As this season began, showrunner Josh Friedman announced that a major character will die later this season. Knowing that has actually amped up the tension for me. I’m not sure who they’re going to donk off, but tonight someone leaves the show. Read on to find out who.

The show begins at a gas station on the side of the desert road. Charley Dixon had to take his wife, Michelle, and get out of town last week, because he was a target of Terminators since he knew Sarah. Ellison and Charley filled Michelle in on the robots and she was pretty unhappy to have that dumped on her as well as learn that Charley’s been in contact with his ex.

While the car is gassing up, a pickup truck pulls up. Charley’s buying sodas while the driver gets in the car. Michelle doesn’t look up from her magazine until the car begins to race away. It’s Cromartie, the Terminator hunting down John Connor!

After the opening credits, we see John hooking up cable for Casey (the very pregnant Busy Phillips), his landlord/neighbor. They flip over to a very cheesy Beastmaster movie (they call it Beast Wizard) which happens to star George Lazlo, the actor whose appearance Cromartie stole. It cuts to a news anchor talking about how the actor went crazy and killed an FBI squad and himself (which John and we know isn’t true).

John goes back home and Cameron is standing still in the middle of the kitchen/living room doing nothing. She announces that the house is moving down .3mm a year. It doesn’t represent a danger to John Connor but they will have to repaint the house next summer.

John talks to his mom for a bit and there’s some moment where she asks how Casey is and something about babies and she asks what John knows about babies and he says he knows they grow up. It’s not important, really. It only takes a few seconds. I’ve really wasted your time letting you know about it.

So John gets a cell phone call. It’s Charley, almost in tears. He asks for Sarah and when he talks to her explains that his wife has been kidnapped and he needs help. Sarah doesn’t want to help (or maybe she just doesn’t want to involve John who doesn’t know what they’re talking about) but gets Charley to tell her where he is.

Sarah is packing while Cameron looks up the chimney and sees that there are birds and announces she can kill them. Sarah tells her not to. I think little moments like this explain to us that Sarah may appear very hard and she IS tough, but she’s not as tough as she’d like everyone to think she is. She definitely knows mercy. John has plans to pick up computers and Sarah tells him to do that and for Cameron to keep an eye on him.

Sarah recruits Derek to join her. He doesn’t like the play, knowing that Cromartie is setting a trap. Sarah knows that too, but she’s going, so he joins her.

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Michelle wakes up and finds herself tied to a chair in a dark, empty room. Cromartie is there and he’s fiddling with mousetraps for some reason. I like how Cromartie is ever so slightly “off.” He doesn’t quite have a personality, but almost.

John and Cameron are wheeling some large computer boxes to the pickup truck at a mall. Cameron lifts one into the truck effortlessly and John reminds her to be more cognizant of the people around them. Riley calls up John and wants to hang out. John asks Cameron to drop him off but Cameron insists on being with him. John pretends he won’t go and lets Cameron get in the car, then runs and ditches her.

Agent Ellison is watching a bad George Lazlo movie at home when he receives a phone call. It’s Catherine Weaver. She says she has a job offer and wants to meet him. Ellison isn’t interested until she says she knows how his men were killed.

Back in the dusty house, Michelle can’t see Cromartie and reaches for her cell phone over in her jacket pocket nearby.

Sarah and Derek drive up to the gas station to meet Charley. Charley is really broken up and wants them to help him find Michelle, but Derek tells him she’s already dead. Just then, Charley’s phone rings and it’s his wife. She describes the place she’s being held at off a desert road by a billboard. Charley is elated to hear her but Derek and Sarah insist he confirm that it’s her, because Terminators can mimic voices. He is able to get her to tell him about their first time being intimate and several details from the evening. Then the phone goes dead.

Cromartie takes the phone from Michelle.

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Cromartie sets 4 mouse traps on the floor and duct tapes Michelle’s mouth. He talks about the history of the mouse trap and its inventor and how well it works. He then lifts Michelle in her chair and sets it down so that all four legs are on a mouse trap trigger. There is wiring in the mousetraps and under the chair.

Riley and John flirt at a magazine stand using magazine names in puns. John earns the nickname “Cat Fancy” which is exactly the sort of name you want the future messiah to have. Riley spots Cameron spying on them across the street so the teenagers run off.

Sarah, Derek, and Charley arrive at the old house and begin arming themselves. Derek takes the lead and they come across Michelle. The room is clear and he points out the trap. Sarah begins studying it.

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Sarah explains the mousetraps are wired to a bomb under Michelle’s chair, so they can’t move her. Derek heads off to hunt down Cromartie. The tape is removed and Michelle says she wants to stand. She knows she can’t but the adrenaline is flowing and she is having trouble dealing with the pressure of the situation. Sarah tells Charley to get her a bag of tools in the truck. Michelle asks why Sarah came. She says she, “Just did,” and reveals she expected Michelle to already be dead. Gentle!

Derek comes back, and reveals that Cromartie has sabotaged their car while they were freeing Michelle. Sarah realizes the bomb is fake and rips it off the chair. Why would Cromartie leave Michelle alive to lure them in and then sabotage their car? He’s after John and this was all a ploy to get them away from him. Sarah calls John.

While she talks to John, Derek continues to search the house and comes across a laptop rigged to listen in on Sarah’s call. John and Riley are at a dress store and Sarah orders him to stay with Cameron. He agrees, but of course, he’s lying. He doesn’t understand the severity of the current situation.

Derek finds more tech attached to a walkie talkie and wire extending out the window to a massive cell tower. Cromartie sets it off – it’s a bomb and the tower collapses on top of the house.

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Sarah crawls out of the wreckage and confirms that everyone is still alive. The cell tower is destroyed so now she can’t get a signal to call John. Cromartie, meanwhile, calls John from his car and, as Sarah, tells him to go to the pier and turn off his phone. John tells Riley he has to go because of his mom. She doesn’t get it.

Sarah says they need a car, but there isn’t one. Charley realizes that Michelle is bleeding badly from the previous wreckage. Sarah plans to walk 5 miles through the desert to get to the nearest major road. Charley says they can’t leave Michelle, but Michelle says she can walk.

Weaver is meeting with Ellison in her office. Ellison tells her he knows who killed his men – George Lazlo. Weaver tells him about a plane crash and shows photos from it that show Terminator parts. Ever since she and her late husband came across this stuff, she says, she’s been working to reverse engineer the technology. She tells the story of a man at a school who shot at John Connor and how several students claimed he had a robotic leg (from the pilot episode). She knows Ellison was tasked with finding the Connors and came across one of these robots. She says she wants him to find another one.

John is at the crowded pier. Cameron finds the store he was at with Riley and asks Riley where John is.

Sarah, Derek, Charley, and Michelle carjack a van.

Cromartie scans the crowd.

Michelle is in bad shape in the back of the van. Charley tells Sarah to slow down and then to stop. Sarah is mad at Charley for getting involved but does stop.

John spots Cromartie first and runs. Cameron is also at the pier, looking for John. She is momentarily distracted by a street performer in silver paint doing the robot. Cromartie sees John running and chases him. John runs down the ramps to the beach. Cromartie pulls his gun on who he thinks is John, but John exchanged his hat and jacket with a guy there fishing. John ducks out from around the corner and jumps off the pier into the water. Cromartie is right on top of him and grabs his jacket in the water. John struggles but is eventually able to get free of the jacket and Cromartie sinks. Robots aren’t boyant. John reaches the surface and sees Cameron who tells him she doesn’t swim.

Cameron and John meet up with Sarah at the van. John notices blood inside but no one says anything. It’s just John, Cameron, Derek, and Sarah.

Cromartie walks out of the ocean, unharmed. He spits out the water in his mouth and takes a fish out of his pants. OK, that was a lie. He just walks out.

Charley is sitting outside a hospital, fiddling with Michelle’s wedding ring. John arrives and sits beside him and hugs him.

At Michelle’s funeral, Charley and Ellison are present.

At the Connor house, Sarah serves dinner to a somber John, Derek, and Cameron.

Charley throws a bible on top of the coffin at the funeral. At the perimeter, Cromartie watches, but of course the Connors don’t show.

The show ends with the Connors sitting around the kitchen table in silence.

Great episode. Full of action and the family conflict that I dig. Didn’t try to do too much. Cromartie’s plan was pretty cool, and laid out very well. Almost worked. I give this one 4 out of 5 terminator heads!

photo credit: dklimke