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TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews the Two-Part Season 04 Finale for Falling Skies

September 1st, 2014 by Todd Black Comments

With everything on the line, the two-part season finale of Falling Skies had a lot to live up to. They had to destroy a moon base to save everyone from the ghettos and the Espheni war machines, and then make it back alive to finish the fight…and no sooner had they set their minds on the mission than Lexi shows up to ruin everything.

Ok, maybe that’s a little strong. “Space Oddity” was honestly about Lexi trying to prove she really did want to be part of the Mason clan once again. This time though, every single Mason (save for Matt I think) said “no”. And that made me happy.

Lexi has been a weak link in this season. She started off weird, then traitorous, then infuriating, and then she finally wises up and asks to be welcomed back? If anyone, especially Anne did this, it would’ve been so ridiculous. Instead, we got to take a look into the views of the Masons’ as their family member tried to get back into their lives.

Anne really shined in her scene with Lexi, she straight up called her out for trying to use her “maternal instincts” to try and forgive her. Tom, Hal, Ben, and even Maggie were just as unforgiving, again, all great.

The twist came from Weaver, who once again became the voice of reason, and spelled out (complete with Mason style history lesson!) that if Lexi could help the mission, they should let her. It was fun to watch Tom struggle between logic and instinct, feelings that have guided him well most of the time.

With logic winning out, Lexi was put in the mission, with Ben out, and the mission to the moon began…and that’s where things fell apart. Both literally and figuratively.

The ship breaking apart and forcing Lexi and Tom to conserve energy was brilliant, and the “cocoon” scene was very chilling. What came after though, was not.

We’ve scene false realities on Falling Skies before, and seeing this one was such a telegraph of something fake. The mission over, everyone safe, Lexi now being normal, it was all there. And it was all there for us to watch again. Thankfully, Tom figured it out, and it soon became another stereotype: the false faces chewing you out scenario.

Thankfully this ended too, and led to Tom and Lexi hashing it out. The only thing that saved this scene was the fact that Lexi apparently didn’t intend it. She put herself in the cocoon with Tom so they could be together, and they basically shared a dream. It doesn’t save the fact that we had to endure it, but it helps.

The ending with the bomb reveal was a jaw-dropper. Was it all a lie? A ploy? A trick?

…we were about to find out.

“Shoot the Moon” was everything we expected from the finale and more. And it had more than a few twists to keep us going.

Back on Earth, the 2nd Mass faced it’s creepiest enemies yet. A mobile version of the Skitter-ization process. Complete with worms, fog, and cement to make sure you didn’t escape. Oh yeah, it was creepy.

The best part was that it worked very well. The camp being filled with the threat caused everyone to spreadout, allowing teams to form and tension to build throughout the episode. The standout was Dingaan and Pope, who had several funny interactions, not the least of which was Pope admitting his own loudmouth tendencies.

Anne was a very close second. Why? She wielded a flamethrower, just like her husband before her. And in my opinion? She did it better.

Hal, Ben, and Maggie were ok, but I really didn’t like that they kept harping on what happened between Maggie and Ben. Now is not the time Hal, focus on killing the aliens.

Sadly, Weaver and Matt’s teamup was the worst. Matt went into panic mode, forcing Weaver to go into a chant to snap him out of it. The only thing that made it bearable was when Weaver got attacked and literally had to slam the window on the alien to make it stop. Good stuff.

As for the moon mission…did you really think it would go smoothly? I’m glad the burned Overlord captured their beamer, it added a lot of tension. But the scene with the Overlord and Lexi was 50/50 at best. On one hand, we had the twist about the necklace, but on the other hand…everything else wasn’t that good.

Leave it to Tom to get the last word, or should I say the last stab? Heh, heh. But I’ll be danged if that Overlord didn’t get the last laugh.

And then there was the end scenes. I’m kind of conflicted on this to be honest. Lexi’s death was nicely handled, and the fact that they tied it to the events of the previous episode was nice. And to be fair, there wouldn’t have been much room for her character in the final season, so her sacrifice to destroy the moon base was a good one.

The Volm returning was a nice surprise. We knew that Cochise and his team were the last ones on the planet, but hearing him admit that his father most likely wouldn’t return to Earth was a heavy cord. Then to have him save Tom Mason’s life was great…to a point.

The explosion of the moon base caused the beamer to be lost in space (no jokes!). And we were left to believe that he would drift forever…until he woke up in his house…again. Thankfully, it was quickly revealed to be a hologram. And a female alien voice greeted Tom and said “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Is that really true though?

Oh, and the “you’re beautiful” line? Did anyone else find that utterly creepy? I certain.

I’m not sure how to feel about those scenes because of two reasons. One, if the Volm were close enough to save Tom from the beamers, why couldn’t they find him afterwards?

Second, why did he think the alien was beautiful? We saw a reflection, and it certainly didn’t look like anything we would think of as beautiful. So why call it that? Was the alien cloaked in a hologram as well? Did he see something we didn’t? The final season hopefully will tell all.

I did like the rallying cry at the end with the 2nd Mass. Hearing Anne and Hal rallying the troops, and finding out their friends survived (somehow…) was a nice endcap on their struggle against the fogs of worms…yeah, I went there.

In the end, “Space Oddity” and “Shoot the Moon” was a good end to a season that honestly struggled to maintain the stories it set out to make. The ending may not have been what we expected, but the guarantee that the next season is the last one, we’ll certainly have at least a shot at getting the answers and closure that we need.

 

Todd Black is reader of comics, a watch of TV (a LOT of TV), and a writer of many different mediums. He's written teleplays, fan-fictions, and currently writes a comic book called Guardians (guardians-comic.com). He dreams of working at Nintendo, writing a SHAZAM! TV series, and working on Guardians for a very long time!