S01.E13: Game Over

[ottoDbusdriver]

Episode Description (season finale):

 

Drill's mysterious end game is put into motion and the team must do their utmost to stop it before it reaches its final -- and possibly deadly -- conclusion.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

Well, that's one way to set things in motion -- Drill incinerates the President's daughter, but that somehow triggers adults that were friends of the first Drill from 1982 like Manchurian candidates.  WTF ?

 

Sean links up with Dr. Harcourt (yay Phlox !!) after Harcourt tells Sean about the sounds he heard back in 1982 and the repeating code he deciphered -- 111215 -- that Sean has tattooed on his arm.  Sean thinks that the tattoos on his body can be used as some sort of Rosetta Stone.  Sure, why not ?  But not before Drill's adult minions kidnap Sean and Claire.  And kill Dr. Harcourt (Oh no.  They killed Phlox !!  You bastards !!)

 

Has Jessup ever mentioned that he has a pregnant girlfriend before ?  She just shows up at work and convinces him to play hooky.  And she just happens to be a former friend of Drill and kidnaps him in the trunk of his car -- how did she overpower Jessup exactly ?

 

I think everyone is jumping the gun that this is the end and they are all going to die.  Everyone was supposedly rioting and stocking up on supplies BEFORE they had even discovered the space rocks.

 

If Drill is dead, who is giving instructions about what to do to all the adults and kids in the Drill friendzone ?   Once you are friends with Drill, you are friends for life -- Drill, the herpes of the universe.

 

If those stars aren't "stars" that means they have been hanging out nearby Earth for a while -- because those rocks don't appear to be traveling at light speed.

 

Wes shoots Jessup's pregnant girlfriend in the arm while Sean and Claire attempt to break where Wes kills the nice lady that was knitting.

 

A purple light appears over several major cities of the world, so SecDef launches a missile and apparently blows up all the rocks, but the rocks end up creating a circular pattern in the sky over D.C.  Did the circular pattern appear all over the world where the rocks weren't blown up by a missile ?

 

Minx and Harper are off wandering in the woods ... somewhere ... by themselves. 

 

Henry tells Claire that Drill's buddies from space are on Earth to take the children.  Oh nooeesssssssss  !!!

 

Turns out the kids are supposed to all go stand at predetermined points where blue lights appear from above and the children are teleported up into the rocks.  Only Claire knocks Henry out of position at the last second and gets "beamed up" in his place.  And after stealing thousands of children world-wide the rocks just suddenly leave. 

 

That CGI of the space rocks rising up was just terrible.

 

WTF was all that ?  And what the hell was with all the time wasted with Henry switching back to sign language ?

 

So had all those space rocks traveled from the constellation Sagittarius some 220 light years and just been waiting around to steal children for 30+ years since 1982 ?

 

ETA:  I still don't get what 'domination' had to do with anything ?  Were the space rocks dominating the sky ?

Edited September 5, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[KaveDweller]

So the aliens were here to take away a bunch of bratty children who had been acting as accomplices to all sorts of crimes.  I fail to see the problem in that. 

 

I am confused about Minx and Henry though.  Because one minute Minx is talking about how she wants Drill to be punished (when no one but Henry is around) and the next she is walking to her abduction spot?  Was she hypnotized or something to give her a change of heart or was she lying before?

 

If they get a second season will this become like The Leftovers?

[ketchuplover]

This works as a series finale for me.

[blaksheba]

 

Has Jessup ever mentioned that he has a pregnant girlfriend before ?  She just shows up at work and convinces him to play hooky.  

 

Yes, I can't remember which episode, but whichever one it was, someone had asked him if he had kids. Jessup mentioned he and his wife were separated or already in the process of  divorcing and while they were on an upswing, she got pregnant. 

[MerBearHou]

Suspenseful finale.

But very telling that I wanted the rocks to hurry up and take the kids. I wanted the aliens to get the job done rather than be foiled by Wes, Sean, Claire, the SecDef, etc. I was glad when Claire got taken up. I realized I was rooting for the aliens.

Questions as always: why are these kids left alone in dark houses so often? Wes searching for Minx, as an example.

Whatever happened to Claire's mom who watched over Henry?

I didn't buy for a moment that Jessup would leave his post at such a critical time because his girlfriend gave him the lovey-dovey talk. But he did.

I'm a Milo fan from Gilmore Girls days but he is miscast on this show and had zero, zero chemistry with Lily Rabe. She bugs me to no end.

The little girl who played Minx was effectively creepy. Henry was annoying. Harper was a funny little nugget and I liked her.

[alias1]

So is Henry the last kid left on earth? 

 

He switched to sign language so that overacting Lily Rabe could believe that he wasn't possessed by Drill anymore (I'm sorry, mommy!)(Bye, mommy!).

[Celia Rubenstein]

I am just glad I made myself a nice big bowl of macaroni and cheese to sit down and eat as I watched the show.

 

At least something was satisfying tonight.

[Tony]

Henry took over the role of mindnumbingly annoying kid this episode. Plus he was with Minx. I had to fast forward the parts where they were in a scene together or my remote control would end up sticking out of my TV. 

 

Now the aliens end up with all the pain-in-the-ass kids plus Claire. Sorry aliens, all sales final. No refunds.

[holly4755]

when they say finale they mean for like forever. Season 2 would be dead to me.  The aliens won the kid and the series ends, OK., 

[mertensia]

Why didn't Drill's 1982 batch of friends have tons of kids for Drill?

Apparently I would fail as a parent on this show because as soon as Henry was all "I'll help you find Minx" I was all "he's just saying that because he needs to get to his pick-up point!" not "okay! Let's go!"

[shrewd.buddha]

When Claire announced "They are here to take the children !!", I really wished someone in the group would have shrugged their shoulders and said "Big deal, we can just make more.." 

 

And still, after everything that had happened in the past weeks, the children are left to their own devices and no one is watching them. "They're upstairs doing something ... no worries." 

The way they hammer us over the head with their unsubtle-ness, I though they would play up what the president's alien-possessed daughter was saying about how parents are never really watching their children, allowing the television and other children to teach them things. That could have been a valid, interesting plot point concerning parents who think their jobs and lives are too important to spend time with their children... But this is not that type of show.. 

 

Oh well, at least Minx is gone from Earth.  Too bad about Claire and the other kids, but it was worth it, just for that..

Edited September 1, 2015 by shrewd.buddha

[ottoDbusdriver]

I like how they introduce this code that Dr. Harcourt found -- 111215 -- that Sean has tattooed on his arm and then did nothing with it.  Almost like it was filler.

 

They never resolved who was actually in control of Sean Bennigan for the first half of the season, and never explained why he picked up money at that bakery. Or who sent the money to him.

 

They never explained how Sean's plane crashed into Drill's rock over the Arctic before crashing into the Sahara desert.  We know Drill was attracted to the secret weapon of a 100 lightning bolts on the plane, but was Drill's space rock just kind of hovering around the North Pole and was attracted to the plane like a moth to a flame ?  That kind of removes some of the evil intelligence attributed to Drill.  

 

They never explained how these space rocks were capable of traveling faster than the speed of light to get to Earth from 220 light years away -- after they were attracted by all the nuclear explosions beginning in the 1940s which apparently sent magical faster than light electro-magnetic pulses into deep space.

 

They never explained the 30+ year difference between the 1982 version of Drill (call it 'Classic Drill') and the current version of Drill (call it 'New Drill') -- why was Classic Drill sent beforehand ?  If Classic Drill had succeeded in 1982 would have all the space rocks showed up then to steal children ? Why are all the aliens calling themselves 'Drill' ?   Where is the rock that brought Classic Drill to Earth ?

 

For an alien race capable of interstellar travel, engines powerful enough for those rocks to hover in mid-air over a fixed position, and transporters/beaming technology, why bother with all the subterfuge/Rube Goldberg setups ?  They could have waltzed in and taken anyone they wanted.  Were all the children that were taken been previously contacted by Drill ?  Because that means that Drill really got around. 

 

Why did Claire just stand there in the light like an idiot ?  She had to know it was not a good idea since she pushed Henry out of it, but once an adult was in there I expected a 2nd light to come on around Henry and take them both.

 

Also, the promo monkeys at ABC who kept putting the hashtag #WhoisDrill on screen -- they never explained who Drill is.  Sure he's an electro-magnetic alien, but why are they stealing children ?  For a food supply, and they are only taking children as the human equivalent of veal ?  Why did each space rock only take one child ?

 

For an episode titled 'Game Over', they never explained what the 'game' was.  Oh, it was a children stealing game all this time.  

 

Is there a mothership space rock somewhere that all these space rocks are going to head off to ?  Otherwise all these kids and Claire are going to get real bored hauling ass around the universe in their individual space rocks.  That's if they are even re-materialized inside the space rocks -- because I doubt the rocks have bathrooms or kitchen facilities or sleeping chambers or sources of food and water -- or are they all just stored as energy in a matrix somewhere ?

 

I really don't think the writers put a great deal of thought into any of this.

Edited September 1, 2015 by ottoDbusdriver

[Stella MD]

 

I really don't think the writers put a great deal of thought into any of this.

This. I was hoping for some answers and instead we just get more puzzle pieces that don't fit. Everything is introduced purely for shock value without any logic. Drill wanting our nuclear energy supply made at least some sense, but in fact he's here for... OUR CHILDREN! (dun dun DUUN!). Why exactly, other than to give Clare another reason to chew the scenery? Are children his food supply? Is he going to turn them each into an energy cloud and play house with them in the electrical wires on his home planet? Does he operate some sort of intergalactic Child Protective Service, rescuing the children from our terrible parenting? And what makes the children "ready" today instead of yesterday or thirty years ago?  

 

At least we got some better sense that the children were possessed all along, not just unfeeling sociopaths who couldn't distinguish right from wrong. And I guess the fact that Drill-itis is an incurable, lifelong disease makes it okay that the series ended with the aliens winning - those kids are already dead on the inside. Did they steal the adults who were possessed in 1982 as well? The knitting-needle woman who nearly killed Clare has to be one of the creepiest looking individuals I've seen in a long time. When she first appeared behind the gas station I assumed she was going to turn out to be one of the actual aliens.

[tricknasty]

Did the writers clarify exactly what age range is considered "a child?" Under 18, between 6-10.... what? Don't worry Sean, they'll beam back Claire's annoying ass when they realize their mistake. Felt bad for Wes losing both his wife and child.
 

Edited September 1, 2015 by tricknasty

[iMonrey]

Drill: "If you had been better parents, none of this would have happened."

 

Truer words were never spoken, Drill.

 

Claire: "How are Henry and Minx?"

Sean: "They're fine. They're upstairs playing."

 

WTF people!?!? We've spent how many weeks now with children being possessed and influenced by a hostile alien force, and still you shoo them away upstairs to "go play" by themselves. Jeezus! Oh, you are being told by Drill to go murder your parents or blow up a nuclear plant? That's nice dear, run upstairs and play!

 

So wait, all Drill wanted was to take the children? Yay, Drill! I for one welcome our new alien overlords!

 

Oh, wait - he didn't take all of them? Come back, Drill! Come back! You forgot Henry!

[Celia Rubenstein]

Yeah, now that you mention it ... what about Henry?  Doesn't he have a piece of Drill still in his head or something?  Didn't the doctor see something physical inside all the brains of the possessed kids?  Is that still there inside Henry's head?  

 

So many questions.

 

I thought maybe the original Ray Bradbury story the show was based on would shed some light, so I googled it but all I found of interest was this wiki thing about how the original actress who was supposed to play Lena (Wes's wife) quit the show early on because of "creative differences."

 

I have to wonder if she just quit because she thought the show was awful. 

[Arynm]

Fun! Did this get a second season? If not, that's a hell of a place to end. What are they going to do with the children? I don't think they took them all, That would be a bunch more rocks.

[AlwaysWatching]

One of the many sad things about this awful show is that Lily Rabe appears to have taken a hit on her acting ability and likability.  She is much better than this absolute piece of crap. Yes, I am angry at myself for watching this horribly written and acted show. Just because you see Steven Spielberg's name on something doesn't mean you should not give it a real long look before you sign on to a project.  I can't see any other way Lily Rabe, or any of the other actors, could possibly do anything with this material.  Oh, Minx did have a pretty good acting scene when they were going to fry her or whatever.  Then she had to say "I'm ready to see my mother now". OKAY.  She was good before that, though.  Hmmm, that's the only positive thing I have to say about Whispers.  Please be gone.

[iMonrey]

Certainly the writing didn't help, but consider the parts Lily Rabe played on American Horror Story: Season 1, she played a crazy ghost; Season 2, she played a crazy/possessed nun; Season 3, a crazy hippie witch. I think "crazy" roles just lend themselves to her persona because she's sort of got a "not quite all there" look in her eyes all the time. So yeah, the writing sucked and did her no favors here, but I can understand why some people might have been less than impressed with her acting skills in a "straight" drama role.

[AlwaysWatching]

So yeah, the writing sucked and did her no favors here, but I can understand why some people might have been less than impressed with her acting skills in a "straight" drama role. iMonrey

 

Point taken.  I do think she was way out of her "Lily Rabe" zone here.  Right off the bat she is written as homewrecker. That would have been fine except for the fact that this made her character unlikable from the very beginning.  I'm just guessing, but I don't know how any actor could have played that part and been interesting. I do admit, though, that I need to see her in another dramatic role.  I am a huge fan from AHS.  I hope she gets another shot.  Oh, just to throw this weird thing in here.  Her mother, Jill Clayburgh, also had pretty, but strange eyes.  I always thought she was looking past everyone. 

 

I think I read that Lily will be back on AHS Hotel this fall.  Unfortunately for me, I think it's only two episodes.

 

I hung in there on Whispers just for her.  It was painful.   My new rant will be on "Zoo".  I don't care about anyone on that show and yet I'm still torturing myself by watching it. HA!

[TheRabbi]

I can't believe I stuck with this drek all the way to the end.  That is all.

[Black Knight]

I've seen Lily Rabe in a couple of things on the L&O franchise (like practically every other actor who's ever been based in NYC for any time) where she had straight dramatic roles and she did fine in those. I don't think anyone came off well on this show. It happens. But now it's over, and everyone's free! Free!

[izabella]

Hooray, the aliens took all the kids!  I was rooting for them to win!

 

I did not understand the purpose of Sean and his alien adventures.  None of that made any sense, and they didn't even address it at all.

[Andromeda]

So the aliens were here to take away a bunch of bratty children who had been acting as accomplices to all sorts of crimes.  I fail to see the problem in that. 

 

I am confused about Minx and Henry though.  Because one minute Minx is talking about how she wants Drill to be punished (when no one but Henry is around) and the next she is walking to her abduction spot?  Was she hypnotized or something to give her a change of heart or was she lying before?

 

If they get a second season will this become like The Leftovers?

Agree so hard to your first sentence. Good riddance, especially to Minx! The show never explained why the children were so mesmerized (aurally) by Drill. Or that they were mesmerized. He was just supposed to be a very persuasive invisible friend. Now he has apparently brainwashed them. I don't get it, and no one discussed it. 

 

Glad it's over. Hope it's over. It's over for me.

 

ETA: I was bummed when they killed off Dr. Phlox, the best part of the show for me. I wanted to see them crack the tattoo code -- but it was a red herring. Then I wanted to know why/how Drill tattooed his plans all over Peter Petrelli's body -- but that was never explained either. I was just supposed to look at the shiny thing over there, the threat to the children being abducted, and ignore that lost plotline, I guess.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Andromeda

[bref]

Not sure which show was a bigger letdown, this one or Wayward Pines. Both completely dropped the ball.

 

I had no idea Lily Rabe was Jill Clayburgh's daughter! I'd always liked her. She was a bit of an offbeat actress herself.

[magemaud]

Longtime lurker, former TWOP poster, I had to join this forum to say GOODBYE. I can't believe I wasted so many hours of my Summer watching this awful show! The bratty children were beyond annoying (I was glad when they were abducted! Don't call us...) and the adults were clueless, inept and unlikable. Lily Rabe always looked like she was going to burst into tears. It reminded me of that improv game you play when someone starts a story, gets to a certain point and the next person has to pick it up and go from there. Nothing made sense, there was no follow through. I'm not surprised there was no conclusion, I'm used to these shows ending in a cliff-hanger just in case they're renewed for another season. That happened for "V," "Resurrection," (although that had a hastily tacked on denouement) "Invasion," "The River," "Flash Forward," (yep, I watched them all but have finally learned my lesson) and now with "The Whispers" and "Wayward Pines." Thank you everyone here for trying to explain the inexplicable and for the snark which I enjoyed far more than watching the show. As far as I'm concerned, (it's) OVER AND (I'm) OUT! 

Edited September 2, 2015 by magemaud

[Chaos Theory]

I liked this show a lot. Not sure about the cliffhanger. If we get a second season I'll be better about it.

[BooksRule]

I thought maybe the original Ray Bradbury story the show was based on would shed some light, so I googled it but all I found of interest was this wiki thing about how the original actress who was supposed to play Lena (Wes's wife) quit the show early on because of "creative differences."

I have to wonder if she just quit because she thought the show was awful.

 

She sounds like the smartest person that would have ever been associated with that show.  BTW, if you can find a copy of the original Bradbury story, it's a pretty good, creepy story.

 

When 'First Daughter' went kaplooey, I actually thought of the mysterious 'spots' on the brains of the children and that they were still connected to Drill.  However, I didn't think about there being children from 1982 that would still be connected to 'original Drill'.  That was actually kind of a clever twist (at first, I thought that Jessup's wife was being controlled because she was pregnant and that the fetus was  part of Drill's army).

 

The 'alien reveal' was basically nothing.  I hoped for actual, you know, aliens.  I pictured the people involved in the show sitting around a big table.  The person in charge says 'Okay, this is the big season finale.  The aliens are finally here.  We need to present the biggest, scariest alien that has even been shown on TV.'  The person in charge of money says 'We have no money left'.  Someone from special effects raises their hand and says 'We have a big blue light.  And some rocks.'

[iMonrey]

 

Not sure which show was a bigger letdown, this one or Wayward Pines. Both completely dropped the ball.

 

I enjoyed the first half of Wayward Pines and thought it was pretty good. The second half sucked. So I was far more disappointed in Wayward Pines just because it went from good to bad despite strong potential. The Whispers just kind of sucked from beginning to end and I guess I hung in there because I knew there would only be 13 episodes and hoped maybe it would get better. Needless to say, it didn't.

[karasmom]

DirectV had technical problems so it didn't tape.  I waited for the "on demand" version and all I got was an hour of a screen saying the same - technical problems.  So I came to the forum to see what I had missed -- and it looks like I didn't miss a thing!

[Madding crowd]

Just binged watched the last few episodes, and like Wayward Pines i was disappointed. Sean's entire story was mostly forgotten about, turning him into a house husband doing Claire's bidding. What a waste of the hot, sexy soldier we first saw. And what the hell was the bakery deal?

 

It seemed like all of the possessed kids were only children. Why? I have an only child, but no one else I know does so it seemed kind of unusual. If they just wanted some of the earth children why not just possess them and then draw them to the spot without all the 'accidents' and other goings on? None of it makes sense to me, even within the realm of science fiction.

 

I thought the kids were all good actors and I admit I would have loved a supernatural story line, but I have to resign myself to the fact we will never get a really good supernatural show like The Twilight Zone again.

[Free]

So the aliens were here to take away a bunch of bratty children who had been acting as accomplices to all sorts of crimes.  I fail to see the problem in that.

 

Hooray, the aliens took all the kids!  I was rooting for them to win!

 

We're we supposed to root for the "good guys".  As for the kids, good riddance, I don't see the problem and the adults have proven time and time again to be too incompetent and stupid to raise their kids anyway so no loss there.

 

Not sure which show was a bigger letdown, this one or Wayward Pines. Both completely dropped the ball.

 

I still say Wayward Pines because it started off with more promise which made it all the more disappointing, whereas this show was just flat out mediocre to bad depending on the episode and I ended up not caring about anything.

[Andromeda]

I liked Wayward Pines, probably the best of the short-run summer shows to tide me over to fall. I bought the books to read, too. At least it was something I could watch with my husband -- I never bothered trying to get him to watch The Whispers, since it never really took off. I love Lilly Rabe -- I also didn't know she was Jill Clayburgh's daughter. Cool.

[KDeFlane]

It seemed like all of the possessed kids were only children. Why? I have an only child, but no one else I know does so it seemed kind of unusual.

(I am also a parent of an only child.)

It's hard to know whether *all* of the children rounded up at the detention facility had no siblings.  We only know about our smaller circle of named children.  However, we do know about the previous generation, specifically the guy who killed his brother when Drill possessed him.  Maybe that incident is why Drill no longer wants children with siblings?-

[KaveDweller]

Weren't there two kids at a hospital that were siblings? The kid who trapped that other agent in the elevator had a sick sibling they were visiting.  Or am I making that up. 

 

I think the main character kids that we saw didn't have siblings because then they would have had to cast another kid or explain why the sibling was never around.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Weren't there two kids at a hospital that were siblings? The kid who trapped that other agent in the elevator had a sick sibling they were visiting.  Or am I making that up.

 

Yep, that creepy girl in the elevator (with the paper plate mask and the syringe) with Agent Rollins said she was in the hospital visiting her brother.  They showed her earlier in the episode at the foot her brother's bed with her parents standing beside her.

[AudienceofOne]

I thought maybe the original Ray Bradbury story the show was based on would shed some light

 

 

Ok, now I've finished watching I'll refer to the original story (that I've read) and ask why the writers didn't stick with its premise because it was creepier and made far more sense. In that, the aliens (who called themselves 'Drill') were interdimensional beings who wanted to invade. They found they could telepathically communicate with children and realised that children were also running around getting into everything and that while they were playing parents rarely cared what they were actually doing. The age at which this suggestibility stopped was about 10 so children older were not affected.

 

So the whole story (which is really really short) is constructed around a mother going about her day while her daughter (Minx or maybe Mink - I remember thinking it was weird anyway) runs in and out of the house talking about how they're playing the game Invasion. She has a conversation with a friend in another city who also says their kids are playing 'Invasion' and they laugh about how games can spread so quickly.

 

As the day goes on, the mother reviews the things her daughter's been saying and starts to get concerned but feels silly about it. Invasion is set for 5pm and, after her husband comes home, they hear bangs and she realises her daughter was telling the truth. In the story, the interdimensional beings possess the children who then kill their parents. Invasion is complete.

 

And, I'm sorry, but that is so much better than this story. Yeah, it's short so they'd have to pad it out to make a series (would have made a better film IMHO).

 

But what I just saw in that final episode was flat-out dumb. Where were these aliens if a TV broadcast could reach them? How could they have adult sleeper agents if their influence only worked on children? Why, if their world was dying, would they take the children rather than possess them? Especially when we'd spent so much time establishing that possession was possible? How does the 1982 timeline fit in?

 

Glad this was cancelled. Glad there'll be no S2. Despite some of my problems iwth it early in the series it was quite a compelling story initially but went completely off the rails and this episode was so terrible I fast forwarded about half of it.

[chrisjdel]

The show was not based that closely on the story. It just borrowed the general concept and a few names. For one thing, the game was Domination instead of Invasion. Obviously, once Drill took possession of a body he'd be unable to move around easily and could be confined. Why they didn't just all show up and possess children around the world simultaneously, who knows? The alien population might not be nearly as large as ours and once humans became aware of their presence their ability to roam around and do as they pleased would be over with. If there's a consistent logic to all the plot threads - the 1982 storyline, the adult sleepers - they were too slow in revealing it. It started to remind me a bit of Lost in that respect. Adding more and more pieces to the puzzle without giving viewers a solid clue as to how they fit together.

 

Maybe the showrunners had it all worked out. Who knows? I liked the show a lot, especially the first half, and would've liked to see what happened after the finale. But they might've been better off sticking with the central story that was so compelling to begin with. The children being manipulated, the military trying to track (and trap or kill) the elusive alien, the ominous plans to overrun and dominate Earth. Keep the concept nice and simple. Let the complexity come from events unfolding. In my experience, series that rely on an endlessly unfurling puzzle which gets more and more complicated almost always disappoint. This would have been best done as a single season limited run that told its entire story from start to finish.

Edited June 15, 2017 by chrisjdel