It crossed my mind: instead of "The Demon Hand," what if this week's episode had been called "The Penis"? Yeah, I sound like I'm 12. But doesn't this show need some laughs?
This week's about a hand – the ripped-off hand left by the T-888 model two weeks ago, in "Queen's Gambit." As we've learned, Sarah Connor and the gang have to find every stray piece of Terminator that winds up in their world, lest some mad scientist use it to bring us a little closer to Judgment Day. But James Ellison, the FBI agent who's starting to believe in killer robots himself, managed to find the hand – and that means trouble. Now, if you found a metal hand (or hey, a metal penis) lying in the road, you'd probably think, "Prank." Or if you were in California, you'd think, "Prop." But people on this show? No sense of humor.
For half the episode, Ellison chases clues on Sarah Connor, and Sarah Connor chases Ellison. First, Ellison visits the asylum where Sarah was locked up for three years, and then he drives up into the hills to see her shrink, Dr. Silverman, played by the reliably harried Bruce Davison. Her shrink was supposed to treat Sarah for her paranoid visions of the apocalypse and killer robots. But it turns out that Sarah was awfully persuasive: Silverman believes in the robots, too. In fact, he thinks Ellison could be a robot, and slips him a roofie, ties him up, and sticks a knife in his leg just to make sure. If I cared about Ellison, this would have been fairly disturbing. Later, when he finds out that Ellison actually has the T-888 hand with him, Silverman goes out to Ellison's car, pops the trunk, and reverently lifts it out – "the hand of God," the proof of the apocalypse. Like I said, a penis would've been funnier.
For the most part, this is not a happy episode. On top of Ellison's misadventures and Sarah having to shlep around looking for that hand – which she ultimately gets, and destroys – we have another bummer mother/son moment: John finds a tape from Sarah's days in the asylum, and gets to watch her sign away all her rights to him. Bad enough to see your mom's crazy tapes, but to see your mom signing you over to the government? That's a bummer. They patch it up at the end, sort of, but Sarah puts it best: "There was a time I was a hero to my son … . He knows better now." In fact, that's the only good line in her entire voiceover.