Episode 4: Heavy Metal
The Plot
John struggles over the death of suicidal girl in school and still blames Cameron for letting her die. But Cameron has important news: she has detected sabotage in LA docks which would reroute a shipment of coltan. This led her to suspect Cromartie was still around, so she went searching for their highway nudist footage. Fortunately, the footage is still available and lo and behold, our heroes see Cromartie's head coming through. This causes Sarah a minor freakout, but John persuades her to stay and fight Cromartie by ambushing him at the docks.
Unfortunately it's another Terminator, Carter, who steals coltan with his henchmen. Sarah wants to retreat and formulate a new plan; but frustrated John just dives in and ends up trapped in a speeding truck, carried away to wherever Carter wants to go. After some hiccups and henchman interrogation, Sarah and Cameron find out where: abandoned Depot 37 in a military gunnery range. Carter plans to seal the doors and wait out the Judgement day in the depot, netting Skynet a neat little package of very valuable coltan. He executes his henchmen and deactivates, leaving John alone in a sealed depot with a pile of coltan. John picks up rotating phone, contacts Sarah and Cameron and together they re-open the doors and escape, leaving Carter behind closing doors inside the bunker. Our heroes send a truck full of coltan to the bottom of nearby lake and set off home. Sarah waxes poetically. John hides his shaky hands. Cameron produces a coltan brick she has secretly stolen from the truck.
Meanwhile in the B-plot, Cromartie forces a lonely plastic surgeon to turn him from a burn victim into Owain Yeoman a struggling actor named Lazlo. He then kills the surgeon and leaves, picked up by the security camera… before and after the transformation. Since he also left some of his robo-blood on the scene, Ellison soon appears to investigate, but his FBI peers just point and laugh at him. Cromartie kills and replaces struggling actor named Lazlo, his scheme to create a new cover for infiltrating human society finally complete.
"You just seem down… downer than usual" – Sarah Connor, the morale officer
Thoughts and Questions
Plans are for people in control of their own lives: John is terribly frustrated by previous episode's events, angry at Cameron and feels helpless. This contributes to his insistence on proactive approach with Cromartie and to his decision to take a mad dive which nearly costs him his life. Nevertheless, he thinks on his feet, does a couple of neat tricks, talks his way out of being shot by angry henchman and generally holds himself really good. He even puts up a brave face in the end for his mother. Our boy John is going to be a hero yet.
Also, John is ten years out of practice, but still a hacker!
Gracchus, something more cheerful: The melody has actually contributed a lot to the scene in Depot 37. It's strange that music becomes noticeable so far into the series (it's Bear McCreary's after all), but it's a welcome change nonetheless.
Terminator is a pretty cool guy: This week's terminator is Carter, who has infiltrated US military and runs his own gang of thieves on a gunnery range. I like him. Maybe there is something natural about a Terminator running around in military uniform, ordering his own little unit. Carter is not perfect, but the actor does a great job in his bit part. He is cool, he is menacing, he falls on his fists like a boss, he does not spout catchphrases before securing his target… can we ditch Cromartie and keep this one? He doesn't even need a plastic surgery, just a bandaid for his scar.
A cunning scheme: so, it is time for clever ideas. I believe that TSCC pioneers the idea of Skynet Terminator doing something other than terminating. In this case, Mr. Carter secures valuable materials for his metal boss to use after the Judgement day. It's a neat idea, since breakdown of global economy would mean that Skynet is unlikely to receive shipment of anything from anywhere unless Skynet makes the arrangements himself.
Granted, it's a cunning scheme with certain glaring issues. I'll allow for a decommissioned depot which has lights, automatic doors and plugged in phone, maybe it's different in US. But Carter has four henchmen, none of whom got paid. Two were shot immediately but Carter made no effort to locate and eliminate the other two before going into standby inside the depot with coltan shipment. Which leaves at least two people who (as far as Carter knows) could reveal his scheme, willingly or otherwise. And one of them did. Furthermore, the depot may be out of commission, but the range where it is located isn't and Carter works there. So even if our heroes didn't come to ruin Carter's day, there is a high chance that the army or police would do so later.
Face off: behold! Cromartie has finally achieved his goal and attained what he needed to follow Connors: a nice human face. Of course, Cromartie is a silly robot, so he allowed his new face to be immediately recorded leaving the murder scene and robo blood was left behind to make the connection just a little bit more obvious. What was the point of killing and replacing Lazlo if Lazlo immediately ended up on FBI's radar? At very least Cromartie's proto-face of burn victim was anonymous.
That being said, the scene with Cromartie grabbing Lazlo and copying his agonized expression in the mirror was pretty neat. Small steps, I guess.
Thank you for (not) explaining: Cameron finds out that Cromartie is, canon and common sense be damned, still around. Her method is less of a deduction and more of an insane leap of logic. If coltan shipment was rerouted, this must surely be Cromartie repairing himself!
Of course, this is not how anything works. Even if Cromartie actually has the knowledge how to create new arms/legs/whatever, he would still need specialized tools and facilities to turn coltan (and presumably other materials) into future tech for which there is currently no industrial base. A pile of metal does not Abrams tank make.
But this logical leap has prompted Cameron to check TV footage of them three flashing the highway in the pilot. A question arises why Cameron has not done so sooner – this widely distributed footage is the best lead any enemy might have on Connors in 2007. One would think Cameron would want to know how badly they are compromised. I would say very badly, but between FBI, police, nosy neighbors, hostile Terminators and Greys, Charlie the Not-Quite-Stepdad is literally the only person in the world who cares.
To bait with a brick: yes, I'm terribly intrigued why Cameron has kept a piece of coltan for herself while hiding this fact from Sarah and John. I'm sure there is a clever pay off to this down the line.
A modern day Sherlock Holmes: Even as Cameron hits the bullseye while firing in the wrong direction, Ellison and FBI can't hit a broad side of the Great Wall with a shovel. They have a recording of Cromartie entering the building, spending a weekend inside with the surgeon and then leaving, his new face recorded neatly on camera. Cromartie was sloppy again, since the police find roboblood on the scene of murder. It does not take a genius to put two and two together and understand that Cromartie has had his new Lazlo face done on the weekend and then killed the surgeon. But FBI dismisses Ellison's theory since… "the job like that, four, five hours under the knife" would require anesthesia and according to the records, none was used.
But FBI has cleared real Lazlo's blood, meaning it was no Lazlo on the footage. So unless Lazlo has an evil twin who likes to stick around plastic surgeon's office on weekends, it's a given that fake Lazlo/Cromartie had a Lazlo facejob done. Given that the surgery was done off the books, with no appointment, in off hours and ended in murder, lack of official record for anesthesia is hardly surprising - both the doctor and fake Lazlo could bring some off the books stuff for what was clearly a shady job. Finally, Cromartie might not have needed anesthesia, but he would still need everything else. Pieces of tissue, stents, dermal adhesives, the list goes on, there should be all sorts of things lying around or missing from the office proving that someone has indeed been put under the knife.
Can we assign this case to Agent Frawley?
Conclusion
The season is picking up steam! John pushes back against his pilot fears, asserting himself. Sarah leaves a man to die a terrible death alone in the mine field because John really is her world. Our heroes actually strike back against Skynet operation. A proper antagonist of the week, a daring raid and a narrow escape, what's not to like? Cromartie/FBI B-plot, of course, but it's mercifully short, so what the heck.
Trivia
* Dream Sequence Time: 5:55
* Successful Missions by Future John: 0
* Meanwhile, on Skynet's Secret War In The Past:
- 1 theft
- 1 identity theft
- 2 counts of physical assault
- 1 assault on the clinic
- 1 arson
- 11 murders
- 2 shootouts in residential areas
- 1 assault on the bank
- 1 school shooting
- 2 counts of public robo-bits exposure
- 2 counts of robo-blood exposure to the FBI
- 1 exposure of future skin formula to the law enforcement
Thankfully the matter was cleared up in this episode. Nobody cares.
