Falling Skies S04E10

This episode takes the cake in the “most cliché” category. Everything that happened – absolutely everything – was so predictable and stereotype, it’s amazing in some way. Or it was “Bring your Harry Potter Fanfiction to Work Day” the day they were filming this.

First, we have Dingaan, Tom, Cochise – and as usual, for no reason Matt trying to find out how the beamer works. To fly it to the moon, in case you forgot. Then the Espheni technology magically pulls out a defense mechanism but only against Volm. For that reason, Cochise can only go on this mission if they can manually fly the beamer… or something, I have no idea. They are basing their plan on “just getting to the atmosphere and then the beamer should pick up on the homing signal from the moon base and auto-pilot engages” to the very end of the episode, and Cochise doesn’t set a foot in the beamer again.

As soon as Matt is alone in the beamer, he starts pushing blinking buttons like any 13 years old boy would. Yeah. That’s what Weaver says. “You know we all would have done the same.” If you grew up among idiots, possible. But I know maybe one teenager who would seriously be that dumb. Seems more like an exception than a rule.

Anyway, Matt’s uncanny luck finds exactly what Cochise and Dingaan couldn’t figure out earlier, and they also pick up a transmission in Spanish. Anthony now speaks Spanish, luckily, and can translate that this an automated message from other humans, recommending to run and hide as the Espheni now improved their methods to capture humans. This only confirms Tom in his belief that flying the beamer to the moon is the most reasonable thing to do.

And then, the shitstorm hits. The entire 2nd Mass (are they still called 2nd Mass?) wants to go instead! Everyone volunteers for a suicide mission. Supermature Matt then suggests to put all names in what looks like a giant mossy seashell and have a draw. Note that this is after Dingaan, apparently the one to know most about Espheni technology, speaks out about having flight experience. As a pilot. It should be a no brainer to pick the volunteer who has at least some solid qualifications, but of course the names go into the seashell anyway, including Ben, Matt and presumably every other teenager around.

Meanwhile, Lexi practises her “gravity powers” with her Espheni father. It is a bit like watching an apathetic Kermit teach Miss Piggy telekinesis. I can’t take Lexi or the Espheni serious as characters, and in their next scene, they drive the point home as to why that is… The Espheni enters the “shadow plane” (yes, really), the telepathic (?) volcano landscape where Espheni apparently talk to each other. While he lays out the masterplan of how Lexi is totally unaware of being a superweapon, Lexi listens and if you don’t see what happens next coming from lightyears away, you lived under a rock for at least 50 years. Yes, Lexi kills the Espheni with her “gravity powers”.

Back in… wherever the Mason Dynasty currently resides… Weaver catches Pope fumbling around on the giant seashell at night. It doesn’t take a genius to expect that the resident anti hero and professional Tom Mason opposer is trying to manipulate the draw in some way, and after the horrific derailment of his character this season, it is also a safe bet to assume he tries to put himself up for the mission. After a drawn out mud fight with Weaver, Pope admits not only that he took Tom’s name out, but also Weaver’s “because these people need you and no-one needs me”. If other characters pick up mud wrestling just to stand a chance at getting a brief moment of suicidal glory from the Masons, you know things are bad. Anyway, after Weaver refers to the possibility that Sara(h?) might come back, Pope rests his case. Because that obviously makes sense in the world the writers live in.

Now the big surprise. Tom (who else if not the man most eager to go on the mission himself?) draws two names. It’s Ben and himself, and then he admits to Ann he fixed the draw so he could go. Ann attests that he is a good father (but apparently only to Ben), after not wanting Tom or any of his sons to go from the beginning.

Long, drawn out scene of Mason Hug [tm] between Tom and Matt.

Maggie, after having told Hal some bullshit story about “the spikes are attracted to Ben’s spikes”, decides it is a great idea to say goodbye to Ben alone. Naturally, they start making out again. Naturally, Hal, who stopped by to forgive Ben, walks in again. A few minutes later, he forgives Ben anyway.

Just when Tom and Ben are about to board the ship, Dingaan holds them back and starts yelling “something is heading this way”. For a brief moment, I thought this was great writing – Dingaan, obviously the more qualified man for the mission, was luring Tom and Ben away, to then quickly board the beamer himself, possibly taking Hal along. But no such thing happened, there was really “something” and it was making beamers crash. The lamest surprise to date: Lexi was coming back to her real father Tom.

Painful. Just… painful.

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Falling Skies S04E09

Christ on a bike. It was physically painful to watch in every possible way.

Based on a hunch and much theorizing, Tom Mason decides to fly to the moon. With the beamer that was not only shot down by the Volm, but also had an Espheni bomb go off inside. Sound plan. Said beamer being buried under rubble (how? Matt and Weaver spent an entire episode removing rubble?!) is not a problem because Volm are magical and happen to have a secret weapon cache that contains exactly the required tools.

Off they go to recover the cache, and take Matt along for absolutely no reason. It results in a showdown with many explosions and toxic waste, caused by Matt’s Hitler Youth girlfriend (Mira?) who totally unsuspiciously appeared. Tom does the first and possibly only smart thing this season and ties her up, just so his idiot son can free her and have her call an aerial strike. The usual “Matt is in danger, Tom almost dies but makes it out without a scratch and Matt is fine” ensues. They do not recover the magical Volm tool.

Meanwhile, the teams Maggie/Ben and Sarah/Pope compete for the most cringeworthy scenes. (Spoiler: They’ll both lose this contest, despite best efforts.) Apparently, Sarah’s fade out speech about being a new person contained something about painkillers? I have no idea, but Pope is all upset when he sees her with a pill bottle. After Super Maggie threw a piece of concrete on Sarah by accident, because Maggie is now She-Hulk. In turn, this accident also leads to Ben teaching Maggie about her super powers and, as absolutely everyone ever expected, they now have a magical spike connection and kiss. Hal sees it, of course, to further the “love triangle drama” absolutely no-one ever wanted to witness. Conclusion: Hal punches Ben; Sarah takes off with a rifle and Pope will very likely go after her next episode because it’s such an uncharacteristic thing for him to do.

The cringe contest is won by team Ann/Tom when Tom proposes in a world that has neither state nor church, Ann accepts and then Weaver marries them. Seriously, the fuck? Volm to the rescue even in this situation, as Cochise’s second in command interupts the “human ritual” with news about the beamer. The magical Espheni Candy Lipstick can make the beamer dig itself out and fly! MOON, HERE WE COME.

Geez am I excited for next week. No, really, I want to know if it can possibly get any more nonsensical and awkward than this.

Falling Skies S0… oh whatever

The fuck did I just watch? The most cringeworthy episode to date, and by now, that’s really quite a feat.

To get the minor stuff out of the way: Congratulations, Maggie and Hal, you are no longer the couple with least chemistry! Pope and Popette just dethroned you by bonding over a burned corpse!

Now, back to what matters: Tom Supermason. For the second time since the mole planted explosives in Charleston, we find the 2nd Mass digging through rubble for survivors. Tom, while being buried under tons of debris and a crashed beamer, naturally has no scratch and can easily free Dingaan with his superhuman strength. He then proceeds to stick his arm into slimy alien devices to open the conveniently present hatch of the beamer. Once inside, we witness the 418th infection with some alien parasite in Tom’s life because he just has to touch something that suspiciously looks like Lexi’s cocoon. Y’know, the thing Weaver badly burned his hand on. Dingaan takes a brief break from completely freaking out about everything to remove the parasite. Remember the badass guy who builds suits from trash to escape Espheni ghettos? Well, Dingaan does not, which is unfortunate, considering that badass guy was him, last week. He’s now a whiny mess and blames himself for the death of his family and wants to die. Lucky him, because there’s also an Espheni bomb on board of the beamer, and the pin was removed. (It’s a grenade bomb with the world’s longest timer.) Not a problem for Supermason, he simply drags Dingaan back through the hatch and voila, both are protected from the blast, all while reciting speeches about not losing hope as usual.

Above, still digging in rubble, Weaver and Matt Mason are… digging in rubble. That is all they do, except in the beginning, Matt knocks down Pope for the suggestion that Tom is probably dead. Matt. 11 years old Matt. Knocks down Pope. Worf Effect detected. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Ben has been taken to some Espheni facility by Lexi, who shows him “the future”. And that is turning humans into skitters because evolution. This is apparently supposed to be the Espheni’s “true big plan”. The one they only remembered in season 4, while doing completely unrelated things in the 3 seasons before. Then Lexi just lets him go.

Ben returns just in time to join the second coming of the “paralyzed” story arc. This time, it’s Maggie being paralyzed instead of Hal. Before Ben’s arrival, Ann has already performed a syringe-only procedure on Maggie and injected the spine spike fluid from Deni into her back, with zero success. Ben then insists that Ann takes out his spikes and implants them into Maggie because “he couldn’t save Lexi”. (I must have misunderstood the episode before, as to me, it looked like Ben was going to find Lexi so she could save him.) He also points out to Ann that “the Lexi we knew is gone”. Strange, the Lexi I knew was always a psychopath, right after magically aging from 5 to 21 and changing her race. Anyway, of course, the Volm can provide the technology Ann needs to go through with this plan. And why wouldn’t she, after Deni’s fluid did absolutely nothing and no-one had any reason to believe the spikes would even work on adults.

After the surgery, the Espheni bomb detonates and conveniently reveals Dingaan and Tom, right where Matt and Weaver were digging in the rubble. Ann then abandons her two unconcious surgery patients for many a Mason Hug [tm]. It ends with Hal and Tom witnessing a strange green light on the moon. I can only repeat what I said before… whatever. This show started so damn strong, and now… it just really, really blows. It’s so sad. Sorry, Tom, I cannot have hope here anymore.

Falling Skies S04E07

This was almost a coherent episode, if it wasn’t for the people in it. It would also have made a much, much better midseason highlight than, well, the actual midseason episode.

Lexi left her cocoon and proceeded to kill Lourdes for no apparent reason (“to save her the pain” or something?) and announced her plan to leave the 2nd Mass because they “only have violence in their hearts”. No shit, Sherlock, after an alien invasion, it was sort of bound to happen, but let us not forget Lexi Stormborn is a 1 year old super hybrid, and hence kind of stupid. So Lourdes is dead. Lourdes was expected to die since early season 2 by viewers, and now it finally happened. Rather anticlimatic, but for her character, it was truly the best thing to happen.

Anyway, with Lexi gone to her “real family”, the Espheni, said real family immediately moves out to destroy what’s left of the 2nd Mass and their current shelter. Because Espheni totally don’t have violence in their hearts. Like I said, Lexi is kind of stupid. With some luck, the Espheni will turn their violence against her next and end this awful magic hybrid plot.

The 2nd Mass plans to make a last stand and kill the overlord Tom burned. Cochise conventiently shows up again to help out with the part that would involve explosives the 2nd Mass can’t possibly still possess; blowing up a strategically vital bridge. I can accept that as some kind of logic, except… the stand off doesn’t work as planned because of a gas pipe having a leak and blowing up a barricade. I’m not sure if the writers know how gas pipes work, but something has to put the gas in them. They aren’t like trees that just grow and if you cut them open, there’s wood in them. With at least 4 years passed since the invasion, and large parts of the infrastructure destroyed and, if season 1 is still to be believed, ALL the important things (like food and energy sources) trapped… where does the gas even come from? Oh well… Drama doesn’t grow on trees either, so the gas leak had to provide it, I guess.

Another long expected death occured: Tector blew himself up to make the overlord think Tom is dead. This was telegraphed last year when it became known Ryan Robbins would do double duty (signed for another show) and would likely have to limit his screentime due to that. Despite being one of the fortunate few non-Masons to get a backstory, it was a wise choice to opt out of Falling Skies. His death made sense, it was “going out in a blaze of glory” and therefore, Tector has the honor of being the one character to have lived and died with dignity in this show.

From the most dignified death to the least. This episode had quite a bodycount. Dr. Kadar also opted out, but in a much less blazingly glorious way. After the gas explosion, Weaver finds Kadar in his lab, trying to save samples taken from Lexi’s cocoon, and having a huge piece of glass sticking in his kidney. Only after Weaver points this out, and calls for Ann, Dr. Kadar realizes he is mortally wounded, drops to the floor and dies within a minute. For some reason, this upsets Tom a lot more than Lexi killing Lourdes.

Speaking of Lexi, there are some curious lines in here. Hal, now back to his less consistant, less logical self, directly asks Tom “so is she still a Mason now”, clearly suggesting he does not think so. Kudos for that; he’s definitely a bit smarter than the rest of his clan here. However, when Ben seeks out Lexi to have her call off the Espheni, she refers to Tom as “your father”, not “our father”. Room for speculation that Hal is actually right and she really is the child of Ann and the Espheni, and aware of not being a Mason. In that case, it was quite meta of her to leave the 2nd Mass and try to find a better shelter. Not everyone can be as blue-eyed as Pope and believe the Masons are the best bet for survival even if your name is not Mason.

I said Hal is back to his inconsistant self, then pointed out how he was clearly the smartest Mason recently. I got sidetracked, I need to mention that after Lourdes’ death and Hal’s rejection of Lexi as a Mason, he had a talk with Maggie (who, out of character, doesn’t throw a jealous ragefit due to Hal’s reaction to Lourdes’ death). He tells her, in cheesier words than neccessary, that the Espheni have figured out the humans’ true weakness – love. That they realized family and loved ones will always forgive each other, and therefore no-one will do the neccessary thing and kill a friend who is under alien influence. He refers to himself as a risk (his previous mole phase) and that it was a mistake to let all of the people who were infected back into the circle of trust. It’s a really logical stance – the Espheni created Lexi as a Mason, knowing full well Tom would never eliminate a family member. Not his half-skittered son Ben, not his mole-son Hal, not his indoctrination-camp-escapee son Matt; not himself after having a bug in his eyeball. Making him think their “super weapon” Lexi is his daughter was the perfect place to hide her in plain sight and even have the enemy protect the weapon. Hal has it all figured out right there… to just turn around and frantically scream for Maggie, out of love, putting the plan to “pretend we are all dead and hide in this old bomb shelter” at risk. Major Facepalm salutes you, Hal Mason.

By the end of the episode, Ben has lived up to his father’s legacy and let a blond girl talk him into boarding an Espheni ship. Maggie is missing, and the preview for next week suggests she’ll be found paralyzed. A role reversal with Hal being unable to walk in Charleston, and yet another drama point for the woman who already has the most impressive collection of the cast (cancer, drugs, prison, baby taken away, rape).

All in all, yeah, it was sort of a mess as usual, but I would rate this as one of the better episodes this season, mostly due to Tector’s heroic sacrifice and the little screentime Lexi had in total.