Falling Skies - S3E4 - At All Cost
Previously, on Falling Skies: “Badlands”
A Tale of Two Presidents, Evil Hal, and Devil Baby is go!
This week’s episode wastes no time in making up for last episode’s lack of action, opening in the middle of the firefight between the Espheni and the settlement of Charleston. Tom decides to use this opportunity to show the captured lieutenant what the Volm can do. Taking her up to the surface, she witnesses the Charleston army demolish the Espheni attack, capping it off with two shots from Volm guns taking out an entire squadron of Beamers. This prompts her to arrange a meeting with President Hathaway.
Lourdes gives Ben and the rest of the ex-harnessed kids a rundown on the new Volm tech that will allow complete removal of the leftover harness spikes, making them fully human again. This leads to several rounds of speculation and introspection between Ben and Dani as to whether they want to give up their superpowers. Ben generally plays anti-removal, and Dani plays pro.
Anne is now being more covert in her fears about Alexis, trying to act normal around Tom and Lourdes. Under the guise of research on the de-harnessed children, she arranges to have Dr. Kadan devise a DNA test to discern between human and alien tissue, and since his area of expertise is in no way genetics, he immediately agrees and presents a list of what he’ll need. (I mean, really, as a medical doctor, Anne should be better prepared to perform DNA tests than a nuclear scientist.)
Tom puts together a secret delegation to meet with President Hathaway, and after agreeing to let Pope come along, they commandeer his plane. (Wait, what? Pope has a plane? Where’d he get that? Exactly.) Weaver agrees to enact a ruse making it appear as if Tom is still around. At the last minute, it’s revealed that Cochise will be joining the delegation. In an amusing moment , Cochise doubts the flightworthiness of Pope’s plane.
Upon landing at the President’s secret location, everything is copacetic until Cochise pops his giant head out, and then everyone predictably freaks. President Hathaway calms everyone down, but still shows his own paranoia by insisting Cochise be held in quarantine for the time being. Tom pleads his case to the President, but his people remain resistant to the idea of alien allies, prompting a conversation with Cochise himself, in which he is asked why he fights the Espheni. In a very humanizing moment, he tells a tale of a flower he has never seen, a brother who died fighting for a home he never knew, and of the hope that one day his children’s children might know of home as more than a collection of stories. (I now officially like Cochise. It’s going to suck when he changes his mind about us, and decides we deserve annihilation.) The President is now sold on the Volm, and asks Tom to stay on for a while to help sell the new plan to the people.
Hal, having realized that Tom is gone, begins arguing with himself in a mirror over his confliction regarding confessing his secret. His freakout evolves into a Good Hal/Evil Hal split personality routine, ending with Evil Hal running the show. Evil Hal promptly proceeds to seduce Maggie.
Dr. Kadar presents the results of his DNA tests to Anne, not knowing that she had mixed the baby’s sample in with the de-harnessed kids’. He marvels that all the samples are perfectly normal except for one… DEVIL BABY’S! (Hooray!) Anne’s fears confirmed, Dr. Kadar sees the truth in her reaction. Determined to let the brass know about this monstrosity, Dr. Kadar grabs his coat, only to be brained with a wrench by a suddenly maternal Anne. She then bolts back to her room and drugs Lourdes in order to sneak away with her demon spawn. As Anne sneaks away into the woods, she is ambushed by a harnessed child, a skitter, and… Evil Hal!
Back at “Keystone”, a final powwow between Tom and the President is interrupted by reports of incoming Beamers. Everyone scrambles to their respective planes. In the rush to leave, Tom is alarmed to see the President’s men ushering Cochise onto Air Force .01. (It’s the President’s plane and it’s tiny. So sue me.) Having no time to argue, he climbs into his own, and everyone takes off. However, no one manages to shake the Beamers, and both planes are shot down into forest.
Totally made up for last week’s boring episode, and ended with a couple quality cliffhangers. I am a bit disappointed to find the mole storyline progressing so slowly, but I’m much more worried about being betrayed by all the President’s men at this juncture. See you cats next week for a Pope-filled survival mission.
