Falling Skies - Season 3 Episode 10 - Recap - Brazil
Falling Skies - Season 3 Episode 10 - Recap - Brazil
Oh snap! Here it is! It's the season 3 finale of TNT's flagship original series, Falling Skies! Our survivors of the alien occupation finally take the fight to their enemies with the help of (presumed) allies the Volm. After the last few episodes of lead-up, finally our plot threads get some pay-off!
Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and family fire the Volm weapon on the big planetary defense grid base, toppling the entire structure. Soon after, the city-sized Volm mothership enters the atmosphere and lands in the wreckage of the defense grid base. Well, on it, really. This ship just dwarfs the other structure. It's at least twice and wide and tall. Big kudos to the effects team on this one! Oddly, this final battle that's been foreshadowed all season lasts about five minutes, if that. Maybe two cool things happen, and then I guess the CGI effects budget was empty. Oh well.
The Masons and other survivors celebrate back at base, but Tom is (of course) still working, the nerd. He's a very noble man, which is probably why he's the leader. He does join in when Weaver and Pope's decoy crew (more on them later) gets back. Cochise says they got saved by the Volm commander, who Tom will be meeting the next morning. The next morning is but a scene change away, so after a few toasts, we skip right to it. Weaver, Tom, and Cochise meet up with the Volm commander, Cochise's father. He informs the duo that the humans will be relocated to Brazil to avoid interfering with the war! Tom and Weaver don't like this, and the argument escalates to shoving. Tom is detained and Weaver get the camp ready to move out. In Volm detention, Tom talks with Cochise's dad, the commander of the Volm forces on Earth. As they talk, the commander begins to understand the humans a bit more, to understand freedom and questioning authority.
Cochise and a battalion of Volm show up to relocate the humans. Cochise pulls a "just following orders" and avoids a shootout with the humans (who are for some reasons super eager to continue fighting a war). Some time later, after Tom gets back, Cochise leads the humans to leave, but instead brings them to a stash of weapons and pulls a half-hearted Harry and the Hendersons on them, telling Tom that his group must get out of town and try to stay out of the warzone. On the way out of town, Lourdes starts convulsing, signalling the arrival of Karen and a small group of enemies. Karen, typically evil, offers some cutting remarks about the human/Volm disagreement, then offers Tom a gift. Tom requests a gift receipt. Or wait. He actually straight-up shoots her through the chest, finally ending the threat of Karen.
On the train headed to the decoy fight I mentioned earlier, Colonel Weaver in is charge, with alien-infected Lourdes in tow. Hal and Maggie are there also, and they discuss what might happen post-war; Maggie only sees herself as a warrior. Back at camp after the (surprisingly brief) big final battle, Maggie and Hal go to see Lourdes, who is still all buggy and gross. Hal promises they'll get the robo-bugs out of her. He seems ready for peace, but on the walk out of town later, Maggie clearly does not agree. The rift between Maggie and Hal comes to a head after the encounter with Karen. As Karen dies, she seems to revert to her human self, and apologizes to Hal with her last breath, cut short by two bullets from Maggie's handgun. Maggie and Hal share a look that speaks volumes, in what is one of the season's best moments. That's the weird thing about this show; it's an action sci-fi series, but it's strongest beats come from otherwise-inconsequential character moments.
After the whole Karen thing, Tom hears a voice call from the woods nearby. He follows it, and finds Karen's "gift": Anne and Alexis! The reason for the scare quotes I put around "gift" quickly becomes apparent. Anne seems all peaceful and strange, but worse than that, Alexis is a grown child! She's two months old, but is a walking, talking school-aged kid! I guess her alien DNA was even weirder than I'd thought! But wait, it gets weirder. Stopped with car troubles on their way home from Boston and the Volm, Anne sleeps, but Alexis puts her hands on Lourdes's face and drains her of robo-alien-bug things, crushing them to dust. Yeah, I know! I'll be glad to have Lourdes back next summer, no longer evil.
Ultimately, this season finale was better than last week, but still doesn't top the alternate universe dream episode from a few weeks ago. I'd probably rank this as the season's second best. Though a lot of time is spent mulling about and setting things up for next season, there's enough really good little moments in here that it does well in my mind. Check out the preview below and come back, um, next year for more Falling Skies!