Falling Skies

Falling Skies

Episode 10: A More Perfect Union

Season Finale

By: Carlos Uribe

Falling Skies is a show about the human resistance against an alien invasion force-months after they wiped out most of humanity.

Spoilers Ahoy!

The promos for this episode promised the most shocking final five minutes of the summer. A promo is usually meant to get people to watch that episode and it does this by often misleading audiences with tricky editing. In this case, the promo decided to inflate the value of the cliff-hanger. Don't get me wrong: it's a pretty big one. It just that it really isn't until the final minute that it happens and the episode promptly ends. What's the big event? A new alien army arrives on the planet. The episode ends and there's a short promo for the next season: are these aliens foes or are they allies? I generally don't like to speculate on this blog, but I'll make an exception. It should be noted that these are predictions and the series might prove me wrong, but I think it's pretty obvious that the aliens are going to be allies. There's largely two key pieces of evidence that I can provide for this:

• During the American Revolution, the French decided to send their armies after we had proven to them that we could beat the British. This is a show that constantly compares itself to the American Revolution. The skitter rebellion occurred because the skitters finally believe that the overlords can be beaten by the humans. This shows that we have proved our worth and it makes sense that an alien species would come to our aid.
• Our characters spent the finale destroying a large weapon, aimed at the sky. The characters had assumed that the weapon was going to finish off humanity, but Ben corrected that when he stated that the weapon wasn't meant for humans. This implied that it was for the skitters, but the rebellion isn't that big. This means that the weapon was meant for this new aliens that have landed on Earth.

It's possible that the aliens turn out to be an enemy to both the Overlords and the humans, but it appears that they're going to be on our side at this moment. While some shows could handle adding another layer to the conflict, I don't think this series is capable of complicating the war effectively. A third side would simply be too much for the show. Since the aliens are clearly not friends with the Overlords, it makes sense that they would chose to help the humans. The question shouldn't be what side their own, but how they're going to communicate with us. Will they use Ben, or can they actually use words? The ending of the episode is a big one in that it provides a way for our characters to actually win the war. Charlestown provided them hope in terms of a destination, but they were no closer to taking down the aliens. Having an actual way to wage war against them would help even out the playing field and give them more tangible objectives. It's nice to have them be refugees but the war has to find a way to move forward.

The season finale itself was rather dull for the most part. The coup proceeds without the support of the Second Mass, but the military is willing to give up control after Manchester's replaced. This provides the perfect reason for the character's disappearance. Considering the actor is going to be on 666 Park Avenue (which I'm going to review), this is great. It leaves the possibility of his return open in case Terry O'Quinn finds time to come back or his new show doesn't make it. The Second Mass is eventually able to find out about the weapon and after some drama, they manage to destroy it. The new aliens come. There's some developments in the personal drama as well: Ben comes back to the Second Mass, Anne is pregnant, Hal and Maggie are back on good terms, and that marine comes back to the good side. His betrayal of Pope now seems contrived and for the plot, rather than an in-character action. Oh, and the Asian character bit the dust.

The second season has been a slight improvement over the first. There's more episodes that I can at least consider to be good (I think 2 or 3 versus the one in the first season) and it did end on a slightly better note. The series is still facing many of the same problems, even though the deaths have at least helped the war feel more real. It does tell me a lot though that a character who has been present since the pilot, and is a series regular, dies and I don't even know his name or really his backstory. This episode has managed to really establish Captain Weaver and the Mason family (along with Anne) but it continues to do a poor job with the side characters. I think that's because of the limited episode order. I would ask for more, but considering that the narrative throughout these short seasons tend to be lacking then I don't think this series can handle long seasons.