The episode begins with Cameron dressed as a motorcycle cop, breaking into a power plant. She disables one of the turbines, causing a power outage at a the central LA police station. She enters the station during the confusion of evacuation and proceeds to the evidence storage area. She goes through the evidence collected for the Andy Goode murder, but doesn't find what she is looking for. The last person to sign the log sheet was FBI Agent Ellison. Cameron delivers the bad news that the FBI now has the missing hand from the Terminator. Sarah recommends that John miss school to help retrieve it, but John demurs, noting that absence from school gets him on the radar.
Sarah sends Cameron to search for Dimitri, the missing chess master, their only lead to Andy Goode's missing computer system, Turk. She then calls the FBI, pretending to be from LA police evidence section, asking about a missing prosthetic hand, saying it was a screw-up that it was signed out. The FBI has no record of it, and agent Ellison denies ever seeing it.
Ellison reviews the evidence from the Miles Dyson murder including video footage of Sarah Connor's time under psychological review at the hospital. A statement on the video starts Ellison thinking, and he goes to his freezer where he has stored the flesh covered hand recovered at the crime scene where Derek Reese escaped. Ellison looks closer, thinking about the question of the missing prosthetic hand from LA evidence and realizes the hand he recovered may be evidence that Sarah Connor was correct when she talked about the robots from the future.
Ellison visits Pescadero State Hospital where Sarah Connor was treated and asks to talk with anyone that worked there during that time. He is told that no one is left, and Dr. Silberman, her primary doctor has retired.
Sarah breaks into Ellison's house to look for the missing hand. She discovers files and videos of her from her stay at Pescadero, and the evidence from the Miles Dyson murder. She gathers one of the tapes to take with her.
Cameron enrolls in a ballet class run by Dimitri's sister Maria. A man comes in looking for her brother who owes him money. Cameron overhears and realizes this is the lead she has been looking for.
John comes home from school to find Derek recovered enough to do a weapons check on their cache. He starts questioning John's judgment of calling Charley, saying he is a liability. Sarah comes home while he is ranting about Cameron, saying she should be destroyed, that they are not pets that can be trained.
John walks away and finds the videotape that Sarah stole from Ellison of her time in Pescadero. Tears come to his eyes as he starts watching it.
The next morning, John gives Sarah the address for Dr. Silberman he looked up for her and rushes out to school without breakfast. Sarah notices the tape is missing from her bag and checks his room where the tape is in the machine. She plays the tape which shows her signing away her parental rights to John.
Ellison arrives at the home of Dr. Silberman to talk with him about Sarah. Silberman serves tea as he talks about his diagnosis of Sarah, until Ellison starts feeling dizzy and collapses to the floor, drugged by Silberman. Ellison awakens to find himself tied to a chair. Silberman accuses him of being one of them, from the future. To verify his theory, he takes a knife and cuts into Ellison's thigh. He discovers that Ellison is human and apologizes. He starts talking about the apocalypse, wondering if the account in the Bible and Sarah Connor's story of the end of the world are one and the same. He then recounts Sarah's escape from the hospital and the two Terminators. He remembers the big Terminator reaching to help Sarah up from the floor, like the hand of God. He says that since there is no physical evidence, no one ever talks about those events. Ellison tells him that he has found evidence, and it is the hand of God. Silberman goes to Ellison's car and retrieves the Terminator hand. He comes back and tells Ellison that he won't let him stop Sarah. He pours gasoline on the floor of the cabin and sets it on fire with Ellison inside. Sarah arrives and Silberman gawks in amazement. He apologizes to her for ever doubting her story and she punches him in the face and confiscates the Terminator's hand. She then hears screams coming from inside the burning building. In the next scene, Ellison is free and standing in a deluge of water that has put out the fire. He points a gun at Silberman and asks about the hand and is told Sarah took it.
Cameron returns to the ballet studio and starts asking Maria questions about her brother. The loan shark returns and threatens Maria. To Maria's shock, Cameron steps in and knocks him across the room. She tells Maria that she needs to find Dimitri, that she can help them, so Maria takes her to Dimitri. He says he purposely sabotaged the computer so it would lose the final match against the Japanese. That way he would be able to steal it and sell it to payoff the loan shark to whom he owed money. Cameron gives him a diamond and asks who bought the Turk, but all he has is a business card. A car arrives with some of the loan shark's men. Cameron leaves without doing anything to help and Dimitri and Maria are killed.
When Sarah returns home, Cameron gives her the business card. Sarah then goes to talk to John about the videotape. She explains that she knew immediately that she made a mistake for signing away her parental rights to him and was going to escape or die trying. Together they take the Terminator's hand and destroy it.
Ellison has Silberman committed to the same mental hospital where he used to work. He experiences a flash of memory about the fire, and Sarah Connor reaching out a hand to save his life.
Derek passes by Cameron's room and sees her practicing ballet. The concept of a machine creating art horrifies him.
Written by pentar on Feb 11, 2016