Normally our Gossip Girl correspondent, Francis has switched over to this ethereal show during this time of lack of new GG episodes (or as I call it, the time of the apocalypse as we know it).
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Episode Recap
By Francis
I’m sure you’ve all heard the hype about this show – “Biggest Debut” and other such hyperbole. Perhaps that’s kept you away. I’ve got to say, that it isn’t too late. This is only the third episode, so you can still jump into the fray. If for nothing else, you have to tune in to see Summer Glau do her thing. She’s made a living lately being the “freak, weirdo, kook, oddball, crackpot, strange duck, weird potato, nut” from her breakout role in “Firefly/Serenity”, to “The 4400”, to this. It’s great because when I met her I realized that she’s the biggest sweetheart and couldn’t be further from all the roles she’s been playing. ‘Nuff about Ms. Glau, on to the recap…
This episode finds the Connors (you’ve seen the movies, right?) and the quirky FemBot, Cameron, firmly planted in 2007. They’ve got some adjusting to do and first item of business is getting back to school. I have to say that I was excited at the prospect because of the questionable school scene from the pilot (Terminator missing at such close range? C’mon). Surely this would be better. In some ways it was. John asking Cameron to not be a freak and her subsequent “I’ve been reading the dictionary. I don’t sleep” run was great. Even better is Cameron adjusting to everything around her that she dons really bad eye make up only to find John in the hallway and exclaim, “I’m a b***-w***.” What was “just a-ight for me, dawg” was the whole (SPOILER ALERT) suicide mystery. It seemed really disjointed to go through all that just to accentuate the need for John Connor to stay out of the spotlight. I hope this is just a prequel to an ongoing arc, otherwise it’s just a bit out of place.
Meanwhile, Mama Connor stays on task trying to find the person(s) responsible for Skynet. Her investigating leads her to Andy Goode who was once an intern for Myles Dyson at Cyberdyne. This seems promising to Sarah, and she tracks him down only to find that he is now a cell phone salesman. Now, shame on the continuity person on set for letting Andy do a sell what is obviously a Blackberry only for Sarah to answer what looks to be a Treo seconds later. Enough of the nitpick. Sarah decides that she needs to get closer to Andy to see exactly what he has going on. She finds that he has invented a machine he calls “The Turk” which is a chess simulator. In a later exchange Andy tells her “Turk has moods.” Sarah says that he’s talking about it as if it’s human. Andy brushes it off, but that’s all Sarah needs.
While these storylines went on, there were flashbacks of J. Robert Oppenheimer building the first atomic bomb and becoming pure evil just by using his genius. He quoted the Bhagavad Gita declaring, "I've become death, a destroyer of worlds." His colleague offered another take saying, “Now we’re all sons of bitches.” There was such a scientist who was depicted using complex formulas and theory to build bodies for robots. The episode ends with glowing red eyes and, “Now we’re all sons of b****.”
