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.
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