The episode begins with highway workers cleaning trash from the side of the freeway. One of the workers notices the Terminator skull that was Cromartie and takes it for himself.
Sarah is unpacking and John is tinkering with electronics. John is going stir crazy after three days inside, so Sarah agrees to look up an old friend to get their new identity paperwork. Cameron reveals another source for counterfeit identities that are actually resistance fighters that John sent back in time from the future. When they are alone, Sarah is furious with Cameron for withholding that information.
Sarah and Cameron go to the safe house where the resistance fighters are staying. When they arrive, they find four bodies lying on the floor, apparently dead. They all bear bar code tattoos on their forearms, a legacy from being prisoners in a Skynet work camp. When Cameron turns the fourth body over, it turns out to be very much alive, and a Terminator, who killed the other three and lay in ambush waiting for the fourth member to return. Cameron and the Terminator begin hand combat, and Sarah is knocked unconscious in the melee. She quickly recovers as the battle continues furiously, with both Terminators flying out of the third floor window to the alley below. The unknown Terminator evaluates Cameron and determines she is not part of it's mission, so it decides evasion is the proper action and takes off running with Cameron in pursuit and Sarah following on a stolen motorcycle. Sarah intentionally lays the bike down and crashes it into the Terminator, but Cameron is struck by a car while crossing the street to finish it. The Terminator escapes.
Sarah is furious with Cameron again, accusing her of lying about them being safe in this new time period (2007). She asks why they didn't just stay in the past, where she would have had seven more years to prepare John. Cameron tells her that she was going to die of cancer two years ago, in 2005.
At home, they discuss the issue of the Terminator. Cameron states it was sent here for the resistance fighters, and not John or Sarah. It does not know who they are, and would walk right by them if it met them in the street. Sarah asks what if it finds out their identity, and Cameron confirms it would kill them.
Sarah and Cameron next go to see Enrique, Sarah's friend from years ago, about their new identity papers. He tells Sarah that he is retired from the family business, but his nephew Carlos is now in charge.
John leaves the house and heads for a local mall, disobeying Sarah's orders. He uses a demonstration computer to search for his name online and finds a story of the bank explosion from seven years ago that sent them into the future. The story has photos of himself, Sarah and Cameron entering the bank, supposedly to rob it. He is unaware that the laptop he is using is connected to a much larger display behind him that anyone can see. He also finds a story about Sarah's fiancée Charley, who is now a paramedic in Van Nuys California. A saleswoman comes up and points out the display, and shows him how to clear his browsing history. John is shaken and leaves.
The highway worker arrives home with the Terminator skull and sets it on the counter, where the eyes turn red indicating it has rebooted. Somewhere in a scrapyard, the rest of Cromartie awakens and climbs out of a pile of scrap metal from the bank. A security guard and dog happen by and are killed.
Sarah and Cameron reach Carlos' house and go inside to talk with him about getting some new identities. Cameron's presence sets off Carlos' dogs and Sarah tells Cameron to wait outside. A Latino girl about Cameron's age tries to intimidate her but Cameron just emulates the girl's actions. Carlos tells Sarah he will get her identities, but the cost is $20,000. Carlos recognizes her from photos in the paper about eight years ago, and knows she is close to his uncle and knows some of his uncle's secrets that Carlos wants to find out. He is trying to extort information out of her, but she is not biting. He tells her that 9/11 changed everything, and that being connected to terrorists is dangerous business. Sarah asks what 9/11 is and Carlos and his men get a chuckle out of that.
Outside, a police car shows up and the officer starts hassling the girl about hanging around the neighborhood. The girl leaves and the officer starts questioning Cameron about who she is and why she is in a gang neighborhood. The officer heads back to his car to call in the license plate numbers of the car that Cameron stole, and she turns in preparation to kill him when Sarah arrives. She pretends that Cameron is her step-daughter and she is at her wits end trying to keep her away from her punk boyfriend. The officer believes Sarah and asks them to take their disagreement home. As they are walking home, Sarah asks if Cameron takes orders from John. She says yes, but not this John. She reflects on what Carlos and his gang told her about 9/11, and imagines that if she had lived through that atrocity, she would have thought it was the start of the apocalypse.
John tracks down Charley's house and breaks in, discovering Charley is now a married man. Charley comes home and catches him and can't believe he is still alive, even though he saw the video footage of Sarah's arrival at the freeway on the news. Charley keeps inching closer to John, trying to embrace him but John strikes him and throws him down, apologizing as he leaves.
John manages to make it home just before Sarah and Cameron arrive. He thinks he has fooled them, but they both know he has been out, each using her own observational techniques.
The three of them return to the safe house to retrieve the assets that Cameron says the resistance fighters had hidden, including money and guns. Cameron says the Terminator would not care about those items, it was only after the fourth fighter, and that it will eventually find him. Cameron notices a kitty poster on the wall, and John realizes it is concealing something. A wall safe is behind the poster and when Cameron reaches to open it, an electric current booby-trap knocks her across the room, shutting her system down for 120 seconds. John wants to leave but Sarah insists they needs what that safe contains and can't come back. The Terminator hears the commotion from downstairs and starts up. John manages to open the safe using the date of judgment day as the combination. They lift Cameron into a chair and John checks on the fire escape and Sarah uses the chair to fling Cameron out the window to fall to the alley below, landing on top of and crushing the roof of a car. When they make it down the fire escape to the alley, Cameron reboots and they flee, not noticing someone in the alley watching them, someone with a bar code tattooed to his forearm. The Terminator kicks down the door of the safe house, but is too late to catch them. At home, they discover guns, cash, and a bag of loose diamonds.
At the highway worker's house, Cromartie breaks in wearing a motorcycle helmet. The worker confronts Cromartie, and opens the visor on the helmet to reveal the dead eyes and head of the scrapyard security guard, and below that the metal skeleton of the Terminator. Cromartie kills the highway worker and reclaims it's skull.
Sarah and Cameron return to Carlos to get their new identities. While they wait, the Latino girl applies makeup to Cameron as a sign of truce. Carlos comments that they did not waste any time getting the money, he probably could have charged more. Sarah declares his uncle would be proud. As they leave, Carlos says something to one of his crew in Spanish and Sarah takes note.
At Charley's house, his wife notices some abrasions on him and he tells her it was someone stoned on meth that did it, intentionally not revealing the news about John and Sarah being alive.
Sarah shows up at Enrique's house and points a gun at him. She wants to know why his nephew Carlos was referring to him as a snitch. She wants to know if he is selling her out. He says he informed on a cell mate that kidnapped a child. Sarah starts to believe him just as Cameron shows up and kills Enrique. Sarah asks why and Cameron says he could have been lying, and that Sarah wouldn't be able to do it.
At home the next day, Cameron is grilling John on his new identity, making sure he knows it backwards and forwards. John comments that in all of his alternate identities, his father is always dead, and always a hero.
At Enrique's house, the police are investigating the murder. Agent Ellison is there, reviewing a voice mail from Enrique saying he has some information. He was an informer after all.
While John and Cameron start at their new school, Sarah undergoes testing with an Oncologist, checking for cancer.
Written by pentar on Dec 14, 2015