Episode Report Card Daniel: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sink Or Swim
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 09.22.2008
Charley and his wife drive down a dusty old road, fleeing from the killer robots from the future. I mean, not imminently, but theoretically. Although I guess it's more likely that Charley's wife is fleeing from the sexy mother of the future messiah. They stop for gas at a place where the pump still has the old fashioned-rolling numbers, but with the price of gas these days, you'd think those numbers would be rolling a little faster. Charley cleans the windshield, and as he goes to get Michelle a pop, another truck pulls up. They're not showing us who it is, which means we already know this person, in his cowboy boots. There really aren't that many to choose from, so we figure it's Chrome Artie, right? He yanks some wires down from under the dashboard of his own truck, disabling it, and gets in the truck next to Michelle, who doesn't realize it's not her husband. When she finally looks up, Chrome Artie slams her head back against the headrest and peels out of there, ripping the hose, with its nozzle still in the tank, right out of the pump. He heads on down the road, Charley futilely running after the truck. So: road trip not exactly a success, Charley.
John's helping setup a television for his landlady, who looks about twelve months pregnant at this point, while she says "ex-baby daddy" didn't want a television in the bedroom, and that's why she's in the family way (well, "that, six beers and the rhythm method," she amends).
After finishing hooking up her illegal cable, she happens to catch a news item about Beast Wizard 7, starring a quite ripped George Lazlo, with production values that rival that play your sister put on with her friends one summer when they were eight. The movie's made quite a lot of money since its star killed twenty FBI guys, apparently. The landlady babbles about her friend working on craft services for that movie, and Lazlo was a really nice guy who ate with the crew. "This town can screw you up," she laments.
Back at the Connor Compound, Cameron's standing in what she's determined is the exact centre of the house. But there's a problem; the southeast corner of the house is sinking at the rate of 0.93 millimetres a year. She's not worried, though, as this is unlikely to lead to the death of the future leader of the resistance.
In the kitchen, Sarah tells her son that she hopes he didn't hook up illegal cable for Kacy, and he says no one that pregnant should be forced to watch network television, because it's "bad for the baby," whatever that means. His cellphone rings: it's Charley, who properly states the date as the code, and then stammers out something about wanting to say goodbye to Sarah, but she didn't give him her number or anything, so John puts his mom on. Charley tells Sarah, "He took my wife." "What do you want me to say, Charley?" says Sarah. He begs her for help, but she says John's standing right there. She acts all cold, until Charley figures out that she actually wants him to tell her where he is, which he does. Sarah hangs up the phone and snaps at John that he shouldn't have given Charley his number.
Cameron's really making herself useful: stalking a bird in the chimney. Sarah, loading up a duffel bag, tells Cameron not to let John out of her sight when he goes to buy computers. "Is there something I should know?" asks Cameron, noting the way Sarah's loading up before heading out the door. Sarah tells her to just not let John out of her sight.
Outside, Derek's oiling up his gun collection or something, when Sarah comes out, and she tells him Chrome Artie has Charley Dixon's wife. He argues briefly with her about how it's the wrong thing for her to do, calling it a trap for John, because he hasn't figured out that going off half-cocked is what the Connors do best. So he joins her.
Michelle is, quite literally, all tied up at the moment. And while Chrome Artie is momentarily distracted, fiddling with some contraption that seems to inolve wires and mousetraps, Michelle skootches over on the chair to try to get at her cell phone.
Meanwhile, John and Cameron are buying up all of Best Buy's inventory, by the looks of it. John gets a phone call from his current mystery girl, Riley, who whines that she's bored and wants to hang out. After some mind-numbing flirting, John agrees to meet up with her, then argues with Cameron about it, and then ditches Cameron to run off and meet up with Riley. Cameron is understandably wishing her "Terminate John Connor" programming never got overridden. I'd also like to know just where super-serious John Connor from the first episode of this season went.
Ellison gets a call from Catherine Weaver, who wants to meet and talk about "opportunities," since she trusts he won't be returning to the FBI. He's reluctant, because he has no idea who she is, but she earns his interest when she says she wants to discuss "who or what" killed his colleagues.
While Michelle finishes up hour two of loudly scraping her chair across the floor to get her phone, Charley bitches at Sarah and David because they have no idea how to find his wife. Derek figures she's dead already. But Charley's cell phone rings. It's her, he tells Sarah and Derek, who wants him to verify that somehow. He does, by asking her where they made love for the first time, which has the added benefit of making Sarah grit her teeth. Michelle manages to tell them where she is, but oh no! Chrome Artie's coming back! Michelle manages to get her phone back in the exact same spot and move her chair back across the floor without Chrome Artie having any idea what she's doing.
So while John and Riley stare at magazines while Cameron gives them the stinkeye from a nearby patio, Sarah, Derek and Charley find Chrome Artie's put Michelle's chair on some moustraps wired to plastic explosives. "They never let you have a good day, do they?" asks Derek.
They take the duct tape off Michelle's mouth, and instantly regret it, as she starts crying and whining, like you'd think she's the only person who's ever been wired to plastic explosives! Derek goes off in the direction Michelle says Chrome Artie went, but he only finds out that Chrome Artie disabled their truck. It finally occurs to Sarah that this all might be the trap, and since Chrome Artie could have killed them instead of messing with their truck, it must mean that the bomb is a fake. So she does the same thing people do in action movies: she quickly rips off a load of the plastic explosives. It turns out to be modeling clay -- good thing, too, or they'd still be picking up the pieces. Sarah gets on the phone to warn John and to tell him to stay with Cameron (whom he's already ditched).
Meanwhile, Derek comes across bugging equipment that pulls the cell signal out of the air. Not only that, but a nearby cell phone tower seems to be wired. This one, however, is not faked, and Derek runs through the house yelling for everyone to get out before the toppling pole kills them all, like in a real-life version of Boom Blox.
Everybody's OK, at least they think so at first. But Michelle's bleeding badly. Sarah says they'll send help as soon as they can, but Michelle's not going to hear of her husband's ex-girlfriend showing her up, and hobbles with the gang as far as the highway, where they hijack a van. But the bumping and the jostling is too much for Michelle in the back; she's bleeding out. Charley screams at Sarah, who eventually stops the van.
Chrome Artie, unfortunately, traced the cell phone call to John, and he calls him now, pretending to be Sarah and ordering him to meet "her" at the nearby pier. John's got to ditch Riley, which pisses her off, and she says she's not afraid of Sarah, like John is. John looks miserable at this, but it could also be that he couldn't keep his eyes of Riley's chest.
How's my dinner with Ellison? Catherine Weaver shows him pictures of a robot hand and foot recovered from a plane crash site, and takes as proof that he knows about the robots, since he doesn't even "pretend" to order food properly. The