I'm willing to make a fair number of logic leaps for The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but one thing has bugged me since the first season: why the hell is John Connor in school? It's the sort of TV-device that makes no sense in the actual context of the series. John's old enough now to know everything he needs to know from public education; most places don't have classes on plastique and cyber-hacks, and I can't imagine writing eight pages on the feminist implications of The Awakening would be of much use to the future savior of the human race.
Maybe Sarah keeps forcing her son back to class to try and give his life some illusion of normalcy; given her immediate suspicion of John's "date" in "Automatic For The People," though, I'm doubting normalcy is something she knows or understands anymore. Besides, if everybody's so paranoid about keeping the kid alive, why send him into the arms of strangers for eight hours every weekday?
It comes down to plot, ultimately–writers need ways of introducing new characters and tensions, and school provides opportunities by the truckload. Like the "date"; while John is cutting class, a girl named Riley approaches him for one of those standard meet cutes that seem to happen all the damn time in movies. Seriously, is that all it takes? Look off into the distance with a frown on your face and eventually somebody's gonna make their move? Maybe I should stop taking my lithium and just wait around for a rainy day.
Still, of the two running plots in "Automatic," the mild teenage romance is probably the best. Riley is a manic pixie dream girl to be sure, but she does have some original elements; for one, she's not waif thin, and for another, while her goofiness charms John, there's never a sense that she's the one running the scene. Again we see a more confident Connor trying to figure his way through something–taking Riley to his new home, even standing down his mother's objections–and it's sort of sweet. And while the toy robot exchange was a little much, Riley's "Do you ever think about the future?" made for a nicely melancholic moment. Of course John thinks about the future. When is there ever time to think about anything else?
But young love isn't really the main focus of "Automatic." T:TSCC must have a script rule that every episode needs a big action climax, but while I appreciate the 'splosions and gunplay, I'm hoping that the power-plant arc from tonight isn't a taste of what's to come. The series has never been one for airtight plotting, but the set-up here is particularly egregious. Future-John sends a meat telegram back in time to let Sarah and Derek know that something's going down at the Serrano Point Power Plant, and that they need to get in touch with a "Greenway." Which they do; turns out it's Carl Greenway (Paul Schulze, aka Chapel from 24 and the Missionary Who Learned the Glory of Gun in Rambo), safety inspector and all around decent guy, and after some intel work, our heroes decide that there's trouble brewing for when the plant reactor goes back online. The cooling system isn't up to spec, and if the reactor turns on, it could meltdown and kill a heck of a lot of people; but if it stays offline, it will strip the future Resistance of a crucial energy source.
The reasoning here seems specious to me, even with a last minute reveal that shows that Sarah and Derek came to all the wrong conclusions. Why the hell would Skynet want the plant to melt down? So far, the A.I. has been somewhat subtle about it's fiddling with the past. If it really wanted to kill as many people as possible, it could send back a few waves of attack-bots and hope for the best; a meltdown just seems like asking for paradox problems.