FALLING SKIES Amps Up
FALLING SKIES
Episode 4 “Silent Kill”
[photos: TNT]
This is the week “Falling Skies” starts to hit its stride.
From the beginning, I thought it was a prudent move to make the main characters archetypes of a sort. While on the surface they may appear one-dimensional, it also gives the audience a way to identify each one quickly. And in a season that only lasts ten episodes, that audience connection has to come quickly. So the use of types, if done well, can give the writers space to work on the story and fill in the depth on each character as they go through the season.
This week, it’s Anne’s turn to get some time to develop some depth, at the same time moving the story forward in such a dramatic way.
[WARNING! MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD]
From the beginning, we’ve known that Dr. Glass has lost her family, but she’s internalized a lot of her feelings, and like any doctor, she’s learned to set aside her own feelings and concentrate on her patients. In this case, that’s the whole of the 2nd Massachusetts.
It’s hard to tell if hers is the A-story or the B-story, as in the midst of dealing with her grief and trying to understand their alien prisoner, Tom and his squad have a plan to rescue Ben and the other harnessed kids at the hospital. Weaver shoots holes in Tom’s plan, and Hal steps up with one that’s both elegant and much riskier: he’ll go into the hospital wearing the recovered harness that was once attached to Ricky.
The C-story is Maggie’s. She first appears on a motorcycle with Hal, and she seems to have stepped into the void left by Karen’s capture. She proves herself by locating drugs for the surgeries, knowing the layout of the hospital, and helping Hal learn how to shoot a crossbow. Are there sparks between the two? A few, but it’s really too soon after losing Karen for the arc to go anywhere yet.
When the Skitter [spoiler: kills Harris], Anne has to deal with her emotions once and for all and move past them to figure out how best to kill the Skitter at the hospital. Her answer is both bold and unnerving, hinted at in last week’s episode when Mike knocked out the alien by hitting a sensitive spot inside its mouth. Anne’s “next step” [spoiler: shoving a scalpel into that soft tissue] is both brutal and gut-wrenching, because you understand the depth of her pain in that one moment when she takes matters into her own hands.
Hal’s infiltration into the hospital goes pretty much as expected, except for the whole Skitter-as-mother moment. It reveals quite a bit about how the aliens view the kids. What is their ultimate goal?
This episode has several moments when characters “grow up” in a way. Hal has to grow up to rescue his brother. Anne has to grow up by accepting the loss of her family. And Maggie has to grow up and learn to allow herself to become part of the group.
There are even signs that Weaver is growing up and becoming a more thoughtful and considerate commander. He’s learning to be flexible, and sometimes the soft spot for his family comes through, and there are moments when you can see he’s just as fragile and vulnerable as everyone else. He just doesn’t have the luxury to show it.
Paced well, this episode went by faster than I expected. Forty-five minutes in felt like only twenty. But it’s not rushed. Like I’ve said before, the story has room to breathe when it needs to, and that’s good for the audience. Because there are a couple of moments in this week’s episode where you had to stop and catch your breath.
