Terminator, Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 2, Episode 15, Desert Cantos

Most series pull in the viewers with dramatic stories set to a standard formula, Six Feet Under started with a death every week, Desperate Housewives has the incessant narration of Mary Alice but not The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In a refreshing mix up of television format the TV terminator series seems to subtly change its boundaries each week whilst still providing a compelling story. In Episode 14 we had a glimpse of Sarah’s husband, a guardian angel as he followed her through the episode. In other past episode we’ve flipped between present and future and for Episode 15 we have our story unfold throughout broken down segments of the mass funeral following Catherine Weavers’ murdering spree at the warehouse.

As the residents of the local town draw together in comfort after the death of so many of their loved ones and friends, Sarah, John, Derek and Cameron set about trying to find just what was going on in the warehouse, knowing only too well that it wasn’t an air vent manufacturing plant. Sarah’s vision of the flying bot is still clear in her mind and though the others don’t necessarily believe her they are encouraged to seek to the truth as to what was happening.

Crashing in on the funeral John sets about extracting information from the daughter of a murdered man whilst, seeing the picture of the man who had shot her, Sarah begins a similar treatment on his widow. In the procession John is taken to a scene where cows lay dead surrounding a pool of water by teenage girl, whilst at the funeral Derek realises that they are not the only ones digging for information as he spots someone, sent by Catherine Weaver, to clear up one last mess. Sarah, soaking up information from Diane, another widow, is given a set of keys to a storage box that Diane never knew about and upon entering it finds bloody rags and boxes of belongings – belongings that were a mother and son’s who dramatically vanished after she broke her terms of contract at the warehouse.

At the following wake, with input from Cameron, John & Derek soon realise that the teenage girl John’s been talking to is hiding something – her father isn’t dead after all. Whilst they try to discover why his whereabouts are being covered Sarah is on the trail of the company man, leading her into a basement where she discovers camera feeds and links to all of the company employee’s houses and a tunnel connection two of houses together.

Drawing the family of the non-deceased employee together they set about getting information of his whereabouts and just exactly what was happening at the facility only to met with ignorance and a sense of “never ask, never tell”. Realising that there are not going to gain any valuable information John takes his mother to where the cow carcases are, only to find the dead body of the company man, followed by an eruption from the pool when the bot that Sarah saw explodes out of the water and flies away, entering a truck and being shut down and driven away by the only surviving man from the facility. In no uncertain terms the team now know that there is indeed an AI flying about the skies, but where is Skynet?! Who is Skynet? And whatever happened to finding the Turk?!