by Jason Trujillo
Some shows build momentum over time and Falling Skies has made it to its third season with all the momentum that comes with it. In tonight’s episode, titled “Search and Recover” things take off at full speed. There is the buddy movie duo, missing family members and burgeoning feelings of resentment and regret, all while trying to figure out who the spy is in the group is.
There are so many plates spinning in this series if it wasn’t such riveting drama it could be a late 70’s variety show.
The first order of business tonight is who survived last weeks plane crash? Poor General Bressler never stood a chance but alas his heroic effort made it possible for dauntless President Tom Mason to extricate both himself and the ever cantankerous John Pope from the wreckage while evading skitter search parties. Almost immediately we begin to see them bicker and bandy about. When Tom Mason want to actively evade the skitters hunting for them and Pope physically stops him which saves mason the inconvenience of getting caught.
Pope uses that moment to appropriately point out “If there’s one thing I know it’s how to hide from the Authorities” a lesson Mason would do well to learn for both of their sakes
Once our escapees had sufficient distance between their alien pursuers and themselves Mason and Pope find the time to sit-a-spell and get to know one another, they spend the evening enjoying a tasty meal of frogs and swapping childhood horror stories. Mason reveals his dad was a mean drunk and Pope reveals the last time he saw his son he killed a man in front of him. Cheers all around until Pope misreads Masons reaching for the shotgun as a more nefarious act. Thus the ebb and flow of the buddy movie or in this case, the buddy episode. This escalation continues until a fist fight breaks out which turns into a knife fight in the midst of the cat and mouse game that our two protagonists are playing with the alien invaders who are desperately looking for those humans they misplaced. This breakdown between the two culminates in a “Butch and Sundance” moment when, in an attempt to save their lives, Mason takes Pope over a cliff and into a raging river below.
Once again the two manage to evade capture only thins time mason is injured and can’t walk. After another argument between the two (Man these guys argue more than most married couples) Mason convinces Pope he doesn’t want his help and he needs to leave. Pope demonstrates how hardened he is and seemingly obliges leaving Mason to die, until Mason is discovered by his pursuers. Pope then reveals himself by saving Mason and somehow Pope has managed to procure them a vehicle and food so they head home. They end up walking the last leg home and arrive at the camp with Pope carrying Mason like a good buddy should.
Meanwhile back at the camp, poor Dan Weaver and friends are left trying to solve the curious case of Ann Glass. She has not handled the possibility of her child being “Special,” to put it kindly, very well has she? With all the strange things she has encountered over the previous two seasons is it that far out of the pail to think that some of that weirdness might have rubbed off on her child? Who, might I add, was conceived in the midst of an alien invasion?
Does she handle it with the grace and poise a woman of her position should? Nope! Instead she bonks poor Doctor Kadar in the head when he delivers the news about her daughter and scurries off like a skitter when the light are turned on (BTW Nice to see Sean Robert Leonard back on the small screen again)
Once again Dan Weaver chooses to don the white baseball cap and mount up with none other than Tom Mason’s boys to go search for her. Along the way they discover the body of another woman and they decide to afford her the dignity of a burial which forces them to evaluate the losses suffered in their own lives.
This especially affects both Ben and Matt Mason as they reflect on the last time they saw their mother.
While Weaver is out looking for Doctor Glass Marina Peralta pays Doctor Kadar a visit for what he presumes is the results of the DNA tests he’s runs on the twelve children born in the camp since the invasion, but Ms. Peralta reveals that although she would like those results, She was their for Doctor Kadar’s opinion on the device that the Volm are building.
Upon examination Doctor Kadar finds evidence that the device being built utilizes a power source that is as Doctor Kadar puts it “Overkill’ calling into question the real purpose of the device in the true intent of the Volm
After a seemingly cursory search for Ann and her baby, Ben convinces Weaver that their contacts with the skitter rebels will have more information than they would find on the search.
The search crew returned to find Tom Mason safely tucked into his hospital bed and Pope keeping watch over him. Pope reveals to him that he’s been waiting there for two days for him to wake up.
It warms the heart to see “Oscar” fawning over “Felix” like that.
But as we all know, nothing goes perfectly right during an alien invasion. Weaver has the unfortunate task of breaking the news to Tom about Ann and his Baby.
I always am wary whenever a show has this many moving parts. It usually means that somewhere in the plots of subplots things are growing stagnant usually out of neglect. But that hasn’t been the case here. I never feel like the writers are spinning their wheels with back story or character development but rather everything they give us is to propel the story forward, making this alien invasion infinitely more enjoyable the some of the others.
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