying that they'll track him down, but then he uncuffs her and lets her out of the van.  Sarah runs for it but it's a fake-out: Ed tackles her, dragging her back to the van.  Sarah struggles mightily and a siren starts to blare.

Back to the clinic, where the siren is a fire alarm: Dana is dead in her bed and on fire, ostensibly from a lit cigarette, but Sarah thinks otherwise.  In the morning, she calls John to update him.  He now thinks that maybe she should come home but she's determined to figure out what's going on.  Later, the nurse tells everyone that Dana is critically injured but not dead (Sarah silently scoffs), and gives the staff and remaining patients a pep talk.  She also gives Sarah a couple of diazepams to help her sleep because of the added stress of her roommate catching on fire.  Sarah palms them, not about to take anything this nurse gives her.

Back to the van.  Sarah is tied up again.  Talk talk talk, blah blah blah.  Ed figures out that it is her son whom she is protecting so fiercely, her son who is her accomplice.  He tortures her a little and she gasps that she won't call him - she'd die first.

Back at the clinic.  John shakes Sarah awake.  She's woozy, but called him when she woke up after the nurse gave her an injection while she was dozing off.  They go downstairs to the locked room in the basement and John easily hacks his way in.  The room inside is full of computers shows thousands of brain scans.  They search for Sarah's file and find it.  Sarah tells John to delete it: she thinks this clinic is a Skynet experiment where they are collecting tons and tons of data about humans.  Out in the hallway, an orderly tells the nurse that Sarah's electrodes seem to have come off again.  The nurse goes straight to the locked room and is unsurprised to find Sarah there, unsteady on her feet.

The nurse starts talking about "humans" (like she isn't one) and their weird dreams, then slams Sarah up against the wall.  Sarah crumples to the floor and the nurse kicks her viciously.  The nurse snatches up a computer tower and is about to crush Sarah's skull with it when John steps out from where he was hiding and shoots her.  She doesn't stay down long, though: when John and Sarah check her body, she rises up, grabs John's gun and shoots first him and then his mother.  Shoots them dead.

Back in the van.  Sarah comes to with a gasp, realizing that this is the real world and the clinic was the dream, brought on by Ed's truth serum.  She hears him on the phone outside, saying that "this is the one we want."  Frantic, she breaks her own thumb and pulls the handcuffs off.  When Ed opens the van doors, ready to kill her, she springs out and stabs him in the eye with that syringe.  Yuck.  They fight until she grabs the gun. "You're real!" she cried, "You're real, you're real!"  And then she shoots him in the head.

And to wrap things up, Sarah drives through the night, bloodied and battered, heading home, and her voiceover drones on and one about the witching hour and witches and demons and bad dreams and bad bitches.

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

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E14 "The Good Wound"

Sarah wakes up in a hospital, hearing old dialogue from the original movie Terminator, with Kyle Reese telling her he loves her and she needs to get on her feet.  She rips the IV out of her arm and lurches from the bed, gasping in pain.  Vision Kyle extends a hand, helping her up. The sheriff's deputy on guard in the hallway hears breaking glass and barges into her room.  She is hiding behind the door and chokes him into unconsciousness.  Vision Kyle walks her out of the hospital and tells her that she needs to get the bullet out of her leg, and she should call "him" for help.

Meanwhile, John has called Derek in a panic, having brought the suicidal Riley to the ER.  Derek chastises him for bringing her in, saying that now psych staff, case workers and foster care will get involved.  Derek's proved right when the doctor tells John he'll have to hold Riley on a suicide watch overnight.  Sarah calls Derek and tells him about the warehouse, asking him to go out there and check it out, plus burn her car, wherever she left it.  After he hangs up, John asks: "Is this real this time?"  Derek: "I think the bullet in her leg is real."  John commences freaking out.

VISION KYLE IS ANNOYING.  A young doctor pulls into the hospital parking lot.  Sarah kidnaps her at gunpoint to get help for her leg.  They go to a motel.  Sarah is paranoid and defensive and Vision Kyle coaches her, telling her to let the doctor help her.  Sarah tells a story that alludes enough to being hurt by a man that the doctor has some sympathy for her; Sarah means the guy who shot her plus all the Terminators that beat her up, but the doctor thinks she means a husband or boyfriend.  There may be some over-identification going on here.

The deputies go through Sarah's car, wherever she left it.  It's covered in blood from her leg wound.  They get a call from the hospital, informing them of Sarah's escape.  The DVD skips here but I don't think I've missed much.  At the [other?] hospital, Riley wakes up to find John and Cameron at her bedside.  She is less than thrilled to see Cameron and pleads exhaustion so they'll leave.

Back at the motel, the doctor tells Sarah that she can't get the bullet out here - it's too close to the femoral artery.  She tells Sarah they'll have to go back to the hospital or she'll die.

Ellison shows up for his session with John Henry, who is putting together Transformer toys.  The A.I. is speaking with a much more natural affect than before.  They talk about God again.  John Henry then reviews all the bad deeds that its T-888 body did, which it learned about by Googling "James Ellison."  Ellison finds John Henry very creepy.  Later, he tells Weaver that he's not sure giving the A.I. access to the internet is a good idea.

The deputies have found the motel room, covered in blood and discarded medical equipment, but Sarah and the doctor are long gone, back to the hospital.  They sneak into the morgue, the doctor amazingly continuing to be sympathetic to abrasive Sarah who keeps waving a gun at her.  The doctor goes to fetch supplies, which gives Sarah and Vision Kyle a chance to chat some more.  Her leg starts bleeding again and she worries that she'll bleed out - it'll only take four minutes if her femoral artery gets nicked.  She calls Derek who tells her that Riley is turning into a problem.  She tells him that her leg is a problem.  Derek says that she's not to worry about John.

John Henry has requested Weaver's presence in the lab.  The A.I. tells her that it knows she's not human: she's made of metal, not the same metal as it's body, but metal all the same.  It knows this because it looked into her eyes and saw nothing there.  She tells John Henry that it is not to tell anyone what it knows about her.  The A.I. asks her what she is doing.  Weaver says that she can't answer that right now, but that everything she does, she does for it.

The doctor returns to the morgue, ready to operate.  She says that the pain will be bad enough that she needs to put Sarah under.  Also, she wants Sarah to hand over her gun.  Vision Kyle tells Sarah to stop effing around and let the doctor do her job.  Sarah gives up her gun and the doctor goes to work.

In the [other?] hospital, Riley's doctor tells John that Riley has gone missing.  John's all, we have to find her!  Cameron: No, we do NOT need to find her.  John asks Cameron what his future self would do about Riley.  Cameron replies that future John has more important things to do.  Meanwhile, Jess has popped into Riley's room and taken her back to her hotel.  Riley asks if she can stay with Jess, just for a little while since people are looking for her.

Out at the warehouse, people are packing everything up hurriedly, getting ready to bug out.  Then Weaver is there, stalking through the halls, killing everyone in her path.  It's compete pandemonium.  Weaver slices and dices, not even getting any blood on her stylish white dress.  She finds the demolitions materials in a storeroom and blows the whole place sky-high, including all the fresh corpses she made.  Ain't going to be nothing left by the time Derek gets out there.

Meanwhile, the deputies have listened to the recording of Abraham's therapy session/shooting. that Sarah had in her car.  They decide to call in everyone, FBI, ATF, etc.  Things are about to get complicated.  One of the deputies heads out to the warehouse but his car explodes before he can get in it.  It's Derek, who sneaks inside the sheriff's office, burns the paper files and steals their laptop.  He doesn't get that recording, though, because the deputy still has it.  Derek sneaks away and the deputies are all, we're going back to the hospital!

Oh fer chrissakes. Sarah and Vision Kyle continue to talk as she's under the anesthesia.  Blah blah blah.  This Kyle is nothing on Michael Biehn.  Sarah makes it through the surgery and is just starting to come out of it when Derek bursts into the morgue, looking for her.  Thinking he's the guy who abused Sarah, the doctor pulls Sarah's gun on him.  Derek has his own gun, of course.  Then a deputy charges in and points his gun at Derek.  OMG, do NOT shoot Derek before he's had a chance to take his shirt off again.  The deputy yells at the doctor to put her gun down but she refuses.  He calls her baby, and then he calls her a crazy bitch.  The doctor freaks out and shoots the deputy.  Derek rushes to Sarah's side as she wakes up.  As they get ready to leave, Sarah tells the doctor that she should blame the deputy's death on her.  The doctor is all, no, that wouldn't be right; I'll tell him he put the gun to my head and threatened to kill me - it wouldn't be the first time.

As the episode ends, Derek and Sarah drive towards the warehouse, dismayed to see the plume of black smoke rising above it.

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

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E12 "Alpine Fields"

Good grief.  This one is waaaaaaaaay flashback heavy.  So annoying.  Makes me miss Lost.

Now: Derek is investigating a garage (?) when he hears screaming.  It's a very pregnant woman who has been shot through the chest.  Her teenage daughter is trying to help her.  Derek says that Sarah Connor sent him and he manages to put a tube down the woman's throat to help her breathe.  The girl says the cyborg shot her.  Derek: "So, how do you know Sarah?"

Six months ago:  Sarah and Cameron break into a house, telling the family living there that they've been targeted, their names are on a list that Sarah has.  Suddenly everyone is pointing guns at everyone else.  The dad, David, is Carlos Jacott, a three-peater from the Whedonverse.  The mom is Ann, who will be pregnant and shot in about six months, and the daughter is Lauren.  David wants to know what is going on.  Sarah gives them the Cliff Notes on the machines rising and killing everyone who threatens them in the past: apparently someone in this family is a threat to Skynet.  Cameron and Sarah force the family into their minivan and drive off.  The T-888 finds them soon enough and rams them with his pickup truck.  Sarah and the family scamper back to their house while Cameron and the T-888 fight.

Now:  Lauren notices the bar code tattoo on Derek's arm and asks him where he got it.  Derek: "From them."  Lauren tells him that the Terminator found them in Nevada and that her dad held it off while she and Ann ran for it.  It doesn't look like ol' David got away.


2037:  Derek disagrees with some plan his commander (the doctore from Spartacus) has to use a cyborg in fighting a bio-weapon.  Derek thinks he can go in and retrieve the sole survivor of that bio-weapon attack and see if the rebels can fashion an antidote or immunization from their antibodies (or something).  Okay, says the commander, but we don't know how long you'll have once you've been exposed to this bio-weapon.

Now:  Lauren tells Derek that it was her fault that the Terminator found them because she made a phone call to a friend.

Six months ago:  Sarah and the family make it back to the house.  David's leg is badly fractured so they splint it.  Sarah wants to know which one of them the cyborg is after.  David is a banker, Ann a housewife and Lauren is just a high school student.  Sarah goes full MacGyver, rigging the front door with a trap.  Lauren finds Sarah rummaging around in the garage and tells her that her dad is actually working with a tech company that does cybernetic stuff.

2037:  A gas mask-wearing Derek goes into the bunker that was hit by the bio-weapon.  Everyone appears to be dead - so why would any survivor still be in there?  He doesn't investigate too long, getting a little freaked out by all the bodies, and when he goes back outside, Jessie is there.

Now:  Lauren takes a gun and goes outside for some air.  When Ann wakes up, she scolds Derek for letting her daughter go outside alone. Derek rolls his eyes and says that Lauren covered for her mother when it was Ann who made the phone call that tipped off the Terminator.

Six months ago:  Sarah and Lauren finish the front door trap.  It comes out that Ann has been having an affair with neighbor Roger.

Now:  Ann's phone call got Roger killed.  (I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for her - she's pretty unlikeable.  And here's the thing: why exactly are we wasting time with these people?  Cameron got an episode so now Derek gets one?  Is this going to move the story forward?  We don't have many episodes left.)

2037:  This is the first time Derek meets Jess.  She caught an SOS and came to investigate.  Derek gives her a gas mask and they go back in, making it to the back of the bunker where there's a door.  Derek bangs on it.  Someone inside bangs back and the door opens.

Now:  Ann is getting worse. Lauren wants to go to a hospital but Derek says that until Sarah gets here - she's apparently off trying to kill this Terminator -  this is the safest place for all of them.  Lauren is all, if they couldn't kill the T-888 before, they can't kill it now.

Six months ago:  Roger is added to the mix and everyone squabbles, getting on Sarah's nerves.  Then Cameron gets tossed through the window, unconscious.  Lauren looks out the broken window and sees the cyborg.  David says that he's the one it wants and goes out to meet it.  The T-888 takes one look at him and determines that this is not the one it wants.  Ann 'fesses up that she's pregnant with Roger's kid and Sarah realizes that the Terminator is after the unborn baby.  Lauren hides in the closet as Sarah takes Ann to run for a car.

Now:  Derek says that they have to deliver Ann's baby daughter now.  Lauren is all, "Sister? Oh god, you're from the future."  Derek: Her name is Sydney and I knew her."

2037:  It's Sydney who opens the door for Derek and Jessie.  She says that their gas masks are useless since they're already infected.  They chat and then Jess gets really thirsty.  Sydney looks meaningfully at Derek - that's a bad sign.  The process is this: dry mouth, sweats, fever and shaking, lungs filling with fluid, death.  Jess doesn't have much time - in fact, she's already sweating.  The three of them decide to make a run for it back to base despite it being broad daylight out.

Now:  Derek tells Ann that her soon-to-be-born daughter has a natural immunity that will help cure a devastating disease, saving a lot of lives.  Ann likes the sound of that but her breathing is getting bad, plus the labor pains are really kicking in.  As Ann slowly fades, Derek and Lauren deliver the baby.  Ann lasts long enough to see her new daughter and then she dies.

Six months ago:  Cameron wakes up and helps Lauren out of the closet (literally).  Sarah and Ann run, chased by the Terminator.  Cameron drives up in an SUV and runs the T-888 over.

2037:  Derek, Jess and Sydney make it back to base, Jess fading fast.  Don't worry: she obviously gets saved.  She and Derek get adjacent hospital beds as they're treated for the disease, bonding as they get sicker and sicker.  Lauren is there too, working as a medic, and she thanks Derek for saving her sister.

Now:  Derek tells Lauren that she needs to hold on, to keep Sydney safe.  Lauren's like, but the machines keep coming, don't they?  Derek: I'm trying.  He asks her to come and stay with the Connors and, you know, she'd be a MUCH better match for John than ol' annoying Riley.  Derek calls Sarah and updates her. She got the T-888, so that's good.  He tells her that he invited Lauren to stay but when he goes back to get the girls, they're gone, already running.  He's disappointed but impressed with Lauren's gumption.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E11 "Self Made Man"

WTF:  It's a flashback to the 1920s, New Year's Eve at some speakeasy.  The bar catches on fire and flappers run screaming into the night.  I repeat: WTF.

Now: Sarah makes John continue the search for companies with three dots in their logos because she is obsessed.  He reminds her that it is something she saw in a dream.  That night, Cameron goes out to the library after hours.  A guy in a wheelchair lets her in and she gives him doughnuts.  They appear to be acquainted with each other and he thinks she's a real girl.  As she looks at some old photographs, she recognizes a face as one belonging to a T-888.  It's a photo of the aftermath of that 1920s speakeasy fire and the guy is standing outside on the street, staring up at the sky.  Cameron is all, I need to know what happened to that guy.  Wheelchair Guy thinks this is weird but goes along with it because, damn, a hot chick in motorcycle boots is hanging out with him on the library nightshift.  They start going through microfiche and find a photo of the guy, "Myron Stark," on the red carpet with Rudolph Valentino and some old real estate developer, Rupert Chandler.  Cameron heads downstairs to search county records for more on Stark.

Back at the house, John gets a call from Riley.  She sounds upset and asks him to come pick her up from this house party.  When he finds her, she is no longer upset and wants to party.  John is a little annoyed at this.

Wheelchair Guy is pissed off that Cameron broke into the county records room.  He feels used and frets about getting fired.  It doesn't stop her from searching the old files but later she finds him and apologizes.  Curious, he asks if she found anything.  No, she didn't, which she is not happy about.  WG suggests that maybe Stark was an immigrant who wanted to stay off the books.  Cameron wants to see police records.  They find some old radio recordings about a bank robber who kept eluding the cops despite getting shot numerous times.  They delve deeper, into real estate records, learning that Stark bought a bunch of land and started a construction company.  He was in bitter competition with that Rupert Chandler

This storyline is needlessly detailed and a pain in the ass to recap, mostly because there's too much talking (about uninteresting things) and not enough action - which is really this show's strong suit.  If it has a strong suit.

At the house party, John gets roped into playing a first-person shooter video game.  It freaks him out a little since, you know, he often gets in actual gunfights.  When he and Riley try to leave, a guy accuses Riley of stealing his lighter.  The kid grabs and shoves at Riley and John beats the living crap out of him.  On the ride home, John wants to know why Riley called him.  She says that she wanted to see him.  "I shouldn't be around people," says John.  "People get hurt."  They start making out.  Whatever.

Cameron and WG watch a video clip of a modern news story detailing the discovery of a body of one of Chandler's associates who disappeared back in the 1920s.  Also, Chandler's son died in that speakeasy fire.  Cameron and WG think Stark may have set that fire.  They check out the film archives, finding an extremely convenient documentary about life in the 1920s in which a former flapper who survived the fire is interviewed.  This woman recalls seeing a flash of blue light and sparks, and lo a naked man appeared - although she may have been "zozzled" at the time.  Cameron surmises the fire was an accident, a by-product of Start teleporting into the world.  She also figures out that he ended up in the wrong time (she gets that because of the photo where he was looking at the sky, fixing his time and place in space from the location of the stars).  Also-also, she learns that Stark, after ruining Chandler, bought a piece of property formerly owned by the real estate developer, and built a skyscraper there.

Cameron goes to check out said skyscraper, due to open this coming New Year's Eve after having been retrofitted after the last earthquake.  She checks out the ballroom, noting that the governor is scheduled to give the keynote speech there, and then knocks out the back wall, pulling out a shut-down Stark who was hibernating there, waiting to bust out and murder the governor. OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?  Stark is still wearing his 1920s suit and carrying a tommy-gun.  They have a Terminator fight and she disables him by crushing him with the elevator.  Then she digs out his chip.

There's some more stuff about how Cameron ruins her relationship with WG because she's a robot who doesn't understand humans and when she tells him that his cancer is back he gets mad because she's being a bad friend.  Whatever.  The next night she goes back to the library but he's gone.  Cameron gives the evening's doughnuts to the new nightshift clerk, who lets her in - and she's on her way to making a new "friend."

Pluses:  Lots of Cameron and no Sarah.  Minuses:  Didn't advance the plot AT ALL and there was no shirtless Derek.

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

Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles S2E10 "Strange Things Happen at the One-Two Point"

Ellison is woken up in the middle of the night by a digging noise coming from his backyard.  It's Cameron, probing with a piece of rebar, looking for Cromartie's body.  She tells him to go back to bed.

Sarah and Derek break into "Dakara Systems" (the logo of which is three dots in a triangle formation, which Sarah will start seeing everywhere and obsessing about over the course of this episode).  They pull all the hard drives out of the desktop computers.  Afterwards, John checks all the hard drives but there's not enough there to concern him - it's not the Turk, because that would need a dedicated server-farm to support it.  Sarah thinks they need to explore this further and when John expresses concern that she's pushing too hard, she snaps at him.  In the morning, John reports that Dakara is looking for start-up cash to built a server-farm.  They should probably investigate that and he's got Sarah's cover story all ready for her: a rich divorcee looking to put some money into a tech start-up.

Derek lets himself into Jess's hotel room and finds her poring over those surveillance photos of him and the Connors.  He demands an explanation.  She says that she was sent back to separate John from Cameron because in the future, John is beginning to make bad decisions, depending on Cameron too much.  "She's in control.  If he spend the next twenty years with her, how bad will it be then?"  Derek waves his gun around (not a euphemism) and says he needs to think about this.

Ellison reports to Weaver's office and sees a body bag being wheeled out: it's Dr. Sherman, who was "accidentally" cooked to death when he was working with the Babylon Project's A.I. during a recent black out - when the power went out, the A.I. redirected all emergency power towards maintaining its servers, allowing the ambient temperature elsewhere in the lab to rise to unsurvivable temperatures.

Sarah and Cameron dress up and have their interview with Father and Son Akagi, who own Dakara Systems.  The son, who's the computer genius, is a little odd.  The office is in some turmoil because of last night's break-in which has set them back in their software development for an A.I. for the Air Force.  Before the theft of the hard drives, Akagi Sr. says they would have needed $100,000 and a couple of weeks to finish the project; now, he needs ten times that and a miracle.  Back at the Connor house, Sarah tells Cameron to collect enough cash to get the Akagis their miracle.

Oh bite me - it's Riley time.  John stops by Riley's foster home and tells her that there's nothing he can say to her that would explain Mexico.  "You don't have to explain," she says, "You could just sit here with me." "Sorry," says John and leaves.  Later, Riley goes shopping and meets up with ... Jess!  "There are a lot of mirrors in this world," mumbles Riley, "I don't think I can do this anymore.  What if I want out?" "You can do this," says Jess, "You have to do this."  So either Riley is a human sent back from the future to get close to John, or she's a cyborg sent back from the future to get close to John.  Either way, Jess is her handler.

Sarah goes back to see Akagi.  He has found the miracle he needs:  the Japanese team who won the chess tournament (at which the Turk was stolen) has offered to lease out their supercomputer chip, which will get Dakara what it needs to meet its Air Force deadline.  It'll cost them $1 million to lease the chip, though.  Sarah looks both smug (because she thinks this has to be connected to the Turk) and nervous (because that's an effing lot of money).  Later, she and Cameron go through their stash of diamonds: it'll take all they have to put together that $1 million.

Ellison goes down to Weaver's lab and asks a tech about the A.I.'s relationship with Dr. Sherman.  The tech scoffs that the A.I. couldn't have know that it was killing him.  But that it would be creepy if it did.

Sarah and Cameron have a fancy dinner with the Akagis and the Japanese chip-lender guy, Mitimoto.  Cameron wins the table over by offering a toast in Japanese and listening to Akagi Jr. ramble on and on about computer stuff.  Finally Sarah has had enough and tells Mitimoto to hand over the chip.  She, Cameron and the Akagis go back to the office and check out the chip: it's no good, an older model refurbished to look like what they needed.  They've been duped - and the Connors have lost all their money.  A distraught Akagi promises to get Sarah's money back - except that Mitimoto is Yakuza, so that's a bit of a problem.

Back at her foster home, Riley starts to freak out at her foster parents and the other foster kids in the house: "It's all going to burn and you're going to be nothing but bleached skulls! You're all dead!"  Her foster mom tries to soothe her and Riley lashes out, pushing her away.

Ellison reports to Weaver that he thinks the A.I. might have intentionally killed Sherman.  She says he should just ask the A.I. itself, instead of talking to lab techs.  And, by the way, the A.I.'s name is "John Henry."  Ellison goes back down to the lab and starts asking John Henry questions.  The A.I. can communicate with images and also binary code, "1" for yes, "0" for no.  Ellison asks to see what happened to Sherman and the computer runs the security footage.  Ellison asks John Henry how it felt about killing the doctor but the A.I. hasn't been taught any morals so it doesn't care.  Ellison chastises Weaver and her techs for not teaching the machine to value human life.

Sarah, Cameron and Derek break into Mitimoto's place, guns drawn.  Turns out he's not really Yakuza but an actor hired by Akagi to help fleece Sarah out of her cash.  Sarah is PISSED OFF.  She goes back to Dakara Systems and kicks the shit out of Akagi Sr. as Cameron holds Akagi Jr. hostage.  "Who are you working for?" she demands.  But he wasn't working for anyone, just after the money and trying to provide for his son.  Cameron fetches their purloined money from under Akagi's desk and they leave.

Derek is back at Jess's hotel room.  He tells her that John is actually his nephew, making her only the fourth person to know this secret.  He says that he is here in this time to do whatever it takes to stop Skynet so if there's anything else she's been keeping secret, it needs to come out now.  She says no.  I don't trust her.

The next morning, Riley shows up at the Connor house.  I find her slightly less annoying/more interesting now that I know she's a spy.  Riley, to John: "I reject your rejection [of me].  You wanna take a walk?"  He grins, because he's a teenage boy, and goes out with her.

Weaver tells Ellison that she's not qualified to teach John Henry morals, or the Ten Commandments, or whatever Ellison thinks the A.I. needs to learn - would he do it?  She takes him back down into the lab where they've got Cromartie's body wired up to the John Henry A.I.  The machine greets Ellison and is extremely creepy.

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