Thanks -- again -- to Caroline Evans for covering my ass last week. I'm sure there will be no more problems now that a four-month construction project has started on my house.
TNT awkwardly crammed together the final two episodes of Falling Skies to produce its alleged cliffhanger season finale. I say "alleged" because the final shot was more of a low foothill-hanger. More disappointing is the way the network seems to have pulled the plug on some promising early ideas and then crapped out on the boffo Big Battle Scene we've anticipated for the last four weeks.
On the other hand, Tom's quite the marksman with a rocket launcher.
Executive producer Steven Spielberg's hands were all over the finale, which opened with the first of many syrupy moments, yet juxtaposed with Anne explaining her theory that the harnesses do more than control their subjects, they're also apparently some form of alien pupa (I always hear Hannibal Lecter's voice when I see that word) that eventually turns their hosts into skitters.
Dai shows up gutshot from his visit to Col. Porter's. Tom and Anne use the break to quiz Tom on why he and Weaver have fallen out. Tensions between the two escalate when Tom asks annoying questions, and Weaver puts him and Hal on sentry duty at an FOP. Lourdes spills the beans to Tom and Anne that Weaver has been hopped up on goofballs. Hal wants Tom to confront him, but Tom doesn't want to jeopardize the stability of the 2nd Mass., or some such.
...and then Tom confronts him. Weaver reacts with appropriate restraint: He relieves him of command and has Lt. Danner, a combination of Douglas Niedermeyer and Biff from the Back to the Future movies, throw him in the boiler room.
Rick, the creepiest kid left on Earth, wants Ben to embrace his inner skitter ("skinner?"). Ben resists, which makes no sense. I mean, who *wouldn't* want to turn into an arthropod slave that serves at the whim of some alien intelligence? Ben neglects to tell Tom about Rick's alarming swerve into the Dark Side. Bad idea.
Hal and Karen return from their observation post to inform Weaver that the aliens are on the move, to no avail. Jimmy tells Hal where Tom is, and the two of them help him break out and truss up Danner. Dai wakes up and has more good news: Porter ordered the attack aborted unless the 4th and 5th regiments reported in. Dai left him under attack, which of course we don't get to see.
So the tense standoff between Weaver and Tom turns into a scene about "trusting each other" that -- in motivational poster form -- wouldn't be out of place on Barney Stinson's wall. The apparently pill-free Weaver decides to ask for volunteers for what is sounding like a suicide mission to strike the alien structure in Boston, and Hal elects to go.
And that's just the first hour.
