MostlyC August 24, 2015 Share August 24, 2015 The final standoff brings the Masons, the 2nd Mass, and their new allies into an iconic location. Road trip? 1 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 24, 2015 Share August 24, 2015 Road trip? They are going to DC and decided to see the Lincoln Memorial. 2 Link to comment
tv echo August 26, 2015 Share August 26, 2015 Falling Skies 5x10 Promo "Reborn" (HD) Series Finale Link to comment
raven August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) OMG Pope shows up alive - I'm shocked, said no one ever. Tom's speech goes off into space. Edited August 31, 2015 by raven 6 Link to comment
FormerMod-a1 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Well.. that happened. Also, why is the doctor the one that keeps getting pregnant? It didn't sound like it was planned. Of course it worked out because the humans wiped out the Espheni. 6 Link to comment
ParadoxLost August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) The stupid is strong with this one. I mean, I know which show I'm watching. But really, this was dumb. It was like they crammed every thing about this show that grated on my nerves into one episode and then turned it up to eleven. Edited August 31, 2015 by ParadoxLost 5 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) Back in college, I remember doing a history paper on the last alien invasion, that happened 1,500 years ago. #Popeisprobablystillalive Edited August 31, 2015 by TVSpectator 5 Link to comment
MostlyC August 31, 2015 Author Share August 31, 2015 Well.. that happened. Exactly was I was going to say. Why oh why did Pope come back? Seriously, was there a reason he came back or am I completely overthinking this. How oh how did Moon come back? And why did she come back off screen? I kind of wondered if somehow Pope survived the whole damn thing, had reformed and was now hanging out in the crowd. But no, I guess he really did die this time around. I'm disappointed the show didn't end with one huge Mason Family Hug. I mean, come on. 4 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I like to think that Pope is still alive out there and that he is too cool to attend The Speech. 7 Link to comment
I-Kare August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Haven't watched yet, but it sounds like Karen *didn't* make a triumphant surprise return and wipe them all off the face of the Earth, so I'm not at all excited about watching it. 1 Link to comment
MDL August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 HUH??? Why did they have to cram so much into the leas half episode, when the first half was paced as if it was mired in mud? Some questions: When Tom got to the Lincoln Memorial Statue first (what a surprise :) ) he looked out at the "mall" and said "they're moving in"-my TV must be too dark-what did he see besides a whole mess of Espheni? Just after that, when he pulled the branch away from something what was that? In the "epilogue", besides Anne, was the black soldier who died in the tunnels, and the Motorcycle riding Viet Vet who was killed by the bursting Espheni also revived? ( I'm terrible with character names.) Did Anybody else feel like they were cloning a scene from Alien(s) as Tom delicately walked past all those Espheni eggs? Along the same line, did the "queen" bear more than a bit of a resemblance-in size and in how she moved- to the Alien queen? But at least a "happy ending" for mankind? )(snarky) Link to comment
Plactus August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 And I though Pope's appearance last week was pointless. 5 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 HUH??? Why did they have to cram so much into the leas half episode, when the first half was paced as if it was mired in mud? Some questions: When Tom got to the Lincoln Memorial Statue first (what a surprise :) ) he looked out at the "mall" and said "they're moving in"-my TV must be too dark-what did he see besides a whole mess of Espheni? Just after that, when he pulled the branch away from something what was that? In the "epilogue", besides Anne, was the black soldier who died in the tunnels, and the Motorcycle riding Viet Vet who was killed by the bursting Espheni also revived? ( I'm terrible with character names.) Did Anybody else feel like they were cloning a scene from Alien(s) as Tom delicately walked past all those Espheni eggs? Along the same line, did the "queen" bear more than a bit of a resemblance-in size and in how she moved- to the Alien queen? But at least a "happy ending" for mankind? )(snarky) 1. IMO, they do this in every finale. This time it was the series finale. 2.Like you I have no idea what he was talking about. 3. Maybe an overlord egg? 4.I don't know, but I doubt it. Only because Tom cares only about Anne and his kids. If he would do that to Lt. Wolf and the biker guy, then he would probably do that to Pope as well. 5. Yes. 6. I need to see a picture to recharge my memory on that. 1 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I have a question, what happen to all of the harnessed/mutated children? 3 Link to comment
mattie0808 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) Back in college, I remember doing a history paper on the last alien invasion, that happened 1,500 years ago. How freakin' LAME are all we 21st-century human beings? We could only JUST BARELY beat the Espheni, with the help of TWO DIFFERENT alien species over the course of several years. Meanwhile, our Dark/Middle freakin' Ages homies totally took out an alien invasion, complete with killing the queen! And apparently did it so easily, it became but a mere blip in the historical record, more or less simply lost to human history. Damn, son. I can't believe they didn't show us ANYTHING OF A FINAL BATTLE. Hey, I get that can be expensive, at least let me see the 2nd Mass do something for a minute or two after being separated from Tom. Let me see all these militias converging on D.C. from all over the country. That skitter battle at the beginning was easily the most action of the entire episode. Boo! Why was Matt working by candlelight when they do have electricity (the mic of Tom's, at least)? Could they have dropped any more whispered exposition/random character moments into that tiptoe around and short firefight with the overlord eggs? "I'm pregnant!" "Marry me!" "I'm gonna make my mama proud!" Why couldn't the third alien race find a way to deliver that weapon to the queen themselves? She wasn't even defended! Tom walked out of a tunnel, and was just "Hey, what's up?" No guards, no nothing...and she never once noticed Tom holding a glowing cylinder, desperately reaching for a glowing cylinder, or infecting himself with the contents of a glowing cylinder. That third alien race should have been able to handle it. Hell, give one to a Volm years ago! Speaking of having no battles being anti-climactic...Pope's last scene was somehow moreso. Well, that's that. Yay, humanity? Wait, one more thing... I have a question, what happen to all of the harnessed/mutated children? I thought they were removing military/strategic considerations in the Espheni quest for Earth with the queen's explanation/flashback-- it was just one crazy person's revenge. But the queen did also say something about the fact that Earth is the only habitable planet in the galaxy meaning that it was incalcuably valuable (right?). If that's the case, why did it take them 1,500 freakin' years to come back? The Volm have never considered Earth strategically important, and apparently, neither did the third alien race. The skitters -- what and who they are, how they are created, what they can do, what they are used for -- has changed so many times in the last two seasons, it just kind of sucks. The inital mystery of why they were using children to become skitters and perform what looked like manual labor (moving the metal and helping build communications arrays or whatever) is long gone and never addressed. Same with the rebel skitters. And whether it's about personal revenge or broader strategy, why have Nazi-esque indoctrination schools for children who would have previously been skitterized? What was the point of Lexi being a hybrid (and what kind of hybrid will Anne's new baby be after aliens messed with her AGAIN during a pregnancy)? Sigh. Edited September 2, 2015 by mattie0808 7 Link to comment
sjohnson August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 They're going to do rah, rah, USA and global outreach simultaneously? No wonder they turned this into Tom Mason, Tom Mason, Tom Mason. And why they avoided any hint of how someone with spikes fits into the new world order of AmericaRUs. Since people with spears can lick these aliens, the new bunch never had a chance! Seriously, the opener with the hark back to the children's drawings, getting more sophisticated as it recapped some of the series did remind me of some of the things that Falling Skies did well, like actually having civilians (unlike a certain cult show that gets undeserved praise for competence.) 3 Link to comment
anarchyangel84 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Wow. I've seen 2 full seasons & some of season 2 of this show & watched all of the Last Ship. TNT has a bad habit of dragging things out & it can get a little boring sometimes. Before this finale, I was disappointed with the direction they went with this show. I really thought they could've done a lot more with it. I thought this was the best episode I've seen in a while- if not ever. They kept me on the edge of my seat, they had anxious & yapping at my TV, they made me cry when the weapon worked, and of course when Anne died, and they tied up a lot of loose ends. I thought for sure that Tom would die and Anne would have the baby. I liked that the Espheni was here for vengeance- not just for Earth & its resources. It's funny- I didn't think Pope was dead- like a lot of you didn't. But with everything going on, I forgot about him. So I was pretty freaking surprised when he showed up... after Tom somehow carried the dead Anne back to the water by himself (wtf?). I was a little surprised he decided to let Tom kill him- that wasn't the best part of the episode. I kind of wish he would've survived. I think I'm going to get Falling Skies seasons on DVD & watch from the beginning. 2 Link to comment
thuganomics85 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I feel awful, but I started laughing as soon as it hit me that outside of Pope (and the Anne fake-out), the only real deaths in this episode came from two side characters that were only introduced a few episodes ago. Now, to be fair, there are several series finales I've enjoyed where all the regulars pulled through, but it was so obvious that I was suppose to think of these deaths as cost of this epic war and be sadden over their sacrifices. Instead, all I could really do was be like "Oh, no.... I guess. Not Marty, the dude I only met five episodes ago. Or Demarcus, the guy I only knew three episodes ago. Where will I be without those two?!" Anyway, so yeah, it was pretty much a cakewalk for the 2nd Mass. After meeting up with Jeff Fahey (yay!) and what I'm assuming were the Sons of Anarchy (I kid!), they march through a next, and loose a few on the way, but in the end, Tom meets the Queen. After a big speech where the Queen reveals that this is all revenge because human caveman killed her daughter during their first attempt, Tom easily gets the virus in, and that's a wrap for the Espheni! I forgot the check the credits, so I wasn't sure who voiced the Queen, but she sounded a lot like Tricia Helfer to me. Of course, what was suppose to be the big dramatic moment was Anne "dying", after getting a piece of shrapnel into her, but Tom just takes her to the lake/ocean, screams at his alien buddies for a few seconds, and they take her and I guess save her. Before that though, Pope, of course, comes back and tries to get Tom to kill him, but Tom refuses, so he dies apparently. Whatever. I will give the actors credit, because it did look like there was some rough waves out there, and Noah Wyle did seem to be holding Moon Bloodgood throughout it. Hope he didn't drop her too many times. Also, Anne is pregnant again. I was just amazed by that, because I was wondering when they had the time these past few episodes. Not because I don't believe people wouldn't have sex during an alien invasion, but just these two in general, especially during this season. I feel like if anything, most of those situations would be Anne hinting Tom "comes to bed", but Tom will be all "Sorry, dear! No time for that! Got a big speech to plan!! I mean... er, the invasion is keeping me down! Now, excuse me, I'm going to take this paper and all these textbooks, and be by myself for a while...." At least the show didn't dick around with the stupid-ass love triangle, and Hal obviously picks Maggie. Didn't even bother showing Isabella find that out. And it kind of looked like at the end she and Anthony were sharing a brief look, so he's probably going to be the "consultation prize." I'm more interested in the unsung love story that was Dingaan and Cochise! Well, farewell, Falling Skies. I actually did enjoy parts of you and there are worst out there (Under the Dome), but I wasn't a fan of these past two seasons. I'd rank this season slightly above the Season 4 a.k.a. the Season of Lexi, but this show really ended up being disappointed. I at least hope Moon Bloodgood gets another gig soon, because I love her. And I'm already looking forward to seeing Noah Wyle in The Librarians this November. He looked like he was having way more fun in those trailers tonight, compared to this entire series. 3 Link to comment
TVSpectator August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Wow. I've seen 2 full seasons & some of season 2 of this show & watched all of the Last Ship. TNT has a bad habit of dragging things out & it can get a little boring sometimes. Before this finale, I was disappointed with the direction they went with this show. I really thought they could've done a lot more with it. I thought this was the best episode I've seen in a while- if not ever. They kept me on the edge of my seat, they had anxious & yapping at my TV, they made me cry when the weapon worked, and of course when Anne died, and they tied up a lot of loose ends. I thought for sure that Tom would die and Anne would have the baby. I liked that the Espheni was here for vengeance- not just for Earth & its resources. It's funny- I didn't think Pope was dead- like a lot of you didn't. But with everything going on, I forgot about him. So I was pretty freaking surprised when he showed up... after Tom somehow carried the dead Anne back to the water by himself (wtf?). I was a little surprised he decided to let Tom kill him- that wasn't the best part of the episode. I kind of wish he would've survived. I think I'm going to get Falling Skies seasons on DVD & watch from the beginning. If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch seasons 1-4 for free. Link to comment
Frost August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Are all octopuses aliens? Or just some? The whole tentacle thing confused me. Plus I had no idea the Lincoln Memorial was so close to the ocean! How lucky for Tom. Why didn't they flash forward a couple of years? They should had Ann with a young child, not still pregnant. There's no way the chaos of an alien invasion spanning years just disappears because the aliens went "poof". I really enjoyed the first season. I thought this was an interesting take on the wholesale bewilderment people would feel if aliens suddenly attacked, and how different the reactions could be. From nihilistic violence to heroic sacrifice. Too bad it lost its way but it did have good ideas. 2 Link to comment
Mars477 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) No Masons died. 0/10. You had one job, show. Fuck, how is Tom Mason supposed to be George Washington Jesus if he doesn't die for our sins? Edited August 31, 2015 by Mars477 6 Link to comment
Dowel Jones August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Lapidus!!! I was rather disappointed that those were eggs. I was hoping they were some kind of giant Espheni turds after a night of one too many enchiladas or something. And that's how the humans won this time around, just like War of the Worlds. A Star Trek cameo in the commercial? Cool. I'm guessing the local blood bank is going to decline Tom Mason for a long, long time after he answers those questions. That's that, I guess. Unfollow and move on. 1 Link to comment
ShortyMac August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I only watched the first two seasons, but I was curious to see how FS would end. Yeah, that was zzzzzzz...glad I got out when I did. 1 Link to comment
iwatchtv2015 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) glad enough people like me thought this show is dumb as something dumb. lmao! i mean not all sci-fi drama can be smart. dumb show give people something dumb to rant about , just for the sake of ranting. lol. now that that opinion out of the way...let get down to critizing...lol i sorta feel the whole last season was kinda rush like " oh sheet we are out of time, we only have 5 season room to tell the story and we gotta just get it all in in this last season no matter what" and i feel there are like some contradiction: 1. the skitter background is not explored well, like their planet and their role in the insurgency , like they were part of the story for insurgency and then abruptly dumped ad replaced by volm. 2. and the whole cochise's father being dead accidently for epicness was kinda unconvincing plot -wise like volm not advanced in biology to have organ cloning in spite of far ahead of human's other sciences. c'mon! 3.and the status of volm homeworld not explored much either and status of their base. you are told they pull their fleet back to base for defense cuz espheni discovered it. 4. lexi (like at season4 end, you get an suggestion that her and then no mention of her for a while, big disconnect in the story) 5. the mysterious alien(females) in tom's vision, her role and background . 6. espheni queen is a giant ass spider while underlings are humanoid,don;t make sense. i guess they took the idea from borg queen from star trek. you kill her and the whole cube ship blow to kingdom cum.lol. i feel you can get away with that better cuz they cyborg and all. but feel harder to get away for organics and before finale no sign of being dependant thinker and they just dropped this on you in finale. wtf! i gues they need some way for human to win so this is like wiping out lot number of dependent underlings when you take out queenie. not very convincing... one stone and many many birds. what in nature had such a stupid dependancy system , nothing known to man anyways, cuz it too damn stupid! bah! reminds me of another movie with dumb plot: "independence day". alien are very advanced but super dumb in common sense. find it hard to beleive a computer virus would easily cripple their whole computer system and they have no clue you bringing a nuke to their mothership. this movie always bug me for stupidity. such dumb plots make the movie: "dumb and dumber" look smart!:P Edited August 31, 2015 by iwatchtv2015 1 Link to comment
anarchyangel84 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 HUH??? Why did they have to cram so much into the leas half episode, when the first half was paced as if it was mired in mud? Some questions: When Tom got to the Lincoln Memorial Statue first (what a surprise :) ) he looked out at the "mall" and said "they're moving in"-my TV must be too dark-what did he see besides a whole mess of Espheni? Just after that, when he pulled the branch away from something what was that? In the "epilogue", besides Anne, was the black soldier who died in the tunnels, and the Motorcycle riding Viet Vet who was killed by the bursting Espheni also revived? ( I'm terrible with character names.) Did Anybody else feel like they were cloning a scene from Alien(s) as Tom delicately walked past all those Espheni eggs? Along the same line, did the "queen" bear more than a bit of a resemblance-in size and in how she moved- to the Alien queen? But at least a "happy ending" for mankind? )(snarky) When Tom pulled back that branch, it was Abe Lincoln's head. I think they were kind of using the rest of Abe & his big chair as sort of a throne for Queen. I figured that when he looked out, he was just kind of saying that they were "moving in" based on what he saw in the monument & what he thought. I don't think he actually saw anything when he looked out there except the Espheni that we also saw. I could be wrong but I watched it twice & that's what I got out of it. Oh & thanks @TVSpectator, but I don't have Amazon Prime. 2 Link to comment
Scott August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I forgot the check the credits, so I wasn't sure who voiced the Queen, but she sounded a lot like Tricia Helfer to me. I did check--it was. Too busy beating my head against a wall to have anything else relevant to say at this point. 3 Link to comment
Human August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 So I guess Cochise and his people never got their flower? That's all I cared about. Link to comment
iwatchtv2015 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 So I guess Cochise and his people never got their flower? That's all I cared about. maybe they did. i think it is implied they did. assuming the expheni queen death wiped out all dependent esphenis. lol. Link to comment
Kelda Feegle August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 can I get that time refunded please? 1 Link to comment
tv echo August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) On the 10th day of Falling Skies, my TV gave to me... 0 male Mason deaths, 2 pompous Tom speeches, 1 surprise Mason marriage proposal, 1 surprise Mason pregnancy (to replace Lexi?), 1 unnecessary Jeff Fahey cameo, 2 "who is he again?" deaths, 1 Pope resurrection and death, 1 Anne death and resurrection, 1 Tom singlehandedly defeats the alien Queen and saves humanity, and 1 brand new world of Mason-worshipping human acolytes (plus Cochise). I just posted some articles in the Media thread, including some episode reviews (you are not alone in your dissatisfaction) and some interviews with showrunner David Eick in which he explains why Pope returned, why Anne survived, why we had that stupid farm family story, and other stuff (in case you're interested). Edited September 1, 2015 by tv echo 4 Link to comment
Latverian Diplomat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I like to think that Pope is still alive out there and that he is too cool to attend The Speech. After multiple attempts, Pope finally figured out that Tom's weakness is his desire to have everyone sit still for his pompous speechifying. Pope skipping "church" wounded him terribly. Revenge at last. 1 Link to comment
xaxat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) The defining characteristic that elevated the Masons to saviors of the human race wasn't their love for each other and it wasn't Tom's belief in American Exceptionalism. It was the fact that every single one of them was captured/infected/brainwashed/impregnated/harnessed by the aliens. To quote a current presidential candidate, "I want the guy who didn't get captured!" Edited August 31, 2015 by xaxat 2 Link to comment
Latverian Diplomat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) I just posted some articles in the Media thread, including some episode reviews (you are not alone in your dissatisfaction) and some interviews with showrunner David Eick in which he explains why Pope returned, why Anne survived, why we had that stupid farm family story, and other stuff (in case you're interested). Thanks for doing that. This one bit in the Hitfix interview jumped out at me: I expected to learn more in the finale about the Nazca Lines. My only reaction to that is that at a certain point we became victimized by the 42-minute power of television. There was an entire storyline with the Nazca Lines all season long that, in the final analysis, winds up sort of poking its head up a couple of times, the rest of which is on the cutting room floor or the writers room floor. It had to do with justifying or explaining the Nazca Lines as a byproduct of the early visitation by the Espheni that resulted in the queen’s daughter’s ritualistic murder. That idea wound up surviving in a couple little loose end places in episodes, but we never got to the scene, for example, where we go to Peru and we see the Nazca Lines or with the Volm and they explain it and put it all together. We just couldn't afford to do it, and we didn't have room to do it. They didn't have time to explore the Espheni backstory, because the Pope revenge wheel, and the traitor base plots were so important? Another thing that comes through is that he (ETA:Eick) seems to think Season 1 wasn't very good. Which, for all it's flaws, it was trying to do something different and tried to avoid some of the cliches that the show wallowed in, in later seasons. Edited August 31, 2015 by Latverian Diplomat 5 Link to comment
Ottis August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) What a curiously emotionless series finale: A cold open that guarantees humans win before we even see what happens, killing any suspense. Once the 2nd Mass can be bothered to show up for the "coordinated attack on DC" (wait, when you say "coordinated," did you think that actually meant *us*?") we then spend half the episode feeling around in dark tunnels. No fighting, no sense of who is winning or losing or what is happening. The people who *do* die are a dude we met 3 episodes ago, and two dudes we never knew existed until now - sorry, Dan, but all your heartfelt "you died a hero" goodbyes were meaningless to viewers who barely knew the characters who died. Ann seemingly dies and then ... poof, comes back, off screen, with no emotional payoff or even an alien science explanation. Pope returns and pulls a Blade Runner "Roy Batty" death, with no meaningful moment with Tom. Once Tom employs the magic Good n Plenty, the Queen just ... dissolves. Then all the Espheni also ... dissolve (some in midair, like rockets in the Star Spangled Banner!). Well, OK. Guess we won. And speaking of the Good n Plenty, didn't Cochise and the beer guy just say last week that its impact on humans was unknown and that the new race might not care what it did to humans as long as it killed the Espheni? Never mind. For a show that was maddeningly and unabashedly about "the story of the Masons," it ended with no human emotions at all. I think this episode reached its comical nadir when Tom, making a speech, quoted himself from an earlier speech ("I told you to find your inner warrior! For some of you it was just what you needed! For others, well, who cares about you!") and then he justifies it all by adding, "It was worth the loss!" Tom was full on mental by that point. And the Queen's explanation ... sweet Jebus. The moment when I started laughing uncontrollably... the cave drawings from 1500 years ago put me over the top. Those Romans loved their cave drawings. FS needs to be part of a course in "what not to do" in executing a promising series. I'll never understand what happened. Like this: I expected to learn more in the finale about the Nazca Lines.My only reaction to that is that at a certain point we became victimized by the 42-minute power of television. There was an entire storyline with the Nazca Lines all season long that, in the final analysis, winds up sort of poking its head up a couple of times, the rest of which is on the cutting room floor or the writers room floor. It had to do with justifying or explaining the Nazca Lines as a byproduct of the early visitation by the Espheni that resulted in the queen’s daughter’s ritualistic murder. That idea wound up surviving in a couple little loose end places in episodes, but we never got to the scene, for example, where we go to Peru and we see the Nazca Lines or with the Volm and they explain it and put it all together. We just couldn't afford to do it, and we didn't have room to do it.They didn't have time to explore the Espheni backstory, because the Pope revenge wheel, and the traitor base plots were so important? Exactly. Who the hell decides that, instead of explaining the main reason for the Espheni being on Earth, that we need an entire episode about Tom finding an untouched farm, then the 2nd Mass finding a holded-up, deranged husband/father who pretends his family is alive and THEN a possessed Colonel clone who almost ends up killing our gang? Priorities, people! Good grief. Edited August 31, 2015 by Ottis 4 Link to comment
sjohnson August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 The defining characteristic that elevated the Masons to saviors of the human race wasn't their love for each other and it wasn't Tom's belief in American Exceptionalism. It was the fact that every single one of them was captured/infected/brainwashed/impregnated/harnessed by the aliens. The plot judo that turns this suffering into an invaluable source of intel isn't so implausible. The problem was that they couldn't really come up with much else, and kept using the same ploy over and over, doing it with the Masons because you do your stories about the regular cast characters. The coup de grace, the supertech computer telepathy virus, came to Tom because he was in a kamikaze trip to the moon. Another thing that comes through is that he seems to think Season 1 wasn't very good. Which, for all it's flaws, it was trying to do something different and tried to avoid some of the cliches that the show wallowed in, in later seasons. Yes, it was Falling Skies trying to do some things different that got me hooked, and the actors (Wyle and Patton primarily, but got to appreciate Jessup...and much as I despised the Pope character, Colin Cunningham played that shit with gusto.) Reviewers badmouthing novelty is bad reviewing I think. What a curiously emotionless series finale: A cold open that guarantees humans win before we even see what happens, killing any suspense. There hasn't been any suspense about ultimate victory since first season (one reason I think reviewers didn't like it I suspect.) And there's been no suspense about how since Tom was returned from the Moon. We knew it would be alien tech gifted to him because he was there. The emotion was in the content of the child's drawings. The idea was that a child drawing dead bodies was a sad thing, not an emotionless one. Perhaps one criticism I think valid that has been overlooked is the tin ear awfulness of the final big speech. "Once upon a time there was a country called America...." interrupted by as huge a standing ovation that a cheap cast and CGI can muster. And they do this even as the show suddenly discovers that there were people in other parts of the world who can wear their colorful native costumes to the party! My immediate thought was, Mason glorification was never about the character, 1 Link to comment
Latverian Diplomat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Yes, it was Falling Skies trying to do some things different that got me hooked, and the actors (Wyle and Patton primarily, but got to appreciate Jessup...and much as I despised the Pope character, Colin Cunningham played that shit with gusto.) Reviewers badmouthing novelty is bad reviewing I think. Just to be clear (and I amended my post to clarify) I got that impression about Eick himself, not the reviewer. It's like he didn't appreciate the best parts of his own project and liked the junk. --Not that reviewers necessarily "got it" either, but Eick's view mystifies me. Link to comment
Ottis August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Perhaps one criticism I think valid that has been overlooked is the tin ear awfulness of the final big speech. "Once upon a time there was a country called America...." interrupted by as huge a standing ovation that a cheap cast and CGI can muster. And they do this even as the show suddenly discovers that there were people in other parts of the world who can wear their colorful native costumes to the party! My immediate thought was, Mason glorification was never about the character That was my initial thought, but the show addressed that right after the silly "Once upon a time ... 'Merica" line by having Tom talk about the wider world. The mistake the show made, I think, was having the applause after the America line. They should have held it until after the ensuing lines about the wider world. The symbol they were tacking onto their shirts looked like a stylized version of a galaxy. They seemed to get that this was about more than America. They just executed it poorly on the show. Which is SOP for FS. There hasn't been any suspense about ultimate victory since first season (one reason I think reviewers didn't like it I suspect.) And there's been no suspense about how since Tom was returned from the Moon. We knew it would be alien tech gifted to him because he was there. The emotion was in the content of the child's drawings. The idea was that a child drawing dead bodies was a sad thing, not an emotionless one. The "victory" could have taken many forms, which might have included (for example) much more loss as a species or individuals, moving to another planet, the genocide of another species and its ramifications (we got the first part, not the latter), living with surviving Espheni, etc. What we got, with Matt writing a book in a setting that resembled the 1776 forming of the US, was that "things returned to what they were." THAT was what took all the emotion out of the rest of the finale. There was nothing about that scene that made me think, "Wait, what? How did they -?" Therefore there was no suspense about the next 45 minutes. Having kids draw pictures of things they have seen doesn't mean anything beyond that's what a kid saw. IAlso, those pictures were in the setting of after the win, not during the struggle. So the kids who were drawing were apparently safe. Not much impact there. Link to comment
ramble August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Cave men killed my daughter. Seriously? I don't even know how to address that. It's so bad. I did laugh at Anne being pregnant. I know even in the worst of times people get busy & no matter the stress women can get pregnant, but good grief gravy you'd think the leader of the free world (TomMason) would be a little busy planning the battle for the liberation of everything. The best moment of the episode for me was seeing an ad for The Librarians with a glimpse of Christian Kane. 1 Link to comment
xaxat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I did laugh at Anne being pregnant. I know even in the worst of times people get busy & no matter the stress women can get pregnant, but good grief gravy you'd think the leader of the free world (TomMason) would be a little busy planning the battle for the liberation of everything. I laughed too. One would think, knowing that their deceased daughter was a half alien hybrid that grew to adulthood in a couple of months and allied with the genocidal Espheni, they might be just a little more careful than your average post apocalyptic couple. 2 Link to comment
shrewd.buddha August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Well .. that was easy. It was just like Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks" with *all* the evil aliens just *POOF'ng* out of existence, like fireworks. Wow. How convenient. For just one second, when all the aliens were disintegrating and Ben came to find Tom at the Memorial -- I thought that like all the other aliens, Ben was going to disintegrate right in front of Tom since he still had the spikes. But no, the show did not want to go there. It was kind of ridiculous how Tom managed to find so many "all alone" moments during the episode. ..Especially when he picked up Anne's body, started walking, and kept on walking to the ocean (?!) -- and no one, at all, decided to follow him. Just so he could have some alone time with the Alien Octopus and Pope. (There are some sentences you just never imagine typing .... so thanks for that FS..) 3 Link to comment
NurseGiGi August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Well, I watched all of seasons 1 and 2, part of season 3, and then stopped completely in season 4 when the show went completely off the rails. I decided to DVR this finale episode but, so far, I haven't been able to get through it. I loved the first season and, as far as I'm concerned, the decline started in season 2, which is sad because I, like others, thought it had promise. After reading the Eick interview I'm left wondering if Spielberg's meddling had something to do with the show's failure. He's a powerful man and the showrunners would have to give in to his input and they would also be left holding the bag when his "suggestions" didn't pan out. Link to comment
CaptainE August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 (edited) I thought this was the worst episode of anything I've seen in a while- if not ever. I just don't understand the mindless writing that was put in to a professional production. 1) There is NO suspense when a Mason is in peril because not a drop of Mason blood will ever be spilled. Meaning no Mason will die. Tom's wife did not have Mason blood. Doesn't count. 2) Tom walked back to Norfolk? Carrying Anne? Can anyone defend that writing? It would have made as much sense if he had just called and had Scotty beam him there. 3) The Lt's death was telegraphed so comically. A 2 year old could have seen it coming. 4) The daughter died 1500 years ago? Mom didn't look a day over 1000 to me! How about my grandmother died and I'm here to avenge her? 5) So I guess the Espheni in that time checked out all of the 200 BILLION other planets in the galaxy over that time. In order to do that they would have to be able to travel at light speed. But still be foiled by our tech and amazing resolve. Ok then. 6) The Pope shit - so bad, not even worth mentioning. I guess when you get to produce and star in your own show, you do whatever it takes to make yourself the hero. Edited August 31, 2015 by CaptainE 1 Link to comment
iMonrey August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 This felt like something that was originally planned as a two-hour finale, but then the network nixed it because of budget or whatever and it had to be pared down to one hour. There didn't seem to be any point to Jeff Fahey and his ragtag crew of backups joining the 2nd Mass because they didn't end up doing anything. Hell, the 2nd Mass didn't end up doing anything. Ann being pregnant, Hal choosing Maggie, it all seemed so random and thrown in. Pope's return was as pointless as it was last week. The whole thing with the spider queen and her eggs was awfully derivative of Alien and doesn't really make any biological sense given what we've seen of the Overlords during the past four seasons. Nor does the idea that another queen and invasion was thwarted by primitive man in a pre-industrial era - the whole idea seemed like something they came up with at the last minute, thought it sounded cool, and threw it in there even if it didn't make any sense. Where did all the Skitters go? Did they blow up too? That doesn't make any sense either since they weren't the product of the Queen. I don't really get why the wasp-things blew up either. My biggest problem with the season in general was the Dornians - or whatever that race was called that became Skitters. How exactly were they communicating with Tom? Telepathically? I was given to understand they had been completely wiped out by the Espheni, but then they showed that ship coming out of the water, so were some of them still alive and physically present here on earth? None of that ever made any sense to me. Oh well. I guess one nice thing they did was bring the story full circle with Matt's narration, although that initially irritated me in the pilot more than anything else. I thought it would have been a lot braver to kill off Anne so the show ended just like how it started, with Tom and his three sons right after the death of their mother. 2 Link to comment
mythoughtis August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Matt's opening should have been saved till the closing. It telegraphed the whole ending. The entire party/fundraiser?/speech scene was even more unrealistic than the rest of the episode. As another said, he used candles, but they had power for the microphone. It's obviously only a few months after the final battle (Anne still pregnant), and everyone has found formal clothes to wear, hair styled, all clean, people from all over the world have magically made it over to Washington with their ceremonial clothing, they have cleaned up the entire area and removed the 20 foot wall, and so forth. Another episode where they make the scenes so dark that you can't possibly know what is going on. Why did they waste this entire season on stuff that didn't matter. New characters, continued Aspheni DNA manipulation, cloning. As for the harnessed children, they probably are just fine.... as long as they hadn't mutated any more than Ben had. He seems to have come thru the Aspheni mass destruction just fine. Presumably he no longer has any special strength, and so forth. Which is amazing since you would have thought the spikes would have been Aspheni in origin. They should have at least been dissolved. Link to comment
AV8n August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Sci-Fi Writing 101: When you need to wipe out an entire alien race in one fell swoop, make sure there is a queen they are all telepathically connected to! Bonus points if she can get inside the protagonist's head but isn't in the least bit curious what he's planning - and doesn't give a flying fornication about the glowing cylinder he is reaching for with every fiber of his being. I kept thinking they would show the Dornia Queen in her natural form, but apparently they didn't have the budget to do it for more than a millisecond at a time. It kinda sucks that all of the Skitters just went poof! into the ether like the overlords. Would have been interesting if DQ had the tech to de-skitterize them had only the harnesses gone bye-bye. So much for tying up loose ends. They were just making crap up on the fly. I do think Matt might want to rethink the title of his book, because I have a hunch Pope is still alive and he's amassing an army to take out the Masons. 1 Link to comment
xaxat August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Did anyone else think Tom was going "use the force" when he was reaching for the bioweapon tube? The veteran actors did what they could with the material, but I was also impressed with Connor Jessup. I'm not in the demo for any project he might star in, but I hope he manages to do well after this. 2 Link to comment
sjohnson August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 Connor Jessup is apparently going on to the next American Crime series, at least for one episode. I saw him by the way in an indie called Blackbird, good performance in an interesting movie about a juvie whose creative writing exercise gets him into trouble for terrorism (yes, it could happen.) mythoughtis is right that there should have been a real question about Ben dying from the weapon. (Not to mention his spike should have lit up and he should have been picking up Espheni thoughts when he was so close to so many.) For a moment I thought they might actually be going for the drama in the situation rather than character fantasy. 2 Link to comment
Julie23 August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 I would have preferred to have skipped some of the "filler" episodes and had the final be two hours of battle in DC. It seems wrapped up all too quickly. Plus, I did NOT need another Pope sighting. I mostly enjoyed the series, except for Lexy season and this season I felt I was watching out of obligation to watch it to the bitter end. Bye FS! 3 Link to comment
Dowel Jones August 31, 2015 Share August 31, 2015 It was the fact that every single one of them was captured/infected/brainwashed/impregnated/harnessed by the aliens Wouldn't it have been cool to zoom in on Tom and Anne (from the back), to show just a faint glow of spikes becoming obvious under their clothes? 1 Link to comment
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