By Daniel
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. Derek's sent by Sarah to help a teenage girl and her dying pregnant mom, who are in a safe location and already aware of the whole fighting the future thing, having already been saved once six months earlier by Cameron and Sarah (John was apparently at home, whining and microwaving Pizza Pops). Derek himself has a connection to the family, because he recognizes the teenage girl from a resistance operation in the future. In the future, the terminators use a bio-weapon to almost wipe out the human resistance, but Derek (with the assistance of Jesse, whom he meets) retrieves the sole survivor of the attack so that her immunity can be studied and a vaccine created. Six months ago, Cameron and Sarah showed up because the family's name was on the hit list Sarah had, and she wanted to know why. At first we think it's because the father is a banker who's doing some underhanded work for a computer company, but it's actually because the mother is pregnant with the baby who will grow up to be that sole survivor of the biological attack. Six months ago, Cameron and Sarah save the family. Today (and trust me, you'll hurt yourself trying to fit these events in on the series' overall timeline), they're not so lucky, as dad's dead, mom dies, and mom's boyfriend dies too. Derek, however, does save the baby, and he tells her older sister that they can stay with the Connors (ground rules: no terminators after 10 p.m.), but she vanishes with the wee one. I mean, not literally.Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Derek's on the phone with Sarah, whose end of the conversation we don't see, but she tells him she's "hunting it," and he wants to know how she knows it's not "hunting her," and maybe if the two of you have nothing better to do than spout a bunch of nonsense at each other, maybe you should each focus on the task at hand. Derek's in some kind of abandoned warehouse, or something, presumably another weapons cache. There's an abandoned bus, which the Connor Crew will need as they add members; they can just use the bus and save on gas money.
Derek hears a woman scream and comes upon a bloody, pregnant woman lying on a table being attended to by a teenage girl. Derek briefly flashes back (or forward, depending on how you look at it) to a time when he came across a family, including a pregnant woman, huddled, dead. In the flashback, Derek's wearing a gas mask. The girl hears him and whips out a gun in his face, but he tells her Sarah sent him to help. "I thought..." she says, and Derek says he knows what she thought: "You'd be dead already." Well, glad you showed up to lighten the mood! The girl says her mom's about thirty-four weeks along. She's wheezing badly, thanks to a cut on the throat and chest. Her presumable daughter has already begun an intubation, so it's nice that the Girl Guides offer a Risky Emergency Surgery badge now. Derek, having a little more experience with battlefield medicine, finishes it, allowing the mom to breathe a little easier. He asks how they know Sarah. Funny story!
Flash back to six months ago, in a cabin with a happy family (the mother and daughter are the ones currently covered in blood and getting help from Derek) that would only be perfect if the daughter would only learn to close the door and not track mud everywhere! Oh, wait, it wasn't your daughter Lauren, but a couple of stylish hot tamales toting huge weapons. "They're alive," says Cameron, as she walks in the room. "Lauren, go to your room and close the door," says the father, who apparently outfitted his daughter's bedroom in the cabin with armour plating. The father is played by Hey! It's That Guy! Carlos Jacott, who's been all over your television. Buffy, CSI, Big Love, Studio 60, but as usual, I will always know a person best from a once-upon-a-time part on Seinfeld, in this case, Ramon the pool guy who got friendlier with Jerry than Jerry was comfortable with.
Here, Carlos's name is David, and he tells his wife, Anne, to call 911. Pretty ballsy, to be telling your wife and daughter to do shit while two possibly crazy women train massive weapons on you. Sarah puts the kibosh on the 911-calling and orders Cameron to get Lauren back. Into her phone, she says they got a hit on one of the names on the list. "Alpine Fields. It's a family." She says everything's under control, but they might be late: "Can you handle dinner? John, just put the alarm on." Handle dinner? He's a teenager. Things haven't changed that much from when I was John's age, so as long as he's got some Pizza Pops [Editor's Note: Sadly, those are only available in Canada, which is so unfair because now that I've looked them up I want them real bad. America never gets to have ANYTHING. - Mindy] in the freezer, he's good.