What They Say:
Til Death do Us Part – Tom and a team follow the Volm to a supply cache in search of equipment; Maggie and Ben grow closer as he teaches her about her new skills; Pope and Sara continue to clash.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Falling Skies spent a good bit of its time on the fallout from the big battle previously and it had its moments. The frustrating side is seeing what was done to Maggie against her will and that she ended up just kind of accepting it afterwards for the most part. But if there’s an incident that will help Ben and Maggie potentially grow closer, and to add a wedge between her and Hal, well, that’s going to be it. There was some decent character moments throughout it depending on who was involved, but it was balanced by some silly and stupid acts. Notably with Dingann and Tom once again when they were stuck underground and dealing with what was going on there. Things ended in an even more awkward way as the fallout from the battle has revealed a key bit of news that can help the fight in a big way as they now know that the Espheni are powering their entire effort from the moon. Naturally, there’s a kind of good natured silliness about what the plan is, but the truth of it is there. To the moon.
So with the idea iof digging out the beamer that they’ve found and getting it fixed up so they can get it running and set it to return it to the base that must be up there, everyone has a kind of comical tone about them that makes a lot of sense. It does give everyone a lot of purpose and that helps, but there’s also a strain of people in the group that thinks it’s just plain crazy. But it does, as Cochise says, make a lot of sense and isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds. It’s also very old school science fiction TV series material that is almost by the numbers. Digging out the beamer is something that has to be done quickly since the Espheni could come back after everything that happened so there’s a lot of incentive to work hard. What gives them a little more hope in doing it quicker is that Cochise reveals that there’s a supply cache of theirs nearby that’s now accessible and could help in clearing out the rubble. So an easy missions is in the offing.
One that does have its complications since Tom and Anne are fighting pretty hard at the moment because of what’s going on with Lexi and how each are reacting, but they’re able to compartmentalize it to some degree in order to tackle the low risk mission. While they find the cache quickly enough, there’s a complication when Mira appears on the scene and that arises a lot of suspicions. Matt’s not exactly happy for obvious reasons, but there’s more than enough reason to be suspicious in general. Mira proves that out quickly enough, which at least doesn’t draw out the obvious, but you really wish they would have done something different here because it’s all just so painfully predictable. Even less surprising is that the stuff they came for gets lost in the situation as the Espheni end up bombing the place and destroying the cache.
When the youth camp group arrives to collect or kill the survivors, things just get messy from there with what they do as nobody seems to be able to shoot each other for a lot of it but we do get some stun sequences since they don’t want to show adults killing kids. While that’s expected, less expected are the utterly stupid moments that go on in this scattered firefight, especially with Tom and Anne. What they’re facing are the teenage group of survivors that have been traumatized and brainwashed into serving the Espheni and that does evoke a certain sadness, but they had gone so far into the whole Nazi aspect of it that it became parody in the end, lacking in real emotional punch. The whole thing is just a mess, one that happened because Matt just couldn’t let someone he knew and liked be in any amount of pain. You can attribute it to age, but it was done in such a simple and obvious way with no real meaning to it that it just minimizes the whole thing even more.
One of the main subplots for this episode involves Maggie getting used to her new abilities, which certainly needs some understanding since she’s causing more trouble with her heightened strength than helping in some ways. She knows she needs to work with Ben, especially since he’s offering, as mastering what she’s become is important, but there’s a wariness with her about spending more time with him. Hal, not exactly oblivious but also not quite realizing what’s going on, is all for it. Maggie’s definitely struggling with what she’s become though, since part of it is the difficulty in admitting it because she’s got an almost out of body experience with it. While there are perks to what she’s become, there’s also a lot of wariness. Ben’s fairly decent at helping her take the leaps she needs to take in order to really understand what she is now.
While there is a conflict side to it, there’s also a natural ability that she’s able to connect with that makes it easy for her to take the fighting skills to the next level. But there’s also the byproduct of the shared spikes that they have as the two of them are able to share feelings a bit, emotions carrying. They both know it and realize they have to be careful with it, but when emotions run high for both of them, it turns into an awkward but intense kiss as the two of them are quite drawn to each other. His attraction is natural though whereas hers is feeding off of his attraction to her, making it kind of silly in a way. Is anyone surprised that Hal sees this, but not the moment afterwards when Ben says they need to stop and that it can’t go any further because he realizes why she feels that way? Of coruse not. Where will future tension come from otherwise.
In Summary:
The usual complaints apply once again to Falling Skies as stupid things happen, characters act poorly and the drama is ratcheted up without us really caring about the characters enough to get invested in it. We get more arguing between Tom and Anne and some make-up time, we see Pope and Sara continuing to fight and misudnerstand each other and we get tension coming up between Ben, Hal and Maggie over the changes she’s going through, which still feels like it’s wrongly explored. The action sidke of it is alright at best, but it left me wishing more of the youth camp people would get dealt with. The less said about the small wedding piece the better. The only saving grace here is the nod towards where the power source for the Espheni is and that it gives the show a real sense of purpose for the first time this season. Barely.
Grade: C-
