Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Samson and Delilah (Episode 201)

Frizz? What frizz?Doodz.  I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve missed the tragically emo voiceovers, creatively stashed weaponry (a bazooka in the broom closet! Grenades in the cookie jar!), and general dark, stylish badassery that define Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Plus: deadpan Terminators indiscriminately smashing stuff left and right – what’s not to love?  Let’s jump right back on the Judgment Day train!  

So if you’ll recall, we left off on John’s birthday.  The last time we saw Cameron, she hopped into the family Jeep, which promptly exploded like a dumptruckload of Mentos dropped into a vat of Diet Coke.  In the aftermath of the big kablooie, Sarah and John try to run out and see what happened, but they’re accosted by bad guy “Big Fat Moleface” Sarkissian, who wants his stolen database back.  Sarah goes for a shotgun in the umbrella stand (yesss!) but she gets bonked in the forehead by the door, and another thug aims his gun at John.  Out in the busted Jeep, we see that Cameron’s kind of smashed up, but not nearly as singed as I’d expect.  The most serious damage seems to be a gash along her jaw, through which we can see her metal skeleton.  Also, her hair is slightly mussed.  Damn you, Sarkissian!  A girl spends a good couple of hours with Vidal Sassoon and hot rollers, and you have to go and mess it up with 47585960 pounds of C4.  I mean, fuck.  

In spite of the giant-ass piece of metal sticking out the back of her skull, Cameron is still functioning.  She forces her way out of the Jeep as Sarah and John are tied up.  Sarkissian earns some patented John Connor Stink Eye by smacking Sarah around in his search for the missing database.  They find it… under the mattress.  Oh, Sarah.  I’m disappointed in you.  Do you also “hide” a housekey under the doormat?  Since Sarah’s no longer of use, Sarkissian sets about to choking the life out of her.  Unfortunately for him, however, Cameron has just come limping into the house and she’s apparently pretty pissed about her hair.  She takes out Sarkissian’s sidekick just as he’s about to light a cigarette downstairs, and it ignites a can of kerosene.  The fire spreads beneath a gas hot water heater.  In the upstairs bedroom, Cameron arrives to find that John has freed himself and killed Sarkissian in time to save Sarah.  Hooray, happy ending!  Except… wait just a second.  We see the scene through Cameron’s eyes… and her viewscreen is flashing “John Connor: Terminate.”  Guess that explosion messed up more than Cameron’s ‘do, eh?  She aims her gun at the v.v. surprised John, but just then the hot water heater explodes.  Cameron is momentarily knocked back, and Sarah and John take the opportunity to leap out through the second story window.  Yeesh – not five minutes into the ep and the Connors have already been beaten, tied up, choked, nearly exploded, and tossed through plate glass.  This is shaping up to be to be one hell of a season.

Flash to our other cliffhanger – FBI Agent Ellison is currently in the sights of Chromardi, the Terminator who followed the Connors into the future.  If you’ll recall, Chromardi just took out an entire squad of SWAT agents, whose bodies are floating around the apartment complex pool like morbid beach balls.  Ellison’s pretty sure he’s about to meet his maker, but instead, Chromardi lowers his gun and walks away.  Charlie, Sarah’s paramedic ex-fiancé, arrives in time to see Chromardi go stomping off into the sunset, and to find a shaken Ellison the only man left alive.  Later, Ellison is shown the body of the man whose identity Chromardi assumed.  He knows that the real killer is still out there, but lies that the dead man murdered the twenty cops in the shootout.  Ellison mutters that the poor dead hapless out of work actor has to take the rap, because nobody would believe what really happened.  Good on you for not trying to explain it there, Ellison.  I’m pretty sure you’d end up in that padded room where Sarah was hanging out for the first half of Terminator 2.  Y’know, back when she was Linda Hamilton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t have man-boobs.  Or moobs, if you will.

Sarah and John have chosen their getaway car – and it’s a doozy.  They careen hilariously through traffic in a shiny red minivan.  I snort with laughter, thinking perhaps they’re driving so fast not to escape murderous Terminators, but because they’re late for John’s Kiddie Soccer game and it’s Sarah’s turn to bring the apple juice and Rice Krispies squares.  While trying to simultaneously dodge Cadillac-drivin’ grannies and ask her son if he’s all right, Sarah manages to make things worse by smacking into another car.  The Connors flee the scene, now both bleeding profusely.  Meanwhile, Cameron’s stomp-limping inconspicuously down what appears to be Hollywood boulevard.  Even though her appearance might lead the average person to conclude that she’d been attacked by a pack of wolverines, nobody seems to notice.  Well, it is Hollywood, right?  If you want attention, skip the bleeding facial wounds and go straight for the big fake boobs (Hee! That’s the second paragraph in a row that’s ended with boobs).

Charlie hears radio reports of the fire at the Connor place.  He’s relieved to discover that Sarah’s and John’s bodies aren’t in the house.  What he does find, however, is a gun-toting Derek Reese hiding in the back of his ambulance.  Derek fills Charlie in on the sitch with the Turk; it may be all happy la-la funtime chess right now, but in a couple of years, the Turk is going to get cranky, throw a temper tantrum, and nuke the crap out of humankind.  Derek and Charlie decide that it’s time to find Sarah, AKA The Only Person Who Really Knows What The Hell Is Going On.

New character alert!  A redheaded woman who looks like a reject from that futuristic 90’s movie Gattaca (seriously, who wears a high-collared white trenchcoat for a shirt?) chills in a swanky office.  She’s on the phone with one Mr. Walsh, who has the coveted Turk in his possession.  Redheaded Gattaca Reject, whose name is apparently Catherine Weaver, is the head of a technology development company called Zeiracorp.  When Walsh shows up and forks over the Turk, Catherine spends approximately 3950876 minutes gazing out her office window and pontificating about all the little people walking past in the crosswalks below.  She sees groups of people obeying the laws of traffic, but believes that individually, human beings never follow the rules.  Adversely, if you give a computer a series of rules, it will follow them forever.  Computers, as a rule, aren’t like humans - they are obedient to a fault.  What Catherine wants is a computer that’s… different.  And now she has it.  Dude, this lady freaks me out.  And also, as a pale redhead, she needs to lay off the eyeliner.

Back on Hollywood Boulevard, Cameron heads into a convenience store and calmly stapleguns her face back together, much to the chagrin of the Apu-esque clerk.  Har!  Meanwhile, Sarah and John drag their bloody, sprained and broken selves down the street.  Sarah spots a Mexican church, and decides it would be a good place to hide.  Inside, they discover that said church is apparently presided over by Priest Jimmy Smits.  Okay, so it’s not Jimmy Smits, but it is some dude that really, really looks like Jimmy Smits.  The priest is the first person to notice that Sarah and John both look like they’ve been hit by cement trucks.  Sarah won’t explain what happened, but begs for Sanctuary.  I’ve always thought Sanctuary was such an interesting concept – that you can cross a church’s threshold and instantly be safe from your pursuers is just so cool.  Somehow, though, I kinda doubt that Terminators abide by the terms of Sanctuary.  Come to think of it, I doubt that Terminators have religion at all.  They’re not like the Cylons with their One God.  In fact, I read an article the other day that the creators of T: SCC aren’t interested in exploring the humanity of their robots like BSG does – nope, instead they want to get into what makes the machine tick.  Kinda neat, eh?  Anyhoo, having been granted Sanctuary, Sarah won’t quit anxiously asking John if he’s okay.  She knows the explosion must have flipped some switch in Cameron, and that she’s reverted to her Savior-o’-Mankind-killing roots.  What’s worse - she knows everything about them now.   How they run, where they’ll go, their weapons stashes, everything.  “We have to kill her, John.” Sarah announces.  “I know!”  Emo!John shouts, slamming a knife into the table.  Whoa there.  Dial those hormones back a bit, ‘kay?

Back in the ambulance, Derek’s wondering about Charlie’s motivation for driving his ass all over the city in search of a woman he supposedly no longer cares about.  Charlie’s face turns approximately the color of a fire hydrant and he sputters that he’s married and loves his wife.  Methinks the man doth protest too much!   Meanwhile, Cameron tracks blood drops down the street, straight to the Church of Jimmy Smits.  She limps inside and lies to the priest that she’s looking for her mother and brother – they were in an accident and they’re hurt.  The priest lies right back and says that nobody’s there, but Cameron follows blood drops up to the alter.  Spotting something on the bottom of the cistern, she reaches down into the holy water, and… ZAPP!  Sarah and John have rigged it with a device to deliver an electric shock!  Cameron falls down unconscious.  They have two minutes to try and yank out her CPU before she reboots.  John manages to get her creepy scalp flap open, and frantically fumbles with a screwdriver – but he runs out of time.  Cameron boots up, and they have to run like hell.  Outside, Sarah carjacks a Land Rover and they go screeching off like Nancy Grace on her way to the scene of a toddler kidnapping.  Sarah drives into a huge dry drainage ditch, and suddenly Cameron’s in their path.  She punches the back end of the car as it goes past, causing the entire vehicle to flip sideways and fly through the air in sloooow-mo.  The car comes crashing down on its roof.  Goddamn!  I hope they were wearing their seatbelts!  

As Cameron begins to limp her way to the smooshed car, Sarah pushes John away, telling him to run.  Like a good little Savior of Mankind, John listens to his mommy and takes off like someone set fire to his pants.  Sarah squirms out of the car, Cameron looming over her.  “Call to him,” Cameron orders.  Sarah’s all, “yeah fat chance,” so Cameron stomps on her stomach wound.  Ouch!  When it becomes clear that John won’t come back even when he hears his mother hollering bloody freakin’ murder, Cameron shoves Sarah aside and goes after him.  John stumbles into some sort of a warehouse, where he climbs into a truck and starts to hotwire it.  Cameron, close behind, hears a door close and starts checking each truck in the warehouse.  As she gets to John’s truck, his hotwire works, and the thing roars to life.  John pops up into the driver’s seat just in time for Cameron to throw a giant effing knife right at his head.  Fortunately, he has catlike reflexes and ducks.  Cameron stomps toward the truck… and just then the warehouse’s door flies inward.  It’s the calvalry!  Also known as Sarah Connor, also driving a big fat truck.  She roars straight at Cameron, and the two trucks smash into each other head on, pinning the pretty lil’ Terminator in between. John scrambles over the hood and goes for Cameron’s CPU again.  Oh, but now we get to see the creepily human, manipulative side of this machine.  In a frightened, innocent voice, she starts talking about how she’s okay now, she ran a test and fixed herself… “That wasn’t me, John, listen, please!  I don’t want to go, John, I swear, I’m fixed now…”  Her arms are pinned, but her head is free, and she’s looking up at him with such sad frightened eyes you’d swear she was telling the truth.  Sarah’s simultaneously trying to tell John that Cameron is lying.  “You can trust me!” Cameron cries.  “I love you, John, and you love me!”  Crap!  Finally John manages to get hold of the CPU, and Cameron slumps inertly against the truck.  Whoa.  That was intense.  Fortunately John’s smart enough to know that Cameron was lying – she’s never that emotional when she’s a good guy.  In fact, she mostly just stares.

Sarah calls Derek, and he and Charlie show up with the handy-dandy ambulance to tend to everyone’s wounds.  The coveted database is too burned to decipher, so they don’t know where Sarkissian sold the Turk.  Sarah, however, seems more concerned about John’s state of mind.  Derek tells John that Chromardi killed twenty police officers, and that he’s pretty sure it’s all Cameron’s fault.  Um… okay.  Derek’s had a hard-on to take Cameron out from the moment he got here, but this is a stretch.  John says that he made Cameron, and she saved his life… he needs her.  But there’s damage to her chip which causes her to try and murder him, so what are ya gonna do?  For her part, Sarah’s pretty sure that it’s time to use Cameron as firewood.  “Let’s burn her,” John growls, “and get the hell out of here.”  Yowza!  

On the ride back to the aqueduct, where they’ll torch the Terminator, John fiddles with her CPU.  He’s looking particularly teenage and moody, so Sarah gingerly tries to remind him that Cameron’s “I love you” diatribe was just a trick.  Terminators don’t have feelings, and they can’t love.  “How do you know that, Mom?” snaps John.  Somebody needs a nap.  They arrange Cameron’s body in the shell of a car and sprinkle her with flammable metals so she’ll burn hot enough.  John lights a flare to ignite her… and then before anyone can stop him, he grabs Cameron’s CPU and shoves it back into its socket!!  Sarah and the guys lunge forward, but John trains a gun on them.  Whoa.  Cameron reboots, and the first thing she says is, “Are you here to kill me, John?”  “Are you here to kill me?” he retorts.  “No,” Cameron replies.  And what does John do then?  He friggin’ hands Cameron the gun.  No joke.  Sarah and the others watch tensely, but Cameron’s screen is flashing “Termination override.”  She hands him back the gun.  Phew!   John tosses more Patented Stink Eye at Sarah and helps Cameron out of the car before setting it on fire with the flare.  That is one emo!tastic boy.    

Police station.  Ellison is interviewed by Internal Affairs, which wants to know why the suspect let him live.  All Ellison can say is the truth: that he really, really doesn’t know.  He wants to get back to work, so under penalty of perjury, he’s asked if he told the truth.  Well, except for the bit about a killer robot still being on the loose, sure.  Later, Ellison goes to Sarah and John’s burned-out house, and who should show up there but Chromardi?  “I’ll never lead you to her, so if that’s why you’ve left me alive, kill me now.” Ellison says.  “I’ll never do the devil’s work.”  “We’ll see,” smarms Chromardi before stomping away.  I have found that Terminators stomp at all times.  Apparently there is no such thing as a graceful exit on this show.

Back at their church Sanctuary, we’re hit over the head by an anvil that’s printed with the words “SARAH’S A MOM!” because she’s making peanut butter sandwiches.  Back to her old self, Cameron’s busy staring down a portrait of Jesus.  She asks if Sarah believes in the resurrection, and Sarah replies that with all she’s seen, it’s hard for her to have faith.  Cameron agrees - faith isn’t part of her programming, either.  “If I ever go bad again,” Cameron deadpans to Sarah, “don’t let him bring me back.”  On that optimistic note, Sarah knocks on the door to the bathroom where John’s currently engaging in typical teenage behavior.  Ew, you perv!  Not that kind of behavior.  He’s just shaving his head!  Sarah desperately calls through the door that nothing that happened can be changed – but the important thing is that they’re alive.  Somehow, I’m thinking that that’s not especially comforting at the moment.  Happy birthday, Johnny boy.  

In her fancy office building, Catherine has assembled her team leaders to inform them that she’s starting up a new division that will require their best people.  She’ll be removing key team members from each division, and forming a new team called Babylon.  And what will Babylon do?  Why, it’ll change the world, that’s what.  Later in the men’s room, one of the project leaders is pissed that Catherine’s cannibalizing away his best people for her pet project.  “God, that Bitch pisses me off,” he announces to nobody in particular as he goes to take a whiz.  But as he takes aim for the urinal, something wonky happens – it slithers off the wall, and takes the shape… of a woman!  Holy crap… Catherine of the trenchcoat and bad eyeliner is a shape-shifty Terminator!  “Sorry I piss you off,” she smirks.  With that, she extends a silvery finger directly through his forehead and out the back of his skull.  “The feeling is mutual.”