Dude, never eat an alien.
What They Say:
Hunger Pains – A surprise skitter attack leaves the 2nd Mass without food.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After the awful fourth season that we had, I’ve spent the past week struggling with the fact that I really liked the fifth season opener. Not that I expect that to continue, but it at least showed that the series has the potential to have some stronger moments going into the final season. When you know that you’re working the endgame, it frees you up to do more things that you wouldn’t ordinarily. I also liked the changes that came from the actions of the end of the fourth season, both with the way that the skitters aren’t quite what they were before and we have Tom taking things more seriously than before. That’s off-putting for those that know him, but it’s a necessity at this stage.
Without the controlling Overlords to provide what’s needed for the skitters in terms of control, they’ve grown a lot more feral and that made for some good material last time around as the teams had to deal with it. This time though, a full on herd of them are making their way through the encampment like a river flowing through it. They’re going just on instinct this time and that means they’re not looking to deal with humans but rather to get all the food. And that situation goes south quickly as the camp gets breached and in an accidental attempt to deal with it, they blow up all the food themselves along with the skitters. That puts the team in a bad position since supplies can’t even be considered low at this point, which means a foraging mission ahead.
Events at this point are interesting to watch though beyond that because Tom is feeling like they’re losing all of their momentum for a variety of reasons. Learning about other militias is helping to a degree, but the inability to get into contact with them means that they’re still mostly operating alone. And all of them seem to be running into the same problems as well with the Overlords out there and the positions they’re attempting to fortify. To make matters worse, the bug that got Tom isn’t anything that Anne can figure out and it seems like Tom is having some real problems creeping in with visions of his dead wife among other things. Hallucinations aren’t going to help him in the big moments if he’s unable to discern them from reality.
As the food situation turns worse, there’s a natural attempt to try and see if you can cook up skitter. You almost wonder that it hasn’t been done before, but leave it to Pope to try. While they intend to feed it to a cat or something first, one of the grunts in the area doesn’t want to wait and chows down on a piece. It plays for humor at first, but as his body reacts to what makes up a skitter, it turns into something utterly creepy as the lower half of his face falls off in quick fashion, leaving him dead within a minute or so of swallowing the chunk of meat. It’s a good reminder of the otherworldly nature of everything and that they have to be doubly careful about everything now that they’re getting more and more desperate thanks to the nearly non-existent supplies.
With a plan to sneak out underground to try and see if a local cannery might have some food, we get the fun grouping of Ben and Maggie along with Pope and Sara. They’re all pretty skilled at this point and as two pairs they definitely know how to work with each other and balance the other pairing. Having them make their way through the sewers basically to head out there under the skitters gives us some simple tense material to work with since they can hear what’s going on up above them. That tension is also played with the exhaustion going on with Tom and Weaver, especially with the different views over what it is that Tom’s doing. It makes sense that these two provide some minor friction at least against each other considering their pasts and histories combined with adjusting to what this threat is itself. Both are right in their own way, which is what makes it all the more complicated.
The show has a lot of simple things in motion and a kind of dire look about events in general, but there are at least some small victories. Which is the point of the food hunt as they do find something there because the alternative would be brutal to work through. There’s a fun kind of Christmas morning feeling about it as the group celebrates what they find and it’s a good moment. But it also plays out against some of the other struggles going on beyond fending off skitters. Anne’s trying to figure out the bug situation while others are trying to find some technological trick to give them an edge in dealing with the horde out there. It’s not badly done and they do try to humanize it through a couple of different interactions, but at this point I think most of us are looking for the larger sweeping moments of the story to take dominance. After four seasons of establishing and working relationships, it’s time to go for something more.
Of course, there’s also some danger to be had with those that are getting the food as they fall into a trap set by a woman whose partner was one that got turned primal by the spikes once things went offline with the Overlords. It’s a strange push to make in the episode considering all the other angles they can work with, but at least Maggie and Ben can provide some context for the young woman by talking about how they have things at the camp that can help her friend. It’s far more interesting watching the fighting going on back at the camp as the skitters start pushing harder to break through sa the swarming is pretty strong. The show finally has that bit of scale that it needs here to make it an exciting fight to watch, even as we get Pope and the crew showing up in the truck with the supplies to provide a distraction. Having the technological trick kick in along the way as well as an easy fix, or at least an easy patch, but it works well enough.
In Summary:
Falling Skies falls back into its old routine for a good chunk of the episode, but not entirely. With things moving away from the weirdness of the fourth season with Lexi and what she represented, we’re back in the trenches kind of material that lets it stick to the grim outlook, dark colors and bleak view of what’s going on as food disappears and everything else is in short supply as well. There’s a few humanizing moments for a couple of the characters, including Pope and Sara coming together even more, but what works for me is the action itself that we get throughout. It’s here that the show feels like it’s stepped up its game a good bit and that works since there’s some real fun in seeing the skitters unleashed and primal. It’s not enough to carry the series, but it’s at least giving it something visually fun to watch.
Grade: B-
