Wednesday, September 19, 2012

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

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