Welcome back, kids! Only two plot points to follow on this week’s exposition-fest of an episode.
De Plane! De Plane!
When the show opens, Tom is unconscious, and so is Bressler. Also, there is fire. Tom wakes up first, and discovers that, in fact, Bressler is not so much unconscious as dead and things are about to blow up, probably. He grabs Pope’s limp body they get away before the plane blows up. Four times. I think it is the plane’s way of saying it is gone. SO THERE. Tom lays there like, I GET IT!
Pope awakens with a quack. Seriously, that’s what his cough sounds like. Tom tells him Bressler is dead. Pope couldn’t care less. He is only pissed that Bressler and the President are dead because he’s out a plane. Tom goes to flee the scene, but Pope (as always) is smarter and says to stay down, and he’s right. LISTEN TO THE CRIMINAL, TOM! As Pope points out, he knows how to hide from the authorities.
Skitters are checking out the plane wreckage, distracted, meaning Tom and Pope can finally run for it. Tom knows the way since moss grows on trees or something. They are 400 miles away and Pope is appropriately infuriated about that. Tom is sussing out the situation, wondering if they didn’t get coordinates until they were in the air, how did the mole find them? “You’re the king of chaos,” says Pope. “Own it.” Also? Tom owes him a plane. I think the show is trying to make us think Pope is the mole. I don’t buy it for a second. Nice try, show. It’s like when Lost tried to convince Sawyer was a bad guy.
Tom and Pope are in the woods, which sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke involving a bear and feces. Tom wants to to stop and start a fire, and teases Pope about not knowing how. Pope dishes it right back, telling Tom he has a picture of little Tommy and his Dad in the woods, discovering the miracle of fire in the great outdoors. Tom says he has an image too—of young Pope sitting on his ass making wisecracks while other kids played together. Oh, SNAP! Tom gets introspective. Aloud. Apparently, Tom’s dad owned a hardware store and was a drunk and only went to seventh grade and there was nothing idyllic about his childhood—except that he survived it. Okay, show. That got me. Noah Wyle sells this stuff, and I’m buying.
Pope and Tom bond in the woods over barbecued frogs, which Pope knows the recipe for. Tom admits he ain’t much of a cook, but used to make breakfast for the kids, I guess. He likes the smell of bacon. Who doesn’t? Most vegetarians like the smell of bacon! True fact. Tom remembers that Pope had a son and daughter too, Brandon and Tanya, whom he hasn’t seen in five years. Pope tells about Tom him and his boy building a minibike, and how Brandon almost got run over by some jerk when he tried to ride it. So Pope and Brandon followed him and there was a fight, and oops— Pope accidentally killed the guy by cracking his head on the pavement. Brandon was unimpressed. Probably ‘cause Pope laughed at the way the guy’s head “sounded like a melon.” Anyway, the point is Pope is a prison guy, but his eyes say he misses working on the minibike. Tom listens, and then goes to grab Pope’s weapon (not a euphemism) and Pope freaks. “I was just going to take the first watch,” says Tom. Good thing there is no pavement to crack your skull on Tom.
Tom awakens to Pope throwing a snake at him as a joke/breakfast, and he is pissed. PISSED. Like, Indiana Jones level pissed. Tom reminds Pope they aren’t friends and they fight like savages, right up to a West Side Story style knife fight, complete with crouches. Until the skitters come. Then they hide in a foxhole and Anthony is jealous. The skitters flank them and they run and run until they get to a fast moving creek on a cliff. Pope looks down at the dangerous drop and says goodbye to Tom, preparing to bite it, but Tom pushes him into the drink instead. Of course, they survive the rockiest fall ever, and pull themselves ashore. Pope punches Tom in the face for saving him, and Tom threatens to shoot him with a wet gun. They call a sort of angry truce, and we find out Tom’s ankle is broken. Which usually happens when you jump directly onto rocks.
Pope is trying to splint Tom’s leg with his belt. Doesn’t work so great. Tom mentions the tracking of the plane again, and Pope tells him to not worry about it. (Red herring, much?) Pope wants to leave, like, now, and Tom tells him to go. Pope says Tom owes him a plane and that’s the only reason he is dragging him out of the woods. Tom thinks it must be nice to be Pope, with no responsibility, no honor no blah blah blah, and that if Pope wasn’t a coward he would just leave without him already. Okay, thinks Pope, and leaves. (Reverse Psychology alert!) Then, it is night. Tom is loading his hopefully now dry gun and shivering next to his sad, tiny little fire.
Tom is in the wet, cold woods, dreaming of rescue. He hears skitters everywhere and tries to hide but he can’t. He tries to shoot two but he fails. Luckily, Pope appears and blows one’s face off with one shot. NICE! He tells Tom the only thing he hates more than him is skitters. That’s handy. Suddenly now Tom can make it out of the woods, and Pope brings him to a stolen truck which they are going to drive to Charleston. It even has food and guns and booze. It’s like Pope’s dream mobile!
When they get to Charleston, Wee Matt and Ben are at the memory tree, leaving a leaf for their mom. Wee Matt doesn’t want to die alone, he tells Ben. Yeah, good luck with that. As Ben consoles Matt, Tom and Pope approach the heavily defended border of Charleston. Tom yells to the soldier guards, “Don’t shoot! It’s Tom Mason.” I’m right here, thinks Pope. Right. Here. Dragging your ass. Before he can call Tom on not mentioning him, Tom and Pope collapse side by side, their heads touching and I’m sure Anthony weeps.
Tom wakes up in the infirmary two days later. Pope has been sitting there the whole time, waiting to make sure they are even. Pope saved his ass, Tom saved Pope’s. That’s the agreement. “You know what they say about ties,” says Tom. “It’s like kissing your sister.” WHAT?!?! Gross. Weaver comes in, happy Tom’s alive. He tells him there is radio silence from Cochise and the President. Pope goes back to Popeville telling Tom, “Next basket wins.” Tom wants to get back to work, but Lourdes says not yet. He’ll need to write a few more long-winded speeches first. Or maybe she said his ankle needs to heal. Whichever.
The Search for RoboDoc and Creepy
Maggie and Hal are naked. They did it in the terrarium again. Ben comes by to say RoboDoc and her evil spawn are missing, totally not even noticing that they are naked. Everyone rushes to a meeting in Marina’s office. Dr. Hadar (YAY!) who is alive but still unshowered, is explaining the testing he was doing for Anne and that creepy baby is a human/alien hybrid. Marina looks all official, taking statements. Everyone agrees that Anne just left in a rush of motherly love. Uh, okay. If that’s what gets you through the night. Weaver wants to take 100 people and form a search party. Wait—do they even have 100 people in Rubbleville? Anyway, Marina says she won’t even spot him twenty—she needs to watch out for EVERYONE. (Not just those named “Mason.”) Weaver reminds her that it’s Anne Glass, and when that fails to impress, that it’s the President’s daughter. Too bad, says Marina. Apparently, there are 5,000 people in Charleston, and Marina needs to watch out for them. (Wow. Who knew?) Weaver gives a speech about family and love and Marina finally agrees to let the Weavers and Masons (and NotKaren) go. As long as they form a plan to handle the baby when they get back. Gloria Reuben really tries—mentions her sad, lost family, and tries to evoke emotion in us. It doesn’t work. We all wants to get back to the plane crash, and figure whatevs. RoboDoc will turn up eventually.
Wee Matt wants to search for RoboDoc, since she is his mom now. Weaver allows it, and Maggie says Wee Matt can ride with her. Marina goes to Weaver apologizes for…being smart, I guess…and also wants Weaver to come back safe. Which prompts Jeeeeaaaaannnnneeee Weaver to insight that Marina wants to K-I-S-S him in a weird metal tree. Weaver doesn’t get it. Then we see a big, chipped Jesus mural, and I’m not sure what the message is, exactly.
The search is on for Doc and Creepy. The heroes pass a demolished car with a baby doll hanging out the back and a poem of some sort written in the dust. WE GET IT SHOW, it is all very deep and sad and meaningful and look at what we’ve lost and all right already. The set designer from this show must listen to a lot of Snow Patrol.
Our heroes continue their ride on the cleanest horses ever until Ben super-spies fresh blood. They approach the last non-rubbled stairs in the world, worried that the blood is Anne’s, but we all know it can’t be because Anne leaks oil, not blood. Surprise, it’s not Anne, lying there dead! It’s Mary McRandom. Wee Matt wants to bury her, and Weaver agrees. BECAUSE WE ARE BETTER THAN THEM, DAMN IT! Also, AMERICA!
The searchers hold an actual little funeral for the stranger. Seriously. So much for looking for Anne and Renesmee. They imagine her life, and whether Mary McRandom was a good mom, and why. They do this forever, imagining her taking her kids for ice cream and waiting up after their dates, and are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? ENOUGH. Just find creepy baby already! Jeez!
Marina goes to the underground lab looking for Dr. Kadar (and, more importantly, Robert Sean Leonard.) Kadar tells her that apparently, there have been eight kids born in the last six months, and he has been testing them to see if they are as weird as Lexie. That’s nice, says Marina, but I don’t care right now. She wants to dish about what the Volm are building. She has pictures, but it isn’t important how she got them. Now we are supposed to think she is the mole, I guess. (I hope she isn’t the mole, because Gloria Reuben seriously ups the acting chops on this show.) Dr. Kadar promises to look at the pictures, but only after she says Tom sent her.
Back at the search party, Wee Matt and Ben talk about their dead mom and how she died and reminisce about her. There is a touching moment about their mom’s missing shoe (you had to be there). Ben promises to try to find Anne and makes Matt eat. The horse looks like he wants some too but is denied.
The search party continues. Jeeeeeaaaannnneee wants to know if this is how it ends—do they all get turned into aliens? “Don’t let them get me, Dad,” she says. “Promise me.” “Never, ever. I promise,” says Weaver, which means of course they are going to get her. Ben finds a dirty piece of cloth. Alien Baby’s blanket? Maggie calls Hal on acting weird, but he blows her off. Ben points out skitter and human tracks and Wee Matt knows—the aliens have his RoboMom. Ben wants to contact the rebel skitters and use their spies to find Anne. Seriously, didn’t her model come with GPS? Weaver insists that Anne and Lexie are most certainly alive, and orders Matt to not give up hope. One look at Jeanne reveals—she certainly has. Hal’s just relieved he didn’t get caught by Not-Karen for being involved in creepy baby’s kidnapping.
Marina goes to visit Kadar. Kadar is confused—the Volm device stores tons of energy and there is no reason for it. It is overkill. Let’s hope not literally. Clearly, the device is not what they’ve been told it was. And what is that, asks Kadar? Marina admits that she was not asked by Tom to look into the device and she doesn’t know what it is. (So she’s the mole. Right?) Also, Kadar has the results on the other babies, which Marina clearly doesn’t care about but pretends she does. The other babies are human. One supposes their mothers are as well, unlike poor Lexie.
At the infirmary, Wee Matt and the boys rush in to Tom’s hospital room to hug him, and at first he doesn’t even notice Anne and Alexis aren’t there. When he does, it gets AWK-WARD. Weaver tells Tom that his automaton wife and their Prius of a baby are missing and we end on Tom’s drama face. Again.
Next week, apparently, is the episode everyone will be talking about, “when Hal does the unthinkable!” I’m guessing three-way in the terrarium with Karen and Maggie where he keeps their names straight, but it’s probably just wishful thinking. See you then!
Barbara Sirois Doyle is a writer for Sweatpants & Coffee. She is a fan of Falling Skies and snarks because she loves.
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