The episode begins with a flash forward into the future where Cameron is fleeing some unknown danger. She manages to get outside into the rubble of the city that Skynet has created where she is captured.
Present time, Cameron and John are running errands and Cameron seems distracted. John drops Cameron off at the grocery store while he goes to buy some radio gear. Cameron seems to be experiencing memories from the future where she was captured. She stops in the store in an apparent trance, so the store calls the local police for help. When an officer asks her for identification, all she has to show him is a large sum of cash.
Kacy starts having some pain and bleeding from her pregnancy so Sarah takes her to the hospital. The doctor does an ultrasound and doesn't see anything wrong, but wants to test to see if the blood is Kacy's or the baby's. Kacy tells Sarah she can go, but Sarah decides to stay since it doesn't appear she has anyone else.
In the future, Cameron is imprisoned and questioned about her name. When she refuses, a Terminator gives her a bar code tattoo on her forearm and she reveals her name as Alison Young. These actions would indicate that this Cameron is a human.
Present time, Terminator Cameron is in a police holding cell with other women, where she is befriended by a girl named Jody. Cameron wonders about the tattoo she remembers from her flash forward, and when asked her name, she says she is Alison.
John comes looking for Cameron at the grocery store and discovers Cameron was taken by the police. John goes to the police station, only to discover that Cameron and Jody have been released since the charges against them were dropped.
While they wait at the hospital, Kacy asks Sarah about when John was born. Sarah wistfully remembers giving birth in the jungles of Central America. A man named Trevor shows up to see Kacy and Sarah leaves them alone. She wanders by the nursery and decides to call John. She tells him she is with Kacy at the hospital, and John once again lies to her about Cameron's situation. After the call, John begins looking for Cameron and Jody on the streets where the police said they might be.
Ellison goes to see Catherine Weaver about her job offer. He insists they are evil, but she argues that they are just machines. She tells him that her husband was killed in a helicopter crash, even though he had many hours piloting that model. Her point is that humans sometimes panic and make mistakes.
Cameron and Jody are having lunch at a cafe when a man shows up demanding that Jody return his laptop. She tries to leave but he catches her and punches her in the mouth. When Cameron tries to intervene, he treats her roughly too. Cameron gives him the cash she has and he leaves, threatening Jody that she better have something for him the next time he sees her. They go to a homeless shelter to spend a few days. Jody gives Cameron/Alison tips on how to register and deal with the counselors.
At the FBI, Ellison speaks with his ex-wife Lila and asks her to run a background check on Catherine, off the record. She comments that he isn't wearing his cross anymore. She can tell by the way he carries himself. She tells him that the deaths of the FBI team wasn't his fault.
Cameron is questioned about her past by the shelter counselor. She keeps having flash forwards about similar questions asked in the Skynet prison camps. A memory pops into her head that she comes from Palmdale. She places a call to Claire Young in Palmdale, but Claire says she doesn't have a daughter yet, but we see that she is pregnant with the yet unborn Alison.
John shows up at the cafe and gets a lead on the shelter. At the shelter, Cameron is distraught and Jody offers to cheer her up. John arrives to find them playing foosball, and when he approaches her, she doesn't know him. She insists her name is Alison, not Cameron and she is from Palmdale. He tells her she is from the future and that he needs to fix her chip again. This triggers another flash forward where she is escaping from the Skynet camp. The memory shows Alison was being held aboard an aircraft carrier, and Skynet had even captured animals like tigers and bears. She is recaptured and comes face to face with Cameron, a Terminator made in her likeness. Cameron tells Alison that Skynet plans to kill all of the humans but some of the Terminators don't want that, they want peace. She tells Alison she is brave, which is why John Connor chose her. Cameron admires John and wants to meet him, so she asks Alison to reveal the location of his camp.
In the present, when John tries to lead Cameron away, she physically throws him into a wall with her Terminator strength, to the shock of Jody who was watching.
At the hospital, the test results are in and Kacy's baby is fine. However, Sarah discovers that Trevor is the father, and that he is a police detective.
At the FBI, Lila's background check on Catherine Weaver finds no problems. Lila asks Ellison to see a counselor before he makes such a large decision, but he declines.
At the shelter, Cameron/Alison is speaking to a counselor again. She tells her she is a machine, and she is supposed to infiltrate the human resistance and kill John Connor. The counselor is troubled by this and places a phone call after the interview while John waits outside the shelter for an opportunity to retrieve Cameron. Paramedics arrive for Cameron, but she and Jody have left.
Ellison returns to see Catherine and meets her daughter Savannah. He tells her he checked into the report of the helicopter crash that killed her husband and it was ruled mechanical failure. He then realizes that the official story does not jibe with the truth and that Catherine made sure to protect her husband's reputation for her daughter's sake. Ellison accepts her job offer.
Cameron and Jody arrive at a house that Jody says she used to babysit at. Jody opens the safe to steal the contents and Cameron notices a similar item to the necklace that Jody gave her. Sensing the lie, Cameron insists that Jody tell her the truth and Jody reveals that this is her house and most of what she has told Cameron is a lie.
Cameron flashes forward to when Alison is accused of lying about the bracelet she wears. Alison said she got it from her sister, but the Terminator Cameron/Alison now understands it is used by the resistance as identification, and that the Terminator would have been recognized when it tried to infiltrate John Connor's camp. The Terminator Cameron/Alison kills the human Alison, no longer needing her.
At Jody's house, Jody reveals to Cameron the complete truth and says they need to leave because they tripped a silent alarm. Cameron accuses Jody of setting her up for the theft, and assaults her but doesn't kill her. John arrives and Cameron now recognizes him.
At the hospital, Sarah is spending the night with Kacy. She tells her she doesn't have to go through the birth of her son alone, because she will be right next door.
In the car on the way home, Cameron understands that this malfunction was her last “get out of jail free card”. When John asks about the necklace, she lies about where she got it.
Written by pentar on Apr 17, 2016