Falling Skies - "Young Bloods"

Season 2, Episode 4

Perhaps my biggest problem with Falling Skies first season was its tendency toward the maudlin, to fill up on those sappy moments that are supposed to move us simply because. My go-to mental reference point to this is that episode that ended with the whole of the 2^nd Mass. sitting down to have a meal together, but there were many others along the way, and it’s probably for the best that I’ve forgotten about them. Such the curse of a show that seeks to have a family angle to it, that it feels it must use those relationships and feelings to fuel its stories, regardless if it’s really warranted or not. (Some say that this is more likely due to Spielberg’s producer role, but it’s hard to know exactly how much say he has over scripts and the like.) So it was that this week’s episode turned to one of the most predictably and manipulative family element: the children.

Admittedly, putting children in danger as a form of dramatic tension/propulsion isn’t all that different from having a character die. Both are often used as a way of character motivation, and they tend to be easy crutches, since it’s expected that an audience can at least empathize with the characters on screen, even if they don’t feel any actual emotions about their fates. This is a common complaint lodged against shows that don’t do the proper work in character building before killing off characters or putting them in danger, and that goes double for children. There’s a great deal of cynicism behind using children as emotional manipulation, as it assumes that everyone in that audience buys into - and is easily moved by - the societal ideal of children as Out Most Precious Resource.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for me, since it sort of undercuts my argument), this common knowledge isn’t entirely off-base. While putting children in danger doesn’t automatically generate sincere tension (especially, again, when you know the show you’re watching isn’t really into killing or seriously harming any main character), it makes for a much more understandable character motivation than Death of a Supposedly Close Friend does. As a society, we are much more used to and comfortable with the idea of parenthood than we are of death, so it becomes easier to buy Tom rushing into a factory to save Matt than it does him getting in a fight with Pope over Jimmy’s death.

It doesn’t hurt of course that much of the action of Falling Skies’ first season was motivated by similar emotions, with Tom and the other adults of the 2^nd Mass. hoping to get their children back from Skitter control. That the show returned to this well tonight shouldn’t exactly be surprising, but it is a letdown none the less, considering this is only the fourteenth episode of the whole series, and it seems a bit odd for the writers to have run out of ideas so quickly. Can’t they think up something else besides putting more kids in danger?

Well, that’s not being entirely fair to “Young Bloods”, which utilizes the child-parent dynamic in a number of ways. When Weaver’s daughter Jena shows up as part of Diego rag-tag bunch of kids, it’s an opportunity to explore what an angry man he supposedly is. And when Matt allows himself to be bait for Berserkers Techor and Boone, it’s supposed to ignite in Tom a crisis about raising his son in a post-apocalyptic world. The problem with the first instance is that it is both too clichéd too far out of left field to really work. And while Matt’s darkly humorous “Awesome!” in response to seeing two Skitters’ heads blown off suggested an interesting discussion about how one would raise kids in a world with a different moral code, that idea got lost under Tom’s boring bout of anger with Matt and the two Berserkers who put him in harms way.

So then what did work? Well, the entire scene at Harness Factory with the Skitters attempting to Harness more children was effectively chilling, and works well as a form of insight into the alien’s invasion operation. The show is usually pretty stingy with details about the Skitters and the overlords, so this was a nice way to be reminded of their cruel and effective means of taking over the human population. It also led to another instance of Ben’s spikes glowing, and while having only Hal notice once again leaves the story more inert than I would like, at least somebody knowing should add some tension.

But really, “Young Bloods”, like “Compass” before it, once again displays the problems with Falling Skies’ emotional side. Too much of it, and the story doesn’t chug along with enough speed to really matter. There are a lot of good plot elements percolating on the show right now, and I hate to see them wasted every time the writer want an emotional slow-down.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

“Good news.” “Aliens left.” “Who told you? I wanted to be the first. I thought you’d be more surprised.”

Say, did you know that Lourdes had family in Mexico? Well you do now. Do you care? I doubted as much.

I’ll admit that I did kind of like Techor slowly working his way back into Tom’s good graces (and out of sanitation detail) throughout the episode. I’m not saying it added much, and I’d rather there be something with more momentum in its place, but it was a nice touch for what it was.

That reminds me: I hope the show will do something more interesting with Tom now that he’s apparently in charge of the Berserkers.

Tom and Ann continue to play smoochie-face with one another, which is a thing that is happening.