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| Saturday, November 8, 2008 03:04 PM |
| On the Viewer - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Season 2, Episode 7 - "Brothers of Nablus") |
 by Fëanor |
This one has a crazy, crazy opening. Ellison answers the door of his house only to find himself face to face with... himself! It's not a dream - it's a terminator, looking to kill Ellison and replace him. But Ellison is saved - and by Cromartie, of all people. Cromartie says Skynet doesn't believe like he believes. Ellison asks, "What do you believe?" "That you will lead me to the Connors," Cromartie answers. Woah.
Meanwhile, the Connors come home to find they've been robbed - and by humans (food was taken). But who and how? Turns out the security system was off because of Riley - she forgot to reset it. D'oh! Sarah's pretty mad about that. Meanwhile, the counselor who met Cameron in the amnesia episode finally gets around to putting Cameron's picture into the system. Unfortunately, Cromartie is watching for something like that; it sets off an alarm on his computer, and he heads over there. He runs into Jody, who agrees to help him find "Allison," and even gives up the fact that Allison has a "brother" named John Baum whom the terminator is quickly able to determine is actually John Connor. Next Ellison gets arrested for the murder of someone he's never heard of (of course it's some poor shmuck who was killed by the terminator who looked like him). At the same time, Derek is helping the Connors track their stuff down by taking them to an illegal diamond dealer he knows. The dealer gives them the name of the person who supposedly brought him their diamonds, but also mentions Jesse, Derek's girl. Derek lies to Sarah about who Jesse is (hmmm). It turns out the dealer lied, too, but Sarah and Cameron go back and rough him up until he gives them the right name. Jody takes Cromartie to the supermarket Allison was at, and John and Riley just happen to be there shopping at the same time. It's a tense scene, and Cromartie nearly walks right into them, but by pure luck, ends up missing them. Later, there's another close call when Cromartie comes to the Connors' neighbor's house asking about Cameron. Luckily, Kacy doesn't like the look of him and claims she's never seen Cameron before. But Cromartie still suspects something and heads over to the Connors' house, where they have an even closer call. Riley answers the door, against John's wishes, and Cromartie walks in, but she eventually convinces him that he's got the wrong place (it helps that the pictures on the fridge are of other random people and not the Connors). John is hiding in the next room the whole time with a huge gun, freaking out. Wow!
Ellison gets grilled by a detective about the murder and it's not looking good for him, as they have an eye witness who insists he saw Ellison commit the crime. But eventually Catherine gets him out of there via rather questionable methods - she impersonates the police detective, gets the witness to admit he saw Ellison appear naked out of a sphere of energy, a fact she knows is true, but that the judge assumes is pure insanity. Thus the witness is discredited and Ellison is released. But what happens when the real detective comes back and finds out his suspect was released and his witness discredited? Won't he ask some uncomfortable questions? Or did Catherine kill him? And if she did, won't that just cause more trouble down the line?
Luckily, that's the only part of the episode I found bothersome. Next Cameron and Sarah finally track down the real robbers at a deserted bowling alley. It turns out it's just three dumb punks. The girls pull their guns on them and ask for their stuff back, and the guys hand it over. But Sarah sees the number of shoes laid out and realizes there's a fourth guy, whom the other guys admit is in the bathroom. As she turns to go get him, in a shocking moment of violence, Cameron executes the three other guys. She explains, "They knew where we lived." Sarah has nothing to say to that, but when she finds the fourth guy in the bathroom and realizes he's just a boy, she tells him to wait five minutes and then run for it, and never tell anybody about them or what happened. Sadly, her mercy does not serve her well, as Cromartie has also tracked down the robbers to the bowling alley. He arrives just after Sarah and Cameron leave, finds the boy, and begins interrogating him. Soon he'll know for certain where the Connors live. Argh!
Jesse goes back to the diamond dealer and kills him, then Derek and Jesse take all the diamonds. Woah! How is that okay? I mean, he was a slimy, lying, illegal diamond dealer, but still. Later, we see Ellison sitting in his car outside his ex-wife's house, and she finds him out there, and they have a rather awkward conversation, the end result of which is, Ellison seems to have resolved to leave her and that part of his life behind. Also, when Sarah gets back to the house, she tells John he can't bring people over the house anymore, and he blows up on her. They have a big ugly argument about Riley and about Sarah not being able to protect him when he was killing Sarkissian. Ouch.
Anyway, another great episode, with some really tense and powerful sequences. Like I said, that opening is amazing, and gives us the sense, which the series has done before, that there's more than one faction amongst the machines. I love that idea. I was almost jumping out of my skin during the supermarket sequence, and the scene where Cromartie came to the house. The scene where Cameron kills the robbers is brutal and amazing. And now, of course, Cromartie is coming for them for real, so next episode should be even more awesome. |
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