Season 2, Episodes 1-2
“Our history has yet to be written.”
When Falling
Skies premiered last summer, it came with an almost-guarantee that a second
season would follow. This allowed the show to sort of dick around with it’s
plot – remember how long everybody stayed at that fucking school? – and also
gave it permission to have a cliffhanger ending. While something like Tom
boarding the alien ship would have been a bold, we-dare-you-to-cancel-us move
from shows without a guaranteed renewal, in Falling
Skies’ case…okay, it wasn’t all that much better. Just because the show could afford a cliffhanger doesn’t mean
it necessarily knew where it was going. Even if the writers did (and that’s a
pretty big “if”), that still leaves the season two premiere with the unenviable
task of playing off that cliffhanger in a meaningful way, and hopefully
reorienting the show along with it.
It’s in this regard that the second season
premiere was quite the breath of fresh air, boiling down the show to what it’s
good at and leaving most of the boring stuff behind. The first hour is split
into two separate story lines, not unlike those of season one. The difference
here is that while season one episodes tended to be split amongst “fighting
aliens” and “humans back at the base” stories, “Worlds Apart” has us spend time
with Tom in a flashback and everybody else as they seek to keep on surviving.
The two stories are much closer in subject matter, and while this could have
been repetitive, at least it’s better than the schizophrenic bipolarity of
season one.
This isn’t to say that either of these stories
were high art. Tom’s time alone hit a lot of same beats that you would expect a
“man alone in a apocalyptic world” story might hit, and after while it sort of
ran out of steam, just killing time until we see Tom reunite with the 2nd
Mass. Additionally, Tom’s recovery back at camp, especially the scene where
Anne had to operate on him a second time while hiding from the Mechs, lack most
of the tension that it was trying to generate, since it seemed very unlikely
that Falling Skies would kill off
it’s main character in it’s second season premiere. (Actually, if FS did become the kind of show willing
to kill of main characters, that would certainly raise the stakes and make for
a better show, but that’s an issue for another time.)
Yet even if the plot was nothing to write home
about, it still helped to move the show along in a few key ways. For starters,
Tom’s lonesome travels back to camp served as a tacit acknowledgement on the
show’s part of the isolate and unilateral depiction it gave the audience of a
post-apocalyptic world in season one. Seeing Tom dealing with persons of lesser
morality like the bum trying to steal the young girls food (after killing her
mother, natch) opens the world of the show up, and present us with a more
morally complex view. It’s something that I hope the show will do more with in
the future, as moral complexity would add an extra wrinkle to the shows
proceedings that would spice things up a bit.
The second thing that happened was that there was
a shift in the mythological focus of the show. In the first season, the main
questions focused on who the aliens were and what they wanted. The reveal of
the Skitters being merely another alien race converted by the Big Silvers
(well, you come up with a better name) to be soldiers and workers was fairly
predictable, and seeing children act morosely and speak in monotone didn’t make
for exciting television, regardless of the fact that they were alien refugees. The
second season, by comparison, starts with a question that’s smaller in scope,
but hold much more importance. Whether or not Tom is an alien sleeper agent
doesn’t hold much importance for the overall invasion (at least, not yet), but it does affect him, his
family, and the entire 2nd Mass. Since we’ve spent enough time with
these people, we presumable care about them, and that makes Tom’s possible
threat much more personal and much more investing than any far-flung conspiracy
could ever be. (And that includes the idea of conservations camps, something
which I suspect won’t be a consistent elements this season.)
The second hour took a different tact to it’s
storytelling, one that was deployed by the better episodes of season one, in
that all of the various bits of storytelling occurred in one place, usually
focusing on one main aspect or goal. In this case, it was the 2nd
Mass.' attempts to cross the river and continue on with their journey. While
something as simple crossing a rive pales in comparison with some of the
adventures of last season – and lacks some of the agency of seeing this rag-tag
group go out and meet the aliens on their turf – it’s still a good idea for a
singular hour. By breaking down the 2nd Mass.’ overall fight into
individual goals, it gives each hour a specified beginning and end point, and allows
each to move swiftly and confidently.
What’s better is that this goal-centering of the
hours allows for a lot of other things to play on in the background. While in
season one this mostly meant seeing how the humans were getting along in the
new post-invasion world, here it seems as if the show is now more invested in
keeping it’s ongoing mysteries alive and interesting. It’s move that stops the
singular, goal-oriented hours from feeling too moored from one another, while
also providing B- and C-plot that don’t just feel like filler.
In this case, it’s the continued look at Tom’s
potential status as a sleeper agent. What we know doesn’t change all that much
(though there appears to be a connection between Tom and the Two-Face Skitter
that’s more than coincidental), but the episode does good work of expanding its
meaning a little more. To the show’s credit, it embraces the idea of Tom being
a sleeper agent quickly (perhaps a bit too quickly for believability’s sake), and
had Tom get on board with the idea right away. There’ll be no feet dragging
here, and I appreciate that, especially when there are only ten episodes this
season.
Tom’s status as a possible sleeper allows him to
align ideologically with two characters. Like Pope, he’s aware of the danger he
poses to everybody else, and while he’s not ready to off himself just yet, he
does question to what extent he should participate in the 2nd Mass.’
military movement. It also provides something with which he can bond himself
with Ben, seeing as they are both afraid of any possible turning of their
person. However, Ben is much farther gone than Tom is at this point, given the
increased coverage of scabs around his harness spikes, and the fact that he can
hear the Skitters’ communications, which combined with his unbridled hate seem
like prime set for a blow-down the road. These two hours provided some great
stakes in the regards, something which will hopefully be a propelling forced
this season.
After a predictable scene of the med-bus getting
stuck on the bridge, and another death fake for Tom (seriously, they expect us
to buy those back-to-back like that?) it’s time to roll on to another episode,
and another adventure. But as long as the show can keep the focus on the
action, as well as the alien conspiracy involving Tom and Ben, this looks to be
a better season than the last.
Other
Thoughts:
Apparently Anne and Lourdes’ answer for every
injury is to pour rubbing alcohol on it. That’s some fancy doctorin’ right
there.
We were introduced to idea of Beamers tonight,
another form of alien technology/vehicular transport. (At least I think these
are new, I can’t remember any from last season.) I’d say I was excited about this
new element, but they didn’t really seem to add anything to the action
sequences here, besides being something else for the 2nd Mass. to shoot
at.
Speaking of which, does it seem like the humans
were able to take down the Skitters and Mechs much more swiftly and easily this
time around? I realize that’s explained away by the new mounted gun they have,
but it definitely lowers the stakes of the skirmishes they have with the
aliens. I hope this means there’s a larger consistent threat coming into take
its narrative place.
The idea of Tom being a sleeper agent also provides
a scene where he has a parasite removed from
his fucking eye, which was the sort of visceral entertainment that I think
the show can afford and should take advantage every one in a while.
Among the network notes for this season, one of
them must have been “increase the romance”, because these two episodes were
shipping Tom & Anne and Hal & Maggie hard.
Subtle touch that I like: Tom burning the money
his find for fuel. It’s a beautiful three-second visual representation of the
type of world that he lives in now.
If you remember Ricky and Scott at all from the
first season, they got offed by the most lethal of killers, contract negotiations.
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