Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Episode 2.1 Review & Spoiler

The second season of the T.V. Series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles aired on the Fox Channel on 9/8/08. The first episode of season two is titled Samson & Delilah. Warning: My movie review is also an episode summary so please be aware that major plot details are revealed.

Samson & Delilah is a biblical tale where the seemingly indestructible Samson reveals his weakness to his love Delilah who in turn betrays him. It is a very fitting title of this episode which contains biblical references throughout.

The episode starts where the last episode of season one ended. The family's jeep is blown when Cameron starts the engine. Of course the blast doesn't kill her but slows her down a bit. With lots of damage to her face and a noticeable limp, Cameron slowly makes her way back into the house where Sarkissian and cohort have Sarah and John bound. Cameron kills the cohort and Sarah kills Sarkissian. Cameron then raises her gun and prepares to shoot John but luckily the house blows up at that moment allowing Sarah and John to escape Cameron. Apparently the car bomb has damaged Cameron's microchip and now she is on terminate mode.

Meanwhile, Agent Ellison is in shock of losing 20 of his FBI agents to Cromartie and I am sure he is wandering why Cromartie spared him. Charley, Sarah's ex-fiancé and EMT friend, shows up at the scene. He quickly hears about the house fire at the Connor's house and leaves after checking on Agent Ellison. Charley runs into Derek Reese and they both try to find Sarah Connor.

Meanwhile, Sarah who is an absolutely terrible driver crashes the car. Sarah and John are both visibly hurt and they run to a nearby church for sanctuary. Sarah confronts John about Cameron and they both agree that she must die but John is not very happy with that. Cameron quickly tracks them down but they outsmart her and electrocute her which gives them 2 minutes to act while her system reboots. John tries to remove her microchip but is unable to due to nerves and the wrong screwdriver. John and Sarah run away with Cameron hot on their trail.

Sarah carjacks a car and drives around erratically hitting more stuff. Did I mention she is a bad driver? Sarah drives right by Cameron so she snags the vehicle and causes it to flip. Sarah insists John runs away while a badly hurt Sarah drags herself out of the car. Cameron doesn't kill Sarah, instead she runs after John. Apparently her terminate mode is only set for John. After a couple cat and mouse scenes, Sarah and John pin Cameron in between two huge trucks. As John is trying to remove Cameron's microchip she starts pleading with him very emotionally not to kill her. John is taken back by her sudden display of emotions and her profession of love and he starts to falter. Sarah is yelling at him to do it so he quickly rips out the chip.

Charley and Derek show up and patch Sarah and John up. They take Cameron's body to a junkyard and are preparing to torch it. John is obviously torn but he appears to get ready to light her body up when he quickly puts in the chip before anyone could stop him. John has a gun pointed at her when she slowly opens her eyes and says "Are you here to kill me John?" He then asks her if she is there to kill him and when she says no he hands her his gun and says prove it. You can see in her eyes that her terminate mode is still on but somehow she overrides her own commands and hands the gun back to John.

At the end of the episode, Cameron is seen staring at a crucifix and asks Sarah if she believes in the resurrection. Sarah just blows her off and says she isn't very religious. John cuts off his long hair and gives himself a buzz cut. Again this is reference to the biblical story of Samson. Samson could only be hurt when his hair was cut off.

A new threat is introduced throughout the episode. The audience is introduced to Catherine Weaver, played by Shirley Manson. She is a businesswoman who buys the Turk. She is creating some kind of group that she is calling Babylon (another biblical reference). It is revealed at the end of the episode that Catherine is actually a terminator, the highly developed kind that can shape shift. Oh and she experiences feelings. This is important because Sarah mentions in this episode that the robots don't have feelings, Seems like she wrong and the robots are evolving.

This episode was excellent. It had great action scenes with an awesome soundtrack. The music director did a great job paring the perfect songs to certain scenes. I am very intrigued with where they are taking Cameron and this new threat Catherine in the seemly development of human feelings. Overall, this is one of my favorite episodes in the series