First of all, I’m sorry for the posting delay. I had to recover from bashing my forehead against my coffee table after watching the BSG finale. I’m sure y’all understand.

Anyway, onto the second part of the episode that kicked off last week:

Riley’s still dead. That’s the good news. The better is that John did indeed deduce from the defensive wounds on Riley’s body that there’s no way in Hades Cameron did it – if she wants you dead, you’re dead, and no time for a slappy fight first. He talks to Uncle Derek in the car about Derek’s future and, while we don’t hear the rest of that conversation, it becomes pretty dern clear later in the eppie what it was about.

A very-fit Jessie is at the pool reminiscing about her time in the sub with the Trip-8 Queeg and her ever-nervous crew.  Crewman Deets incites them to doubt Queeg and the entire mission, because why won’t he just say what’s in the box? Jessie remains loyal to her captain and the mission, but her own doubts continue to grow as Queeg refuses to confide in her, either.

John and Sarah have a heart-to-heart about Riley and there’s a great little moment when he says, “I’m sorry I doubted you,” that Sarah thinks is directed to her, but just as she’s feeling all maternally melty, he says, “Not you,” and stares directly at Cameron, who is standing quietly behind her. Psyche, mom!

Jessie’s crew, led by Deets, decides to pop the lid off the box and that works out great when it turns out there’s a puddle of T-1000 inside. It forms, stabs one of the female crew through the chest, and gives the rest of them the patented “don’t do it” finger waggle we first saw in Terminator 2.  Then it melts down and shoots away into the vents. Awe. Some. This is apparently the first time humans have seen a liquid metal Terminator and they are justifiably freaked. When Queeg won’t allow them to search for the thing, their suspicions go through the sub roof, including Jessie’s.

In the present, Sarah tries to have another comforting heart-to-heart with John, but he’s not having it. Meanwhile, John Henry is painting D&D  miniatures with Ellison and learning about souls. J-H asks Ellison if they’re friends and Ellison looks perturbed.

Back in the YMCA Pool of Memory, we flashback to Deets becoming suspicious of his crewmates and whether they are what they appear to be, or if they’re stealth “metal.” Deets starts a mutiny in the mess hall that leads to the crew beating the crap out of Jessie…until Queeg comes in and lobs Deets into the nearest bulkhead, killing the crap out of him. Despite the fact that Queeg probably saved her life, his killing a human in front of her is the moment that pushes Jessie over the edge into Don’t-Trust-The-Metalville.

John goes off somewhere and Cam is about to follow when Sarah stops her. Sarah wants to know why Cameron is really there with them and insinuates that Future John sent her away from him for a reason other than just protecting his past self. Mee-ooow, Sarah.

John Henry is still up painting when the Weaver-1000 comes down to visit. Ellison apparently trusts him enough now to leave him operational without human supervision. Weaver is pleased with this, until J-H tells her he’s been playing around in the company files. He’s found documentation on employees that left showing they’ve moved, gotten other jobs, etc., except that they then vanish without any further outside record. Ellison and Murch also have complete files on leaving the company and going to new jobs, which J-H finds a wee bit suspicious, especially since there’s no dates on them. He point-blank asks Weaver if she’s going to kill his friend and she tells him that they’re merely prepared in case he disappoints them, as humans are wont to do. Again, I still can’t figure out why she wants J-H taught that human life is sacred and souls are good and the Ten Commandments if her plan is to launch the rise of the machines.

In the past, Jessie confronts Queeg in the wheelroom. He notes that she looks ill repeatedly, and that turns out to be a significant point later. In the short term, Queeg clearly hasn’t had an Ellison in his life, as he is unmoved by Jessie’s pleas that killing humans is bad, m’kay? She tells him he’s relieved of command and that she, as ranking human, is taking control. At first, he seems to comply, but then he tells the Chief to escort Jessie to her rack, saying his classified mission protocol overrides all other considerations.

Her final pleas fall on deaf ears, so she pulls out an energy rifle and blows a hole through Queeg’s head, chip and all. She then sets the sub to self-destruct and evacuates the crew. Her intention is for the liquid metal to sink to the depths, but it has other ideas. It stops her on the way out and tells her to tell John Connor that the answer is no, whatever that means. Then it squirms out of the sub and swims away.

In the present, Jessie returns home to her apartment to find John waiting for her in her apartment with a gun. Ruh-roh, Scooby. Then John gives her a rundown on how he figured out who she is and how he found her — guess that’s what he had the chat about with Derek in the car. John monologues that he grew suspicious enough of Riley’s myriad slips of the tongue and odd behavior to start following her and that he figured out that she was from the future awhile ago. Which kind of casts his conversations with her  in a new light and makes me happy that John wasn’t being a complete dumb kopf. Jessie plays counselor long enough to tell John that he didn’t help Riley or admit he knew what she was up to because he wanted Riley to know who he really was and to love him anyway. John implies that the only reason he’s not blowing Jessie’s head clean off her shoulders is that Derek loves her and she and John are the only people he has in the world.  Aw.

Before Jessie leaves, she asks John if her plan would have worked — if Cam had killed Riley (or been framed), would he have turned on her. John says no and I’m not sure if he’s being honest or just doesn’t want to give Jessie the satisfaction of thinking that her plan ever had a snowball’s chance of success. Jessie says it’s all a damned waste then, and leaves.

Back to the future for the last flash, we see Jessie talking to Future Cameron at Serrano Point and getting dressed down for losing the submarine. Cam wants the answer the T-1000 gave her and Jessie resists, saying the message was for John Connor. Cameron insists that telling her is the same as telling John and Jessie realizes that Deets was right about Connor’s machine love. She tells her the answer and Cam looks disturbed. Jessie demands to know the question and Cameron actually tells her — it was, “Will you join us?”

We now have a clue as to the future politics going on; there does seem to be a rift between the liquid metal and the hard metal Terminators, perhaps because of Connor’s forced chip alliances. Cam then drops the final torpedo on Jessie, telling her that Jessie lost her baby with which she was pregnant and apparently didn’t know. Obviously, Derek’s baby. The last remnant of Jessie’s soul is crushed into oblivion.

Jessie heads out after her present-day confrontation with John and walks into Derek, who is waiting outside. He tells her that he killed Billy Wisher, his best bud, in his past/our present because it turned out he was Andy Goode and created the program that later became Skynet. Implying that, hey, if I killed the guy I thought of as a brother because it was for the best, you don’t have a chance of walking out of here. Jessie pleads with him that he doesn’t understand how much the machines took from them (the baby) but he doesn’t let her go on. He reminds her that they don’t really know each other, as they are from different futures and she’s not “his” Jessie. He tells her than John Connor said to let her go…but he ain’t John. He goes for his gun and she runs. We see him track her, start to squeeze the trigger…but we never find out if he followed through on eliminating this threat to John or not. He later implies not, but we’ll have to wait until she either pops up again or floats to the surface of a river.

Derek goes up to Jessie’s apartment and finds John there, fiddling with the pocketwatch trigger. John wants to know what the future resistance fighters think of him and Derek tells him they don’t all agree with everything he does or love him, but that he’s their leader and they all know they need him. All humanity rises or falls on his shoulders. No pressure there, eh, Johnny?

We get quick flashes of what everyone else is up to: Sarah is melting down more Terminator leavings, Cam is up on a roof carefully holding a pigeon in both hands and not killing it, and a maid tidies up Jessie’s now-empty apartment, even straightening the lamp we saw Jessie fiddle with last week.

Finally, back at the Connor Compound, John, Sarah, and Cameron are sitting together on the sofa and I like to think they’re kicking back to watch some Celebrity Apprentice. John suddenly leans back and starts to cry. He glances at an impassive Cameron, but it’s Mamma Sarah’s lap in which he lies to weep. She holds him and he snuggles her and it’s adorable and very sad. Cameron just sits silently next to them and it goes to show, when things get really harry, a boy needs his mommy more than his hot metal sister/girlfriend.