This season of Falling Skies has been frustrating . The storyline have felt sillier and more random , and outings like last week ’s “ extended ambition sequence ” romp have n’t help . But the show ’s receive a brand new writing staff next season , and last night ’s episode showcased the independent reason it deserves another shot : the rock - solid cast .
Spoilers ahead …
So Falling Skies is getting a whole new writing squad again , for its fourth time of year . There was a partial changeover between season one and two , with Mark Verheiden step down as showrunner and Remi Aubuchon taking over . But now , there ’ll be a gross changing of the guard , with David Eick ( Battlestar Galactica , Bionic Woman ) and Carol Barbee ( Jericho ) take over . Eick and Barbee worked together on Tim Kring ’s recent show Touch . They inherit a show that needs a fate more focal point .
I guess my large problems with this season have been :
1 ) The Volm , who were bring in in the time of year - ending cliffhanger last year , still do n’t entirely feel organic to the storyline . bestow first-rate - potent alien friend changes the whole show , making our grinder suddenly right smart less outgunned , and I ’m still not certain I think in the Volm , as anything other than a patch twist . Arguably , jumping ahead seven months and decamp over the whole “ building a human relationship with these unexampled aliens ” phase angle was a error .
2 ) The “ mole ” plot line , which feel like it ’s been done a million times before , and only take up inauspicious question about why the Espheni do n’t practice their psyche - ascendance technology on all of the humans in Charleston . The “ counterspy ” affair is only necessary because the humans ’ new allies have made us too powerful for a frontal assault by the Espheni . ( See detail # 1 ) .
3 ) The whole “ Hal ’s X - girlfriend is now the drawing card of all the aliens ” thing , which never seemed like a dependable idea , and seems less and less like a honest idea every metre someone talks about wanting retaliation on Karen . ( Although it ’s funny that in the former episodes of this show , Hal had a erotic love triangle with Karen and Lourdes , and now they ’re both evil . ) Just wish with the Volm , this show does n’t seem to have committed fully to the “ Karen is an Overlord ” thing , and we went for half the time of year without even seeing Karen .
frankly , last week ’s episode , in which Tom Mason gets interrogate via dream sequence , and then escape from an Espheni starship for like the 10th time , was close to being the last straw for this show .
Which makes it all the more surprising when the show turns around and gives us a quite decent episode , last night . “ Journey to Xibalba ” was your standard “ everybody ’s trap and try on to excavate out after an explosion ” episode — but it was elevated above the cloth by some super skillful fiber work . Both by the actors and by BSG oldtimer writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle .
I feel like a broken record say this — but when this show allows its part to take a breath and react naturally to situation instead of jumping from one silly place to the next , it sour extremely well . I never enthrone in the fibre on V , Revolution , The Event and countless other show as much as I ’ve endow in the Second Mass , for better or bad .
In particular , “ Journey to Xibalba ” showcases just how far Tom Mason has amount — and how far Noah Wyle has shape up in playing him . Back in season one , he was the unaired / chirpy loss leader who stands around cite big lessons from chronicle , and the moments when Tom got angry or depict real passion always band kind of false . Now , “ Xibalba ” is all about Tom being right on the edge of losing his shit — and pass on some great material , Wyle really sell it .
He is a maniac from the very start of the episode , believing that Anne and Lexi are drained and being desperate for retaliation . The scene where he tells his fry — including his youngest , Matt — that rage is effective and you should live for hatred is really powerful , specially when Ben remind him that he said not long ago that if you have nothing pull up stakes but hatred , then you ’ve already lost your mankind . The panorama where he asks Pope to scoot him if he shows any mansion of being compromised by the aliens is sort of a standard - take thing , except that Tom ’s furor transforms it . The bit where he argues for attacking Boston , purely because he wants to kill Karen , but dresses it up as strategy , is also reasonably great .
Tom is unmoored , to the point where the extremist - nihilistic Matt — who ’s pretty much become my favorite character on the show — tells Ben that possibly it ’ll be a adept thing if Tom suffocates to demise in the dust after the blowup . Because Tom is so lost , Matt is n’t sure he should go on living at all . ( And then Matt calmly tells Ben that he ’ll probably be the only one left live soon , and he has no choice in the matter . Awesome . )
The Crux Australis of the installment is the consequence when Tom lastly break off just running on vestal rage and actually take up using his brain again — first figuring out that Lourdes is the mole , thanks to one of those verbal slip-up - ups that happen on idiot box a pot , and then cut Lourdes ’ taunt and using her super - gun to blast everybody out of the hospital . It ’s a nice turn of resourcefulness , but it ’s also Tom ignoring his instinct to lash out , long enough to think intelligibly .
The installment ’s “ B ” storyline is also mostly character - center : Now that Hal is home , he ’s reconnecting with Maggie , who ’s pissed that he went off to deliver Anne and Lexi without her . They get inter together , and are persist out of atomic number 8 , and Maggie essentially assume that they ’re pass to die while Hal save struggle against it ( and wasting tons of O in the process . ) In the end , Hal lastly processes some of his guilt over being the bulwark , and promises to go find Maggie in Hell , if there is one .
Oh and we get a few great Cochise moments , including one where he comforts Tom by talking about his dead brother and by saying the human disembodied spirit is the most powerful arm they have , yadda yadda . And then in the end , with the Volm superweapon buried under gobs of rubble and all the Volm who have it off how to operate it numb , Cochise is ready to give up — but Tom convinces him to stake it all on a last , desperate gamble .
Obviously , we ’ll know more about how this time of year has mould up , in general , after next hebdomad ’s season coda . But even if the final reveal of the Volm docket turns out to be underwhelming , I ’ll still have Bob Hope that this show can turn around next class — because episodes like last night ’s prove that there is actually something kind of special about this show . Any show that can pull off having a little kid saying “ I trust my dad stifle to expiry because he ’s turn a loss his marble ” without snuff it into either psychodrama or some kind of Hallmark - card import is deserving rootle for .
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