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Sarah and John adjust to life in 2007 (it was rough finding out the Spice Girls broke up, but what a relief to know they are touring again), and Cameron reveals that Future John sent back other resistance fighters from the future. But when Sarah and Cameron try to rendezvous with four of them, they end up in a tussle with another Terminator, who gets away. Sarah's pissed that they've only been in 2007 three days before all hell broke loose, and says it would have been better to train John for seven more years. Cameron said they didn't have the time, because Sarah would have died in 2005, which will probably turn out to be her excuse for everything.
While John stews about staying in hiding, Sarah and Cameron visit an old ally of Sarah's, Enrique, for some fake ID. He's retired, though, and points them towards his nephew, Carlos, who wants to charge them $20,000 they don't have. Meanwhile, John blows off the seclusion and heads to the mall, where he looks up details of Charley Dixon and risks being discovered by going to Charley's apartment. John acts like he hasn't seen Charley in eight years, and flips out and winds up knocking Charley on his ass and fleeing. Mother's intuition combined with Cameron's lie-detecting abilities suggest John is lying to them when he claims to have stayed at the house all day long, but the interrogation will have to wait until the team unwisely revisits the house where the resistance fighters were killed in order to snag some of the stashed money. They find a rigged safe, but the Terminator who set the trap is ridiculously slow in responding, so the trio escapes and buys the new identities from Carlos, who makes an offhand comment that leads Sarah to think Enrique is ratting them out. Cameron also thinks so, so she offs him, which horrifies the waffling Sarah (but Cameron was right, and now FBI Guy James Ellison is on the case). Meanwhile, the Terminator skull that the “previously on Terminator” scenes tell us traveled through time with our intrepid trio (which did not at all happen last episode) reactivates the body, and they have a joyous and bloody reunion. Less joyous is a visit to the doctor by Sarah, who's found out from Cameron that she dies of cancer. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Whoa! Flashy new credit sequence! Sarah narrates the basics of the fight to stop Skynet from ever being created, over shiny menacing chrome! There are our heroes, decked out and ready for war, or some crappy music video.
And now, the "previously on" scenes, which I mention only because of a slight cheat: supposedly, last time, when Sarah shot Chrome Artie with the not-really-nuclear gun and popped his head off, that head came flying through the time-travel bubble with them, bounced off the hood of a car and flew RIGHT AT US. Which didn't happen last week. Maybe it got cut for time. Or cut for HADN'T THOUGHT OF IT YET.
The skull lies in some garbage on the side of the road, waiting for some virgin to make it the centerpiece of his doll collection. While Sarah voice-overs something about a wise man once saying something like "know thyself" and struggles to apply that to her lifestyle as a fugitive (due to her speaking the truth), a roadside garbage-collecting crew picks up the trash. We get it, Sarah. You need to protect your son. Is a convoluted monologue going to run with a contrived theme that dovetails with the action in every episode? Is this Terminator and the City?
Inside the Connor Compound, John complains that his mom picked up the wrong needle-nose pliers for whatever electronics project he's currently hacking or whatever, and chalks it up to what he calls "time-lag." He suggest that some fresh air would help with the time-lag, since he's been cooped up in the house for three days. She says he can go outside once they get their new IDs, and talks about it like it's this momentous occasion, even though he points out they've been through this before. "This is different," she says. Cameron comes in to pester Sarah for the new IDs as well. "I want my new name. I want my whole new me," says John, somewhat sarcastically. He asks if Sarah's found Enrique yet. "Ten years ago he was the best fake-paper guy around," Sarah explains to Cameron. "John sent back better ones," says Cameron, who is like that new employee who keeps talking about how everything was so much better where they used to work.
But her comment has twigged with Sarah, who bitches Cameron out, while the Terminator hotwires a car, for not telling her earlier that there are other people here from the future. "Resistance fighters," says Cameron. "Are they manning some kind of apocalyptic paramilitary convenience store, filled with fake IDs and guns and money?" snaps Sarah. Cameron doesn't say anything, but I hope the answer is yes. I really, really hope the answer is yes. Sarah's cell phone rings, and it's John, who called because he can't find any turkey in the fridge. Sarah suggests he try moving some stuff around, and then voila! Turkey! Mankind's hope for survival, ladies and gentlemen. Smoke 'em if you got 'em, because we're going down.
Sarah and Cameron are meeting four resistance fighters at...the set of Children of Men. Or some kind of abandoned apartment building or something. Sarah wants to know if these resistance fighters know Cameron. "They've seen me before," says Cameron vaguely, as usual explaining nothing. Unfortunately, the apartment is full of bodies. There also appear to be bullet holes in the bodies, which doesn't bode well for their chances of getting up any time soon. Cameron checks out the bar-code tattoo on the arm of one of the bodies. "Kyle Reese had one," says Sarah, and Cameron says, "Skynet work camp. Prisoner." She checks another body, and another one...but the third guy ain't dead. He opens his eyes and chucks Cameron across the room for a spirited tussle. The battling Terminators manage to throw themselves out the window with enough force to hit the building over, and then drop a few stories to the alley below. The new guy's display locks on Cameron, decides she's an "unknown cyborg," and opts to evade. He runs off down the alley, Cameron in pursuit. Sarah takes the stairs, and on the street, with her gun, relieves some Fudgesicle-sucking dude of his motorcycle. She takes off in hot pursuit, and despite being late to the chase and having no idea where she's going, somehow manages to get herself in FRONT of the fleeing Terminator, and hops off her bike, sending it skidding down the pavement to trip up another slow-reflexed Terminator, knocking him down in the middle of the street. Cameron strides toward him, but gets hit by a car. That's two for two in terms of vehicle-Terminator collisions this series, and I hope the streak continues. The Terminator gets up and runs away, while Cameron extracts her head from the inside of the car. She's gone clear through the windshield. "Please remain calm," she tells the freaked-out occupants of the front seat.
Back at the Connor Compound, an angry Sarah bitches Cameron out: "You told me we'd be safe! Safe! Was that safe? Three days, and we're at war!" She wants to know why they jumped from the past at all, since she had seven more years to get him ready (wouldn't it have been eight?). "No, you wouldn't have," says Cameron. Why not, asks Sarah. "Because you died two years ago. December 4th, 2005. You died," is the answer (I heard "because he died" in the chaos of my folks' home during a visit for my mom's birthday, which admittedly makes no sense). Cameron walks into the house, leaving Sarah to stare through the open door at John. But if I die, who will help him find the turkey? is clearly what she's thinking.
So there are Terminators all over the place, huh? And they're all programmed with specific missions -- like, the one at the safe house was sent to kill the resistance fighters -- but none of them knows the Connors are there, and don't know what they look like, so John could just walk right by one and it wouldn't do anything. But once one of them finds out he's John Connor, that would be bad. John just wants the new ID so he can register for school, so Sarah's heading out with the "Tin Man" (a reference that goes right over Cameron's head) to see Enrique. She tells John to stay still like a statue, although you'd think it'd be okay for him to at least move around while he's hanging out in the apartment.
In the car, Sarah wants to know if Future John sent her back to help them to jump over her death. Cameron says it was because she's the best fighter John knows. So the Future John is still a mama's boy. A skeptical Sarah asks, if she was such a great fighter, how she died. "Cancer," says Cameron. That's gotta suck for Sarah, because it's entirely possible that unless she spent the years 1999-2005 standing in front of an operating microwave, jumping over her 2005 death won't prevent her from dying of cancer a few years down the road anyway.
Back at the house, John tries about fifty different outgoing messages for his cell phone voicemail, which makes sense, because a fugitive on the run from intelligent machines should certainly be handing out his cell phone number. Having done that, he decides to blow off his mom's orders, and leaves the house.
Meanwhile, Sarah and Cameron meet with Enrique, who can't help them with the fake IDs because he's out of that business. By way of explanation, he asks if Sarah has ever heard of "Ricardo Lopez," which she hasn't. "The boxer from Cuernavaca," says Enrique, like Sarah's now going to say, "Ohhhhh, Ricardo Lopez." This boxer's nickname was El Finito (which Sarah translates as "The Finisher") because he never had any losses. That's what Ricardo wants: to retire undefeated. He proudly says he never spent one day behind bars. You know, most people achieve that by not engaging in criminal activity. "Sorry for me, but happy for you," says Sarah, but Cameron looks extremely confused by the whole thing. The good news is Enrique can help them by getting them in with his nephew, Carlos, who has taken over the family business. "He is not a believer," warns Enrique, and Sarah says there are few believers left, as if there haven't always been very few believers and a lot more people who think Sarah is just batshit crazy. She hugs Enrique, and Sarah and Cameron move to leave, with Enrique telling Cameron she's a "very quiet girl." This makes him crack up, and Cameron fake-laughs loudly.
Elsewhere, John has found what he's looking for: the Valley Square Mall. He wanders into a computer store, then types "John Connor" into a search engine ("LeSearch.com"). Naturally, the first item returned from that search on a totally unique name is a news story from eight years ago about bank robbers dying during a heist, featuring a photo of Cameron, Sarah, and John from the bank job. John looks around shiftily. He should have looked around a little more, because he hasn't noticed that his computer is the one providing the huge display on the wall-sized screen behind him. He reads some more news, about James Ellison, and also about Charley Dixon in a story with the headline "City honors heroic EMTs." One of the sales girls strolls up and asks who "Charley Dixon" is, then tells him he shouldn't search on the store demo model, because then everybody gets in his business. People should mind their own business regardless, is what I think. Flustered, John declines her invitation to check out what's on special, and leaves the store.
Elsewhere, the roadside trash collector comes home to his cluttered place, pulls the Terminator skull from his satchel, and sets it on the table, where a black cat hisses at it after its red eyes open. Yeah, that cat's probably going to piss on it a little later. Over at a junkyard, a robotic arm claws its way out through some scrap on top of it. The yard worker investigates (with his guard dog going nuts). For his diligence, he winds up losing a great deal of blood in a fan on the wall behind him.
Sarah and Cameron show up at Carlos's house, where they are greeted by a big burly shirtless tattooed guy and a woman who barely acknowledges their existence. Let's assume Enrique phoned ahead and let Carlos know that the women were on their way, because I'd hate to think all you have to do to get in is to say Carlos's name and that Enrique sent you. Anyway, they're in. Several pit bulls inside, restrained by their owners, go crazy when Cameron comes in (because dogs can sniff out Terminators). Sarah sends Cameron outside. "Something about your friend I should know?" asks Carlos. "Cat person," is Sarah's explanation, and the two settle down to business.
Outside, the female sentry silently gets in Cameron's face as Cameron waits by the car. Chiquita then leans against the hood of the car, and, after observing her, Cameron leans back in exactly the same fashion. You'd think that'd earn her a beatdown (not that Cameron would have to worry about that). Chiquita looks her over again, and Cameron stares her down, and the two of them chill.
Inside, Carlos talks about how he always tried to get his uncle to spill his secrets, which never worked, except for one time eight years ago. Sarah makes a face: Eight years ago is when we jumped. Coincidence, right? "I find him in the kitchen. A bottle of Patrón and the Times. You know whose picture's on the front page?" In 1999? Monica Lewinsky. Ohhhh, he's talking about Sarah. "Only time I ever saw my uncle cry," says Carlos, who figures Sarah's as close as he's ever going to come to one of his uncle's secrets, so he's going to give her what she needs. Sarah says "thank you" and then learns that to Carlos, the word "give" means "sell for $20,000." She protests that she doesn't have that kind of money. "That's a family discount in these hard times, especially for someone who's been dead eight years." Hilariously, Sarah calls it "extortion," but Carlos says it's just because of the times: "Some raghead gets fake papers down here, we're all going to Guantanamo. 9/11 doubled prices overnight." Since Sarah jumped from 1999, she has no idea what they're talking about.
Outside, a police cruiser pulls up. Chiquita rolls her eyes as the cop gets out. "Hey, baby girl, what'd I tell you about hanging around?" He notices Cameron. "Who's your new friend here? Someone I need to know?" Chiquita silently walks away. The cop asks if she has a name. Cameron says no. He asks if this is her car, and Cameron over-lies, saying it's "definitely" not her car. The cop explains how drug dealers often store their drugs in stolen cars, so the drugs aren't found on their property or in anything that belongs to them, and they leave a lookout, "sometimes a pretty girl," to watch their stash. He asks her if she minds if he runs the license plate. He turns to go call it in. Cameron figures, "Well, I have to kill him now," and starts walking towards him, only to be stopped by Sarah, who's come outside and improvs a little scene in which she pretends Cameron is her stepdaughter "Jenny," who's seeing some guy Sarah doesn't like. "Do you do domestic complaints, officer? I want to make a domestic complaint against my spoiled little stepdaughter for making me want to beat my own brains in." Sarah blames Jenny's real mother, neglecting to mention that Jenny's real mother is a Mr. Coffee. The cop asks if this is Sarah's vehicle, and Sarah sneeringly asks why she'd drive that "piece of crap" and then embroiders her story by threatening to send Jenny back to private school where they'll dress her like a flannel sock. The cop suggests the women have this conversation at home, instead of in "gang territory," and Sarah's all, "Gang territory?" and promises to vacate immediately.
Since they can't take the car, it's a thirteen-mile walk home unless they steal another car. "Were you going to kill that cop?" asks Sarah, before deciding she doesn't want to know the answer. What she does know is that they need rules, and asks if Cameron isn't supposed to take orders. "I do. From John," says Cameron. But not current John. Future John. Aren't they the same, asks Sarah. "Not yet," says Cameron, striding on ahead.
Sarah takes the time to watch a slow-motion replay of Carlos and one of his buddies describing the events of 9/11, while she voice-overs that she can't imagine the coming apocalypse but she can imagine planes hitting buildings, and had she been there, she probably would have figured it was the beginning of the end. Well, you and everyone else, Sarah. "I'm sure I would have thought, 'We have failed.'" Unfortunately, the wild gesticulations of Carlos and his buddy make it look more like they're describing an awesome Bruckheimer movie they just saw.
On a dark, quiet residential street, John picks the lock of a house that, judging by the mail on the table, belongs to Charley and Michelle Dixon, and we're in Sherman Oaks. There's a picture of Charley and Michelle on a nearby table. That must be Michelle in the picture, only she's not with Desmond from Lost anymore. On the kitchen table are some machinery parts, which John starts fiddling with, just as Charley, wearing his EMT uniform, comes in the back door. John ducks out of sight, but Charley has seen him, and recognized him. "I saw a picture of your mother on the television, and I could barely believe my -- I can't believe this!" he says, taking a step forward. John warns him not to come any closer, and Charley's all, you came to my house. And hey, you haven't aged a day! (Well, he doesn't say that last bit.) John asks if Charley's married, and Charley says he is, to a nurse at the hospital where he works. John pretends to think that's great (but he doesn't pretend very hard). John's kinda freaked out, although you'd think Charley would be the one more freaked out, since he doesn't have any idea what's happened. He tries to comfort the skittish John, and puts his hands on John's arms, and John tosses him to the floor and runs out. But he apologizes on the way out, which is comforting to Charley as he writhes in pain on the floor.
John arrives back at the house just before Sarah and Cameron do, and pretends to still be working on the thingamajig. He asks how things went with Enrique. "We need $20,000," she says, adding, "It's a long story." Even though it isn't, and John has nothing better to do even if it were. The womenfolk leave John alone, with Sarah touching his neck before she leaves and then Cameron imitating the gesture.
In the other room, Cameron tells Sarah, "John has a high level of stress." "Genetics are a bitch," says Sarah, but Cameron says she did a skin analysis. His temperature's high, salinity is high, pulse abnormal. Sarah says it's because John snuck out while they were gone. "Won't look me in the eye, his shoes are wet with grass. Don't need to be a tin man to figure that one out, just a mom." Cameron asks where he went, but Sarah says they'll worry about that later; they need to make sure he doesn't do it again. Oh, and if you have any more tricks like that up your sleeve? Blood analysis, that kind of thing? I need to know. "Computed axial tomography? CAT scans?" says Cameron excitedly. "Yeah, can you do that?" says Sarah, intrigued. "No," says Cameron, after a beat. Heh. Thank God she was programmed with comic timing.
Sarah tells John to get his shoes if he wants to go get his new name. They're heading back to the safe house, via the fire escape. "You're sure there's money here," says John, dubiously. Cameron says anything valuable they had would be here, hidden: "It's always hidden." John hopes the cops didn't get to it first, and Sarah hopes "our metal friend" didn't get to it first. Cameron says, "Our metal friend was only here to kill that fourth fighter when he came home." I think she's a little miffed at the implication that one of her kind would deviate from its programming. "Nice to know we spoiled that," says Sarah. "It'll find him," says Cameron. Quite the optimist. Cameron notices a poster hanging on the wall, one of those "Hang in there, baby!" jobbies with a kitten hanging from a branch, which John calls "ridiculous." Cameron insists that "People do like small animals," but John has a hard time explaining that some bad-ass soldier isn't going to have a poster of a cutesy-wutesy kitty on the wall. Given that, and given that The Shawshank Redemption came out in 1994, I can't believe it takes them so long to look under the poster, which is where they find the safe. "Do what you do, girlie," says Sarah to Cameron, but as soon as Cameron touches the safe, electricity arcs through her body, sending her flying backwards. Several floors below, our metal friend is back, and seems to have heard the commotion. Not that he's in any hurry to head up the stairs. Plodding. Relentless plodding.
Upstairs, Cameron's out cold, at least for the 120 seconds. John wants to go, but Sarah's not leaving without whatever's in the safe. John immediately comes up with the passcode (entering the date for Judgment Day), and the safe opens. There are a couple of duffel bags inside, but before they can check to see what's in them, the sound of a dog barking lights a fire under their asses. Sarah puts the still-out Cameron in a chair and then rolls her right out the window, where she swan-dives down onto the roof of a car, crushing it. Sarah and John head out onto the fire escape and are down into the alley well before our metal friend is even in the room. In the shadows, a hooded stranger with a bar code tattoo watches them flee. Henry Rollins? The Terminator stomps into the room, and doesn't see anyone. Yeah, maybe you should have tried running.
For some reason, Sarah and John go through bags in different rooms of the house. John finds some diamonds, and Cameron strolls into Sarah's room and asks, "Why are diamonds a girl's best friend?" She says John gave her a diamond. "That was sweet of him," says Sarah. "We have a whole bag of them, do you want one? They're a girl's best friend," says Cameron again. Sarah declines. Then Cameron starts blathering on about how she finally gets the Tin Man reference, and that she knows Sarah used to read The Wizard of Oz to John over and over again in Spanish when he was a kid. Spanish? Yeah, that'll be important later. "He never told you, but it was one of his favorite things that you did. He used to talk about it a lot." Sarah looks reflective, which is how an awful lot of scenes end.
Elsewhere, Mr. Roadside Garbage-Picker-Upper is comfortable in his easy chair, drinking beer and watching the Home Shopping Network, when a motorcycle-helmet-wearing guy in overalls belonging to a guy named Chet strolls in. The garbage man, understandably, is pissed off, and he grabs a baseball bat to greet the trespasser, who stands there silently. Garbageman flips up the visor on the motorcycle helmet, but the eyes on the face behind it are clouded over. And he looks closer, and it appears that Chet is nothing more than a severed head impaled on some sort of robotic machinery. And the roadside garbage crew is going to be one man short tomorrow morning, as "Chet," also known as "Chrome Artie," tallies another one on his body count, and picks up his head.
Cameron gets some makeup tips from Chiquita (how sweet that they've bonded) as Sarah takes the new IDs from Carlos, who tells her they aren't just forgeries but "full-service," meaning they're in the system. "You can collect welfare if you want to," he says, and Sarah says she just might have to. Since she came up with the cash so quickly, Carlos figures the price was right, and she might have even come up with another ten grand. She thinks that his uncle wouldn't have been too happy about that, but he shrugs: "So I miss the family barbecue."
As Sarah and Cameron leave, Sarah hears Carlos and a crony speaking Spanish. Good thing we've just been reminded that she speaks Spanish, hey?
Charley fiddles with the equipment at his kitchen table while the person he no longer wants to be married to now that he knows Sarah's alive asks him if he's all right. He makes up something about a tough call, because how do you explain a problem like Sarah Connor?
Sarah strides down the mean streets of L.A. thinking about how $20,000 really isn't that much money for a new life, a new chance. "But unlike John, I was never eager for that new life to begin. I liked having no name, no story. It was the only time I felt like me. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to pay for that. And the price was getting higher every day."
Where is all this leading? Back to Enrique's place, where the retired forger is pouring a drink, only to find himself staring at the business end of Sarah's gun. "You can either drink it or dump it," she tells him. Then she takes even that choice away and suggests he drink it. She icily asks if there's anything she needs to know, anything he needs to tell her: "First and last chance." He doesn't know what she's talking about it, so she reminds him of his nonsense about El Finito, and how Enrique has never spent a day behind bars. "That's not what Carlos said," says Sarah. "My nephew is a thief and a liar," says Enrique, but Sarah says she overheard him speaking Spanish to his buddies, saying rat ("snitch") and denunciente ("informer"). "Certain words I know and don't forget," she says, before asking him straight out if he's selling people out, and by "people" she means "me." He cops to spending three weeks in Lompoc on a gun charge before ratting out his cellmate, who kidnapped a girl, and Enrique got him to admit where the girl was. But that's it. He starts thumping his chest about how a man doesn't do that sort of thing, but is thankfully silenced by several gunshots from Cameron, because she determined that Enrique was "possibly lying." Sarah freaks, because she can't believe Cameron just executed Enrique over "possibly." "Because you wouldn't," says Cameron, which earns her a hard slap from Sarah, who by rights probably should have a broken hand now. Sarah yells at Cameron that she has no idea what Sarah will or won't do, because Sarah doesn't even know. And you don't know John! And I don't know anything anymore! And I don't even know what my name is anymore! "Sarah Connor," says Cameron, taking Sarah's yelling just a little too literally.
The day, Cameron's quizzing John on his new background: he's from Lawrence, Kansas. And in case anyone doesn't believe that, he'll drop his population knowledge on they ass! Too bad he doesn't know that Lawrence is 25 miles west of Kansas City, and not 50 miles east. The backstory for John's father is that he was a cop who died apprehending a criminal. He's a hero. "Yeah, I know that. He's always a hero. And he's always dead," says John, getting up to go plop on the couch. He asks his mom if she was out late last night. "Motion detectors. I thought I heard a beep," he says. Not that you bothered to check, John. It's not like you're TARGETED FOR EXTERMINATION or anything. Sarah says it must have been Cameron, who just walks and walks around all night. John sighs and says if she wants, he'll hide out a little bit longer while he gets his story straight. Yeah, it should take three days to come up with a way to remember Lawrence's proximity to Kansas City. But no, Sarah prefers he go to school. At least that way she'll know where he is, and who he's with.
So, John and Cameron enroll at Campo de Cahuenga High School, while Sarah closes out the episode with a little thematic narration: "Know thyself," which is carved on the front of the Temple of Apollo, and which translates as "gnothi seauton." For Sarah, it means, "People hide secrets. Time is a lie. The material world can disappear in an instant. It has, and it will again."
Meanwhile, the police toss dead Enrique's house, while we hear a phone message left by the possible rat for Agent Ellison, promising some big news, some muy expensivo information. So either he was selling the Connors out, or he was hoping the FBI wanted to pay to hear him ramble on about El Finito.
We watch as a homeless man makes his way through some sort of hobo hubcap shopping mall. Only if you look closely, you realize you can't see any exposed skin, and behind the ski goggles are two burning red eyes. With the goggles and the face mask, he looks kind of like if Snake-Eyes from G.I. Joe were homeless.
And elsewhere, Sarah, as Sarah Baum (as in Frank L., author of The Wizard of Oz), gets some tests done at an oncology clinic as the voice-over continues. "There is no control. No constant. No shelter but the love of family and the body God gave us." Or Cyberdyne, depending on who you are. "And we can only hope that will always be enough."