Editor's note: Pete Vonder Haar will return next week as the regular recapper for Falling Skies, just as soon as he gets done with all the AT&T U-Verse BS and joins Comcast like the rest of the world.
The title of this week's episode, "What Hides Beneath," is especially apt because we find out what happens when your kid wears a harness for way too long. It isn't pretty. We also delve even deeper into Weaver's past, although we still have no clue about the Jimmy Cliff record (seriously, it's bothering me now), and the newly returned Pope (my first time seeing Pope -- he looks like a diet version of Sawyer from LOST) figures out a way to penetrate, uh, beneath the mechs' armor.
The penultimate episode of the season opens with Weaver going into the back yard of a house, saying the name "Linda" before he's attacked by an alien. Guess what -- it's a dream. He's awakened by Tom and the colonel, who's been in contact with the resistance in Chicago and L.A.; the resistance is planning a huge coordinated attack in four days.
Meanwhile, Rick is as creepy and as indifferent to his dad's death as ever, and Weaver freaks when he recognizes the houses Rick's drawing as art therapy as the houses on his block. Tom thinks Weaver's going a little crazy because of lack of sleep.
Speaking of the kids, Rick displays some serious Stockholm syndrome to Ben, telling him the aliens won't abandon them and will come for them. When Ben goes in for a checkup with Anne, she discovers the skin around the spikes in his back is becoming hard. Later, while cutting open a skitter cadaver with Lourdes, she finds a harness inside--meaning skitters are made, not born, of other species wearing harnesses.
Weaver, Tom and Hal go on a recon mission to scout the structures the aliens are building, and see giant silvery anthropomorphs reminiscent of the evil machine from Terminator 2 (but with a spare tire) who appear to be running the show. They encounter a woman, Sonja Rankin, who used to be a Boston socialite and still lives in her own apartment. She gives Hal and Tom tea, but it's later revealed she is working for the skitters, providing intel in return for material things (like tea). She's a nice lady, though, and lets them go, but Tom gives her false information about where they're headed, just in case. Also, we find out Rankin's been communicating to the aliens through newly harnessed Maggie.
Weaver runs off, but Tom finds him at his old house, where Weaver reveals that he had separated from his family before the invasion. He had come back after the invasion and seen most of them killed and tracked down his youngest daughter to find out she had been harnessed.
Pope, meanwhile, holes up in the school on demo duty, impressing Tom's youngest son Matt, who only wishes he could be brave. Pope discovers a way of plating bullets with mech metal, which causes the bullets to go straight through the mechs' armor. Rick runs away as the rest of the crowd applauds the discovery.
Next week: The counterattack begins...
