Well, I was right about Rick. He's moved beyond fits of unpleasant Kubrick-ian staring and advanced straight to crawling on the ceiling, where he attacks Scott, who's working on a way to intercept the aliens' radio communications. He also escapes and rats out the humans at the school. Tom finds him, and instead of doing the humane thing and blowing his alien-infected brains out, takes him back.
"I thought they loved me, but all they wanted was information." Well, and to turn you into a giant bug, Rick. Don't forget the giant bug thing.
Meanwhile Weaver's strike team continues its advance. I only mention this because Pope gets in a nice Wages of Fear reference.
It took awhile, but Tom finally found a way to invoke his history prof credentials again, comparing their last stand against the coming aliens to American revolutionaries. I love military analogies that ignore quantum advances in technology and tactics. Maybe next time he'll quote Sun-Tzu, who's just as relevant to modern military theory.
As the mechs descend on the school, Scott figures out the radio frequency and basically turns up the volume, driving the attacking mechs away from the school. These aliens are real tactical geniuses, standing bunched up and pausing for dramatic effect, not even getting a chance to attack before they're dispersed. Here we also see the show's budget limitations, as every mech is a mirror image -- in movement and appearance -- of the others.
Tom decides to follow the strike team in with a modified El Camino to carry the radio interference signal. First, he kisses Anne, a development most of us were expecting (I expected a lot more desperate rutting during the End Times, but again: Spielberg) but not especially looking forward to.
Tom finds the strike team. Pope and the Black Guy Who Isn't Rick's Dad are still alive, as is Weaver, but everyone else is dead. The 4th and 5th never showed up, and the audience is cheated out of the one big set piece we'd been teased with for a month.
With little else left to do, Tom decides to take a shot at the alien arcology with the mech armor-piercing RPG. In theory, it's about as effective as shooting a .357 at an aircraft carrier, so it's lucky for Tom he miraculously hits a ship that flies into a hangar and blows up a bunch of shit.
Thus unsatisfied, we end the night with the reappearance of a harnessed Karen, who says the aliens have newfound respect for the humans' fortitude and want to negotiate. In the final homage to St. Spielberg, Tom walks onto a waiting spaceship with Karen and one of those skinny, iridescent Greys we first saw last week. Weaver watches in awe/confusion. Roll credits.
Leaving aside the ridiculous deus ex machina ("What if they change the frequency again?"), the biggest problem with the finale, and the first season of Falling Skies itself, is how its ambition is hamstrung by TNT's budget (or lack thereof). The F/X became increasingly chintzy as the season progressed, and I'm sorry, but you can't hype up a battle royale and then skip the royale entirely. People aren't watching an alien invasion show for weepiness and hand-wringing; there are daytime soaps and the Ronnie-Sammi storyline on Jersey Shore for that.
See you in summer, 2012.
