Episode Report Card Daniel: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Forget It, Dude. Let’s Go Bowling.
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.03.2008
h sounds pretty much like any appearance of any terminator in any episode or movie, with its energy bubble and nakedness and clothes-stealing. The witness knows he's being mocked. "I know what I saw," he says, and the detective gives him a curt, "Thank you for your assistance," and walks out, much the same way Chrome Artie likes to say, "Thank you for your help." At least this terminator can smile convincingly.Over at the deserted Alien Lanes -- presumably one of these yahoos, perhaps boy wonder Dave, works there -- a scruffy Tristan Dewitt is outlining the plot of his next movie. A period piece in which Abraham Lincoln gets stuck in Gettysburg, which is overrun with zombies. You're telling me you haven't seen worse in the theatres? "We'll shoot on location in Gettsyburg, 35-millimetre," says Tristan. "Dude, with what money?" says one of his cronies, who's wearing a purple leather jacket. Strange that this guy needs to be reminded that they just ripped off a crapload of DIAMONDS, but there you go. So Tristan's holding a bag of diamonds when Sarah and Cameron stroll in, Sarah saying those are hers. "Not anymore, they're not," says Tristan.
Dude in the purple jacket says the bowling alley is closed, so unless they want him to call the cops, they should get out now. Yeah, because the guys who stole all the diamonds are going to CALL THE COPS. "My jacket. Give it to me," says Cameron. Ha ha! You're wearing a girl's jacket! "Come and get it," says Buddy. Cameron merely pulls a gun on him. "Come and give it to me," she says. Buddy quickly complies, and Tristan also hands over the stolen goods. Sarah says there's a credit card missing, which the third guy fishes out of his breast pocket. "We used it on the arcades. We'll pay you back," mumbles Tristan. You know, it's been years since I've been in an arcade, but do you need a CREDIT CARD these days? Good lord. I would have bankrupted my parents playing Double Dragon.
Sarah looks over at the pairs of shoes lined up by the table, and counts four of them. "Where's the other guy?" she asks. The three amigos play dumb, so Sarah goes to look for him. "Stay here," she tells Cameron, and walks off. Cameron stands there for a moment, and then calmly starts shooting the three guys, needing to take a couple of shots to finish Tristan off. Sarah stares at her, partly horrified, partly not at all surprised. "They knew where we live," she says.
Sarah doesn't say anything, just heads to the men's room to check it out. She surprises some kid -- noticeably younger than the rest of his now-deceased gang -- in a stall. Holding her gun on him, Sarah asks if he knows the guys out there. You know, that really should be knew the guys out there. The scared-shitless teenager nods. Sarah tells him that he was never here, and he never saw her: "You don't know what happened here, understand?" Sarah says if he ever says anything about what happened here, she'll hunt him down and kill him. She leaves the men's room. "Clear?" asks Cameron. Sarah says yes, and Cameron doesn't look like she entirely believes her.
The detective strolls into an interview room to tell a waiting Ellison that the witness is a nutjob and the judge tossed his statement in five minutes, so Ellison's free to go. He apologizes for Ellison's having to go through all this. "That's it?" says Ellison. "You're a smart guy, Jim. Take 'yes' for an answer." The detective stiffly holds out his hand for Ellison to shake, which the confused former murder suspect does.
Outside, the detective strolls to his car, and there's a quick flash of a couple people walking in front of him, and the next thing we know he's suddenly Catherine Weaver. We don't see the actual morph (probably an expensive special effect) and so I initially thought Catherine was following the detective. That didn't make much sense given that the charges were now dropped, and in the detective's last couple of scenes we're clearly supposed to think he's now a terminator, so I'm happy to admit I was wrong, but do you know why I didn't immediately think that the detective morphed back into Catherine Weaver? Because what makes even LESS sense is that Weaver would shape change RIGHT OUT IN PUBLIC WITH MANY PEOPLE AROUND. I mean, REALLY.
Derek's gone back to pay Moishe a visit, bringing his gun as a conversation piece, I suppose. Moishe's got a bleeding bullet hole in his forehead, though, so someone's beat him to it. Jesse's there, and they surprise each other, holding their guns on each other for a moment. "I thought you were going to have a talk with him," says Derek. "I did. It was short," she says. Heh. No sense letting all these diamonds go to waste, huh? They take the diamonds and skedaddle.
Ugh. Do I have to recap this? I like Ellison as much as the next guy, but this isn't Whiny Baby: The James Ellison Chronicles. He's sitting in his car outside his old house, watching his ex-wife and her new husband have dinner, and she comes out for a chat, and he blathers about needing something familiar, and she tells him he looks awful, and it goes on forever, and I can't believe we're going this long without someone being shot.
Almost as painful is the next scene, with John finishing tidying up as Cameron and Sarah come in. Sarah says the place looks good, and John tries to gloss over the fact that Riley, who was, you know, partly responsible for the whole mess, was with John all day today. John doesn't see fit to mention anything about Chrome Artie paying a visit, either. "You can't bring people here anymore, John," says Sarah. John whines that Riley had nothing to do with it. "No, you did. She just made it worse," says Sarah. John angrily throws the drill he's been holding onto the floor. "Really? She's never tried to kill me," he tells Cameron. Got you there, Cameron. Then he lays into his mom, saying this has nothing to do with rules or security or safety: "You're pissed off because I finally found someone I actually enjoy spending time with, and it's not you." She asks if he doesn't think she wants him to have a normal life. "No, I don't," he says, and turns to go, and she grabs his arm and starts lecturing him some more about how they didn't choose this, it chose them, etc. We've seen it a hundred times already. She says she'll protect him as long as they're there. "Then why didn't you protect me when I was killing Sarkissian?" he snaps. Oh, so that's Sarah's fault now. "Why didn't you protect me when I had my hands around his throat?" Protect you from what, hand cramps? "Why didn't you protect me from that?" Sarah doesn't have an answer, and he stomps off.
Over in Weaver's office, Ellison is staring at the moray eel which could very well be Weaver herself, except here she comes to have a little chat about reading the witness report. "He comes across as crazy, doesn't he?" she asks him. "Who wouldn't?" asks Ellison. "You, if you'd tell me the truth," she says. Then she asks him if he has a twin. He does, but doesn't know where it is now. I don't know if it's smart of him not to explain that it was destroyed by another terminator. "Why did it come?" she asks. "I think I'm being tested," he says. Like Job, says Weaver, which gives Ellison a boner because she's heard of the famous biblical story of Job, who took all the shit God gave him. "He didn't renounce God, and God spared him," says Ellison. "So, who spared you?" asks Weaver. Spare me, please.
See, this is why Cameron's way is better. Chrome Artie's at Alien Lanes, chatting up the teenager Sarah found in the bathroom. And by "chatting up," I mean, "interrogating the poor kid, who's duct-taped to a chair." Chrome Artie asks him where he got the credit cards. The kid plays dumb, but Artie's not buying it. "She said she would find me. She said she would kill me," says the kid, almost crying. "I promise you, she won't," says Chrome Artie. Then he "smiles." Hee. I want that on my computer desktop.