What They Say:
Drawing Straws – Tom and the 2nd Mass learn to pilot a Beamer as part of their plan to destroy the Espheni power core. The group draws straws to see who will embark on a dangerous mission.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With their eyes set on heading to the moon to take out the power station there that’s supply energy to pretty much all the Espheni on Earth, Falling Skies had some decent moments the last time around as we see them unearth a Beamer and to begin to figure out how it all works. Amid that, we saw Ben and Maggie starting to get closer as he helps her out with her newfound abilities, which also ties into the emotional connection that gets forged because of their spikes. It’s all expected and predictable, though it was fun seeing Hal just make it clear that Ben needs to back off rather than having it play in the background for awhile or for Hal to just give up on it all. Considering his problems with Karen and then the near loss of Maggie, having him being particularly intent on holding onto Maggie makes sense, especially if you want to factor in the loss of his mother as well.
The acquisition of the Beamer is certainly setting things in motion and that works nicely to make it feel like there’s more of a goal here than just survival. The whole Charleston arc was welcome because it gave them a rallying cry to work with, but it all got cut short with everything that happened with it and then the extended ghetto arc of this season. Matt’s been picking up on his role a bit this season since he’s survived some things on his own and he’s entering that full on teenage rebellious mode, especially against a father that is pretty much an authority on many things, and that leads to some amusement as he figures out ways to get access to the Beamer that the others overlooked after being told that he needs to stay out of there. A predictable moment but one that gives him a little more importance in the scheme of things.
With a plan that’s slowly but surely coming together, a new event has come into play that puts the 2nd Mass in a difficult position. Information from the outside world has come in that has basically said that what few survivors that are out there are all that’s left as all the other ghetto’s have been emptied. That puts the Tom in the position of talking about what their plan should be, whether to go to ground and hide as recommended because of the unstoppable mysterious new weapon the Espheni have or to take the Beamer to the moon and do what needs doing. It’s a choice between potential survival or potential salvation and victory. Some want to just survive and hold on but Tom and several others push the idea that they need to get past all of this and make a real strike against the Espheni and fight for their survival, to earn it and master it.
Because of the nature of the mission, Tom is intent on taking it on himself, especially since it’s his idea to really fight back. That doesn’t go over well with Anne for several reasons, but it also doesn’t sit well with a lot of others as they want to get involved as well. There’s a kind of weird vibe about it all as it plays out because they don’t just come outright and say who would be the best for it and instead they go with Matt’s idea to draw straws over it. This leads to a bit of a clash between Tom and Matt since Matt’s very much in his rebellious phase as we saw before, but it’s all done so quickly and the reactions so harsh that you don’t really feel much for either side. Especially since it’s all coming down to who is best for the job and they’re not going about it in the way that really makes the most sense. It’s all silly drama instead of logically and pragmatically looking at the situation at hand.
For Lexi, her power has been growing well with the tutelage she’s been getting and we see that she’s definitely gaining a lot of power. Unfortunately for her, she ends up eavesdropping on the Espheni when they talk through their particular connection and she learns that they’ve been fooling her all this time – big surprise there – and that there’s a fear of what Lexi may represent and how they may not be able to control her. That leads to the declaration that she must be ended, which obviously doesn’t sit well with Lexi and even her handler is a bit wary of it considering the time he’s invested in her so far and the potential for what she can do for their mission. None of it is a surprise, but at least she’s largely been off screen for a couple of episodes and hasn’t been annoying nus.
Pope gets a little bit of decent story material here as he goes on complaining about the situation as a whole and the way they need to figure out what’s going to happen once the Beamer mission gets going. It makes sense that they do something, and the lack of doing something is frustrating because it’s true as Pope points out that there’s a lot of people basically just sitting around. But Pope is also trying to force things in a direction to get what he wants, which is the Beamer mission itself in order to go and do rather than trying to survive like this as he’s reached his limit on what he can take on this point. Which isn’t a surprise when you consider what they’ve all been through the last few years and the experiences that they’ve had. That more of them haven’t snapped is just lazy storytelling.
When they get to the draw, it’s interesting to see Ben’s name getting pulled out and the small family reactions that comes with it. But it’s also annoying that Tom’s name gets pulled out – and that he pulled the names himself. Considering the minor lack of trust on it after the earlier events, anyone else should have been pulling the names. That Tom fixed it so that he’d go just makes it worse and for Anne, well, she makes it clear that what he’s doing is the kind of hubris that he’s seen exposed for so many people throughout history and he should know better. It certainly sets a bad taste when things get revealed between Tom and Anne since the two of them have spent most of the season when together arguing and fighting over so many things, turning them from a mildly interesting couple to one that you could do without.
The show spends its final act here going through some of the interpersonal issues, trying to fix things up between Anne and Tom, dealing with the strain between the brothers and then throwing a curve into the mix as Maggie struggles with her own feelings – and not being sure if they’re truly her own feelings. It’s not deep or engaging but rather material that just goes through the expected motions until we get to the launch point of the Beamer itself. But even that has to deal with the character side in resolving the minor tension between Tom and Matt, which has existed largely just for this episode. Of course, it does have to go for a twist just as it ends, leading into the two hour finale for the season next week, mixing in a Skitter attack with the arrival of Lexi the savior. Nobody saw that coming, right? I need to know who to sell my bridges to.
In Summary:
Every week I settle in to watch and think about Falling Skies and every week my family alternates between laughing at me or pitying me for what I’m doing. I keep holding out hope that there will be some moment where the show can try and turn the corner and become something more, but it keeps hitting so many of the same awkward notes that feels more like we’re playing a 1980’s roleplaying game than a TV show. This is made worse by seeing better plotted, scripted and acted fair coming up this year like The Last Ship and The Strain that makes it engaging to watch whereas this one struggles by pulling out plays for the story that were tired back in the 80’s. This episode is more of that, with all the groan inducing character choices and dialogue. The plus is that we’ve just got the season finale next week and then a hard and fast ten episode run next summer to bring it to a conclusion.
Grade: C-
