Episode Report Card Potes: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Buying the Farm
By Potes | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 07.17.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.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 next. 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!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open with Dr. Anne Glass tending to a young boy named Eli, who has a Blue Hills Ski Area patch on his bag. Hey, I've been there! Not to ski, though. Two words: Sonny Bono. Anyway, Eli opens up and says "Ahhhh" as his parents hover. Anne asks when Eli started to feel bad, and Eli shrugs his shoulders. His dad pipes in and says that it's been a couple of days, and that Eli hasn't been eating or sleeping. Anne is all, "Who really is eating or sleeping all that well?" but in a nice, pediatric way. Lourdes is in the room, but soon heads out to get batteries for a lantern on the fritz. Uncle Scott has the batteries as well as a stash of candy, and Eli requests Gummi Bears.
Eli's mom scurries after Lourdes and shuts the door behind her, even though Anne tells her that's not necessary. Anne starts giving her diagnosis -- which basically is that Eli is totally fine -- but is interrupted when she turns around to find a gun pointing at her. At the end of that gun is a hand belonging to Eli's dad. That's so whack! He tells Anne to shut up and then tosses a bag to her, which she is supposed to load with antibiotics, painkillers, and anything else she's got. Anne tells him no, because it took months to get that stuff and people are depending on it. But Eli's dad isn't there to argue. He shoves her around a bit and tells her to hurry up, not finding solidarity in the fact that they are both wearing dirty flannel shirts.
Anne asks why he's doing this, and Eli's dad says that a Skitter killed a man in the very room where he's robbing her. This psycho's got a point. He also thinks it's weird that there are kids walking around with spikes in their back and everyone is pretending its normal. And, if you're judging by Rick, he's got another point. Round one to Eli's dad. He basically says that they're fucked if they stay with the 2nd Mass, and then yells at Anne to hurry up. She points out that he could leave anytime he wants, and no one's going to stop him. In fact, they'll be grateful for his share of soggy oatmeal. Eli's dad says that it's the Wild West out there, and if they get into trouble they're going to need something to trade. And now I have both The Escape Club's and Kool Moe Dee's versions of "Wild Wild West" permanently stuck in my brain. Before I can decide which song is superior (and really, why choose?), Anne starts to hand the bag full of pharmaceuticals over to Eli's dad, but surprise! She chucks a tray full of stuff at him and starts to run. Despite having the frame of a weakling, Eli's dad is surprisingly swift and intercepts her. He is also not afraid to hit a woman. His wife tells him that this is enough, and that he shouldn't hurt Anne. He grabs the bag of drugs, tells Anne he's sorry, and the whole family runs out the door. Anne wishes she was headin' for the 90s as we cut to the opening credits.