Falling Skies S05E04: The Short Life of Ryan

Not going to save the best for last: The episode has no Maggie at all! That is amazing.

What the episode does have is a lot of emotional moments surrounding Cochise and Anne. Cochise just remembered that he is dying because he only has one alien kidney. For this occassion, his father stops by and is, within minutes, convinced that an organ transplant – which has never been done in Volm history – is a reasonable suggestion and Anne is the most qualified person to perform it. Anne selects Ben as her assistant “because Tom wasn’t around and Ben was”. It remains unclear what would make Tom, a history professor, a more qualified surgery assistant.

Meanwhile, Pope and Anthony have banded together over their anger; Anthony is pissed because he is removed from the frontline, Pope is pissed because Tom didn’t rescue Sarah. Out of nowhere, they recruit a bunch of new, never seen before misfits to have a front against the Masons.

The Masons, at least Tom and Matt, are checking out a totally untouched police station to loot weapons and gasoline. They take Dingaan, Weaver and Ryan along. If you don’t recognize the name Ryan, that is because the character never showed up before and could as well be called Red Shirt. At the police station, Weaver finds the car of his dreams, Dingaan contacts a resistance group near the Bolivian border and Ryan dies to a swarm of those flesh eating bugs or whatever killed Sarah.

Back at the camp, they are just in time to provide a car battery for Anne to try to revive Cochise’s father, who strangely refers to his son as ‘Cochise’. Not right now, he’s dying, but he did so before, when they were speaking in Volm language. While Anne and Ben try to revive Daddy Cochise, Pope calls Tom out on getting Ryan killed. It is quite amusing how both have a point – Pope about the Masons being apparently immortal and sacrificing everyone else, Tom about Pope just moping and whining. Tom then gives Pope a gun and points it at his head, and because this is a family show, Pope sadly doesn’t pull the trigger.

Instead, Anthony lures Anne to their villain lair, where Pope is just done shaving his head, to underline how he is really really bad now. Not bad enough though, as he just lets Anne go and decides to go after Tom’s sons instead. Genius.

Tom, on the other hand, walks through a forest when he is contacted by his dead wife/the mystery alien again, who “can’t exist in the same space”. Guess we’re in for some interdimensional crap. Anyway, the dead wife points out that Hal is gone. Big surprise, Pope kidnapped him somehow and holds him hostage in a forest, intending to kill first Hal and then Tom.

Yeah. What can I say? It was way too predictable that Ryan would die to surprise anyone. The only surprising thing about it was that Ryan wasn’t black, really. It was also obvious that Pope wouldn’t go through with killing Anne and it doesn’t take visionary skills to predict he will also not kill Hal and Tom. As usual, the most interesting part is what will happen with Anthony after he turned on the 2nd Mass. Best guess? They’ll blame it on PTSD and all is good again.

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Falling Skies S05E03

Looks like Ben and Maggie will take the Cringe Couple Award home. The death of Sarah was both welcome and telegraphed from miles away, and I wouldn’t even complain if it hadn’t been so cringey and unneccessary. But first things first. The valley full of skitters and the skitter-like hornets didn’t pose a problem at all. Dingaan luckily invented a flying insect poison dispenser over night and a small group of fighters was able to clean out the valley within minutes. Things briefly got interesting when the population was not only back but had doubled in numbers the next day. The only conclusion was that an Overlord was nearby and genetically engineered skitters and had them gather in this valley. So far, so good. The past has shown that this shouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes, or a half in-show day to solve. Pope and Sarah went to follow the “stream of skitters” to find the source and it was physically painful to listen to the “let’s have pretty babies after the apocalypse” talk. Seriously…? Well, meanwhile, the girl and the skitterized brother that the Cringe Army had brought back from the Land of the Miracle last episode escaped and naturally, Maggie had to go after them due to a guilt trip. Wherever Maggie goes, Hal goes and wherever they go together, stupidity ensues. Not far away in a forest, they spot the elusive Overlord who saw no need at all to meet the skitter boy and his sister in a somewhat more protected location. It’s not like the Espheni are in a vulnurable position at the moment, and damn, if only there was a gathering ground for skitters and hornets in the area to provide a better defense for a single Overlord… But I guess the attempt to personally talk Skitter Boy into killing his sister for whatever reason was too important, so that’s what the Overlord tries. He also takes control of Maggie to underline the urgency of his deed, but luckily, Hal and his rifle are nearby. Any bets if Hal would think to use his rifle to take out the Overlord from a save distance? Well, nope, he runs toward him and stabs him in the back. Why? Because they need him alive, to tell the 2nd Mass where the skitters are made. And because Hal only learned to shoot a rifle yesterday, it was impossible to fire a non-lethal shot. Skitter Boy then obtains a gun and shoots his sister and then himself. Well done. Hal and Maggie return to camp with the captured Overlord.

Meanwhile, Sarah got stuck in the conveniently placed “Espheni goo” some might remember from last season. It’s like superglue! Oh my god! Fire would easily remove the goo, but Pope still hasn’t learned to make fire with all the damn wood and leaves in the forest, so he has to go back to camp to get a flamethrower. If you can count two and two together, you know from the “let’s have a picture book future” talk earlier that Sarah won’t see another morning. In the camp, Ben and Maggie have combined their spikes to get the location of the skitter factory from the Overlord. The rest of the 2nd Mass takes the only available vehicle to go destroy said factory, and Tom promises to save Sarah on the way back. Pope freaks out, takes the flamethrower and runs back into the forest. Whatever. If you had learned to make a damn fire, or picked up a lighter, you wouldn’t have this problem.

The 2nd Mass arrives at the skitter factory, which is an actual factory building full of giant barrels. Fully grown skitters and hornets emerge from those, like from an assembly line. I don’t know how far you can stretch “it’s alien tech”, but that’s not how I imagine genetic engineering. Three bombs quickly put an end to it, and now the crazy plot twist: Anthony froze up. No, this had no impact on anything. Yet. After the successful mission, Tom tries to keep his promise and save Sarah. But alas, Pope arrived there a bit earlier, flamethrowered a bunch of alien insects away and Sarah had no legs. Including the cliche “I can’t feel my legs” line. She ded nao. And Pope is pissed at Tom. Really? I mean, the entire Cringe Conga with Sarah was meant to turn Pope into… an antagonist for Tom? Isn’t that… y’know, exactly as what he started? The character was fine for 2.5 seasons, and some decent writing would have covered up the weak episodes in season 3. Now it’s a train wreck like all the others, with no hope for redemption.

Speaking of train wrecks. It appears I somehow put my money on the right horse from the start: Anthony. The last man standing. The only character left who has not turned into a parody or otherwise been made awful to watch. It took him extraordinary survival skills – with black guys dying left and right, no last name, often without notable screentime or lines for episodes – to make it this far. But there he is, alive and kicking, and with a believable plot of his own: Anthony now has PTSD, according to Ann. Therefore, he killed the Overlord, after witnessing him pick up some rocks and making them glow – which might as well be a real thing; Overlords have been doing just this to open telepathic communication with others of their kind in season 4. With the exception of Lexi, no-one has witnessed this though, and Anthony certainly seems a bit nuts to the 2nd Mass now. Which is why Weaver relieved him of duty. Comically, he only took his rifle, not the bullet belt Anthony wears since his first appearance. Noteworthy, at least to me, is the fact that a different accessory has changed owners: Anthony now also wears Pope’s skitter claw necklace. And I finally have hope to get Sheriff Anthony and Desperado Pope to team up against Mason and Weaver.

Falling Skies S05E02: Pringles

When Hal and Maggie have the most chemistry out of all the forced, annoying romances, it means something and that something is: Enough already with the soap opera.

The 2nd Mass is under siege by hungry skitters, who are out of control without an Overlord. In a fit of rage, a grenade blows up the entire food reserves that the 2nd Mass – somehow – still had. After an extra we never met before dies after eating grilled skitter flesh, it is clear: The 2nd Mass must go after the conveniently discovered food bank nearby. That this would be a prime location for booby traps, according to previous seasons, never enters anyone’s thoughts and it doesn’t matter, because there are no traps.

Two contenders for the Most Awkward Couple Award, namely Sarah, Pope, Maggie and Ben, make their way through storm drains to the food bank, just counting on their good fortune that there is not only food, but also a functional, fueled truck to transport it. Meanwhile, Matt Mason joins the Awkard Couples competition by making friends with a starving girl we never met before, unaware that his efforts to win the award are doomed. His new girlfriend is black and should die within the next 2 – 3 episodes in good old Falling Skies tradition.

The food bank team arrives at their target to find not only food, but also a functional, fueled truck. What a coincidence. They give their all to score points in the competition – Ben and Pope having a man to man conversation about the bro code (literally and literary, considering Ben and Hal are actual brothers) while Sarah suggests Maggie should go for a threesome. Hilariously, Maggie points out that this would be wrong because the guys are brothers. Quite a funny thing coming from a woman over 30 who habitually goes after boys in their mid- to late teens.

Meanwhile, Anthony discovers his inner warrior by punching a skitter to death, which Weaver objects to. Tom Mason, on the other hand, is fine with it because people are following his orders to unleash their primal rage. In his spare time, he hallucinates his dead wife and her advise relating to current issues in the camp.

At the food bank, the armed team of four, of which 3 are accomplished shooters and 2 have enhanced strength and reflexes, is held hostage by a teenage girl who threatens to unleash her skitter brother if they don’t leave all the food to her. Why a single skitter is such a threat to an armed team that just fought their way through hordes of skitters remains a mystery. Maggie finally claims to have a machine that can reverse the process and save Skitter Brian and the girl agrees to go with them.

Back at the camp, hilarity ensues. Pope of all people prepares a candle light dinner – complete with wine – for Sarah. Maggie presents Hal, who has meanwhile collapsed from hunger, with a roll of 5 years expired Pringles. Last season’s pristine Hershey bar was not the end of ridicolous product placement. For a crowning moment of “oh come on now”, Matt has constructed a microscope for Ann to examine the bug that bit Tom. Said bug has not only Skitter and Espheni legs, it also has human eyes and it was a bad, bad idea to show a close up of that. The bug is the funniest looking alien on the show and after seeing the bright blue eye, it is nearly impossible to take it serious as a threat.

While the bug was shown to be roughly the size of a bumblebee, Tom and Ann have no problem to follow it on foot as the bug turns out to not be dead and escapes. They follow it to a valley, where a large swarm of either bugs, winged skitters or both is emerging. Now, THIS might be a better threat – unless they are all shown to have doll eyes.

Falling Skies S05E01

Time for the annual commentary on Falling Skies, though there really isn’t a whole lot to say that hasn’t been said already. This is a bit sad and a bit amusing, considering it’s a new season and all there is to it is… the same “twists” that were in every previous season.

Tom Mason finds himself on alien vessel? Check.

Tom Mason has a telepathic conversation with an alien? Check.

Tom Mason magically finds himself in the wilderness unharmed? Check.

Tom Mason finds his way straight back to the 2nd Mass, despite not knowing where exactly he is or they are? Check.

Tom Mason is examined by Ann and comes back “clean”? Check.

Tom Mason knows mysteriously exactly where the Overlord is hiding? Check.

Tom Mason has an alien parasite scare? Check.

And that’s just the Tom Mason related stuff. We also have repeats of Ben and Maggie awkward flirting and Hal being jealous. Deni having a sudden friendship, but this year with Anthony, after being mostly absent and not even on screen in the last season. (If I was spiteful, I would also point out that with her death, we have a repeat of “black characters dying”.) We even revisit the school setting from season 1, like there are no other sets available. And naturally, Volm magic that can track the mechs and somehow enables the 2nd Mass to know when other teams are in danger, despite no mechs being at their position.

All those repeats come down to a brief summary. Tom is saved by mystery aliens from the beamer; it crashes into an ocean on Earth instead of the moon. Taking on the shape of Tom’s dead wife, Mystery Alien tells Tom to “find his warrior”, which he conveniently discovers a scene later, after crawling out of the ocean unharmed, on the way back to the 2nd Mass.

Pope, who seems to be eternally on watch alone, welcomes Tom back with the obligatory “how are you still alive?” line. Ann checks Tom, all is good, Mason Family Hug [tm]. Tom holds an inspiring speech about finding warriors, and no-one has a problem with him coming back from certain death a 52nd time. With the moon base gone and most Espheni ships leaving, Tom yet again decides to strike openly against the remaining Overlords and Skitters. Said and done, awkward-awful Hal-Maggie declarations of love and being unable to resist Ben ensue, Cochise reveals the Volm have located roughly 300 other militias and can communicate with them (though they all “lack a leader”, because Tom Mason can’t be everywhere and he is the ONLY capable leader on the planet). Armed with looted mech weapons, the 2nd Mass follows Tom’s alien memory hunch to a high school and kill the Overlord hiding in the basement. Deni gets killed unceremoniously by skitters, which causes Anthony to “find his warrior” (I guess? He was the one with the ammo belts and big guns from the start anyway…) and though Deni apparently gets torn apart in a high school basement, she gets a Roman funeral pyre in the 2nd Mass camp. During this funeral, Tom slaps a bug on his neck and surprise, surprise, it’s a mech fly.

Well. Let’s focus on the bright side: Lexi is dead and it seems she’s dead for real.

I’m not sure what I expected from season 5. Maybe there simply are no particular things to expect of train wrecks. I guess if anything, I wanted new absurdities, not plain old repeats of the cliches already done to death in the previous seasons. But then, the season is young and with Magical Alien Hybrid Girl gone, they have to come up with something else. I hope.

Criminal Minds S10, American Horror Story S04

As usual, I’m sensationally late with my plan to write weekly about what I watch and it is a bit of a mystery to me how I keep forgetting despite actually watching.

Criminal Minds, S10E01 – E04

First of all, I’m amazed the show is on for 10 years now. It really doesn’t feel that way. Season 10 had a great start as far as I’m concerned. I had really nothing against Alex Blake, and I also have nothing against Kate Callahan either. She seems a good fit for the team and I was amused how the introduction was handled. The BAU team sounded just as jaded as the viewers by now – “gah, no, Prentiss doesn’t come back, no matter how much you whine”, “yeah yeah, we have another new team member, how many did we go through again? Oh who cares, let’s move on…”. And everything went on as usual. The IMDB forum is morbidly interested in opinions about Jennifer Love Hewitt’s weight, which is obviously the biggest concern when it comes to a new team member. I checked in shortly after the first two episodes aired, and still ponder my own standing on the issue. (The current status is “why in the world would I care again…?”)

The first cases were a mixed bag, but there was nothing I actively disliked. It felt a bit over the top at times, but that’s nothing new. There have been absurd cases in the past and there will be in the future, and it’s part of the show’s appeal to not deal with the everyday, down to earth cases other shows handle. What should be noted as big plus is the lack of forced romances. The last two seasons were an up and down of personal life stories; Reid’s fanfictionesque phone booth romantic tragedy, Morgan’s rocky relationship, Hotch’s return to the dating scene. I always felt JJ had that inevitable sub plot covered; her marriage with Will was enough and only rarely stood out as annoying. I have hope the family/loved ones plots and scenes will be left to her in the future, and the main focus will go back to unsusal unsubs and sometimes over the top multi-episode or even season arcs.

 

American Horror Story, S04E01 – E03

To be perfectly honest, I wanted this to fail. I hoped the pilot would be so utterly unwatchable that I would never bother again. And it didn’t. While I’m not as hyped about Twisty as “the scariest clown ever” as IMDB seems to be, I’m interested in all the plots and characters. It only took the pilot to change my mind and want this season to succeed, and I desperately hope American Horror History will not repeat this time. All previous seasons drifted from “amazing” to “what the hell” in the last few episodes, from season 1’s open ended ghost christmas to season 2 leaving various plots unfinished to season 3 wrapping things up disappointingly and derailing characters for no reason halfway through. I really really want season 4 to get it right, but it’s way too early to tell if there’s a chance.

In season 3, I had a very strong preference for Queenie to turn out to be the “hybrid” that would unite the voodoo and the witches. After all, she was a living voodoo doll in the witch coven and it would have been amazing to see her end the war and unite the sides against the witch hunters. Instead, her character suddenly changed for no reason and the outcome of the new supreme was… underwhelming. Now in season 4, I’m not sure who to root for or where which character might go. I like this uncertainty; it keeps things interesting to have no real expectations and it also vastly reduces the risk for disappointment.

Falling Skies S04E11/12

Well, it could have been worse.

That doesn’t say a lot about Falling Skies anymore; it doesn’t matter how bad it gets, it usually turns out that the writers still haven’t reached the very bottom in the next episode. However, the season finale actually had a few entertaining moments. And a whole lot of cringeworthy unneccessities, like the entire episode 11, but it was not 100 % garbage.

Episode 11 makes up 170 % of the garbage though. It can be summarized real quick: After a game of idiot ball, Tom and Lexi go to the moon (instead of Tom and Ben). On the way, they inhale a cocoon and talk about family values and what it means to be human in a dream world. The End.

Episode 12 had the most interesting thing of the entire season: the spiky fog pods Dingaan first encountered on patrol. Despite their ever shrinking numbers, there are still large groups of people going on “patrols”, so Anthony has a reason to be absent from everything remotely interesting. (Yes, he is on patrol with a large group of others during all of the following events.) Anyway, so these pods just drop from the sky, release some sticky tar and crawling spine-leeches and slowly turn the trapped humans into skitters. It’s visually far more impressive than the stupid volcano landscape and it put a slightly new twist on “2 – 3 people trapped somewhere”, retiring “trapped under rubble” in the process.

Cringe is the word that immediately pops up in any and all Weaver and Matt Mason scenes, and this is no different. Trapped in a building, they start chanting a matra about not giving up and continue to do so for the rest of the episode. It’s painful to watch even before it begins.

In a garage or warehouse of some sort, Maggie, Ben and Hal are trapped. Well, Hal is stuck in the tar and Ben and Maggie are on a bus, trying to free him. After spending the last couple of episodes to build up the senseless rivalry between Ben and Hal, there is no trace of that anymore. They just get along fine and Hal gets saved. Umm, okay?

Somewhere outside, Dingaan and Pope are trapped and Dingaan already got attacked by one of the spine creepers. Strangely, Pope is the one screaming all the time (warning Ann specifically to not step in the fog, for some reason), while everyone points out how sound attracts the creepers. It is also unclear how Pope can still move at least one arm to save Dingaan, yet Matt and Ann inside the building are apparently paralyzed and unable to help Weaver when he gets attacked. Pope is on the ground, in the fog and tar, while both Matt and Ann are standing, and Ann is in super soldier mode after finding a functional flamethrower and fighting her way to Matt with it. Anyway, now that I think about it, this becomes more and more stupid, but I still want to say that Dingaan getting attacked was the first and only time there was an actual sense of danger here. With the tendency to introduce characters that aren’t Masons and then kill them, I did think for a moment they would kill Dingaan here.

The rescue in almost all cases was plain awful. The winning team in the category “least stupid rescue” is Maggie/Ben/Hal – Maggie and Ben finally manage to use their powers without making out. Weaver and Matt are saved by their human spirit and Ann with a flamethrower. Not making this up; she accidentally stumbles right into a functional flamethrower and instinctively knows what to do and where to go. This earns the team rank 2, because Ann was at least present and had been more than sufficiently warned about the dangers of the fog by Pope. He and Dingaan get saved by Sarah, who hasn’t been in this or the previous two episodes at all and just showed up with a gun to shoot the creeper on Dingaan’s throat.

I really liked the pods and all. I was even on board with most of the “these characters are forced to interact” pairings – Ben, Maggie and Hal had indeed a lot to work out (which they sadly didn’t), and Pope and Dingaan are two of the less painful to watch people, so that was fine, too. Weaver and Matt… Well. No. I would have liked to involve some of the underused characters, such a forced to stay put and somehow work through the danger together deal would have helped in many ways – to further the sense of actual danger (with non-Masons being far more likely to actually die) and to break with the usual pairings that just hurt to watch. But alas, Deni was nowhere in any episode and Anthony, as mentioned before, was “on patrol”, where nothing relevant happened, and only returned after everything was said and done.

Now, while all of this sort of interesting stuff was going on, Tom and Lexi were still in space and captured by the burned overlord on his ship. Stuff happened, testing the new found family trust of Tom and Lexi, bla bla bla, they are Masons and stick together, Lexi goes for the heroic sacrifice after learning what it means to be human, bla bla bla. As expected. Cochise had tried to contact his father and the Volm fleet to inform them about the power source, and luckily, they arrive in time to fight off Espheni forces. Lexi then crashes the ship into the moon base, and Tom in the damaged beamer comes off course and drifts into space.

This creates a void: Who are people supposed to hug now?! The answer is: Weaver and Anthony (of all people) are granted immortality. They are now involved in Mason Family Hugs [tm] and can therefore not die in season 5. Surprising, as I thought the only ticket into Masonhood was marrying Lexi, and with her death (oh God, PLEASE don’t have her magically survive…) that road is closed.

The cliffhanger was actually not that bad either. Yeah, it started out as Tom waking up in yet another dream world, but it ended with him seeing a blurry figure with lots of tentacles/arms and saying he had no idea how beautiful “they” were. “They” probably being the mysterious “greater evil” the Espheni are running from.

Episode 11 was boring and eventless and I wouldn’t have missed a thing had I skipped it. Episode 12 had some promising moments, and ultimately amounts to maybe 75 – 80 % cheesy/stupid, but with entertaining scenes. Not quite sure I’ll stick around for season 5, all things considered.

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.

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.