‘Falling Skies’ 3.07 Episode Recap and Review: The Pickett Line

Are you ready to hear about the roller coaster ride that was this week’s Falling Skies episode? Well, buckle your seat belts folks and prepare to take the plunge.

We begin this week with Ben and Tom arriving at the meeting area to await the Rebel Skitters. They dismount and continue afoot, discussing what their future holds after they find Anne and Alexis. Suddenly, a rebel Skitter falls off a nearby overhang, and is barely able to tell them that an enemy patrol is on its way. Tom and Ben race back to their camp, where Hal and Matt await, and they quickly pack up and leave.

In Charleston, Pope and Lyle are hanging out in Pope’s bar when soldiers arrive to move Popetown. Weaver and Anthony are with them, and Weaver informs Pope that, due to the recent surge of new arrivals in Charleston, the new President has ordered that Popetown be moved to accommodate them. Before Pope can huff and puff too much about it, they hear an announcement for medics on the outside perimeter. They all run to the area, and find Cochise staggering toward them, a wounded President Hathaway in his arms. Cochise barely gets out that Hathaway needs medical assistance before he collapses.

While the Masons are riding down a road, an army vehicle suddenly flies out in front of them and armed, masked gunmen surround them. Ben manages to jump off his horse and grab one man’s gun, but when Matt is threatened, he reluctantly yields. The rest of them dismount, and the armed men take their weapons and horses. Tom tries to reason with them, explaining about Charleston, but the men scoff in disbelief and take off. The Masons decide to go after them to get their things back.

In the Charleston hospital, President Hathaway is awake, Cochise standing nearby. He tells Weaver and Marina that he has a new respect for the Volm, and fully supports the deployment of the Volm weapon, which should be ready in less than two weeks. Both Weaver and Marina do not want to proceed without more information about the device, but Cochise refuses to divulge the information due to the mole. After being informed that Hal had been debugged, Cochise still refuses, stating that the Espheni were too clever to rely only on one strategy. Hathaway orders that the work continue, regardless of Marina’s and Weaver’s opinions.

Using his supersonic Skitter hearing, Ben is able to track the men to an old farmhouse which is occupied by a family. Ben captures a teen girl as she works on a pump, leaving Matt to guard her. He moves on, overpowering two teen boys and taking their weapon. Tom does the same with an older man. Hal jumps the last guy, who has a knife, and as they struggle, the guy starts to get the upper hand when he is suddenly shot in the back by Matt. Everyone, including Matt, seems stunned at what the boy has done.

Returning to Charleston, Pope has organized a slowdown of work in retaliation for Popetown being dismantled. Vehicles and weaponry are not being repaired, and the men assigned to take care of these issues are suspiciously absent. Weaver confronts him over this and orders him to cease and desist before storming off. Instead of doing as told, Pope holds a gathering inside one of his buildings, urging others to refuse to work for the Volm. Again, Weaver appears. While he agrees with some of Pope’s objections, he informs him and the group that their refusal to help places the other people of Charleston in danger, as well as impeding the war efforts against the Espheni. He then places Pope under arrest for civil disobedience and general unruliness, and tells the group that they will return to their shifts on the Volm project the next day.

Back at the farmhouse, Ben and one of the teen boys help the wounded man, Gill, inside and onto a bed, while Hal follows. While trying to stop the bleeding, the teen asks Ben about his spikes. Ben briefly describes his capture and subsequent rescue from the Skitters, and mentions that his mother was murdered by the aliens. The teen says that his mother had been killed as well – but it was done by men who had appeared after the invasion asking for help, who ended up attempting to rob them. His mother was killed in the struggle.

Downstairs, the remaining teens and their father, Wayne, are tied up. Tom urges Wayne to consider going to Charleston, but Wayne refuses, stating that up until now, they’ve managed to stay hidden from the aliens. They are interrupted by Hal and Wayne’s son, who tells them that Gill is dying. Wayne immediately demands to be allowed upstairs to see his brother. He gives Tom his word that he won’t try anything, and the whole family goes upstairs with Tom and Hal. The teens line up against a wall, while Wayne goes over to the bed where Gill lies gasping in pain.

The two men exchange a glance, and Wayne reaches down and pulls a rifle out from where it was hidden below the mattress, pointing it at Tom. Yet again, the Masons are forced to relinquish their weapons, although this time Wayne isn’t planning to free them. He has them go back into the basement, and forces them to line up against the wall with their backs to him. He and the two teen boys aim guns at Tom, Ben, Hal, and Matt, while the girl huddles behind her father. Realizing that Wayne plans to execute them, Tom turns and faces him, stating that Wayne will have to look him in the eye while he kills him. Wayne cocks the rifle, but the teen girl screams at her father and grabs his arm, causing the gun to discharge into the wall. And yet again, the control shifts, with Tom wrestling the rifle away from Wayne. Hal and Ben also manage to regain their weapons, but one of the teen boys, Luke, still has a gun, and keeps it pointed at Tom. He relinquishes it at a command from Wayne, and the family groups together while Tom decides how to proceed.

President Hathaway is wheeled to the observation deck to view the Volm device. It is here that Cochise finally tells Marina and Weaver why the weapon is being made with so much excess power: if they use the weapon simply to breach one Espheni power grid, the result will create a backlash of radiation that will destroy all of the Earth’s organic life form within three months. Instead, they are going to use the weapon to completely annihilate the Espheni grid, causing it to overload. Of course, if the amount of power they feed into the grid is not enough, it will simply accelerate the radiation, destroying any remaining humanity.

After hearing this, Weaver goes down to Pope’s cell. He hints that the Volm’s intentions may not be honorable, as Pope claimed, and that he might need Pope’s help in the near future to do something about it. He then releases Pope from his cell after admonishing him to “stop riling up the civilians.”

Pope runs into Maggie on his way out, and he mentions that she might need a friend for the upcoming crisis. Maggie laughs at this, reminding Pope about what happened to her the last time he “rescued” her, to which Pope implies that he had no idea she was being raped because she didn’t tell him. Maggie calls him a lying bastard for claiming he knew nothing, and Pope fires back about how Maggie kept silent about Hal’s odd behavior leading up to his eye bug insanity. He tells her that when her “pantomime” ends, she’ll come crawling back to him. Maggie simply stands there, frozen, as Pope turns and walks away.

Back in his hospital bed, President Hathaway reviews paperwork as Lourdes walks in to change a bag of fluids in his I.V. As she turns to leave, Lourdes hesitates, looking around the room.

In the most jaw-dropping part of our episode, we watch Lourdes casually leave the room and head downstairs. She enters a room full of extra medical supplies, and carefully counts her steps before pulling a gurney into the middle of the room. She then lies down on the bed, reaching below it to pull out a Volm weapon. As she stares up at the ceiling with an odd little smile on her face, she fires the weapon. Exactly above her is Hathaway’s room, and her aim is right at his bed. He is killed instantly.

Later, Lourdes kneels in the hospital chapel, apparently praying. But as we get a glimpse of her face, we see multiple eye bugs climbing around her features. Another doctor enters the room, and the bugs vanish into her eyes as Lourdes turns to hear the news that Hathaway has been killed.

Going to the scene of the crime, Lourdes coolly informs Marina and Weaver that the first shot killed Hathaway. Anthony enters the room, telling them about his findings in the room below, and they all realize that Cochise’s earlier statement was true: if Hal was a mole, he was not the only one. With Lourdes listening nearby, Anthony, Weaver, and Marina outline a plan to try and determine who the mole really is.

After leaving Hathaway’s room, Weaver is confronted by Pope, who has his own theory about what is going down, and in his eyes, Marina is the one to watch. Instead of denying Pope’s words, Weaver warns the man to watch his back. Pope responds with the same warning and the two men exchange a look of understanding before going their separate ways.

Our episode ends with Tom, Hal, Ben, and Matt back on their horses, about 15 miles away from Mechanicsville. Ben hears the sounds of Mechs, and they discover two Mega Mechs and six Skitters heading in the direction of Wayne Pickett’s farmhouse. Hal is all for continuing on, but Tom decides that he will go back and warn Wayne and his family, while the boys keep going. He promises them that he will meet them in Mechanicsville to help reclaim Anne and Alexis.

When Tom returns to the Pickett farmhouse, he hurries inside, but can’t find anyone. He hears a noise outside, and runs back out, only to be confronted by three Skitters. He raises his weapon, and then spins at the arrival of a Mega Mech. As its strobe light hits his face, he aims his rifle upward, his eyes wild.

Well! Talk about a crazy ride! Did ANYONE suspect Lourdes was the mole?! I’ll admit, I had absolutely no idea it was her. While her behavior toward Anne regarding Alexis really annoyed me, I didn’t see any “red flags” pointing in her direction. When the heck could she have even gotten bugged?? Does anyone have the clues that I missed that pointed to her as the mole?

Other than that startling revelation, I found much of this episode a tad dull, even with the back-and-forth power struggle between the Masons and the Picketts. The introduction of the Pickett family made no sense to me, except perhaps to emphasize that both Tom and Wayne Pickett only wanted to keep their families safe, and both had differing ideas on how to do so. How do you think Matt feels about shooting Gill? Were his actions justified?

Finally, what are your thoughts on Cochise’s announcement about the potential destruction of the entire human race, if the Volm weapon falls short of destroying the Espheni power grid? Do you think he cares if this happens? After all, he admits to them that, no matter what, the Espheni will not be affected, nor will the harnessed kids. And the fact that Cochise managed to survive a plane crash with nary a scratch makes me think that his race, also, might not have to worry that much if their calculations are off. With the odds against the humans so high, do you think the Volm weapon should be completed?

Well, I could ramble on endlessly with my questions and concerns about this one. Instead, I’ll turn the floor over to you. Let us know in the comments section what you thought about this Falling Skies episode!