S05.E10: Reborn

[iMonrey]

 

As for the harnessed children, they probably are just fine.... as long as they hadn't mutated any more than Ben had.

 

Weaver's daughter was fully mutated into . . . something else. So was that kid's brother they found in the warehouse earlier this season. We'd have to assume there are a lot of kids who were beyond saving, so what did they do with them all? They could have ended last season this way and spent this season cleaning up and facing the moral dilemma of trying to decide what to do with the Skitters and the Skitterized humans. Not that I want another season of this.

[iwatchtv2015]

more failing contradictions came to mind:

 

1. "earth is the only habitable planet in the galaxy and makes it a stragetically important location." what about volm and skitter homworlds? lol.

 

2. another sore eyed element is how come skitters have never been armed, never short-range/long range weapon of any kind. no guns, no spears,blades. its like they are treated as expendable so heck they don;t need to be armed. lol. so of course they are getting to rack up in death toll but no one care about stupid skitters. or maybe its too  hard to do CG-wise,lol? you know the saying,"never bring a sword to a gun fight." well they don't even have that, lol.

 

 

had they ended it better, maybe spin-offs for volm and skitter can be open but with the non-sensical ending as it is.... humanity is boring as we have all seen with falling skies. let make a story focused on aliens instead with humanity on the sidelines.:P

 

[wellread]

Don't worry!  When Matt carefully blew out two candles and left the 1776 attic where he was writing his journal, he left at least 30 lit candles behind.  Many were close to wood, paper and cloth objects.  Very soon a massive fire will wipe out DC, leaving no one alive except Hal and two women.  A new triangle will begin  ...

[Gudzilla]

Nice to see Matt saved his worst hairstyle for the finale.

 

So way back in 515 A.D. Emperor Tominius Masonus and his 2nd legion defeated this same enemy and no one wrote a history of this war ? Or was it lost ? Damn those Dark Ages !

 

No lumberjacks ? 

[Latverian Diplomat]

1. "earth is the only habitable planet in the galaxy and makes it a stragetically important location." what about volm and skitter homworlds? lol.

 

I think it was "in this galaxy" because presumably the Espheni and their empire spans galaxies. I don't think the writers really understand how far apart galaxies are, and also, give recent exo-planet astronomy, it's hard to believe that Earth is really the only one in our galaxy. Lastly, it's not clear why a spacefaring race that can build moon-bases needs a habitable planet that's a PITA to conquer, occupy, and defend. 

So way back in 515 A.D. Emperor Tominius Masonus and his 2nd legion defeated this same enemy and no one wrote a history of this war ? Or was it lost ? Damn those Dark Ages !

 

It was supposed to be the Nazca that did it. That was what the Nazca Lines connection was going to turn out to be.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Latverian Diplomat

[ottoDbusdriver]

So way back in 515 A.D. Emperor Tominius Masonus and his 2nd legion defeated this same enemy and no one wrote a history of this war ? Or was it lost ? Damn those Dark Ages !

 

That is what is so damn annoying about the Nazca lines nonsense -- was the Queen's daughter supposed to have landed in Peru and the primitives in the area SOMEHOW killed her -- with a spear ?  Because I don't remember any of the Nazca lines being a drawing of a skitter or a mech.

 

I think it was "in this galaxy" because presumably the Espheni and their empire spans galaxies. I don't think the writers really understand how far apart galaxies are, and also, give recent exo-planet astronomy, it's hard to believe that Earth is really the only one in our galaxy. Lastly, it's not clear why a spacefaring race that can build moon-bases needs a habitable planet that's a PITA to conquer, occupy, and defend. 

 

If the Espheni empire spans galaxies, was this the only Queen -- or just the Queen for this sector ?  And how many planets did her death empty out of Espheni ?  Because that seems like a pretty big weak spot in the Espheni hierarchy

[Latverian Diplomat]

If the Espheni empire spans galaxies, was this the only Queen -- or just the Queen for this sector ?  And how many planets did her death empty out of Espheni ?  Because that seems like a pretty big weak spot in the Espheni hierarchy

The scale of the conflict was never very clear. At times the Volm talked about it as if Earth were just one theater in a large conflict spanning vast space and being fought for centuries. But the "Skitter revenge" and "they're moving in" stuff implied the Earth was the crucial battlefield after all? I prefer the former, but it's hard to have the upbeat ending they apparently wanted if the Earth could be reinvaded at any time.

[BooksRule]

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.

 

I was just going to mention that!  I even saw what looked like scaffolding around the Washington Monument.  I guess everyone was still running on Adrenalin and worked really, really fast.

 

Someone upthread called the glowing capsule o' poison a Good 'n Plenty (LOL!) but I kept thinking that it looked like a frozen bottle of water.

 

So many loose ends still unanswered.  I also agree that it was probably supposed to have been a two-hour finale and they compressed/cut out lots of stuff.  I would love to have someone write a nice long novel that explains everything (pre and post-war).  I'm sure there are notebooks of scribbled notes from the writers that they didn't use that could be used for a book.  I would definitely read it.  (I've read many other novelizations of TV series/movies and theatrical movies, and they are sometimes better than the actual televised show because they offer so much more.  When they are well-written, that is.)

Edited August 31, 2015 by BooksRule

[Ltg.jon]

Anyone who wants to write television or movie SF should be required to take a basic astronomy class so they understand what a fucking galaxy is. If Earth is really the only inhabitable planet around any of the 100 BILLION stars in the Milky Way, how could it possibly be strategically important, given that it's 2 million light years from the next closest galaxy? They wasted so much of this season on pointless filler - they could have found time for a fuller, more logical explanation.

I'm also really curious where this beach is. Tom crashed near there on the way back from the Moon, but easily made his way back to the 2nd Mass in North Carolina. And when they were in Norfolk, he was able to quickly pop over to the same beach to have a chat with his alien wife. And then he carried Anne's corpse from downtown DC back to the same beach. Did they keep using that location just so they could establish the Dorians as sea-dwellers?

I just can't believe how utterly weak and pointless this entire last season was.

[ganesh]

I said this when the show started 5 years ago and it's true now: *do the world building*. This was just a mess. And I don't mind the whole queen telepathic link thing. That's fine, but don't bust it out "all of a sudden."

 

What was the first half of the episode about? Because I couldn't see *anything* in the dark!

 

Same thing with the Nasca lines. That's not a bad backstory for a show about aliens. But you need that up front and sprinkled throughout the series. Given that we've identified several hundred exoplanets, I find it unlikely. Just say it had strategic value and good resources or something.

 

It seemed a little much that there's no evidence in the historical record. It might have been better if they kicked the aliens out, but that's as hard to believe that the Incas beat a queen alien with spears. 

 

So much left on the table. This could have been a decent show, but it was frustrating to watch. 

[ParadoxLost]

Someone upthread called the glowing capsule o' poison a Good 'n Plenty (LOL!) but I kept thinking that it looked like a frozen bottle of water.

 

Its the glowing squid poop from Seaquest DSV.

 

 

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.

 

I think this whole series is about as close to being a rip off of Independence Day as you can get in a TV show.  

Edited September 1, 2015 by ParadoxLost

[Sake614]

Did anyone else think Tom was going "use the force" when he was reaching for the bioweapon tube?

I actually said 'you aren't Luke skywalker, the Force won't work for you' when he was reAching for it lol!

[TVSpectator]

The scale of the conflict was never very clear. At times the Volm talked about it as if Earth were just one theater in a large conflict spanning vast space and being fought for centuries. But the "Skitter revenge" and "they're moving in" stuff implied the Earth was the crucial battlefield after all? I prefer the former, but it's hard to have the upbeat ending they apparently wanted if the Earth could be reinvaded at any time.

 

Overall, I thought that they would reveal that Earth would be a major battlefield for the Vom, way back in Season 3. But that never happened. 

[missbonnie]

HUH???

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?

THIS! I was also thinking, I wasted the last 5 summers on that???

[TVSpectator]

The scene where they were in the tunnels felt very much like Aliens, but I don't get the reference to the  Espheni Spider Queen? What were they copying from with her?

[TVSpectator]

Also,  I thought that I saw Pope in the crowd, but that could've been a random biker. 

(the bald man in the second row to the front, on the right side). 

Edited September 1, 2015 by TVSpectator

[NurseGiGi]

Also,  I thought that I saw Pope in the crowd, but that could've been a random biker. 

(the bald man in the second row to the front, on the right side). 

Now THAT would have been hilarious if Pope had shown up for a photobomb!

[ZoqFotPik]

It's almost as if they didn't know ahead of time this going be the final season. 

 

 

Its the glowing squid poop from Seaquest DSV.

Wow! That's a show I haven't thought about it a long time.

[Latverian Diplomat]

Also,  I thought that I saw Pope in the crowd, but that could've been a random biker. 

(the bald man in the second row to the front, on the right side). 

It's possible. Eick said they were hoping to sneak Lexi and Karen into the crowd scenes too, but it didn't work out (scheduling, I guess). Just trying to include people in the wrap party, I guess.

[Ottis]

It's almost as if they didn't know ahead of time this going be the final season.

 

 

Or like someone different was in charge of every, single episode, with no continuity. This season was such a mish mash of stealing from other shows and nonsensical interludes. I expected Pope on the beach to say, "Time ... to die," and Roy Batty out.  

[ganesh]

I don't understand why as tptb on a show like this you wouldnt have come up with a reason for the invasion right from the start. You don't have to reveal it till later on, and it doesn't have to be complex, but I would think that would sort of frame how you do the episodes.

Early on it looked like earth was a pawn in some huge huge goings on in the Galaxy. Which is kind of subversive in that we aren't as important as we think we are.

This whole queen revenge is really tacked on and just doesn't make any sense with what we've seen onscreen. And really after all that, the invisible alien (why were they wiped out? Did they steal the queen's daughter's lunch money) bequeaths the superweapon and they all die. Kind of renders much of the series meaningless. I mean, there wasn't any larger contemplation of Tom committing genocide? Or that maybe more Esh are coming to avenge the Queen?

Everything has been just so incomplete and not thought through.

[TVSpectator]

IMO, it seemed that the showrunner (or showrunners) just gave up and wanted to add whatever the hell they wanted. IMO, season 5 is  an example of this. How many times do we need to know that Tom is ALWAYS right and whatever happened to all of that "find your inner warrior" meme that was so popular with Tom in S5E1-S5E3, etc...? Things were dropped and the writers totally dropped the ball on multiple times for this show (and also we had to deal with an whole episode about a stupid family which only about half are aware of the actual alien invasion). 

[terrymct]

They are going to DC and decided to see the Lincoln Memorial. 

 

Why is it always the Lincoln Memorial?  I live in the DC area.  I can suggest many fine iconic locations.  This choice reminded me of that recent-ish Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow.  The alien super brain thingie could be anywhere in the world, but of course it was in the Louvre, under that glass pyramid in the plaza.   In Falling Skies, the aliens could have picked a nice cool dark cave.  Lots of choices in the mountains in the eastern US.  Luray Caverns if you want to be reasonably close to DC and to have convenient parking for all the cars and trucks.  ;)   One more thing to get off my chest.  Norfolk is NOT on the way to DC, unless you are on a boat.  Otherwise, it's a big frickin detour to the coast.   There's no way a group heading to DC would stop on their way by.

 

I had really high hopes for this show after the first episode or so, before it became a showcase of the specialness of the Masons.   The writing went so bad so quickly.   In this episode, why did the various couples or maybe-couples have to have their frickin revelations and heart-to-hearts as the battle was starting?  Why not talk during those long drives and the times they were just hanging out?   Other things that bothered me:

 

- Pope.  Ok, last week, he was blown up beside a truck right there in the main open area at the Norfolk base.  NO ONE from the main group walked over that way after the fight?  NO ONE from the main group noticed he was still alive?   The people from the other unit who did find him didn't mention to Mason or Weaver that the leader of the group that attacked them had survived?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.   Damn convenient that Pope was able not only to make it to DC, but to find the spot on the Potomac River "beach" (WTF was a beach with surf on it doing beside the Lincoln Memorial?).   Terrible writing.

 

- So, the Queen is a long lived brilliant life form who is taking vengence on human because they'd killed her daughter, ate her, and put her head on a spike.   A few points.  How many years ago did this supposedly happen?  How many thousand years did they say?  Was it 15,000?  I swear it sounded like 1,500.  Lets assume 15K.  That's the Mesolithic, not some 2001: A Space Odyssey bunch of humanoids whacking the ground with femurs.  Agriculture and animal domestication was well underway.  Towns were being built.   Why wouldn't something like defeating an alien race who arrived in space ships make more of long term impact in human memory?  It would have been a massively big deal.   Some kind of carvings would exist.  Some kind of mythology would have developed around the event.  It just seemed totally out of the blue.  Some time in a past episode, Mason or someone else should have said "Say, don't these aliens kind of remind you of the cave carvings discovered in the desert in northern Africa/central Asia/wherever from thousands of years ago?     The vague Nasca reference isn't enough.  

 

-  Doesn't a Queen who sends her offspring out to conquer a world understand that the offspring could LOSE?   Does the Queen of a race that assimilates and enslaves the members of other races really get completely skeeved out that a less advanced race would try to assimilate one of her losing commanders that was captured?  Doesn't make sense.   This should have been the scene the whole five years built toward.  I still didn't understand why Tom was such a frickin special snowflake that the aliens had to have him.  Ok, the Queen was killing him because he's the sort of leader of the rebellion...but I never really bought how he inspired all those other militias with a few radio broadcasts.   But, fine, the Queen wants to suck his blood with her chest spike.  

 

- Speaking of her chest spike.  She was essentially an uber skitter with an overlord-ish face.  Why are the overlords these lithe almost boneless looking creatures and yet their Queen looks more like the assimilated drones that serve them?  I thought the shape of the skitters represented part of the body shape of an enslaved/assimilated race.  Why wouldn't the Queen look more like the overlords?  Doesn't make sense.

 

- Back to the chest spike.  The Queen is happily delivering speeches and slurping Tom's blood and doesn't notice that he's struggling really really hard to reach a glowing capsule thingie in plain sight just to the side of him?  She doesn't notice that?

 

- How can a toxin or whatever that stuff in the capsule was travel almost instantaneously to all the Espheni and kill them?  Maybe the toxin kills her and the rest of them can't survive without some kind of psychic contact with her?  But she only arrived recently.   How did they survive before that?   Doesn't make sense.

 

- Ann's pregnant and so she must die, but not really.   How convenient.  A last minute announcement of a pregnancy, so you know she was going to be injured or killed.  Tom has a hallucination about water, so he drags her corpse into the Potomac (which again has surf, rocks, and only trees on the other side.  Apparently, Northern Virginia crumbled and trees grew really fast.) and an alien octopus thingie drags her down and apparently resurrects her.  How nice for Tom.  How about all the other people who died in this episode, let alone through the length of the show?  Only special, special Anne gets to come back to life?  Stupid.

 

- Jump forward in time.  Ok, so humanity comes together as one after the alien attack was repelled.  Good for humanity!  Why would they be singing American patriotic songs if we're now a global human community whose borders have fallen away?  Why the rah-rah America bits of Tom's talk?  I could buy having the ceremony in the Lincoln Memorial potentially since that's where he killed the Queen, although it's not like a whole bunch of WW2 ceremonies are held on the site of the bunker in which Hitler died.   Why not rah-rah Earth?  Or rah-rah humans?  Seemed odd.

 

More stuff bothered me, but that's enough venting.

Edited September 2, 2015 by terrymct

[CinematicGuy]

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.

 

What I suspect, but what was not made clear in the show's narrative, is that the "1,500 years" reference refers to the range of dates in which the Nazca lines were supposedly created, between 500 BC and 500 AD (according to Wikipedia). Now, I'll grant you, there's a big difference between 500 BC and 500 AD, but if we assume the date "500 AD" is when they were created, then that may be why the Espheni Queen specifically says "1,500 of your years ago." The visual narrative of "cavemen" taking out the Queen's daughter appears even further misleading, since that would seem to be much, much earlier. I think it was a combination of poorly articulated historical references and an inept visual narrative.

[CinematicGuy]

I for one was disappointed in Pope's demise. Over the previous seasons, I felt an odd kinship had developed between Tom and Pope, and that the former's intellectual and humanistic qualities would merge with Pope's symbol of rebellion, all very human qualities, to expel the alien invaders. I viewed their characters as symbols of human emotions that have influenced history in their own ways; a revolution in America required the intellectual thinkers like Thomas Payne and the founding fathers, while the violence of rebellion ensured the defeat of a superior enemy. That was an analogy made abundantly clear in the first season, especially, but got a little lost in translation in the ensuing seasons.

 

When Pope was head of the "Berzerkers," it was an obvious reference to the Norse warriors who were noted for being unusually unruly. In the American context, I almost thought of the Berzerkers as the disparate militias that ultimately fell into Washington's Continental Army; regulars and militia, some organized, some not - even some of Washington's militias rebelled and mutinied over issues related to pay, lack of food, etc.

 

I likewise thought of the Volm as the French coming to the aid of the Americans. That was not a perfect comparison, though, based on how the fifth season played out.

 

I suppose the show opted to make Pope the symbol of how humans, themselves, can be their own worst enemy, slowing down progress even in the midst of crisis.

 

I was disappointed in the series finale but overall I enjoyed the series as a whole, even though it borrowed much from other science fiction works, and left some threads untied.

Edited September 2, 2015 by CinematicGuy

[terrymct]

It was 1,500 years ago and not 15,000?  OMG, I thought I'd heard that wrong and assumed they had to have meant 15,000.  That is friggin ridiculous.    

[Ottis]

Why is it always the Lincoln Memorial?  I live in the DC area.  I can suggest many fine iconic locations.

 

 

The best food is at the Native American museum, for instance. But it isn't cheap. Hopefully the Queen brought her credit cards.

[Shimmergloom]

After an entire season of the show seemingly pretending that Anne and Tom aren't married, suddenly Anne's pregnant.

 

And if the aliens that revived her are so advanced that they can bring someone back to life who's been dead for hours and bring back her dead baby who couldn't have been more than a few weeks along in pregnancy, then how did they lose a war to the Espheni?  Why didn't they just resurrect their dead after every battle?

 

Is this why the war last so long in space?  All these races just brought their dead back to life over and over?

 

This show had a good first 3 seasons, started out good in season 4(I didn't mind Lexi, I liked her, I just think the plot made no sense and the Ben/Maggie stuff was what really drug down S4) and then fell apart.  The show might as well have ended with Tom and Lexi leaving for the moon.

[ganesh]

What is frustrating isn't that this was such a mess as much as it was that this could have been a decent show without a huge amount of effort more. I mean, 5 pages of a show Bible. Did they even have that? It just seems like they couldn't be bothered.

Is there an old spaceship from the daughter lying around?

At least on BSG they made sure to land on the planet long enough back that the ships would have eroded.

The revenge angle was arrogant and condescending to the viewers imo because it means watching the show didn't matter and they just did what they wanted. Why not, we needed the planet as a staging area and didn't expect you to fight back as hard. Both the rebel skitters and the Volm said as much. So the Queen got fed up because they are losing the big war and comes to earth to lock it down so they can use it as a new base. Is there seriously anything wrong with a straightforward motive?

Or, I don't know come up with an actual reason to start with?

[tv echo]

I think it would've made for a more poignant finale if the death of the Espheni Queen meant the death of not just every Espheni creature on earth, but also the death of every harnessed or spiked kid, including Ben. Then when Tom had to kill the Queen in order to save the human race, he would do so knowing it would mean the death of one of his sons.  Beforehand, there would've been a big scene with Tom agonizing to Anne over this decision and another big scene with Tom talking to Ben, and Ben urging him to go ahead for the sake of humanity.  That would've been a real sacrifice (like Abraham and Isaac) and one that was organic to the story. Instead, however, Ben seemed to feel not even a twinge of discomfort when the Espheni Queen died, and we never did find out what happened to his spikes.

 

The Masons survived virtually intact.  Although they lost Lexi, it often seems forgotten that Lexi murdered Lourdes in cold blood, so it wouldn't have been right for Lexi to live happily ever after.  In any event, Anne's pregnant so even when Tom loses a kid, he gets another one. Just like Tom lost his wife in S1, but he gets another one in Anne.  Meanwhile, other people like Weaver just lose their entire family.

 

ETA: To clarify, I do not think that children, spouses or loved ones are fungible.

Edited September 2, 2015 by tv echo

[Ottis]

Then when Tom had to kill the Queen in order to save the human race, he would do so knowing it would mean the death of one of his sons.

 

 

That violates the only consistent principle of FS: Tom shalt not lose anyone meaningful to him.

[thuganomics85]

Plus, even though I think that would have been better, with this show, they would have just simply not have the Anne "death scare", and they would have instead had Tom just bring Ben's dead body to the other aliens and scream at them to save him.  And they would have.  In the end, I just think the show was never going to have Tom or the Masons suffer any huge losses.  They probably figured Wife Number One and Lexi's deaths were big enough "sacrifices", for them.

 

Which I'm not saying they had to; again, there were a lot of great series finales that had no deaths; but I just find it jarring seeing how many people Weaver had lost in this fight, and yet it isn't treated anywhere near as bad as just the mere idea of a Mason getting killed.

[ganesh]

I don't need deaths in a series finale either. However, Tom basically committed genocide or near genocide without any qualms.

They let him off the hook by making the invasion all about revenge because it's a non negotiable position.

And to be fair, the show did a decent job with human/skitters. They actually learned to understand one another and form an alliance. Then they dropped the plot.

The Esh just became a faceless enemy and the Volm were machina plot technology.

And I know this wasn't meant to be more than a B movie TV show. But there's still decent shows in that category.

[TVSpectator]

Plus, even though I think that would have been better, with this show, they would have just simply not have the Anne "death scare", and they would have instead had Tom just bring Ben's dead body to the other aliens and scream at them to save him.  And they would have.  In the end, I just think the show was never going to have Tom or the Masons suffer any huge losses.  They probably figured Wife Number One and Lexi's deaths were big enough "sacrifices", for them.

 

Which I'm not saying they had to; again, there were a lot of great series finales that had no deaths; but I just find it jarring seeing how many people Weaver had lost in this fight, and yet it isn't treated anywhere near as bad as just the mere idea of a Mason getting killed.

 

Yes, they did a total cop out on Anne's death. I think I would have been a bit happier at the finale if they kept her dead. IMO, then at least Tom would have a major sacrifice for defeating the Esh. Another thing that did piss me off was that Anne and Tom left Pope for dead (hey, they could've asked the Dorian Queen to revive him also) and probably step over his lifeless corpse while they  magically walked back all the way to DC.

 

 

It was 1,500 years ago and not 15,000?  OMG, I thought I'd heard that wrong and assumed they had to have meant 15,000.  That is friggin ridiculous.    

It was 1,500 years ago, with pictures of  prehistoric cave paintings. IMO, Writers. Totally. Didn't. Care. 

 

Why is it always the Lincoln Memorial?  I live in the DC area.  I can suggest many fine iconic locations.  This choice reminded me of that recent-ish Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow.  The alien super brain thingie could be anywhere in the world, but of course it was in the Louvre, under that glass pyramid in the plaza.   In Falling Skies, the aliens could have picked a nice cool dark cave.  Lots of choices in the mountains in the eastern US.  Luray Caverns if you want to be reasonably close to DC and to have convenient parking for all the cars and trucks.  ;)   One more thing to get off my chest.  Norfolk is NOT on the way to DC, unless you are on a boat.  Otherwise, it's a big frickin detour to the coast.   There's no way a group heading to DC would stop on their way by.

 

I had really high hopes for this show after the first episode or so, before it became a showcase of the specialness of the Masons.   The writing went so bad so quickly.   In this episode, why did the various couples or maybe-couples have to have their frickin revelations and heart-to-hearts as the battle was starting?  Why not talk during those long drives and the times they were just hanging out?   Other things that bothered me:

 

- Pope.  Ok, last week, he was blown up beside a truck right there in the main open area at the Norfolk base.  NO ONE from the main group walked over that way after the fight?  NO ONE from the main group noticed he was still alive?   The people from the other unit who did find him didn't mention to Mason or Weaver that the leader of the group that attacked them had survived?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.   Damn convenient that Pope was able not only to make it to DC, but to find the spot on the Potomac River "beach" (WTF was a beach with surf on it doing beside the Lincoln Memorial?).   Terrible writing.

 

- So, the Queen is a long lived brilliant life form who is taking vengence on human because they'd killed her daughter, ate her, and put her head on a spike.   A few points.  How many years ago did this supposedly happen?  How many thousand years did they say?  Was it 15,000?  I swear it sounded like 1,500.  Lets assume 15K.  That's the Mesolithic, not some 2001: A Space Odyssey bunch of humanoids whacking the ground with femurs.  Agriculture and animal domestication was well underway.  Towns were being built.   Why wouldn't something like defeating an alien race who arrived in space ships make more of long term impact in human memory?  It would have been a massively big deal.   Some kind of carvings would exist.  Some kind of mythology would have developed around the event.  It just seemed totally out of the blue.  Some time in a past episode, Mason or someone else should have said "Say, don't these aliens kind of remind you of the cave carvings discovered in the desert in northern Africa/central Asia/wherever from thousands of years ago?     The vague Nasca reference isn't enough.  

 

-  Doesn't a Queen who sends her offspring out to conquer a world understand that the offspring could LOSE?   Does the Queen of a race that assimilates and enslaves the members of other races really get completely skeeved out that a less advanced race would try to assimilate one of her losing commanders that was captured?  Doesn't make sense.   This should have been the scene the whole five years built toward.  I still didn't understand why Tom was such a frickin special snowflake that the aliens had to have him.  Ok, the Queen was killing him because he's the sort of leader of the rebellion...but I never really bought how he inspired all those other militias with a few radio broadcasts.   But, fine, the Queen wants to suck his blood with her chest spike.  

 

- Speaking of her chest spike.  She was essentially an uber skitter with an overlord-ish face.  Why are the overlords these lithe almost boneless looking creatures and yet their Queen looks more like the assimilated drones that serve them?  I thought the shape of the skitters represented part of the body shape of an enslaved/assimilated race.  Why wouldn't the Queen look more like the overlords?  Doesn't make sense.

 

- Back to the chest spike.  The Queen is happily delivering speeches and slurping Tom's blood and doesn't notice that he's struggling really really hard to reach a glowing capsule thingie in plain sight just to the side of him?  She doesn't notice that?

 

- How can a toxin or whatever that stuff in the capsule was travel almost instantaneously to all the Espheni and kill them?  Maybe the toxin kills her and the rest of them can't survive without some kind of psychic contact with her?  But she only arrived recently.   How did they survive before that?   Doesn't make sense.

 

- Ann's pregnant and so she must die, but not really.   How convenient.  A last minute announcement of a pregnancy, so you know she was going to be injured or killed.  Tom has a hallucination about water, so he drags her corpse into the Potomac (which again has surf, rocks, and only trees on the other side.  Apparently, Northern Virginia crumbled and trees grew really fast.) and an alien octopus thingie drags her down and apparently resurrects her.  How nice for Tom.  How about all the other people who died in this episode, let alone through the length of the show?  Only special, special Anne gets to come back to life?  Stupid.

 

- Jump forward in time.  Ok, so humanity comes together as one after the alien attack was repelled.  Good for humanity!  Why would they be singing American patriotic songs if we're now a global human community whose borders have fallen away?  Why the rah-rah America bits of Tom's talk?  I could buy having the ceremony in the Lincoln Memorial potentially since that's where he killed the Queen, although it's not like a whole bunch of WW2 ceremonies are held on the site of the bunker in which Hitler died.   Why not rah-rah Earth?  Or rah-rah humans?  Seemed odd.

 

More stuff bothered me, but that's enough venting.

 

I kind of have to agree with what you said above. Although, we as the audience already knew that Tom and company were going to the Lincoln Memorial by at least by the second to last episode of this show. Although, I do remember people speculating about the location being at the Lincoln Memorial, here, from the moment when they said that the Esh was in DC. 

Edited September 3, 2015 by TVSpectator

[Tony]

WTF? The death of the queen could lead to the obliteration of every single Espheni and, while she's in the middle of an invasion on a foreign planet full of enemies, we're supposed to believe that there isn't an army full of guards protecting her or sheltering her in an impenetrable fortress? Instead, some random fool like Tom Mason could just go right up to her for a one-on-one session with any weapon of their choosing?

 

That makes perfect sense.

[Isazouzi]

I can't get over the Queen's spider appearance. I agree she should have looked more like the Overlords. She should have had 2 legs like them. What is in season 1 or 2 that the 2nd Mass figured out all by themselves that the Skitters probably weren't the aliens in charge because it didn't make sense that the Mechs had only 2 legs? They ruined the few clever things they had managed to come out with.

[iwatchtv2015]

Nice to see Matt saved his worst hairstyle for the finale.

 

So way back in 515 A.D. Emperor Tominius Masonus and his 2nd legion defeated this same enemy and no one wrote a history of this war ? Or was it lost ? Damn those Dark Ages !

 

No lumberjacks ? 

 

 

 

no , the theory was presented on "ancient aliens" but mainstream archeology wouldn't accept it. so we got cheated out of seeing it in our educational curriculum. ha ha ha...

[terrymct]

It was 1,500 years ago, with pictures of  prehistoric cave paintings. IMO, Writers. Totally. Didn't. Care. 

 

 

One of those Nasca lines should have shown a drawing of an alien head on a stick.   An alien invasion and battle to repel them would have been a huge deal and would be remembered.    You are absolutely right.  The writers didn't care at all.  They were just slapping s%^t together to finish this out.

 

The best thing about the finale was at the end when all the names of people who I assume worked on the show flew together to form the show name.  Sweet and nicely done.

[iwatchtv2015]

the whole finale is a distortion of reality. no, this is the twlight zone. "there is nothing wrong with your televison. do not attempt to change the channel." hahaha...

 

this is how it happens. pope hates the masons so much ,he makes a deal with the esphenis. lmao! mwah ha ha... so they genetically engineer pope to the the instrument to wipe out the male human species to bring apart the extinction of the human race.  a virus that GE pope's body produces. so the plague spread and men drop dead drove after drove until all are gone from the face of the earth :P.

 

hal hold maggie's hand with both of his' and to his chest.  maggie weeps, "hal , i love you. ah ha ha" . hehehe...

 

 

then after hal passes over. cochise conveniently consoles maggie. hehehe... sneaky volm :P.

 

then a light bulb appear over maggie 's cute little face.  she begins to realize how sexy cochise is and this is how they can save mankind from total extinction by starting  a new hybrid human race. hohoho....

 

maggie being in heat, "cochise, you done so much for us, for humanity. please let me show you the gratitude a human woman like me can  offer. please help us to save humanity from complete extinction." and then they mate.

 

hehehe..mwah ha ha...

 

Edited September 3, 2015 by iwatchtv2015

[TVSpectator]

One of those Nasca lines should have shown a drawing of an alien head on a stick.   An alien invasion and battle to repel them would have been a huge deal and would be remembered.    You are absolutely right.  The writers didn't care at all.  They were just slapping s%^t together to finish this out.

 

The best thing about the finale was at the end when all the names of people who I assume worked on the show flew together to form the show name.  Sweet and nicely done.

Yeah, the Nazca lines were totally out of left field and had absolutely nothing to do with defeating the Esh. It was a total waste of time, as a viewer of this show. This whole season felt like the writers just went with the first drafts of their scripts and IMO, the finale was the prime example.

 

 

the whole finale is a distortion of reality. no, this is the twlight zone. "there is nothing wrong with your televison. do not attempt to change the channel." hahaha...

 

this is how it happens. pope hates the masons so much ,he makes a deal with the esphenis. lmao! mwah ha ha... so they genetically engineer pope to the the instrument to wipe out the male human species to bring apart the extinction of the human race.  a virus that GE pope's body produces. so the plague spread and men drop dead drove after drove until all are gone from the face of the earth :P.

 

hal hold maggie's hand with both of his' and to his chest.  maggie weeps, "hal , i love you. ah ha ha" . hehehe...

 

 

then after hal passes over. cochise conveniently consoles maggie. hehehe... sneaky volm :P.

 

then a light bulb appear over maggie 's cute little face.  she begins to realize how sexy cochise is and this is how they can save mankind from total extinction by starting  a new hybrid human race. hohoho....

 

maggie being in heat, "cochise, you done so much for us, for humanity. please let me show you the gratitude a human woman like me can  offer. please help us to save humanity from complete extinction." and then they mate.

 

hehehe..mwah ha ha...

 

Wait, didn't we learn back in Season 1 or Season 2 that Maggie can't have kids because she received chemo/radiation treatment as a kid?

[iwatchtv2015]

Yeah, the Nazca lines were totally out of left field and had absolutely nothing to do with defeating the Esh. It was a total waste of time, as a viewer of this show. This whole season felt like the writers just went with the first drafts of their scripts and IMO, the finale was the prime example.

 

 

Wait, didn't we learn back in Season 1 or Season 2 that Maggie can't have kids because she received chemo/radiation treatment as a kid?

 

 

 

 

yea think she recoveed from chemo. maybe you missed that part. i think  after recovery she went wild and did some drug and got knocked up. then child service came along and deemed her unfitted mother and told the child away. hohoho...  pretty sure she confided in hal that...  then hal had doubts about being with her....

Edited September 3, 2015 by iwatchtv2015

[RustbeltWriter]

Well, at least it was something to watch during the summer.

[ganesh]

The Nazca lines could have actually been a good plot if they actually thought of it initially. The queen's daughter could have come to earth on some exploratory mission and set herself up as a god (tropey but not that bad), so the lines were like homages to her. Then, somehow, the Incas or whoever found out that she's not really a god and mortal. They turn on her and kill her, maybe burn the body or throw it in a volcano. Maybe the queen found out way way later or the coordinates to Earth were lost.

 

1500 years later the Esh set up shop on Earth as a base in the war against the Volm. Somehow the queen puts two and two together and is like 'Oh, hell, no. These people are *gone*'

 

That took me 2 minutes to think about. You can't put in that much effort into making a reasonable motive? Come on, show. 

[Hanahope]

I thought the whole revenge my daughter plot was ridiculous.  What's wrong with the original plot of simply an alien invasion/take-over/slavery bit? 

 

Not to mention Pope showing up again, exactly where Tom is, on some beach close enough for him to have carried Anne's body.

 

The whole last season was pretty stupid (well, so was the brainwash school), a shame that a promising show went out with such a whimper.

[TVSpectator]

yea think she recoveed from chemo. maybe you missed that part. i think  after recovery she went wild and did some drug and got knocked up. then child service came along and deemed her unfitted mother and told the child away. hohoho...  pretty sure she confided in hal that...  then hal had doubts about being with her....

 

Wow, I totally forgot about that about Maggie. 

[iwatchtv2015]

Wow, I totally forgot about that about Maggie. 

 

 

yea, guys are natural like that. me included.  the first reaction is like, "eww...not sure i want a messed up chick like that."  and over time a guy may overlook and depends...

 

same deal with a girl that is whore, " oh geez..." like makes a guy look bad, reputation -wise.  no problem making a whore out of a girl though. hehehe....  just the way it is....

 

 

i digress ...but just wanted to put in my two cents on that matter :P

[freebie]

Did Eick really describe the queen's daughter's demise as a "ritualistic murder"? Hoo boy.

[Raven1707]

Falling Skies was my summer "guilty pleasure" show, and as such, I will miss it.

[TVSpectator]

Did Eick really describe the queen's daughter's demise as a "ritualistic murder"? Hoo boy.

 

I thought that the Esh Spider Queen said that her daughter was "ritualistically" eaten by the humans.

[Isazouzi]

I thought that the Esh Spider Queen said that her daughter was "ritualistically" eaten by the humans.

They ate her? And they were OK? They had more luck than the guy who tried to eat a Skitter then.