By Daniel
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The Connor Crew heads out to Charm Acres, a little enclave that catered to the dead workers who were slashed and burned by Catherine Weaver. Their goal is to find out more information about what was actually going on out there, so you know what that means: the Connors are going to befriend people who are then hurt to find out they've been used and deceived.
Sarah meets Diana Winston, who was the wife of the man who was killed in the struggle with Sarah, which for some reason she feels guilty about. John gets cozy with a girl whose father is being mourned among the 32 dead, but it turns out he's actually alive and the family just wants the insurance money so they can get the hell out of Dodge.
Both Winston and the other guy, George McCarthy, seem to be some sort of secret security on behalf of the plant: watching over the town through underground tunnels and cameras everywhere and dispatching people who get loose lips about the strange goings-on at the factory, which comes as quite the shock to McCarthy's wife and daughter, but then again, it seems like everyone in town was looking the other way and not asking obvious questions about the airtight security at a supposed air-conditioning plant. So not only do their loved ones die, but they have to endure a lecture from Sarah about how pathetic they are.
Sarah manages to avoid saying, “I told you so!” to everyone else now that her obsession with the three dots seems to have finally yielded something important. Of course, maybe she's just a little too preoccupied with the cliffhanger ending, in which the Crew's investigations lead them a small lake, from which rises one of the fearsome Hunter-Killers, which then flies away and into the back of an empty transport truck being driven by George McCarthy. Kind of like Knight Rider! The old one, anyway.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!After we're been reminded that Shirley Manson went all stabby at the warehouse, we get a title screen: VIGIL. I know these are like chapter titles, but if any show should, this one really needs to bring back the old action-television tradition of displaying the episode title. Like the A-Team: "Bad Day at Black Rock." That kind of thing.
Anyway, The Connor Crew are driving down the road in a ridiculously shiny truck and listening to the radio recount the carnage -- thirty-two dead -- at the Desert Canyon Heat and Air plant, and there will be a vigil in Charm Acres, which is an "enclave" for plant employees, and Sarah turns off the radio, because she's sick of listening to K-PLOT radio. She'd much rather play Travel Bingo. Anyone got a square with dead cows rotting along the road? Cross it off!
So the public memorial in Charm Acres consists of pictures of all the victims on easels, and the townsfolk are milling about, and Cameron tells us the old yarn about Native Americans believing that photographs steal your soul. "I hate funerals," says John. "I hate Skynet," says Sarah, like LET HIM BE BUMMED OUT FOR A SECOND, and then John is griping about how this doesn't seem like a good idea anymore, and Sarah tells him to go find someone to talk to, which is awfully helpful. They're there to find someone who knew what was going on at the factory, but John says anyone who knew anything about the factory is dead. "I'm not," says Sarah, and John gripes that Sarah must be "luckier," in a tone that suggest he himself doesn't feel so lucky.
Sarah wanders through the pictures, and then comes across the one of the guy who shot her. She stares at it. See, the trick is to look past the picture. Then the 3D image pops out at you! Or in this case, a flashback to an episode that aired so long ago it might as well be from the first MOVIE. "You'd never guess he had it in him," says Derek, breaking Sarah out of her trance. "I see it," she says. Sure, NOW you do, one bullet wound later.
John spies a dark-haired girl moping on a bench. I guess what with Riley attempting suicide and then disappearing, he's probably got some kind of toxic-relationship void to fill.
"Is this seat taken?" he asks. "Are you going to say annoying things?" she asks him. Almost exclusively, sweetheart. But what she's talking about are the things people say when they're grieving, like, "I can't believing this is happening," that kind of thing. Yeah, stupid mourners! John promises not to say anything like that, and introduces himself (she's Zoe, she tells him) and he sits down. She asks if he knows someone in Charm Acres, or does he just have a "thing" for "small-town, homey funerals," and he says his mom worked at the factory and came to pay his respects, only then she calls him a "stupid funeral crasher" all mock outraged. Then she complains about Cameron "creepily" staring at them, and in Zoe's defence, that is exactly what's happening, like maybe Cameron could be just a little less robotlike about it. Zoe points out her mom, and says her dad worked at the factory. Yeah, WHO COULD YOUR DAD POSSIBLY BE. Then she cheerily talks about picking out a suit for her dad to be buried in, and she picked a grey one, even though "Henry" thought it should be a black one, and then this "Henry" character happens to come over, looking like the rich bad guy's sidekick in an '80s teen movie, and he tells Zoe that they're about to do the candle-lighting, and John extends his hand to introduce himself, and Henry glares at him and walks away, which I can't believe doesn't just happen to John all day long. John asks if Henry is her boyfriend, and she says, "He keeps applying for the job. I'm just not hiring," and she says it was nice to meet John, and then she skips off to continue thinking she's up to star in Juno II: Annoying Quirky Dialogue on Patrol.