After we're been reminded that Shirley Manson went all stabby at the warehouse, we get a title screen: VIGIL. I know these are like chapter titles, but if any show should, this one really needs to bring back the old action-television tradition of displaying the episode title. Like the A-Team: "Bad Day at Black Rock." That kind of thing.
Anyway, The Connor Crew are driving down the road in a ridiculously shiny truck and listening to the radio recount the carnage -- thirty-two dead -- at the Desert Canyon Heat and Air plant, and there will be a vigil in Charm Acres, which is an "enclave" for plant employees, and Sarah turns off the radio, because she's sick of listening to K-PLOT radio. She'd much rather play Travel Bingo. Anyone got a square with dead cows rotting along the road? Cross it off!
So the public memorial in Charm Acres consists of pictures of all the victims on easels, and the townsfolk are milling about, and Cameron tells us the old yarn about Native Americans believing that photographs steal your soul. "I hate funerals," says John. "I hate Skynet," says Sarah, like LET HIM BE BUMMED OUT FOR A SECOND, and then John is griping about how this doesn't seem like a good idea anymore, and Sarah tells him to go find someone to talk to, which is awfully helpful. They're there to find someone who knew what was going on at the factory, but John says anyone who knew anything about the factory is dead. "I'm not," says Sarah, and John gripes that Sarah must be "luckier," in a tone that suggest he himself doesn't feel so lucky.
Sarah wanders through the pictures, and then comes across the one of the guy who shot her. She stares at it. See, the trick is to look past the picture. Then the 3D image pops out at you! Or in this case, a flashback to an episode that aired so long ago it might as well be from the first MOVIE. "You'd never guess he had it in him," says Derek, breaking Sarah out of her trance. "I see it," she says. Sure, NOW you do, one bullet wound later.
John spies a dark-haired girl moping on a bench. I guess what with Riley attempting suicide and then disappearing, he's probably got some kind of toxic-relationship void to fill.
"Is this seat taken?" he asks. "Are you going to say annoying things?" she asks him. Almost exclusively, sweetheart. But what she's talking about are the things people say when they're grieving, like, "I can't believing this is happening," that kind of thing. Yeah, stupid mourners! John promises not to say anything like that, and introduces himself (she's Zoe, she tells him) and he sits down. She asks if he knows someone in Charm Acres, or does he just have a "thing" for "small-town, homey funerals," and he says his mom worked at the factory and came to pay his respects, only then she calls him a "stupid funeral crasher" all mock outraged. Then she complains about Cameron "creepily" staring at them, and in Zoe's defence, that is exactly what's happening, like maybe Cameron could be just a little less robotlike about it. Zoe points out her mom, and says her dad worked at the factory. Yeah, WHO COULD YOUR DAD POSSIBLY BE. Then she cheerily talks about picking out a suit for her dad to be buried in, and she picked a grey one, even though "Henry" thought it should be a black one, and then this "Henry" character happens to come over, looking like the rich bad guy's sidekick in an '80s teen movie, and he tells Zoe that they're about to do the candle-lighting, and John extends his hand to introduce himself, and Henry glares at him and walks away, which I can't believe doesn't just happen to John all day long. John asks if Henry is her boyfriend, and she says, "He keeps applying for the job. I'm just not hiring," and she says it was nice to meet John, and then she skips off to continue thinking she's up to star in Juno II: Annoying Quirky Dialogue on Patrol.













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