Recap
Tom is an expert at getting himself caught up in anything weird or alien on Falling Skies. After another alien abduction he finds himself in someones home, fixed up and locked in a room. Turns out the farm house is occupied by a man, his daughter and 3 grandkids. His daughter and him have decided not to tell the kids about the war and on the large plot of land they live there oblivious to everything that is going on outside their land.
Tom finds it all a bit too much to handle when he sits down for dinner with them and breaks down crying. It has to be one of the more awkward scenes we have seen in a long time. The oldest grandchild who is 15 isn’t buying the story his grandfather and mother are feeding him and Tom is asked not to tell him, much to Tom’s disapproval. He can’t understand why they wouldn’t prepare the kids to fight knowing they cannot stay out of the war forever.
Back at a distillery that the 2nd mass has made camp at, Maggie and Ben find out that Hal was taken by Pope and want to go out and help. Anne tries to explain to her that she and Ben are important soldiers to their cause and they need their help to win this war. Maggie has decided she no longer wants her spikes, she cannot stand not being independent, unable to make her own decisions. Cochise agrees to help Maggie with this request, despite Anne’s refusal to do it. He ultimately runs into a few issues with it, requiring Anne to come in and finish the process. However, it ends up being successful and Maggie is still able to walk. Anne is upset over the lack of trust from Maggie and Cochise on this.
Hal and Isabella find Tom at the farm and they head back together to meet up with the 2nd mass. Once they arrive Weaver shows off the communication device that was found, one that reveals the entire overlord army communicating on the astral plane. With this tech, they now feel they have a way to finally win this war.
Review
This is our filler episode of the season. At just over the half way point, we are getting ready to get into a plot heavy back half that has a lot of territory to cover and wrap up. Even with this very light episode overall there were several very important events that occurred that will have massive ramifications for the rest of the season and none of them include Tom or Hal. Sorry writers but both of those story arc’s are boring, overdone and lazy ways to fill in gaps that you just didn’t have time or budget to do something with. Story plots like Tom’s in this episode are plots that we would expect from the first few seasons of a show but we shouldn’t be using it this late into the show and in the final season.
All the fans were really upset over the Ben and Maggie romance which to be honest was a by-product of the spikes, but despite that fans berated Ben for it. Now, we see Hal flirting with yet another girl, which really has to get fans upset that Hal is just a player. I will get crap for this I am sure but now that Maggie’s spikes are gone it is back to Hal versus 2 girls and its another over-played boring plot line. We know the writers can do better and we know Hal has had better stories.
The real stand out success for this episode, was 2 key events and both involved Maggie’s decision: Cochise and Anne’s disagreement and Maggie’s decision to remove the spikes. Anne and Cochise have grown really close this season and her medical expertise combined with Cochise’s alien technology and knowledge is a powerful combination. Cochise decided to go against Anne and betray her trust by agreeing to help Maggie remove her spikes. Trust is in short supply and if the upcoming episode titles are anything to go by, they need to trust each other badly or all will be lost. The upcoming episode titles are Everybody Has Their Reasons and Stalag 14th Virginia.
Adding to the lack of trust from Anne is Maggie’s decision to be selfish and have the spikes removed against Anne’s pleas. Maggie has always been a private person, as she told Anne, referring to the fact that her and Ben now share each-others thoughts and feelings. The truth is that both Anne and Maggie were being selfish. We can understand Maggie’s desire to get rid of them after everything that has happen, but at the same time she is putting the 2nd mass in a bad position by getting rid of one of their super soldiers so close to the final battle.
At the start of the season, the 2nd mass lost one of 3 super soldiers they had when Denny was killed. Now that Maggie no longer has her spikes, that leaves only one person left with the strength or ability to get information from the enemy and fight at their level and that is Ben. When Ben gave up some of his spikes to help save Maggie, he gave a part of himself too, as they were still connected. It is true that Ben did have feelings for Maggie before hand and those feelings were passed through the spikes explaining a lot of attraction (forced and not real) from Maggie.
However, when Maggie got rid of those spikes she also tossed aside that part of Ben, and he felt that part of him die with the spikes did. While we don’t know exactly what the final battle holds for all the characters we do know this from interviews at Comic Con and the sizzle reel shown at the panel: Ben is now alone and angry. The little bit of humanity he had is gone after the 2 people who understood him best are now no longer apart of his life. Connor Jessup teased that Ben will have to use his abilities to get information from the enemy but there is also another enemy closer to home that will not see Ben as the helpful super solider that the 2nd mass sees him as.
Previews of episodes later in the season show that Ben is going to be isolated and angry which will result in repercussions for him and everyone in the 2nd mass. We see him in front of a firing squad with Hal and Anne, and at comic con we saw him imprisoned and being tortured by a group of military forces. The truth is, this is what I wanted to see from Ben’s story a long time ago. Its the natural progression for this character and given the episode previews, will make for an interesting end.
