Man, I wish I was an Ashveni, because then I probably would have been able to better follow the warp-speed plot of this episode.

The good news is that for the finale, we finally got back to seeing some real action scenes, seeing the 2nd Mass kick some ass (and get their asses kicked, a little, too). We got Ben back, and Karen too!

It’s also interesting to look at the parallels between this finale and the finale of Season 1. Both had a specific, significant alien target that  the rebels were ultimately successful in destroying. However, this time, even though they had a much greater advantage with the intel and weapons, they still managed to get ambushed and have a Mason get compromised in some way.

So, let us review the events of “A More Perfect Union”, and at the end there will be a surprise discussion. Who’s excited?!

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Nice Star Wars hoodie Matt! And nice work on getting a week’s suspension on your first day at school for punching a jerk!

Penultimate episode! Setting things up for the explosive (literally) finale! Secret underground IKEA compound! Tomatoes! John mutherfuggin’ Locke!

Even though this was a fairly solid set-up for a nice, exciting final episode, there were a few sticking points for me. As hypocritical as it might sound, I actually wish the events of this episode were spread out over two episodes instead of just one. They went into over-drive, from arrival to awkward, to “things here seem a little hinky” to all the 2nd Mass getting arrested to prison break to military coup. That was a lot for one episode. Better pacing would have had them arrive and start integrating into the Charleston group, with the suspicions growing in the final acts, culminating in Pope + Co. getting arrested and Alien Boy showing up. Then the second episode would deal with the prison break, the rounding up of the 2nd Mass and the build-up to the coup. Season pacing! This is why it’s important, y’all!

My other minor problem is how closely The Price of Greatness resembled not one, but 2 Battlestar Galactica plotlines. To which you might say, “sure, it’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi show, of course there are going to be similarities, Laura, duh”. However, this episode was written by Mark Verheiden (a BSG writer and co-EP), practically half the cast is BSG alums (which is more a Vancouver shooting thing, but still…) and there are some notable similarities.

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“Ah, well. Fuck.”

Falling Skies was back last night after a 2 week hiatus and it was… kinda boring. The title of the episode was “Death March”. and yet there was no marching and (except for a random that Fucking Lourdes was being too terrible to hydrate a patient) no death. A better title would be “Riding in Cars With Backstory”. I get that this was the set before the spike of the last two episodes of the season, but still. That makes two episodes in a row where the 2nd Mass pretty much just sat around talking instead of… I don’t know, blowing shit up.

Not that it was a terrible episode. We got a tiny bit of awesome interaction between Pope and Maggie (my favorite dynamic) and got to know more about the Berserker named Tector (played by the amazing Ryan Robbins). Also Matt got to bond with a harnessed girl for awhile until she peaced out to rejoin her Skitter family.

Even though I’m itching for some explosion-y action, and I think they could incorporate the character development seen in this episode into a more exciting plot. Anyway, let’s sketch out what each person decided to sit and talk about in “Death March”.

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I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed? Answer: yes, with a filler episode like this one. This episode felt more like the first season episodes, especially the 6th and 7th episode of Season 1, where the Aliens attacked the school. It makes some sense; with a  mediocre episode like this one, the last three of the season make more of an impact. There were some hints about the aliens’ other “plans”, but that’s about all the plot development we got from this episode.

I was expecting Matt and Karen to get way further away from the hospital, especially with the head start they had and their harness!superpowers, but apparently not? It’s probably (definitely) my Karen bias showing, but I still thought that Karen wasn’t totally in the pro-Alien zone when she was talking with Ben at the very beginning, but once she got close enough to the Fishhead, she was sucked back in. The 2nd Mass. manages to basically stumble into capturing a Fishhead, apparently the same one who chatted with Tom on the alien ship. They all call it The Commander, but how would they know? I wish we could find out it’s actually just a middle management Fishhead.

Tom wanted to take the captured Fishhead to Charleston, because he thinks they’ll love it there. Aren’t the aliens telepathic? Which means that other alien forces could just follow the 2nd Mass to Charleston, close enough to know where to go, but far enough not to be detected by the 2nd Mass. Then they could get to Charleston and shut things down there. It’s meaningless anyway, since they don’t end up taking Fishy, but it was a dumb idea anyway.

That’s what got me about this whole episode: people once again being dumb and/or annoying.

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awkward…

First off, congrats to Falling Skies for getting picked up for Season 3! Honestly, I was surprised when it got a Season 2 pick-up, so this is cool. I haven’t really watched any of the other Comic-Con Falling Skies coverage; I don’t know if the full panel will be uploaded somewhere or not, but if it is I’ll try to link that in the next recap. There is this cute interview of my 3 favorites (Colin Cunningham, Jessy Schram and Moon Bloodgood). Now, on to the episode!

Guess who’s backkkkk? Neither return was particularly surprising, since Karen was in the promos, and it was obviously that Pope (and Anthony) would be back at some point too, but still.

Actually, I think Karen and Pope might just be my favorite characters on this show. They’re at least the most interesting. (Dr. Glass gets 3^rd place because she is just so awesome). Everyone else kinda just pissed me off this episode. Even Weaver, who was unconscious for most of the hour, was being unnecessarily stupid by not sharing the fuel situation with Tom, and for being such a prick about people, you know, daring to relax.

Tom proved that he is basically a terrible leader on his own, Hal dicked around back and forth between Maggie and Karen, and Maggie went annoyingly crazy.

Mostly I just want to talk about how Jessy Schram made this episode her bitch.

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Pretend to push him off the roof! Ha, just kidding.

Holy smokes, y’all. This is episode 5, which means that technically we are halfway through the 10-episode season. Which makes sense, since in this episode we get a pretty significant reveal/twist (game-changer? Maybe possibly).

So there is a secret Skitter rebellion, according the Skitter Red-Eye, who I think I’m just going to call Skitter Bob, or just Bob (since Skitter seems sort of derogatory now). Maybe I’m too trusting, but I believe it. I think Bob’s story jives, and it explains why Tom was the only one to not get shot when all those other humans who were left off the ship were (although why did all the others get shot? Plot? Or to protect Bob’s cover? Or to not arouse audience suspicion). Also, why would he inform Tom about the “death squad’s” immanent attack? And why didn’t the 2^nd Mass haul ass the second they heard there might be an attack on the camp? Sometimes I can’t with these dumbasses.

I’m also a sucker for the “secret dissention/rebellion within a previously assumed-to-be monolithically evil enemy force” trope. Tom mentioned that “history’s full of excuses like ‘I was only following orders’”; history’s also full of people who you assumed were Bad Guys actually being good. Story-wise, it just makes things that much more interesting. Plus, the 2^nd Mass. has already encountered (un-harness) human collaborators (like the dude who was trading children for protection), so I think it makes sense that there would be a converse of that with having Good Skitters.

I guess I have to talk about Hal and Maggie. Sigh.

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Skitter ball!

Previously: we started late into the season, but you can catch up on Season 1, the Season 2 premiere and 2×03.

In 2×04, “Young Bloods”, we get a clear look at what are likely to be the major themes of the season: hope, free will, and the child/adult dichotomy, all of which relate to each other. They touched on it in the premiere when talking about how they need to prepare the kids for “the world they live in,” which means learning to shoot and fight, but they are also children whose only job should be to kick around a soccer ball. The kids, while being symbolic to the adults of hope for the future, are both struggling to assert their independence/free will while also trying to define their relationship with their parents. Plus, there’s both Tom and Ben struggling with not knowing if they have free will because of their alien experiences, and now another symbol of hope with Charleston.

I honestly am surprised this show is getting all complicated and theme-y. From here on out I’ll try not to mention it so as to not be redundant , but I keep being surprised at how much better this show is compared to last season. They are also nailing the details, like the art direction, and the directing has been top-notch.*

The opening sequence of this fourth episode is a perfect example of that. The tone is so bleak and surreal, with Matt scootering around an abandoned neighborhood (complete with a tuned-over tricycle and a water-damaged photo album) that it feels like a nightmare, especially when he gets cornered by two Skitters. Just when you think they’re going to cut to someone waking up… BOOM. Skitter Headshot! And another!  Two Berserkers on the roof take ‘em out. Little Matt, aka ‘M&M’, covered in a mess of Skitter blood looks shell-shocked for a second before affirming, “That. Was. Awesome.”

I concur, M&M.

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Post-apocalyptic life totally blows.

OK, so first single episode recap! This is for 2×03 “Compass”, which aired last Sunday, and I should have the recap for 2×04 “Young Bloods” up today too, and with that we’ll be all caught up and ready to go with the rest of the season. If you want to catch up on the show so far (and you should), you can read the summary of Season 1 and the Season 2 premiere episodes, although honestly it might just be quicker for you to go watch the episodes yourself. Either way, we’re pressing on. Skitter ho!

This episode cements the idea that this season is going to be going at a much more intense and dramatic pace than the first. Rather than dinking around with pointless missions, we get a specific goal right away, and underlying tensions within the group come to a head within the hour instead of dragging on and on. Hopefully they continue to push on at the same pace all season.

This propulsion comes from a pretty badass lady who flies into the airport, claiming that there’s a big group of survivors in the “new capitol” of Charleston, South Carolina and that – since apparently everyone still alive in the country has the same Revolutionary War boner as Tom Mason – they’ve elected what they’re calling a ‘Continental Congress’. Weaver wanted to go to the Catskills to hide (and dirty dance) through the winter, and is significantly more skeptical of this Churchhill lady’s story than of Tom’s (of the alien ship), but ultimately they decide to head south. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey guys, it’s SB in italics, but everything else is twinkiesandwine, our new recapper for Falling Skies!  She’s written the below post to catch you up on everything you’ve missed, and this is actually a really awesome post because you could TOTALLY jump right in to the show after reading this.  And you should, because as Billy pointed out tonight, Hal and Ben are basically mini-Winchesters (correct).  Please welcome twinkiesandwine to the party, leave her lots of comments, and just generally be awesome, as you all always are!

“It’s the world we live in, not the world we want.”

Previously on Falling Skies: aliens came, invaded Earth, bombed the major cities, knocked out the power grid and most modern technology, as well as destroying the world’s militaries and around 90% of the world’s population.

There are three types of aliens: “Skitters”, which are big insectoid-like critters with crab legs; “mechs”, giant robots that fire lasers; and then the apparent leaders, who look sort of like giant four-limbed snakes. Their objective is unknown, but they do like to abduct minors, who they “harness” into submission with a slug-like object that not only drugs them and creates some sort of psychic connection to the Skitters, but also
fuses to their spines, making complete removal lethal.

The show focuses on one of an indeterminate number of surviving humans, some of whom are committed to a resistance cause, the idea being that if the humans can make the cost of occupation too high, the aliens will leave them alone. This group is named the 2nd Massachusetts, after the Revolutionary War, which is something we get to hear a lot about since the main character, Tom Mason, used to be a history professor at BU and loves to make pointless and annoying historical allusions and comparisons. Tom was
also made second in command of the group in the first episode. Tom’s wife died before the series, but he has three sons: Hal, a 17 year old who is useful and a good fighter, Matt who is 10 or so and the most annoying moppet ever, and Ben, the middle son, who was taken and harnessed by the Skitters pre-series.

Most of the first half of the first season was Tom arguing with the military commander of the 2nd Mass, Captain Weaver. Seriously, every episode Tom was like “I want to go out and look for Ben” and Weaver was like, “yeah you can go do that after we do this other thing that is going to keep people from dying.” Also, I think Weaver is secretly and slowly dying from a mysterious illness. Other important characters are Dr. Anne Glass, a former pediatrician who is now that unit’s main doctor. She flirts awkwardly with Tom (her husband and son died in the attack), tries to communicate with a Skitter they captured (before killing in it a total badass move), and figures out how to remove most of the harnesses from the kids without killing them. She also did an autopsy on the dead Skitter and found out that Skitters were/are harnessed too, which might mean that harnessed kids get turned into Skitters. Read the rest of this entry »