Falling Skies Season 3 Episode 4
What They Say:
At All Costs – The people of Charleston defeat another alien attack. Tom is invited to meet a powerful leader while Ben struggles with his identity.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Falling Skies has moved into some interesting areas with this season with the way that the resistance has really held onto Charleston and worked with the Volm to beef up defenses and expand their knowledge. There’s a lot of background issues creeping into it of course with those that don’t want to align themselves too quickly or tightly with the Volm, but the interesting area that has cropped up is the arrival of the soldier claiming to be working with the actual President of the United States, which would free Tom up in some ways. But there’s obviously some distrust on her part until Fisher sees things in action as how Tom has set things up.
Bringing together a potential meeting with the President and Tom is definitely something that can change the course of things a bit, as it opens up the group to a wider world. When you consider that the show started with a small group that built into a larger one that ended up eventually settling in Charleston where it just ballooned from there due to what’s gone on in keeping hold of the city and the alignment with the Volm. Taking it to the next level definitely works nicely as you know there have to be other resistance groups out there, some based on previous authority, and the binding ties of the military that may be in some of them helps to provide a common thread. And some distrust as well of course because of the way everything has gone down.
Whenit comes to the actual meeting, it is amusing seeing how it goes down since Tom brings the Volm Cochise with him and that doesn’t exactly sit well with the military that comes flying out to meet them. While President Hathaway is able to settle things some, there’s some natural tension that comes into play since Cochise is kept separate from the rest as the military commanders and the President have no working knowledge of how they actually interact with them. With the way it’s likely that nobody else has managed to come up with a working relationship with any of the aliens, such as the Skitters and now the Volm, distrust is high and pretty natural. What helps is that Cochise understands a lot of this and in his own way tries to mollify things.
It is amusing how you have someone like Hathaway who up until now didn’t even know the Espheni’s name, but it makes sense and shows the different kind of levels that Tom and the others are playing at compared to Hathaway. Hathaway’s concerns are obvious and expected, but it does provide for some good dialogue with Cochise as he reveals a bit more of his background that hadn’t come up before and it works well to show the kind of mindset that the Volm has when it comes to why they’re fighting. Politically/ideologically speaking, you can see why there would be a lot of distrust by some over what Cochise says and just how much they’d believe him as opposed to seeing it as just a feint to gain a new world of their own, providing even half of what Cochise says is true.
The episode works through a few subplot pieces along the way of varying levels of interest, but mostly minimal levels. Ben and the other harnessed kids are discovering that if they keep the fragments in there, their lives will be cut short so there’s a push towards getting them removed through some Volm help. There are issues to be had with it but it ties into what Anne is going through as she mixes her daughters DNA into the tests to see what works and discovers that Alexis has some very bad things going on with it which puts her in an awkward place to say the least. Add in that Hal’s split personality is coming into play as well with his “bad” side taking over now, pushing out the stressed and uncertain Hal, introduces its own problems that will crop up even more to be sure. A lot of it is just stage setting for things to come but also some really bad choices being made along the way by different people, most especially once again with Anne.
In Summary:
Stupid moments abound when it comes to Anne’s storyline, but that’s been a given since the beginning of this season when it comes to her and Alexis. It does lead to some interesting places at the end, but the progress towards it was just bad. The time spent with Hathaway and the other military men was interesting and I certainly liked the approach used when it comes to what Cochise reveals and how you can see different mindsets viewing the situation can come into play and there’s appeal in that. Of course, the show offers us some bad situations in the episode to come with how this one ends, providing yet another Tom versus Pope episode as they try to survive, so it doesn’t exactly entice you to look forward to the next episode. There’s some good things in this episode overall though and that’s helping to slowly ease the distaste for the series in general.
Grade: B-