Contributor: Henry T.
Written by Remi Aubuchon, Bradley Thompson, and David Weddle
Directed by Greg Beeman
I’m just going to come out and say it directly: I was very frustrated with this season finale of “Falling Skies”. It had a lot of logic holes and plotting that didn’t fit with the episodes that were shown before. After watching the episode, I had a myriad of questions running through my mind, which isn’t a good thing if anyone was looking for a positive impression of the episode.
Most pertained to the incredulous reaction over the writers’ decision to sweep aside the events of the previous episode. The tension between the civilians and military is gone. The relationship issues between Hal and Maggie go away. Tector goes from almost leaving the 2nd Mass. to joining the 1st Continental Army back to being one of the Berserkers in the space of a few hours. It’s almost as if the show doesn’t want to acknowledge that any of the events in “The Price of Greatness” ever actually happened. Problems aren’t limited to our heroes either. The alien villains also have some questionable motivations and make some odd choices in this episode. It’s a problematic episode in a season that has been really inconsistent from the beginning.
The plot continues from the end of the last episode, as the 2nd Mass. is caught in between a military coup of the civilian government in Charleston. General Bressler expedites things by throwing Tom and the rest of them in jail with Manchester. The rebel skitters pick that very moment (timing is often a fortuitous thing on this series) to enter the underground base. If there is an outer security perimeter, how did the pack of skitters get into the supposedly secure underground bunker unscathed and undetected? There is a show of solidarity from the 2nd Mass. in standing in front of all the armed men ready to shoot the rebel skitters, which might have worked if I didn’t have the thought that the military has no reason to keep anyone in the 2nd Mass. alive. It would have given the stand the survivors take more impact, but the show chooses to ignore all of that in favor of another growing alien threat.
Apparently, an alien superweapon is being built outside the city and they must stop it/destroy it if everyone hopes to survive. How anyone could have missed a large weapon being built miles from the city is beyond me. A raid is set up to destroy the weapon and possibly kill the overlord threat that has been building through the season. Every major character in the 2nd Mass. eagerly volunteers for the mission because they’re itching for combat. If you stopped and thought about it, that’s a rather crazy notion. Anne is suddenly deemed pregnant with Tom’s child and decides that she wants in on the mission as well. If I was Lourdes or anyone else around Anne, I would have begged her to stay away from any combat in her condition.
The ease by which the skitters came into Charleston is mirrored by the 2nd Mass. easily entering the core of the superweapon. I would have thought the mechs would provide more security, but again, logic in this episode seems to have disappeared. The 2nd Mass. thinks the mission is too easy and that’s when they get captured by Karen and some skitters. They’re tortured for information, with Karen having some sadistic fun sticking a giant electric prod in Tom and Captain Weaver as well as kissing Hal in front of Maggie. No one is willing to bend until Karen reveals to Tom that Anne is pregnant. So the pregnancy is used as leverage to get Tom to talk. Again, it was an all-around bad idea for Anne to come on the mission.
They are saved at the last moment by the rebel skitters, all of whom start to attack the alien overlord. The whole sequence looks cool, yet I couldn’t escape the nagging thought of wondering where the skitters who guarded both the overlord and Karen had gone. If the overlord is so valuable, he should have some kind of guard around him. Karen escapes, the overlord gets killed, and the weapon is blown to kingdom come. With the death of Red Eye, perhaps Ben assumes command of the rebel skitters? It couldn’t go more perfectly for everyone, which has been the case since the beginning of this series. The stakes and tension can’t go too high if everything goes so right for the people on here.
That isn’t to say that there was nothing good about the finale. I had a small suspicion that there was something more to Hal’s kiss from Karen. Perhaps a transfer of consciousness or some kind of mind control. Something mysterious occurs to Hal in his final scene of the season, as a little bug comes out of his eye and crawls into his ear. An eerie smile comes across Hal’s face as he stares in the mirror. Could Tom be losing another one of his sons? It could balance out the fact that he’s going to have another child to care for.
Hal’s final scene was the lone completely effective scene in the finale. It was mysterious and well-done from a visual and narrative standpoint. The same cannot be said for the very last scene of the finale. While the visuals of the blue landing pods and bright lightning demonstrated the extent of the show’s special effects budget, the end result of the scene was puzzling. A new alien comes out of the landing pod in front of everyone and the episode cuts to black. Nothing is explained about the alien. No one on either side says a word. It’s a complete mystery without any sort of context to make it a compelling cliffhanger. The final scene is a microcosm of my growing frustration with this series. It may be visually impressive, but it’s woefully short on any good explanation as to why all of this is happening.
Score: 6/10
(Season 2 Final Average: 6.8)
