I am still cogitating and canoodling what exactly happened in last night’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I know we learned SOMETHING about Terminator Cameron’s past, but I think I’ll have to keep thinking about it and discuss it later this week in the podcast. Until then, I’ll just recap what went down and would love to hear some speculation from the rest of you.

The episode begins during the Future War, and a girl who we eventually see is Cameron is running in a warehouse of some sort. She gets outside but is taken down by a net.

In present day, John and Cameron are in the car and Cameron seems to be daydreaming. John says he’s going to Radio World, which I guess is like Radio Shack, or else he’s way into radios and we just never knew that before. He says he’ll be back in half an hour.

Sarah gets stopped at home by Casey, her neighbor/landlady. She’s still super-pregnant and says she doesn’t feel well and is bleeding. Sarah takes her to the hospital, where the doctor says they’ll do a test to see if the blood is Casey’s or the baby’s.

Cameron is grocery shopping. She is still out of it and seems to be flashing back to her past in the future (dunno a better way to phrase that). She knocks over a watermelon stand and just freezes. The cops talk to her but she’s unresponsive. In the future, Cameron (or someone that looks just like her?) is sitting at a table, being interrogated. She’s asked her name and says she doesn’t have one. A voice says they’ll give her one and a Terminator burns a UPC-code onto her arm.

Now at jail, Cameron is befriended by a girl named Jody. Jody asks Cameron her name and she says it’s Allison! She can’t remember who she is, though, or anything else.

John shows up at the supermarket and after asking a bystander what happens, surmises that Cameron has been picked up by the police.

Cameron and Jody get released and when gathering their personal effects, Cameron receives her large wad of money. Jody spies it and asks Cameron where she’s going. When Cameron says she doesn’t know, Jody says she should stick with her.

John gets to the police station but too late. He is told that Cameron was already released and left with a girl named Jody who is a street kid that hangs around the Boulevard.

At the hospital, Casey asks Sarah what it was like for her when she had John. Sarah tells a story of being in the jungle in South America and that the people they were with sang him a traditional Latin song. She also lies and says that John’s father was there. The father of Casey’s baby arrives. Sarah excuses herself but gives Casey an opportunity to keep her there by asking if she needs anything and Casey asks for some magazines. Sarah walks by the nursery and stares at the babies. She does not eat any of them. That’s not Sarah’s way.

John walks the street asking everyone if they know a “Jody.” No luck.

Agent Ellison is back at ZeiraCorp talking to Catherine Weaver about her job offer. He tells her how the last time he encountered the machines she’s looking for, 20 people ended up dead. Weaver tells him a story of her husband dying in a helicopter crash and how even the best people can become afraid and make mistakes.

Now we go back to the future. Cameron is locked up but isn’t eating the food shoved into her cell. This is intercut with present day with Jody and Cameron hanging out at an outdoor patio/food court area. Jody tells her story of coming to L.A. from Michigan, losing an unpaid internship and getting into sketchier and sketchier work. A big angry guy finds her and is ripshit about something she stole from him. He actually punches her in the face and Cameron gets scared and offers him the money she has and tells him to just take it and leave them alone. She is not acting like the usual Cameron. What’s going on here?

Jody takes Cameron to a halfway house she sometimes stays at. They sign up for a few days and Jody says she’ll have to talk to a counselor but not to tell them anything real about herself. Cameron writes her name down as Allison Young. Jody gives Cameron her necklace which she says she found at a cool thrift shop.

Ellison is at FBI headquarters and talks to his ex-wife and fellow agent, asking her to run a background check on his potential employer. She notes as soon as he comes in that he isn’t wearing his cross and that something is different about him.

The next scene is again intercut with scenes of Allison (I think?) being interrogated in the future and Cameron talking with the counselor. Allison tells the concealed interrogator that she eats garbage and lives underground. She says her father was an architect, her mother was a music teacher, and her bracelet was a gift from her sister. Her last birthday was in July and she had a party with friends but it was the last one because the next year everyone was dead. Cameron begins crying at the counselor’s office. The next scene sees Allison escape.

John walks by the patio and someone there knows Jody and says she’s usually at a halfway house.

At the halfway house, Cameron is sad. Jody tells Cameron they’re going to go out and have some fun.

Casey talks to Sarah and it turns out the father is a cop and a good guy. Casey is just uncomfortable with having a police officer as her baby’s father because it’s a dangerous job.

Ellison gets the results on Catherine Weaver’s background. Everything matches up except that the official report for the helicopter crash lists a mechanical failure, not human error.

John finds Cameron at the halfway house but she doesn’t recognize him at all and says her name is Allison. She gets scared by him saying she needs to go home with him and gets totally freaked out when he says she’s a robot from the future.

In the future, Allison is running through the prison and sees people, a tiger, and a bear, all caged. She gets out on the roof, very high over a river. It’s night. It always seems to be night in the future. She jumps into the river but gets entangled in a net.

Cameron shoves John away and John is asked to leave by the staff.

Another future scene. Allison is brought to a room where she sees… herself! Is this Cameron? I think so. Cameron tells Allison that she shouldn’t have run. She also compliments Allison’s hair. It’s revealed that John Connor chose Allison as one of his resistance fighters. Cameron says she’s a robot but that she is from a side that wants peace!

Cameron is back in the counselor’s office and says she’s afraid she’s a robot, sent from the future to infiltrate the human resistance. She says she was programmed to kill John Connor and when she finds him she’s going to put his head on a pike! The counselor ends the session and calls the police. When they arrive, Cameron and Jody have left.

Ellison meets with Weaver and Weaver has a little girl in the room, her daughter Savannah. What? We know Weaver is a T-1001. Is this little girl a robot? A real girl being raised by Weaver? Don’t know. Ellison tells Weaver he read the report on the helicopter crash and that it listed mechanical failure and asks what the truth is. She asks him what he thinks it is and Ellison says he knows reports can have mistakes. Essentially, I guess he believes her version and accepts her job offer.

John was waiting for Cameron to leave and has tailed her and Jody to someone’s house. Jody says she used to babysit there. Inside, she goes to a safe and enters a code and takes out the jewels. Cameron sees a similar necklace and confronts Jody on it. She gets angry and asks whether she stole it or got it from the thrift store. Jody admits she did neither. It was a gift and this is her parent’s house they’re robbing.

In the future, Cameron and Allison talk in the room. Cameron asks about Allison’s bracelet. She says it wasn’t a gift from her sister. She drops similar bracelets on the table and says her fellow resistance fighters all wore them. They’re a signal to enter John Connor’s camp successfully. Allison was hoping Cameron would make a mistake and get killed. Cameron lifts Allison by the throat and snaps her neck.

Cameron asks Jody what’s going on and Jody explains that there’s a silent alarm that’s been set when they broke into the safe. She was going to ditch Cameron and let her take the rap. Cameron grabs Jody by the neck. John breaks into the door and sees Jody lying on the ground. He asks if he just killed her but Jody gasps for air. “Apparently not,” says Cameron.

In the ride home, Cameron says that was her last get out of jail card free card wasn’t it. “Damn. Straight.” Answers John. He asks where she got her necklace and Cameron says it was from a cool thrift shop.

So… Cameron seemed to have something faulty but reset. But why did she seem to think she WAS Allison and get so emotional throughout the story? Was Cameron really reprogrammed by the resistance or is her plan to infiltrate them? Does she want peace? Does she want to kill John? If so, why hasn’t she yet?

So many great questions. This one was on par with last year’s similarly mind-bending ep “Dungeons and Dragons.” It may not be for everyone, but I give it 4 and a half Terminator heads out of 5!

photo credit: dklimke