By Potes
A kid named Eli is "sick" and goes to Anne for medical care, but it turns out it's all a ruse! His mom and dad want to break off from the resistance and need some goods to trade, so they're robbing the pharmacy. Anne, who has killed a Skitter with her bare hands, is not afraid of some balding douchebag and so tries to fend him off, but to no avail. It's not long, however, before Weaver, Tom and Mike catch up to him. There's a standoff, and then a third party enters, telling Eli's dad to drop his weapon or die. It's an effective tactic. Turns out this silver-haired fox who just saved the day is Terry Clayton of the 7th Mass. He knows Weaver, Tom and Mike, and delivers the unfortunate news that the 7th Mass is gone. Skitters hit them hard, and are coming toward the 2nd Mass . Terry says that the Skitters took all their kids, and then the Mechs open fired on everyone else. About eight fighters and six civilians escaped, and they're holed up on a relatively secluded farm nearby. The Skitters have swept the area twice, so Terry thinks that they're safe for a while.
Terry reports that Porter thinks the aliens are stepping up their hunt for slave labor, e.g. kids, and so have been sweeping the area. The nearby 3rd Mass is in immediate danger, and Porter has ostensibly ordered them to join up with the 2nd Mass so that everyone can move to a safer location together. Terry says that the 2nd Mass should hold their position until their counterparts join them in about 72 hours. That's a long time to wait out a Skitter attack, and so Terry says that Porter ordered all the kids under 20 to go ahead with him, to the farm. It's safer! OR IS IT? Um, spoiler. Tom is not so into this idea, and even less into Weaver's order for him to convince the civilians to go with it. Needless to say, everybody is kind of on edge when they hear the rumors about the attack and the plan to send their kids off to some farm with a fine-seeming, but potentially nefarious stranger!
Meanwhile, Maggie gives Anne a gun. After the attempted robbery, she figures a weapon might be useful. Anne is unsure at first, but eventually takes Maggie up on her offer of a shooting lesson. And there's Ben, doing a whole bunch of push-ups and bonding with Matt. The spikes in his back aren't going away, and he doesn't seem to mind. He tells Matt that in some bizarro alien way the Skitters cared about the harnessed kids, and were like family. Sometimes he still misses that. Or he misses all the drugs that were continuously being pumped into his system. Hal overhears all this, and starts to get a little worried that Ben is like a different kid. He tells Anne that, in addition to some personality differences, Ben used to be a weakling but now can do 100 pushups without breaking a sweat. The Skitters were totally on the cutting edge of the childhood obesity epidemic.
As the 2nd Mass fighters build barricades and prepare to move, Tom wrestles with his feelings about sending the kids ahead and questions his own motivations for wanting to keep them around. Meanwhile, Jimmy wants to be put back into combat rotation. Weaver, who despite his crustiness has a soft spot for the little fighter, tells him to accompany Parker, who's on watch that night. Jimmy and Parker play chess in a burned out old school bus, but it isn't long before a Mech finds them and fires. Parker is dead, and the Mech is close to getting Jimmy when some other soldiers attack it from atop the bus. Jimmy escapes and runs into a deserted part of the school, where he gets trapped behind a locked door and a Skitter attacks him. After warding off the Mech, Tom and Weaver finally hear Jimmy's cries from inside the school. Jimmy fights the Skitter, and for a while distracts him by throwing him an earth-patterned beach ball. Happily, Weaver gets there just in time to kill the Skitter and save Jimmy. Jimmy is in major shock, which is helped a little by a big Weaver hug.
Terry convinces Weaver that this Skitter/Mech incident means that more Skitters will be on their way. Weaver is coming around to the farm plan, and Tom is as well. Meanwhile, some guy is totally prejudiced against Ben in the food line! Hal tells him off but good. This prompts Ben to tell Tom that he wants to go ahead with Terry, since the others won't be able to fight as well if the Skitters attack and kids are around. He busts out a historical parallel, which shows why he was always Tom's favorite. Tom announces to the civilians that he's sending his kids with Terry, and that they'll have a security detail with them. Everyone has an hour to get their kids packed. Hal wants to go with Terry as well, so he can repair his relationship with Ben as well as look out for him. He could give two shits about Matt, apparently.
Terry shows Tom how to find the farm on the map, and he and the kids take off. And then Tom and Anne hold hands and snuggle for a minute! Oh my God! Oh, and THEN. Terry directs the kids through a woodsy path, which Hal notes is not the route drawn on the map. Terry is like, "Oh whatever, ha ha, nothing suspicious to see here!" Hal's response is basically, "Duh, okay." They make it to the Hidden Frontier Ranch, which does look pretty awesome. Terry instructs everyone to go to bed, which is weird since it's still daylight. Someone who tells you to go to bed at 6:00 p.m. can't be trusted!
And THEN. At night, Terry sneaks through the farmhouse and into a room where we find Eli, the kid whose parents tried to rob the pharmacy at the beginning of the episode. He wants to see his mom and dad, like he was promised. Terry says Eli can see them right now. They walk through a path in the woods, where a teenaged girl with crazy eyes awaits them. She introduces herself as Megan and tells Eli that she can take him to his family. But Eli is no fool, and once he gets a look at her glowing Skitter harness he's like, "No thanks, I'm all set." But alas! A Mech shoots him unconscious and a Skitter approaches his body. Then Megan (who is presumably speaking for the Skitter) gives Terry hell for being late, and asks him how many he's gotten. He says, "Enough." DUDES! Megan confirms that Terry will bring more in two days and he says, "That's the deal." A deal with the alien devil!
And THEN! Terry goes to visit his prisoner…Mr. Chef Pope. Yay! Except for that it was Pope who gave up the location of the 2nd Mass, and thus doomed a whole lot of kids to eventual zombie imprisonment. D'oh! Pope, in shackles, trembles with rage and we're out!