Episode Report Card Daniel: B | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Bet You Can't Hack Just One
By Daniel | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 03.02.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Derek finds the T-888's chip stashed in Cameron's room and confronts her with it. Cameron admits to John that sometimes she lies (even about "important things") when the mission requires it. John decides to hack the chip to see what's on it. He discovers that the T-888 (human name: "Vick Chamberlain") actually appears to have been married. It's an advanced model, explains Cameron. The images also seem to include shots of the T-888 killing his wife, and the Connor Crew set out to find the body.
What they find isn't Mrs. T-888, but a dead lobbyist who opposed a controversial Los Angeles city project, a computerized traffic system with a centralized database, which could be Skynet's future body (with the Turk being its future brain). The system was the pet project of Mrs. T-888. Rather than blow up City Hall (Derek's idea) John wants to plant a virus in the system, so civic officials think the program itself is no good. The program also seems to be the source of some marital discord between Mr. and Mrs. T-888 (she's having trouble finishing the project), but he's got some moves, man.
Meanwhile, Chrome Artie continues his mission to hunt John down, killing school administrators, bullying coaches, and intimidating showering high school boys along the way, and he obtains a list of all the boys who have enrolled in school since the fall and tracks John "Baum" down. Gee, it's almost like it was a bad idea for John to go to high school. Cameron, spotting Chrome Artie first, sends Morris into the office to pose as John. Morris doesn't realize just what danger he's in, although I don't think it's inaccurate to say that even if he did, he wouldn't say no to Cameron. Chrome Artie compares Morris's face to his file images of John, determines there's no match, and moves on. John's upset that Cameron could have been sacrificing Morris, and he also doesn't want Sarah to find out that Chrome Artie got this close.
More images are revealed on Vick's chip: turns out one of Derek's men, Sayles, was following Mrs. T-888, and Vick followed him back to the safehouse, where he killed the resistance fighters. John flies a little too close to the sun hacking Vick's chip, almost reactivating him (and alerting any other Terminators to John's presence). Derek and Sarah's mission to upload the virus to the traffic program fails when the program seems to repel the virus. John's solution: stick Cameron's brain-chip into the traffic system, let her muck it all up. And it works.
Finally, Sarah's come to the conclusion that Derek killed Andy (his silence when she confronts him is confirmation enough). "You lie to me again, I'll kill you," she says. Presumably, that'll be after their meeting tomorrow morning with the guy who bought the Turk. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Chrome Artie, AKA "Agent Kester" seems befuddled by the sparkle globe he's holding (it doesn't match any of the images in his database). Perhaps this will turn out to be the key to defeating him, like the glasses of water in Signs. Or maybe not. I mean, it's a freaking sparkle globe.
Chrome Artie is in some school administrator's office, and when the official comes in, Artie flashes his ID and says he needs a list of all the male Caucasian students who have enrolled in the district. The administrator is unimpressed. "You boys are in here at least twice a month, waving your Patriot Act around," he says. The administrator figures it's drugs, but is that such a big deal? He leans forward: "Look me in the eye and tell me you've never smoked a little marijuana." I suppose the school district is tolerant of drug use, right? Nevertheless, Chrome Artie leans in closely and says he's never smoked a little marijuana. I'm not sure why this mollifies the anti-Patriot Act administrator, but it does, until he asks to see Artie's paperwork. Artie doesn't have it, and the administrator rattles off a rote speech about the district not releasing personal information without proper blah blah. This, unfortunately, gets him his neck snapped -- "thank you for your co-operation," says Artie after the guy is already dead. I'm not sure how the sarcasm jibes with the way the Terminators normally take everything literally. Anyway, Chrome Artie sits down in front of the computer and gets the information he needs anyway, scanning the names (including John Baum's).
Voiceover topic of the episode: masks. We wear them, they wear us, they serve as metaphors for whatever. We have frayed psyches, you and I. And everyone. We are bereft. We trade honesty for companionship, and companionship for a Bobby Orr rookie card.
In the kitchen of the Connor Compound, John works at the table while Cameron stares out into space the way she does. Perhaps she is keeping watch. I don't know. She is wearing a mask. That is not her face. Her face is a gleaming steel skull with glowing red eyes. She trades honesty for a case of WD-40. John yells that the food is done, or at least smells done. He doesn't offer to check it. Sarah's on the phone, calling Mr. Sarkissian about the Turk, and asks him to call her back. Good plan. The man who designed it is dead, and the man who stole it and sold it is dead. I'm sure this Sarkissian guy will get right back to you, Sarah.
She hangs up, and John is yelling at her about food. She heads for the kitchen, where Cameron tells her the food should have been taken out of the oven eighteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago. "It's fine," says Sarah, although she seems to think "fine" means "charred black with smoke pouring off it." Maybe Sarah shouldn't be picking recipes out of the Judgment Day cookbook.