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Falling Skies Season 4 Finale Review/Recap – All Bets Are Off

By: Robert Prentice
Falling Skies

Recap

Part One was all about Lexi coming back, and Pope wanted none of it, firing at her but finding that she is far too powerful for something so simple. Ben is replaced on the trip to the moon by Lexi, wanting to prove herself an ally now, but mostly because nobody on the ground trusted her any more, least of all Tom. They spend the trip going through a rather bizarre father/daughter bonding session which started with Lexi cocooning Tom to save him from a failing life support system on the beamer. Watching as she slapped her hands together to make the material for the cocoon was a bit weird and you almost wanted to laugh while watching it. Then we go to straight out gross as she pushes a bunch of it down Tom’s throat. This episode plays back like season 3’s dream episode but in this case it’s Lexi’s mind that he is in, and she is trying to reach out to her father.

As smart as Tom is, he quickly figures out it’s all a dream and gets Lexi to reveal herself and explain what’s going on. After bonding a little for the first time since she grew up, they both wake up and come out of the cocoon to find the bomb damaged from the cold and the beamer nearly to its destination. Down on the ground, the 2nd Mass find themselves closed in by mobile skitterization pods, which are being dropped from beamers. The fog and liquid oozing out results in its victim getting stuck, unable to move and in a trance state before a tethered harness creature comes out and begins pumping a fluid into them which changes them like it did Jeanne.

Everyone is separated and pinned down. Dingaan with Pope, Matt with Weaver and Ben, Maggie and Hal. Dingaan and Pope fight hard to stay alive – Dingaan is about ready to give up and Pope is screaming like an idiot at the top of his lungs for everyone to stay out of the fog. Matt and Weaver run into a shed to hide, only to find the mist is making its way into the shed. As Matt starts to have flashbacks to when he was almost harnessed in the factory, Weaver starts a chant that he gets Matt to say, keeping the both of them from giving up. Anne is separated from everyone and tries to find a way through the fog, when she finds out that yet again a flame thrower works wonders. Hal and Ben both get stuck in the fog while Maggie makes it to the bus roof. As they both shoot the harness creatures Maggie manages to get Ben’s spikes to light up (yea no don’t read in to that) and he uses his super human strength to get out of the goop and on to the bus. Maggie and Ben work together to make a rope to get Hal up on the bus just in time, to which he comments how great it is to see the two of them working together.

Just as they are about to get to the moon, something pulls them off course, and it turns out to be a larger Espheni ship that pulls them in and docks. Our half burnt Espheni brother Scorch turns up with Mira harnessed as his mouth piece. He wants to finish what his brother couldn’t and knocks Tom out. Lexi tries to play everything off as if she brought Tom to him and she is still on the aliens’ side but he sees through her. He turns to Lexi and starts to choke her. It turns out the necklace she wears was not a symbol of freedom but one of control, one that he could use to control Lexi. Tom protects her by taking the vial that Cochise made for Tom and sticking the overlord with it, killing him. But of course he has his own last say and revenge – he breaks the autopilot before dying. Lexi was the only person who could fly the ship to the moon now, but it was a one way trip. She sends Tom to the other ship and locks him in it before explaining to him that she cannot go with.

As she flies the ship off to the moon, Tom finds himself surrounded by dozens of enemy ships preparing to fire on him. Just before things look like they are not going to turn out well, Cochise’s father shows up with a Volm mothership and destroys the enemy beamers. Just after that Tom watches as the energy core on the moon is destroyed. The shockwave from the released power causes Tom’s beamer to spin out of control away from Earth’s orbit. The comms are fried and he cannot communicate with the Volm. On the ground Anne manages to make it to Weaver and Matt and holds out long enough for the power core to be destroyed thus killing the mobile skitterization units. Pope was saved along with Dingaan by Sara, who shows up just in time.

While everyone Earth is vowing to fight on and find Tom, Tom wakes up in a bed, unsure of where he is. As he awakens he finds himself listening to some of the old broadcasts sent out from earth over the decades, like someone was trying to send him a message. When he turns around, we see a silhouette of an alien being to which Tom makes the comment that they are beautiful.

Review

Where do we begin? Let’s start with kill count. We know Scorch is dead, Mira likely died on the beamer that crashed, Lexi we are not so sure about. Lexi has the ability to control matter and gravity, so that begs the question as to whether she managed to survive or not. Denny’s fate is also up in the air as we hear her screaming at the start of the 2-part finale, so we have to assume if she does come back that she is a skitter/thing. Overall for a season finale there were very few deaths. However, thanks to Eick there were very tense moments where we doubted the survival of Dingaan, Pope, Weaver and Hal.

We end the season not wrapping up as many of the overall story lines from season 1 as we would have liked. Season 4 did good at wrapping up its own story lines, including Lexi and the new power core. However, there were many things left unanswered that we need to have wrapped up in season 5. Why are the Espheni really here? Why did the Volm think Earth was a lost cause? Who is this 3rd alien race? Remember the overlords mentioned a dark force that they too were preparing to defend against. Is that this new alien race Tom meets? If so, what is relationship between all 3 races? There is a lot to cover in 10 episodes next season but I feel Eick is up to the task.

If I had to rate the finale I would give it a combined 4/5 (3 for part 1, 5 for part 2) stars and I will tell you why it’s that high and why it’s not higher. Overall this season didn’t answer any of the questions that have been building over the seasons including why the aliens came in the first place, where the Volm went and what is going to happen to spiked kids. But should we really expect it to? I mean this is not its final season, so the burden wasn’t really on this season to solve all those questions. Season 5 is a different story. The burden lies with Eick to resolve 4 seasons of questions and mystery in 10 episodes. Season 4 started with a power play by the Espheni and a new power core. It also featured a human-alien hybrid child that would be a weapon of destruction. Sure all of these things have been used in sci fi before, but they are all resolved by the end of the season. Many people hated the super fast paced tone of season 4, losing track of what was going on. However, the season recovered itself in the finale with a perfect mix of edge of your seat science fiction horror and human drama.

On the topic of people complaining these things have been done before, I would say that there are very few concepts that haven’t already been used before. Where do you think people draw inspiration for their ideas from? Now I am not talking about directly copying someone else’s work, but creating variations on ideas to make them fresh and new. Lexi’s story was unique in how the aliens decided to create her and how they groomed her. Sure the overall concept had been used before but not in the same way. I would love for Falling Skies to be edgier like everyone else wants but it is basic cable so you can’t expect it.

There is a lot we are expecting out of season 5, which we will explore in a later post. So stay tuned for that. Comment below and tell us what you think of the season finale and vote in our poll below.

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