Falling Skies #4-03 Recap: Breaking Free

<p><b>&lpar;Full Spoilers Below&rpar;<&sol;b><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The more I watch of <i>Falling Skies’ <&sol;i>fourth season&comma; the more I realize just how crazy it has become&period; While <i>Exodus<&sol;i> demonstrated a far better balance of the show’s four separate story arcs&comma; it also continued to leave us with more questions than answers&comma; and left me wanting for something more&period; Still&comma; there’s a lot of fun to be had with the show’s new direction&comma; I just hope the story starts to feel more coherent sooner rather than later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><i>Exodus <&sol;i>started off with an exciting chase sequence&comma; following Tom as he was pursued by an entire swarm of Skitters&period; It was a brief&comma; but fun&comma; opening that ended in Tom once again using his now signature flamethrower to glorious effect&period; But then it went the cliche route and flashed back in time 60 hours&comma; and I audibly groaned when the show cut off from Tom’s flamethrower fun and threw us back into the planning phase of his prison breakout&period; That’s not to say seeing Tom and his cohorts put their escape plan together is boring&comma; it’s just starting to get old&period; Thankfully&comma; there was finally some payoff here&comma; as Tom’s plan was kicked into action about halfway through the episode&period; It wasn’t quite the spectacle I was hoping for&comma; but it was nice to see Pope step up and finally do something heroic and volunteer to be the one to attempt to blow the gate up&period; The only downside of the climax was that the final shot of that building exploding really didn’t look that great in terms of its special effects&semi; but hey&comma; at least they’re finally able to move on to new territory now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Matt was the one who got the shortest end of the stick this week though&comma; and while it was a little creepy how that young girl in his class turned her own parents over to the Espheni with hardly a second thought&comma; the only real eventful thing that transpired was Matt covering for his friend when their &OpenCurlyQuote;teacher’ discovered she had stolen a tool in order to escape&period; While we weren’t really given any idea how Matt would be punished&comma; I am intrigued to see how it will change things for Matt&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05090939&sol;FallingSkies&lowbar;S04E03-Main&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"alignnone size-full wp-image-63561" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;07&sol;05090939&sol;FallingSkies&lowbar;S04E03-Main&period;jpg" alt&equals;"FallingSkies&lowbar;S04E03-Main" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"338" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ann’s story&comma; on the other hand&comma; finally did something progressive and gave us a glimpse into the time she spent as a prisoner of the Espheni while still pregnant with Lexi&period; It was nice to see something with Ann that wasn’t just senseless wandering through the woods with exposition being the only thing to really keep us interested&comma; but we were still only offered more questions than answers&comma; a trend that is starting to get a little irritating&period; While we may not know <i>exactly<&sol;i> what the aliens did to Lexi&comma; I think it&&num;8217&semi;s safe to say that the leader of the Espheni had his own DNA pumped into Ann’s still pregnant stomach&comma; which probably explains why she&&num;8217&semi;s being heralded as the link between the two species right now&period; Really creepy stuff&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Once again though&comma; Ben seems to be the one with the most interesting story&comma; and while Tom once again got most of the attention&comma; seeing Ben attempt to both understand and put an end to Lexi’s plans for peace with the Espheni is probably the most compelling plot <i>Falling Skies<&sol;i> is telling at this point&period; And this week was a real highlight&comma; as Ann finally discovered the colony and was reunited with Ben and Lexi&period; As you can imagine&comma; this was quite the shock for her&comma; considering her daughter has aged at least ten years since she last saw her a couple months ago&period; We sadly didn’t get to see what happened next&comma; but I am actually excited to see how they all react to being back together again in the next episode&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><i>Falling Skies<&sol;i> is slowly but surely making progress with each new episode&comma; but I still think it needs to do more&period; I’m still enjoying the show for the sheer entertainment value of it all&comma; but I really want to see it go back to its more streamlined approach to storytelling&comma; as it seems the show just isn’t capable of handling so many different story lines at the same time&period; Things do seem to be coming together&comma; and <i>Exodus <&sol;i>ended with enough subtle cliffhangers that I am genuinely interested to see where it will go next&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;