"The Demon Hand"
In an episode that is chock full of references to the previous films, the main theme appears to be nature and duality of good and evil or rather, the soulful, feeling human versus the heartless, cold machine, and how each can mimic the other but never can truly be the same.
Cameron acquires a police uniform and motorcycle, disables a portion of the city's power grid then uses the power outage and her disguise to easily enter the police station that is supposed to have the missing Terminator hand (from the episode,
"Queen's Gambit"). Cameron discovers that the hand is not in the evidence room but in the possession of Agent Ellison. Sarah takes matters into her own hands (heh) by tracking down Agent Ellison. It seems that Ellison has not been just twiddling his thumbs (heh) as he has been continuing to piece everything together. He studies the video taped sessions of Sarah while she was in Pescadero State Hospital and even visits the institution, including her old room there. Sarah returns the favor by breaking into Ellison's home looking for the robot hand, and instead discovering the video tapes. A doctor at Pescadero informs Ellison that the physician that cared for Sarah, Doctor Silverman (Bruce Davison), is now a recluse and of course, Ellison decides to pay him a visit. At first the meeting seems to be going along without any issues until Ellison passes out from being drugged by Silverman, who binds Ellison and then stabs him in the leg in attempt to verify that Ellison is not a machine. As it turns out, Silverman has been affected by the previous encounter with Sarah and the Terminators so much so that he now believes, religiously, that Sarah's story is true and attempts to kill Ellison by burning down his own house. Sarah intervenes at the last minute, knocks out Silverman, reacquires the cyborg hand (that Ellison brought with him) and saves Ellison. Later, Ellison has Dr. Silverman committed to Pescadero.
Cameron is assigned the task of finding Dimitri, the person who actually programmed the chess algorithms into Andy Goode's Turk computer, via his sister, Maria. Cameron signs up for ballet classes taught by Maria and eventually gains her confidence. After a brief visit with Dimitri, Cameron is given the name of the person the Turk computer was sold and as she leaves the apartment, both Dimitri and his sister are gunned down by Russian mobsters.
Finally, John finds one of the video tapes that Sarah removes from Ellison's home. In that particular video, Sarah signs away parental rights to John, which upsets him until Sarah explains her actions.
Commentary:
I think these references to the previous films need to stop. OK, maybe not stop completely as I do find them very interesting; however, in this episode it was like major overkill. Seriously, if you do not believe me, here's my list (I'm sure there are more that I missed):
- Cameron wearing the cop outfit, sunglasses and the police motorcycle
- Sarah's video taped sessions
- Sarah's room at Pescadero
- Doctor Silverman returns
- References to the Sarah's breakout from Pescadero
- References to John's foster parents, Todd and Janelle, who were killed by the T1000 in the second film.
Aren't they supposed to keep us wanting more rather than showing us the entire shark? That being said, it's interesting to finally confirm that the events of T2 are canon (or at least the ones referenced in this episode).
Nothing against Lena's performance to date (as I have liked it) but I thought Linda Hamilton played a better psycho Sarah; although I could never picture Linda cooking breakfast like Lena.
Nice way of getting Summer to dance in the episode! Did Cameron inform the mobsters of her meeting with Dimtri or was it just coincidence (as they seemed not to care that she was walking past them)? Summer looked very robotic as she stood there with her back to Sarah at the end. Did she have a cold at the end of the episode?
Why exactly is John upset as Sarah's past should had already been known to him? Unnecessary subplot to an episode that was already overburdened with plot.
So Ellison finally has something to do! Does he believe Sarah's story or is he like Mulder in that he wants to believe but just doesn't have the proof? One would figure the robot hand would be all the proof he needs.
Let's revisit my initial thoughts of the episode dealing with the themes of man versus machine, God versus man and their nature/duality and juxtapositions While I am extremely pleased at thought provoking themes like this is being handled in this television series (as opposed to an Ingmar Bergman film), as with the references to the previous films in this episode, I really felt that it was just too heavy handed. Maybe I shouldn't criticize the show for trying, so you tell me if you think they went overboard or not. Here's my list:
- Sarah walking past all the mausoleum, past all the people interred there until she finds Andy Goode's grave. Cameron walking past all the boxed evidence, looking for the one that contains the cyborg hand.
- Derek's constant warnings about Cameron and later him watching Cameron's graceful dance.
- The exchange between Cameron and Derek:
Cameron: "Dance is the hidden language of the soul."
Derek: "First you have to have a soul."
- The cold nature of Sarah's hospital sessions and John's emotional reaction to them.
- Cameron watching Maria dance (and her students) then mimicking them at the end of the episode, earlier coldly allowing her and Dimitri to get murdered.
- Silverman's religious description of the incident between the two Terminators from the second film
- Silverman's recollection of the T101's 'hand of God' and Sarah's hand as she reaches out to save Ellison from the fire (the episode title itself).
- Sarah's possible prophetic voice over at the end: "They cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us. They will be us."
On that note, it's time to sign off. There are no quotes/nitpicking subsections this week as I have buried some into my commentary above. Until next week's two-hour season finale (here's to hoping it blows us all away!)... I'll be back!
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