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Death. That's one way to know that a Terminator has passed through somewhere. Lots and lots of death. Even the cows are dead, in this instance. (There's also destruction, but that's another story.)

Although this episode didn't have a lot of action, it did have a good amount of drama, focused on what happens after a place has been "terminated," so to speak.

The town near the factory that was blown up by Catherine Weaver last week is about to conduct funerals for those lost in that disaster. In order to find out more about the plant (which no one believed was actually an air conditioning plant), the T-Team (Sarah, John, Cameron and Derek) attend the ceremonies. Zoe, the daughter of one of the workers at the factor, begins to interact with John while Diana, the wife of a different employee, opens up to Sarah.

Derek notices Walsh, a man who obviously doesn't belong at the funeral and gives him a ride. Walsh tells Derek he's an investigator there to find out what happened at the factory. However, what is really going on is that Catherine knows one of the employees actually survived, and it is his job to locate that person.

Eventually, Sarah ends up following this person, and she discovers an underground surveillance bunker that has been watching the whole town.

Meanwhile, Zoe and her mother are acting suspiciously, according to Cameron -- they aren't looking at the picture of the supposed deceased, which is odd. (And Zoe and her boyfriend also take John and Cameron to a pond surrounded by dead cows that they just stand around and look at. You gotta love small town America.)

When confronted about this, the family says they need to protect their husband/father.

Eventually, Walsh, the agent sent by Catherine, is found dead, and the T-Team sees a Terminator flying machine rise out of the pond.

It zooms away to a nearby tractor trailer, then lands inside the back of the truck. The person who didn't die in the factory is actually the driver, and he closes the trailer doors, then takes off into the night.

Also, after Ellison tells Catherine about the death of his father, she decides to co-opt his story to help get close to and comfort her "daughter."

What Worked

This week's episode was an interesting character study and mystery at the same time. We see the different reactions of the townspeople to tragedy and how they view the T-Team. Not everyone reacts to grief the same way, and that was on display this week.

The Catherine storyline was the weirdest to me. It always creeps me out to see her interact with her "daughter."

Oh, and no imaginary characters this week, so that's a plus!

What Didn't Work

Diana suddenly deciding to give Sarah keys to a storage unit her husband had just struck me as out of character. Normally, a wife would have wanted to at the very least go and see what was in there, in my opinion. Just handing them over to Sarah didn't seem at all genuine to me.

Also, I think the town should have reacted more strongly to the dead cows. But I guess the point was made that these people there were "sleepwalking" through their lives.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" airs Friday nights at 8 on Fox. It stars Lena Heady, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, and Brian Austin Green. "Desert Cantos" was written by John Wirth and Ian Goldberg, and was directed by J. Miller Tobin.