"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" - November 3, 2008 and November 10, 2008 episodes

November 3, 2008 episode

Ellison opens the door to find a mirror image of himself, which turns out to be a terminator who looks just like him. The Ellison-bot tries to kill him, but the bot is instead killed by Cromartie, much to Ellison's surprise, but Cromartie says that Ellison is going to be the one who will lead Cromartie to John and Sarah. Ellison is later arrested for murder, for a murder that was presumably committed by his lookalike bot. Catherine goes to visit him in jail and agrees to help him. In the guise of a police officer, Catherine gets the eyewitness to the murder to tell all the details of what he saw, which includes seeing the ball of light and the naked man appearing out of nowhere. The unbelievable tale gets thrown out and Ellison is released.

When John and Sarah and Cameron return home, they find that the house has been robbed, and all their money and diamonds and IDs have been stolen. Cameron figures out that it's because Riley left the house and forgot to turn the alarm on.

Cromartie ends up meeting Jodi, the girl who was in jail with Cameron, and Jodi recognizes the pictures of John and Cameron that Cromartie is showing around. Jodi takes him to the grocery store where John and Cameron normally shop, and John is there with Riley, but they miss seeing each other. Cromartie then canvasses the surrounding neighborhood and shows up at Casey's door. She pretends not to recognize the pictures, and when Cromartie leaves, she calls the house to warn them, but John ignores the phone. When Cromartie knocks on their door, John is freaked out, but Riley answers the door (which is what I was thinking, since Cromartie doesn't know Riley), and she manages to convince him that no one else is there, and he leaves.

Sarah and Cameron are able to track down the boys who robbed the house, and I laughed when one of them treated her like a girlie and was smack-talking her, to which she pulls out a gun and says to him "come and give it to me", totally deadpan. She then kills the group of them. Sarah finds a fourth boy in the bathroom, but she covers for him with Cameron and lets him go, making him promise to forget everything about what happened. Sarah has still retained some part of her humanity and can't bring herself to having this boy killed too, but I knew that was going to come back to bite her in the ass.

Sarah bans Riley from the house because she doesn't want John to get any closer to her, and she says that she just wants to protect him, but he angrily spits at her that she didn't protect him from killing the man to set them free.

At the end, Cromartie is shown questioning the fourth boy that Sarah let go. He seems prepared to tell Cromartie the truth, and you know the boy isn't going to survive his encounter with Cromartie.


November 10, 2008 episode

This episode is told from a hybrid "Rashomon"/"Time Code" viewpoint, where the story is told from the point of view of different characters in succession as the events unfold.

Sarah - She had invited Riley over for dinner, even though she was concerned about John's involvement with her. Cameron tells Sarah that she will talk to John about Riley, and then Cameron later tells Sarah that John won't see her anymore. After Cameron leaves, Sarah is taken off guard when Cromartie enters the house and captures her, but when they get to John's room, John isn't there.

Cameron - When she goes to talk to John, she lays in bed with him, scantilly clad, and she tells him how much danger he is putting Riley in. You could tell how uncomfortable her presence was making him. She then goes to the supply drop and runs into Derek there.

John - He's unnerved by his talk with Cameron, but then he sneaks out, and he meets up with Riley, and they take a bus down to Mexico to a city John knows. Unfortunately, a man recognizes John and knows that the authorities are still looking for him. A fight ensues when the man tries to blackmail John to keep silent, but Riley is caught in the melee and John returns. The authorities run a check on John, and John is allowed to call his family. His first call is to Derek, and his second call is to Sarah, but Sarah's unfamiliar responses alert John that something is wrong. Cromartie is presumably voicing Sarah's responses. John and Riley then later break out of their cell when Riley is able to distract the guard.

Sarah - She is kidnapped by Cromartie (who confirms that he knew where to find her because of the fourth boy in the bowling alley), and her attempts to escape only result in Cromartie throwing her in the trunk. She tries to get free, but then she hears a lot of commotion and the car is being driven and gunshots are fired, and when the car stops, the trunk is opened - and she sees Ellison and John.

Ellison - Because of the check run on John in Mexico, Ellison is alerted by one of his former colleagues about the check. Ellison goes down there just before Cromartie shows up and shoots the place up. After catching up with John and Riley, they take off in the car, and when Riley hears noises from the trunk, they stop and find Sarah in the trunk. Ellison says that he's paying back Sarah for having saved his life in the fire in the cabin. As they wait out Cromartie, John gets Riley to reluctantly leave and go home on her own, away from the danger of being with him.

Derek - He and Cameron have arrived at the jail after John's call, but John and Riley have already escaped. Derek gets Sarah's call and meets up with them.

Cromartie - After arriving at the jail, he searches for John. He then sees Ellison and is lured into a church, where he then engages in a spectacular firefight with Derek and Sarah (Jesus crucifixion poses abounding), but it's Cameron who ultimately takes him down, with the final shot coming from John himself. The ending of this episode is very much in contrast to the ending of the last episode, where he lamented having to kill the man, but John is already more hardened here, killing Cromartie with no mercy, though Cromartie is a terminator and not a man.

Cromartie's body is then buried, but Sarah loses it while trying to destroy his chip, and Ellison walks away as John is comforting Sarah, and Derek and Cameron are just looking on. I'm not really sure what the deal is with Ellison, because his actions in this episode seem to come out of nowhere from his actions working for Catherine. I'm not sure if he's just using Catherine to try to find out whatever he can and to have access to her resources. I guess we'll see how that continues to unfold.