"Alpine Fields"

Episode Rating: A-

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

"He's human?"

"Yes, of course!"

"My mistake."

Wow...that has to be the most hilarious dead-pan line ever delivered. This was a dark episode, but seeing Cameron kill a man, only to realize that the guy was human, and shrug it off as an interesting sort of coincidence made me laugh very hard. Somebody please give Summer Glau a major award (like an Emmy) because I can't think of another actress who could make that line work.

Alpine Fields gets high marks for that moment alone, but the rest of the episode was pretty damn good. The only major flaw was that it felt disconnected from the rest of the season, especially when it jumped six months forward. This episode and last week's installment could actually have been aired out of order without anyone noticing. Last week's episode revolved around how a Terminator was sent to the wrong point in time, and built a hotel so it could wait to assassinate the Governor of California (which would be Arnold Schwarzenegger...is that a thinly veiled threat or a fun reference to the films?); we never learned why the governor was a target for assassination, and when you combine that loose end with Cameron's discovery of the three dots, I felt for sure that tonight's episode would continue those plot threads.

Instead, the episode opened with Derek treating a beaten, bloody pregnant woman (definitely one of the most WTF? openings I've seen in a while), and from there, the episode took place in three times. The central one was Derek treating the pregnant lady, while flashbacks to six months earlier showed Sarah protecting the family from a Terminator. Years in the future (which is actually a flashback for Derek...does that count as two flashbacks?), we saw how Derek met Jesse, and learned the importance of the targeted Fields family.

So yeah...a lot happened in this episode, and it was as riveting as it was confusing. While I thoroughly enjoyed it, the fact that it didn't really connect itself to the rest of the season in any way (this was the series' first episode without John, for example) weakened it a bit; I also felt that the six-month time jump didn't make a lick of sense. Is the next episode going to happen following the events of the flashback (the flashback to Sarah's rescue of the Fields', not Derek's flashback of the future...I'm getting a headache writing sentences like that) or will it pick up where Derek was six months later? Will we see, perhaps near the end of the season, the show catch up with the moment where Derek is called to save the Fields'? That could be really interesting, but we won't know until next week, or possibly later if this trend continues.

So, you've heard my complaints; let's talk about what was good. First off, the writers proved (as if they hadn't before) that they are masters of multiple-timelines. This episode was all over the place, but everything fit together quite well. The story, in the future (or the past for Derek), showed a few key moments that we'd already heard about in dialogue between Derek and Jesse; the moment where they first met had already been described, and it was cool to see it happen. The ultimate revelation about how the baby's role in the future was well done and the moment where we learned that the older sister did in fact survive really tied the episode together.

The future-flashbacks also fleshed out Derek's character even more, and the entire idea of what his character represents. Derek is the kind of guy who lost everything because of SkyNet, and in a sense, he mentors the older sister in the present; she's going to go through (and has gone through) similar experiences. This, to me, was what really made the episode great. Derek can be one of TV's most badass heroes one minute, and then be a very understanding, empathetic one the next. The fact that the sisters saved his life in the future only added extra depth to it all.

The rescue in the flashback to six months ago (and here's one of my main complaints-I can't tell if this was present and Derek saving the pregnant woman was a flash-forward, or if the show's present jumped six months and the rescue was a flash- back) was thrilling, certainly, but lacked some of the tension of similar rescues in the show's history. The family was fairly annoying during this part of the episode, and the Terminator sent to kill them was acting exceedingly dumb. Still, Cameron had some great lines ("This wouldn't work for that... or a bear"), and for me, it was the concept behind this rescue that made the episode great.

Season 2's focal point has become the list that the man from the future wrote in blood on the basement wall, which, as the weeks go by, has been revealed to be a sort of "hit-list" that SkyNet is following, and which Sarah and co. have to stop. I realized, tonight, that the show's scope is really quite epic in size; the films are about a Terminator coming from the future to kill John and a protector travelling back to save him. T2 touched on a bigger picture when Sarah and Arnold decided to stop SkyNet in the past, but the TV series has run with that concept an amazingly long way. Now the war is being fought in the past; instead of just focusing on terminators killing John, it's about SkyNet wiping out the entire resistance in the past. Terminator 3 sucked for many reasons, but the primary cause was that its scope wasn't increased beyond what T2 showed us; if anything, the scope shrunk. SCC is a better sequel to T2 because it took that film's epic scope and enhanced it even more, to the point where the characters are engaged in a full blown war in the past.

Where will that war lead the characters? Next week is the last episode for 2008, but the show will return for the remainder of season 2 on February 13 th, 2009, which is a Friday. I would suggest that fans of the show jot that down because if we want to see a third season, every fan will have to watch it when it returns.

Next week's Terminator review will be my last weekly review of the show, because when it returns in February, my "Lost" column will be in full swing (and reviewing a show on Friday conflicts with my busy weekend-review schedule). Tomorrow night's House review will probably be pushed to Wednesday, and it will possibly be the last weekly House review. However, I might return with House reviews in January if response to the next review is strong. If you want to see it (or Terminator) continue, leave a comment or send me an e-mail at jrlack@lmresources.com ; if readers like it, then I'll find room for it in January. Meanwhile, I'll have a Blu-Ray review of Dark Knight posted later this week, probably Friday. There should be a Film Review this weekend as well, and the 12 Days of Christmas special feature article will begin on Saturday (more on that in a later post).