Plot
Cameron infiltrates the police station looking for the hand but does not find it. Sarah breaks into Agent Ellison's home - she doesn't find the hand (hidden in the freezer) but sees that he is investigating her files from the mental hospital. She steals one of the interview tapes (intending to destroy it) that shows her signing away her parental rights as John's mother. John finds the tape in her bag and watches it. Someone else for Sarah to make amends with. She explains that she immediately regretted signing and planned to break out that day... the same day that John and the other Terminators broke in for her.Derek is "better but still pretty out of it", expressing a severe distrust of "that thing" Cameron.
Ellison visits the mental insitution, then tracks down psychiatrist Dr Silberman, who retired after Sarah escaped in 1995. At Silberman's home, at first the doctor is polite and accommodating but he drugs and ties up Ellison, believing him to be a Terminator and stabs him in the leg to check. After talking with Ellison for a little while about what he saw in 1995, Silberman starts to believe that Sarah is not insane... but takes the Terminator hand and then sets his own house on fire, leaving Agent Ellison to die. Luckily, Sarah shows up at this time, knocks out Silberman, frees Ellison and takes the hand.
Meanwhile, Cameron goes undercover as a (suspiciously proficient) ballet dancer, attending the ballet classes run by Dmitri's sister. Protecting her from a Russian loan shark earns her trust and she takes Cameron to where The Turk's business partner is hiding. Dimitri tells Cameron that he changed The Turk's programming to fail in the final round and he has sold The Turk to someone else. He gives Cameron a business card, then the Russians arrive... Cameron leaves the Shipkov's to die as the mobsters storm the apartments.
Ellison has Dr Silberman commited to the mental hospital where he used to work. Cameron torches the hand. Reese witnesses Cameron practicing ballet in her room and is brought to tears.
Tropes
- Beautiful Dreamer: A non-romantic version. Sarah has a habit of watching people sleep, particularly John. In this episode, she stares at Derek before trying to change his bandage.
- Call-Back: Dr. Silberman describes his encounters with the T-800 and T-1000 in T2 to Ellison.
- Continuity Nod: John tells Derek about Todd and Janelle, the foster parents the T1000 killed in T2. Another Call-Back to T2 has Cameron dressing in motorcycle cop gear. And Sarah's "nuclear" dreams on video. The video is also a Call-Back to the first film, when Kyle Reese screamed at Silberman that killing is what they do.
- Darkest Hour: Sarah signing away her parental rights to John in the asylum. She reassures him that she regretted it instantly and would have broken out of the hospital to find him anyway if the two Terminators hadn't arrived.
- House Fire: Silberman sets his house on fire, leaving Ellison tied up inside. Sarah rescues him.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Derek won't call Cameron by a name and warns Sarah that if they try to train it "like a pet," it will be the last thing they do.
- Laser-Guided Karma: At the end of the episode, Dr. Silberman gets locked in the same cell Sarah used to occupy.
- "Not So Different" Remark: First, Cameron's attempts to relate to the Russian ballet teacher. They both have chess-playing brothers they're trying to protect. At the end of the episode, as Derek watches Cameron dance, Sarah's voiceover states that when machines can appreciate beauty and create art, they'll "be us."
- Sanity Slippage: Dr. Silberman's encounter with two Terminators in Terminator 2 has clearly had a highly traumatic effect.
- Save the Villain: Sarah is unable to leave her enemy Ellison (although he's not strictly a villain) to die in Silberman's burning house. This is contrasted to Cameron callously leaving Dmitri and his sister to be murdered by Russian gangsters.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Derek has a PTSD episode, triggered by the music Cameron dances tonote , that brings him to Manly Tears.
- Made even more poignant because the use of classical music in the Skynet work camps is Truth in Television. The Nazis did the same thing, blasting Beethoven's 5th over and over as a means of torture.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Silberman thinks Ellison is a terminator...Until he stabs him in the leg. Oops.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Cameron finishes with the Russians, she walks away and lets them be killed by apparent assassins.
