Sarah Connor Chronicles recap: episode 1×07, ‘Demon Hand’

Well, another week and another excellent Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles episode. I’m pretty glad Prison Break is over now and that strange feeling of loyalty to writing about it gone.

Because it just sucked really. And Sarah Connor just gets more and more interesting.

This is the recap for episode 1×07 called Demon Hand, which is the dead Terminator appendage that James Ellison found two episodes ago. It’s obviously important as Cyberdyne was founded by Miles Dyson who came into the possession of a hand and microchip in Terminator 2, which was destroyed at the end.

So once again, a robot hand is out there just waiting to fall into the wrong hands.

Cameron is hunting down the Turk in this episode, first learning to ballet in order to get closer to the sister of the guy who helped Adam in the chess episode. We learn that this guy forced the Turk to lose, making it easier for him to sneak out of the building.

We don’t know where it is yet, but we’re close.

I loved the Cameron story this week. She’s a twisted, complicated character, made even worse by the fact she’s a robot. One angle I like is that she goes about getting information without worrying about who dies because of her.

The guy who stole Turk is being hunted because he owes money, and at the end when Cameron could have saved him and his girlfriend, she leaves them behind amid gunshots and screams.

This makes the show gritty and unique. It’s sort of like Lost in a way, where people do die and there is no lovey-dovey hero doing the right thing every week. Cameron is far from a hero and she does what she needs to satisfy her mission.

But perhaps the best part of Demon Hand was all the nods to Terminator 2. First off you get Cameron dressed up as a motorcycle cop with shiny sunglasses just like Robert Patrick from T2.

Yet that was just a tip of the hat, a salute if you will, to the second film.

We really get deep into it when we meet Dr. Silberman, the psychiatrist who witnessed Sarah’s escape with the help of John and the ‘good’ Arnold terminator.

The doctor, after seeing this and believing, lives up in a cabin away from civilization, obviously frightened and paranoid by what he saw.

In fact, Ellison is getting more and more info about the hand, Sarah and how she was locked up, so he goes to visit Silberman. The ex-doctor accuses Ellison of being a robot himself and drugs the guy with a hot cup of tea.

Ellison ends up with a hole in his leg as Silberman tries to prove he’s no machine from the future. They end up talking and you can tell Ellison is a believer now, after all he’s seen. The hand is in the trunk and Silberman goes out to get it.

Sarah realizes what kind of path Ellison is on and deduces that he may have tried to track down Silberman, so she ends up at the house just as Silberman sets fire to his cabin, with Ellison tied up inside and the robot hand in his clutches.

The shock on his face at seeing her was priceless and matched only by the right hook he takes from Sarah that knocks him the frak out. Sarah takes the Demon Hand from Silberman and saves Ellison, a fact we see a bit later.

It was a great moment. Ellison has finally seen her alive, and Silberman gets locked up in the same insane asylum room that Sarah used to inhabit. Justice is served.

There was a whole subplot about Sarah giving up John for adoption, just seconds before she busted out, which was another use of a T2 plot to bring forward to this series.

And at the end, while she’s alone and secretly watched by Derek, Cameron dances some ballet in her room. Derek just stares at her and we see the conflict in his mind. Is he hating her more, or does he wonder if there is something more there?

Next week is the 2-hour season finale. Only 9 hours of this show for season one and we can only hope it returns.

Can’t wait for next week, it looks like a doozy.