Spoilers follow. You have been warned!
This episode picked up at the point where the last episode of season 1 ended, with Cameron getting blown up in the jeep. Inside the house some bad guys are being bad to Sarah and John. Cameron pulls herself from the car and limps in, I assumed, to help Sarah and John.
Nope. When we see Cameron's "Terminator Vision" we get a "John Conner: Terminate" directive pop up. Yikes!
Actually I thought this would happen eventually. In an earlier episode Future Cameron says to Derek "Sometimes they go bad." I figured that was a pretty obvious warning, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon.
Most of the episode that follows is a chase sequence that brings to mind the best of the first two movies. We even get a scene in one of the LA drainage channels.
The stand-out scene of the episode comes when Cameron gets squished between two trucks and John is attempting to pull out her chip. Summer Glau plays the increasingly desperate robot nicely. She starts with a fairly calm "things are good now, things are fine now, I ran a test." Then she becomes increasingly desperate as John cracks her head open and she repeats "I don't want to go, please john please" and eventually "I love you!" It reminded me (no doubt intentionally) of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when Hal is pleading with Dave not to shut him down.
Here's the scene on YouTube:
In other developments Shirley Manson turns up as a CEO who happens to be a T-1000. And Cromartie lets Ellison live.
All in all a very strong episode.
