Sarah's bandaged hand is a reference to her injury in the previous episode where she sliced her hand open with a soda can. In reality, it was because of an injury to Lena Headey's hand brought about by her overvigorous acting in the scene where she bashed in Cromartie's chip with the butt of her rifle.
At one point in the episode, Cameron remarks to John that she does not understand a lot of things, and as an example, she says that she could not understand why Sarah had turned over a tortoise which was lying helpless on its back. John responds that this was intended to help the turtle, and Cameron recognizes the underlying emotion as "empathy," and adds that while she would not help the turtle, she would not deliberately hurt it, since she is not programmed for "cruelty." Philip K. Dick's novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (as well as in its movie adaptation, Blade Runner (1982)) explores the theme of empathy towards animals, people, and androids, as well as the inability of androids to feel such empathy. In order to separate androids from humans, the main protagonist uses an empathy meter called the Voight-Kampff machine, which measures the interviewee's emotional response to questions that should arouse empathy. In one such question, the subject is asked to imagine a situation where a tortoise is lying on its back and the subject will not help it, and then explain why they would not help the tortoise.
Cameron asks John why Sarah turned over the tortoise that was on its back on the road in Mexico. John says that people do that. Cameron says, "Empathy?" John says, "I guess so." Cameron says, "Some people wouldn't do that. Some might even run the tortoise over and crush it." In the next scene, Cameron throws Ellison around the room, then nearly chokes him to death while he is on the floor on his back. John says, "Let him go." She does, then turns him over onto his stomach in her attempt to imitate human empathy.