Plot
The "reborn" fleshed-out Cromartie visits a plastic surgeon's office. He takes off his mask to reveal the horror show that is his new face, and forces the surgeon to operate on him to make him look like George Laszlo, a former patient of the doctor's whose facial structure is fairly close to Cromartie's metal skeleton. Ellison follows the "weird blood" trail of Cromartie's and other Terminators' killings. He arrests Laszlo but finds his blood to be normal. After he gets home, however, Laszlo is killed and replaced by his new double Cromartie.
In voiceover, Sarah mentions the story of the Golem, which she told John when he was little, and that it scared him. Sarah finds John looking at Jordan (the high school girl who commited suicide)'s memorial website. She tells him it wasn't his fault. Cameron announces Cromartie's return: a shipment of coltan has been diverted to help build the Terminators' endoskeletons. She then informs them that Cromartie's head came through the time portal. Sarah wants to flee immediately, but John persuades her that it's time for them to start fighting back.
Sarah, John, and Cameron go to the warehouse to wait for Cromartie, but they have no idea what he looks like. They decide to follow a truck carrying the coltan, and witness another Terminator (not Cromartie) picking it up. On discovering that the Terminator isn't Cromartie and is on a mission unconnected to John, Sarah and Cameron want to give up and leave, but John, determined to stop being so passive, runs back into the warehouse to plant his phone on the truck as a tracking device. John ends up trapped in the truck as it leaves, and Cameron and Sarah have to rescue him. They force a human minion of the Terminator to take them to the military base that the Terminator has infiltrated. It turns out that the Terminator's mission was to seal itself into a fallout shelter on the base along with the coltan, and then wait for Judgement Day.
John is trapped with the Terminator in the shelter, but eventually manages to escape with his mother and Cameron, leaving the Terminator trapped inside the shelter. They tip the truck with the coltan over a cliff into the ocean, but Cameron secretly keeps one bar, presumably for self-repair purposes.
Tropes
- Blatant Lies: Sarah looking for her puppy.
- Cat Scare: When the Connors are waiting for Cromartie at the docks, a very large man wearing sunglasses and carrying a pistol arrives with a deliberate tread. When Cameron jumps him and knocks him out, he turns out to have just been the human security guard.
- Enhance Button: Cameron enhances the background of a TV broadcast of the phone video of naked Sarah to reveal Cromartie's skull on the ground in the background. Downplayed, since the picture is still very blurry and Cameron knew exactly what she was looking for as soon as she saw the twin red lights.
- Gilligan Cut: After Sarah tells the worker he can go...if he can get past Cameron, we see him driving very fast and looking nervous.
- Golem: Part of the meta-story and Sarah's Warrior Poet monologues, Sarah told John the story of the Golem when he was little and it scared him. As a theme, of course, AI was created by humans and then the creation got out of control. The reborn Cromartie has an appearance like a lump of clay.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Sarah and Cameron tie a worker to a chair and beat him.
- Kill and Replace: What Cromartie does to the unfortunate George Laszlo.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Discussed by the FBI. The "patient" had surgery without anesthetic.
- Mirror Routine: A ghastly version. Cromartie holds up Laszlo's head and mimics the actor in his death shrieks. He then kills him.
- Mythology Gag:
- Explained. The reason that the rebels use (will use, had used?) dogs to detect Terminators is the synthetic blood that the Terminators use is irritating to dogs' sense of smell, hence, the incessant barking when Terminators are present.
- Continuing the references to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron throws a security guard across the room. She then checks on him and says "He'll survive."
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ellison inadvertently teaches Cromartie how to act like an FBI agent, including handing out his card and "Thank you for your time."
- Punch a Wall: Sarah hits the computer when they lose John's cell phone signal.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: As John tries to drive the truck out of the warehouse Carter(the Terminator) attempts to stop the truck by standing in front of it and holding it back. Not only does he stop the truck, but he is able to push it back. None of this is possible, as his mass and weight is far less than that of the truck, and his boots don't have the friction to overcome the weight and traction of a Class-5 truck with a four-wheel rear axle.
- Shout-Out: The coltan crates and the truck bear the company name Tetsuo.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The coltan-hoarding Terminator kills all his minions once the task is complete.
