Tom deals with the Lexi situation and the Espheni power core, the Espheni unveil a new weapon, and we deal with some serious deus ex machina....
All in all, not Falling Skies greatest season finale. While not awful, the episodes were awfully predictable for the most part. I made some predictions last week which all came true, which (I think) says less about my predictive abilities than the predictability of this season.
The first hour dealt mainly with Tom coming to terms with the fact that he needed Lexi on the mission and that he ultimately had to work with her and help her. I cannot blame him or Anne for the way they treated Lexi. She did some horrible things and betrayed both of them, which makes it doubly hard to work with her. But, as Weaver said, Tom and Anne had to lay aside their anger and pain and think about the mission. Would having Lexi along increase the mission's chances of success? The answer was yes. While there was the risk that Lexi was playing some sort of game with them and would betray them to the Espheni, the potential benefits to having her along more than made up for the risks.
If anyone actually believed for more than a second that the dream sequence was real, I will come and smack you upside the head. It was so incredibly obvious that Tom was dreaming, even before all of the little things about how perfect it was. Did anyone seriously think that the show would skip over an event they spent several episodes building towards? Didn't think so. I did like that it was used to expose just how unnerved Lexi was by everything that was going on. Like any kid, she wants her parents approval and love. She was also vividly aware of everything that she had done wrong and couldn't forgive herself for what she did. I was glad that she admitted that she knew what she did was all her and that she didn't try to deflect any of the blame.
The second hour dealt with the new bomb the Espheni developed and Tom and Lexi getting to the power core on the moon. This is where things really went off the rails.
First off, the explanation of why Lexi's powers wouldn't work made no sense. While there is not a lot of gravity in space, there is still some, not to mention the fact that the power station itself would have potential energy in it that she should have been able to harness to destroy it. It's almost like they realized that they made her too powerful and came up with spur-of-the-moment limitations on her powers for (supposed) dramatic effect. Sorry, so don't buy it. Since she can harness any basic form of energy and manipulate it, she should have been able to do something.
Second, the appearances of both Sara and the Volm was just too convenient. They both show up at exactly the right time to save everyone? That was stretching credulity more than a little bit. While it was nice to see them, it felt like a serious case of deus ex machina.
I did think that the bomb was an interesting idea. The fact that the Espheni figured out a way to skitterize humans with a weapon is sort of terrifying. Just drop these near any suspected human outposts and let them do what they will. I'm not entirely sure how the fog (smoke?) did what it did and I didn't completely understand what it did. It seemed to not allow people to move from where they were on their own, but (like Hal or Ben) they could be moved by an outside force. It didn't paralyze anything that it touched; witness Pope biting the tube (hilarious!), or Matt throwing the knife, or other peoples actions. So that didn't make a lot of sense. The idea was cool, but there seemed to be some flaws in how it operated.
Lexi's suicide to destroy the power core was obviously meant to get rid of her before next season. As I said before, her powers supposed limitations made no sense. If she had her full powers the suicide would have been unnecessary and she would have been around next season, which could have potentially been problematic given her godlike abilities. So they wrote nonsensical limitations on her powers in order to get rid of her. Sigh....
Where exactly is Tom? That figure in the mirror didn't look particularly pretty to me, so I assume there was a camouflage of some sort going on.
Until next season!
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