Recap
Tom and the rest of the escapees make it to the meeting point where Cochise promised to meet them. Upon arrival Tom sets off with Weaver to recuse Matt from the camp. Tom leaves Hal in charge of the group in his place. Hal makes ‘friends’ with one of Cochise’s men who he nick names Shaq. While on the road to where Cochise says Matt is being kept, Weaver has a gut feeling that they are being followed but he is not sure by what. Whatever this thing is it attacks Cochise and uses a venom that keeps him down for some time. Tom and Weaver are going to have to go do this mission on their own.
Hal finds out from the other Volm who stayed with the group that the enemy is closing in on their position and its time for them to leave. Hal refuses to go at first stating his father told him to stay put. Hal’s leadership is then tested when Pope refuses to listen to him and ventures out with a car to find more fuel. During the run Pope runs into a lady who is just as bad as he is. It’s clear the two of them like each other despite the tying up and drugging. However, together they both manage to escape the enemy patrol and make it back to the camp. After a bit of a confrontation with Hal, him and Pope both agree they need to leave, the enemy is far too close.
Back in the youth camp, Tom and Weaver make it inside and find several children sleeping. One wakes up and Tom promises to save all of them but he is looking for Matt. To his surprise the child starts to blow the alarm whistle and all the other kids join in. As Tom and Weaver try to leave, another girl runs into them in the hall, its Matts ‘girlfriend’. She knows where Matt is and takes Tom to him. As Weaver stays back to watch their back, something pulls him into another room. Tom finally makes it to Matt just as the group leader is choking Matt for failing to be the good little boy he knew he could be. Tom nearly kills the boy in a rage before Matt stops him.
Matt and Tom end up making it out but the girl has to stay behind to allow them to escape, much to Matt’s objections. When we find Weaver again, the creature that was following them is starring at him. A skitter comes out from behind Weaver and the creature attacks it but is seriously hurt. When Weaver looks he realizes the sad and dark truth, this creature is Jeanne. The Espheni have begun their human transformation project but clearly has not perfected it as she still had the free will to protect her father and kill the skitter. However, she does not survive. When Tom and Matt catch up with Weaver, he reveals that he found her and what had happen to her. The threat that Tom was given by the overlord was true.
Hal’s group left a message for Tom as they moved on to avoid the patrols that were coming near to them. A radio message from what sounded like Lourdes was heard and they decided to head that direction as there was the promise of a safe haven. Back in the very place they were headed, Anne learns that Lexi had been meeting with an overlord and upon meeting the Monk, Ben and Anne both don’t believe that he is telling the truth and decide to detain the overlord for questioning much to Lexi’s objections.
We see Scorch make it to where the group had been and crush some soil in his hand making an object that suddenly transports us to another plane or world. The monk overlord appears as well and the truth is revealed. We learn Scorch’s real name is Geminus. While Scorch is dealing with a blunder of his group of humans escaping including Tom Mason, the monk claims to be having success with his experiment, Lexi. Everything is moving forward as planned, and she will be theirs. Ben and Anne are right, he cannot be trusted.
Review
While only 4 episodes into the season, this episode finally brings in the overall plot arc and gives us a taste of what the aliens are up to. We are also getting to the point of wrapping up all the separation stories. With Matt back and Anne’s group with Ben’s, we are nearly complete in getting the 2nd mass together again. We saw the loss of another semi-main character in Weavers daughter and got to see for the first time what human skitterization actually looks like.
The two key things that made this episode the strongest of the season to date was the visual effects and Weaver. This episode displayed the enormous talent and efforts that went into the practical makeup and visuals of Jeanne and the Espheni overlords, as well as the CGI effects of the ‘communication plane’ that both overlords used. It is not often you find a basic network TV show with such a budget to use practical and CGI in such a mix. Using practical with CGI enhancement is tricky and time consuming to do but is far more realistic.
The other winner of this episode was Weaver. For several seasons we have seen him go back and forth between anger, addiction and depression. Today he lost his daughter but rather then losing himself, he accepted what we already knew had happen and is gearing up for the fight to take the enemy down. You can also notice that Matt has taken a liking to him and Weaver looks to Matt like a son and a solider. Let’s face it, Tom is too busy getting captured and trying to save the world.
Sadly much like the death of another of our leads, Dai, Jeanne didn’t get much of a send off. Let us know what you thought of tonights episode.
