Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Pilot Episode)

The first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was easily fabulous. If you saw it, you know that. For the rest of you, here's what happened (spoiler alert):

The story picks up about two or three years after Terminator 2 ends, with John Connor (Thomas Dekker) at age 15. Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) wakes up from a nightmare about her son, John, getting killed by a terminator, as she's begging that he kill her, too. She jolts awake, and then her fiance wakes up and teases her, and tells her that her engagement is especially special because her son picked it out.

Next thing you see is Sarah staring at John, watching him sleep, until he wakes up. Then she tells him they have to leave. He protests, arguing that after two years, no one knows them, and that they're safe here. "You're never safe." Then, she tells him he has half an hour, one bag and the guns, then leaves.

After they leave, Sarah's fiance goes to the police. The FBI is involved when they hear about Sarah's involvement (presumably with the pic) and learn that her name is now "Reese" and not Connor, and explains to her fiance, who had no idea, about her stay in the mental institution, their twist on what went down at SkyNet and what not. Obviously, the information goes down for the record and the Terminator picks up on the info.

Next time you see John, he's at his new school and a girl, Cameron (Summer Glau), asks him his name. He tells her, and she follows him around, telling him about herself. He lies and says his dad is in insurance, and ends the conversation when she asks about his mom.

Back at home, Sarah asks John how school was, and asks him if there had been any pretty girls - after yelling at him for getting on a computer (y'all know about his little problem with hacking into computers. For some reason, mom thinks that could cause more problems...).

Next day at school, there's a sub. As the sub's calling role, he (the terminator - Mike (my boyfriend) called it, of course) pulled out a letter opener and sticks it into his leg for no particular reason except to let us know he's the terminator. Cameron doesn't answer at first when he calls her name, but then she answers. John Reese is next, and he pulls out a gun when John raises his hand. He shoots at him and the kids go crazy. John meanwhile, I'm sure hearing his mother's voice in his ears, runs, diving through a window. Cameron takes a bullet to the chest. The rest of the kids are crouched under desks, hiding. "Class dismissed," says the Terminator.

John runs out of the school, ducking behind cars and buses which are being exploded behind him. Cameron pulls up it to him in a truck and says, "Get in if you want to live." John hesitates too long to satisfy me and then jumps in. As they pull away, he notes the metal robot bits under her skin. (Later, he verbally realizes that no pretty, popular girl would say hello to the weird new guy, and he should have known something was up.)

Meanwhile, Sarah has seen the news report about what happened at school and left work, now spying on the school, clearly hoping to see her son. The Terminator jumped her and began strangling her. It's as he's discussing not strangling her to death, but using her against John, that John calls, and the Terminator imitates Sarah's voice and tells John to come home - or maybe that's where John says he'll meet her... in any case, he knows it's not his mom - his mom would tell him to run. That's always what she tells him.

Cameron enters the house disguised as John and the Terminator shoots at her. They all get away and they're planning on crossing the border, but then Sarah promises to John that they'll destroy Skynet again. The problem is Cameron only knows when it was created - not where or by whom.

So they go back to Miles what's-his-name's house and talk to his widow, who is under the impression that Sarah killed Miles until Cameron announces, "We're back," but his widow doesn't know anything. The Terminator catches up with them, Miles' widow helps by giving them her car to run away with. As they're taking off, the Terminator goes to hop in their truck, and Cameron blows it up. A piece of the shrapnel or a bullet or something hits Sarah in the shoulder.

The trio head to the bank where Cameron says she has an account - a lockbox - since 1963. They go in and Cameron pulls a gun and tells everyone to get down. They do, and someone takes them downstairs. Cameron tells her to lock them in and back away from the door - and that she'll know if she doesn't. Then Cameron opens a box and pulls out a set of keys and tells Sarah and John to open the boxes and put the contents on the table, "Gently."

As they pull them out, it's clear they're parts for some type of gun. Then Cameron opens a wall with a computer outside and explains that they can destroy Skynet by going to the time in which it's created. Meanwhile, Sarah is holding the gun, waiting for a little yellow piece inside of it to turn red while the Terminator is outside the door, trying to get in, and the police are outside the bank, waiting to enter.

"Mom! We have to go now!" Yells John, seconds after the Terminator shoots in through the hole he's made, seconds before the bubble time-travel thing is about to finish up, and as the yellow thing turns red. Sarah shoots, Terminator goes down, and the three of them are jolted into 2007, and end up the street, naked, with cars swerving around them. Someone takes a video with a cell phone, and it ends up on the news (The FBI guy who is in charge of finding Sarah sees it, and so does her ex-fiance).

In the meantime, they have found clothes, and are off to find SkyNet.

Can't wait to see tomorrow's episode. I hope it's as amazing as today's. It has to be interesting for both the FBI agent (sorry, he has a name, I know he does, but I don't remember it) and Sarah's ex-fiance, I'm sure they assumed she was dead after the whole bank incident. I mean, they've dropped off the planet for years, and are now in 2007... it was what? 1999? That's a long time to not be heard from.

Oh, another point of interest, is while the FBI agent was mocking her to her ex, 19 of the 22 witnesses to the school shooting saw a "robot-like leg."