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Just before a giant hurricane hits Florida, something Godzilla-huge rises up out of the water and knocks an airplane right out of the sky. Various residents prepare for the coming storm, and some, like Sheriff Underlay, are acting kind of strange. The storm also brings on some family drama. Park Ranger Russell, his son Jesse, and his daughter Rose plan to ride out the storm at home, along with Russell's new pregnant newscaster wife, Larkin, and her conspiracy-theorist brother Dave. But Russell's bitchy physician ex-wife, Mariel, who just happens to be married to Sheriff Underlay, shows up just in time to discover that the young daughter has run off to find her cat. Jesse tells his mother off and Mariel leaves just as the hurricane is hitting. While Rose is out in the storm, she sees these weird lights falling to the ground, and then gets rescued by Russell. The day, Mariel is missing, and Sheriff Underlay weirdly blames Jesse, practically telling the teenager that he killed his mother. They form a search party, and find Mariel lying naked and unconscious in the swamp. Sheriff Underlay resuscitates Mariel, who doesn't seem to recognize her own son. Layabout Dave takes Rose back out into the swamp to try to find what she saw during the hurricane, and he discovers some human remains or something equally mysterious and disturbing, gets freaked out, and leaves. Dave returns later to grab the remains, and shows them to Russell to try to prove that aliens have landed or risen or whatever. He somehow convinces Russell to go back to the swamps with him in the middle of the night, leaving his pregnant wife home alone. They spot some weird light, and Dave goes to investigate, but he gets sucked into the water. Russell dives in after him, and manages to rescue him, but has injuries on his legs. A priest is found under the same mysterious circumstances Mariel was, and Russell notices that Underlay, Mariel, and the priest are all acting weird in the same way. In the end, it is revealed that Underlay and Mariel have been taken over, I guess, although it's all very ambiguous. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
An airplane flies through a bad storm. It occurred to me that it seemed like bad CGI, but then I realized that I've never actually seen an external view of an airplane flying through a bad storm, so maybe this is EXACTLY what it looks like. A caption informs us that this is a C-130 Weather Plane (what?), and is part of the Hurricane Surveillance Unit (who?) and it's currently 180 miles southeast of Miami (where?). I'm not sure why that information couldn't have been conveyed via dialogue, but whatever. Anyway, the plane reports that it's closing in on the hurricane eye wall, and the pilot suddenly puts the plane into a dive. He tells his crew to hold on while they head into the hurricane. Suddenly, everything quiets down, and you can actually see sunlight. The pilot reports that they are in the eye of the hurricane (listen to yourself turn -- sorry, obligatory R.E.M. reference), and the plane drops an instrument to measure some weather data. The various crew members report their findings. All the instruments start going nuts, and one crew member says that she sees something under the water. The co-pilot reports thousands of lights on the radar, and as the camera pans down to the ocean, a giant entity seems to rise up out of the water, and then sparks fly out. We switch to a view from space, and the lights are even visible from there! From space! It's huge! Just making sure you caught that there were a lot of lights and that they were visible from space. Where the aliens live.
Now we're down on the ground, in Everglades National Park in Homestead, Florida, which is thirty-five miles southwest of Miami. Everglades National Park: Where All Creepy Things Happen. I think that's on the signs at the entrance. A park ranger drives his truck slowly through the park, as the news blares from his radio that people are taking cover in preparation for the hurricane. The sky in the distance is dark and threatening.
The ranger arrives at an outpost or station or something and finds his partner trying to convince a woman and her young son to head to a shelter. The kid doesn't want to go, because he's waiting for his father, so the park ranger plucks a tiny turtle out of a nearby tank and tells the kid that the turtle needs a ride to the shelter and the kid can provide it. So the kid totally throws his dad over for the turtle and I guess we're supposed to gather that the ranger is an All-Around Good Guy who loves children and small animals, including amphibians. And he speaks Spanish! And he wears his official ranger shirt untucked, indicating that he's no stickler for the rules. That's a whole lot of character development in one scene that I think I totally missed on first viewing because watching it now, I don't remember it at all. The ranger heads back into his station, where he watches lovingly as a reporter reads news on the television.
And we go live to that same reporter, a woman named Larkin Groves. Wow, with a name like that, she kind of had to go into local television. Or stripping. The woman wraps up her report and heads for the van to throw up, which she yells out to her crew, like they want to know about her digestive functions. I'm sure they totally dis her behind her back, especially since now they have to sit out in the rain while she hangs out in the nice warm van. Larkin's cell phone rings, and it's the ranger, whose name is Russell. He badgers her to get home, because she's pregnant, and she promises that she's on her way. He promises to meet her there. So they're married, I guess. Larkin says that her brother is working on boarding up the house with Russell's kids. Awesome! A confusing blended family. When writing the recaplet, it took me, like, ten minutes to figure out how to explain this arrangement, so I'll just save myself the trouble of trying to explain it as I go along and do it now. Russell and Larkin are married. Russell has two kids -- named Jesse and Rose -- from a marriage to a woman named Mariel; the kids live with Russell and Larkin part-time. Larkin has a brother who apparently lives with them as well. Mariel, the bitchy ex, has been calling the house a lot, because she's worried about her kids. God forbid! I can't believe she's worried about her children staying at home with the flaky brother, who's not even a blood relative.
Rose is not actually at home, though. She's a little girl, probably around seven or eight, and she's wandering around outside calling for someone named Carlita. Meanwhile, her brother Jesse, a teenager, is cutting plywood to board up the house. He's wearing safety goggles, so you know he's the responsible one in the family. Jesse tells Rose that Carlita, her cat, is probably taking shelter from the rain. Dave, the flaky brother, wants to know where the beer is. Priorities. Jesse reports that all they have is in the fridge, and Dave is annoyed. Rose is still looking for stupid Carlita (which she keeps pronouncing "Car-LEEEEEEEEET-a") and no one cares. The wind picks up, blowing debris around the yard. Dave says he's going to the store for beer, and Jesse tells him he can't leave the kids alone. Rose runs inside the house to answer the phone. Dave yells at Jesse for giving him lip, and Jesse pulls the "You're not even really my uncle" card. Dave starts going off on how this whole hurricane is "a smokescreen cooked up by the military." Jesse, understandably, just wants to get the windows boarded up. Rose yells that her mother's on the phone and wants to speak to Dave.
Mariel, a doctor in a busy hospital, is trying to get Russell on the phone. She bitches to a nurse that she can't believe Russell isn't home with the kids, and that she can't believe she was ever married to him in the first place. Mariel backstories that they were college sweethearts, and then bitches some more about how Russell is "out picking acorns somewhere." Because her job is more important than his. Well, now that I think about it, it kind of is. Mariel finally gets Dave on the phone and wants to know why Dave is leaving to get beer, and Dave says that he's not going anywhere. Mariel asks again for Russell call her when he gets in, and hangs up. She tells the nurse that she'll have her kids again on Monday, and the nurse says that Larkin seems pretty responsible and that there's nothing to worry about. Mariel sees something out the window, and she goes over to peek outside. A sheriff is barking orders to his minions, and he spots Mariel spying on him. He turns and uses his loudspeaker to tell her the safest route home, and then compliments the nurse's haircut. The nurse snarks, "Well, he's all charm today. What are you feeding him?" Mariel smirks and answers, "Me." EW! Inappropriate and also gross. Mariel keeps gazing lovingly out the window as the hurricane shades go down. The sheriff gets into his car, and then gazes up at the sky in what looks like breathless anticipation.
Parents arrive to pick up their kids from school in the driving rain. A teenaged girl named Kira hops into the sheriff's car and yells at her father for picking her up in his cruiser. He tells her he didn't have much choice, and asks how school was. Kira talks about the safety assembly they had, and her father assures her, in a weirdly positive way, that nothing bad will happen, like he has advance knowledge of the storm or something. Kira looks concerned.
Russell arrives home. Jesse reports that he's almost finished securing the house, and that Rose and Dave are inside but that Larkin isn't back yet. Before even checking on his daughter, Russell whips out his cell phone and calls Larkin. Nice parenting. A car pulls up and Mariel gets out. She's surprised to see Russell there, and they exchange some tense words. She mothers Jesse a little and then asks to see Rose. Russell tells Mariel that she should get home, and Jesse offers to go get Rose. Okay, it's a driving rain storm with thunder and lightning. Maybe not the best time for the little girl to be running outside. Russell and Mariel get into a fight over whether or not she trusts him and whether or not she has a right to see her kids whenever she pleases. Jesse interrupts to tell them that Rose isn't inside. Mariel starts to use this as ammunition for the fight as they start calling Rose's name. Mariel refuses to leave until they find Rose. Russell gets into his truck to go out searching, and Jesse yells at her, "Why do you keep doing this, Mom? Pushing everyone away? Why don't you just go home and worry about your new husband and leave us alone? Please?" Jesse stomps off into the barn and slams the door shut, so Mariel continues yelling Rose's name.
Meanwhile, Rose is out in the woods yelling Carlita's name a few million more times.
Jesse and Dave are still trying to get the plywood up over the windows, like, maybe they should have started this task a day or so earlier? Larkin arrives home, but when she exits her truck, the wind won't allow her to close the door. She struggles, and finally goes flying into the door, stomach first. Jesse and Dave run over to make sure she's okay, which she is. They help her into the house as windows break and things fly around. Larkin stands right in front of a window, like, is this the first time these people have been through a hurricane or what? Geez! Get away from the windows, idiots. They waste time making small talk about how quickly the hurricane arrived, and predictably, the window behind Larkin shatters.
Rose is still out in the storm, looking for her cat. She stops and stares at something. We see that she's looking at a bunch of slowly falling lights. She slips and falls into a mud puddle that's, like, an inch deep, and flails around until her father rescues her. Russell carries Rose back to the truck, where Carlita is waiting. Russell gets Rose to look in his eyes as he reminds her sternly never to leave the house without telling anyone where she's going. They drive through the storm, and pass a downed transformer. Rose sees the sparks and asks Russell if he saw the lights. She explains that she saw "a bunch of colored lights" in the sky. Russell thinks it was probably just a downed power line, and they each say, "I love you." And then the truck goes flying off the road and flips over. That would actually have been kind of awesome if they had killed off the good guy and his innocent little daughter in the first act. I would have liked this show a lot more if they had.
When we return from the break, the storm has passed, and the truck is still flipped over, although now it's covered in a lot of debris. A military truck pulls up, and a guy in camouflage walks up to the truck. He peers into the window, and then knocks. The noise wakes up Russell, who wakes up Rose. So they're both fine. And Carlita's fine too. The military guys help Russell and Rose into the back of a truck carrying a number of other people, and tells Russell that there's no power or water, and that the Governor has declared Dade County a disaster area.
Russell and Rose arrive back at the house. Larkin sprints out of the house and gives Russell a huge hug. He tells her that they're all okay, and she tells him that the baby is fine too. Jesse and Dave join them, with hugs all around. Dave says that they lost part of their roof, as well as all of the windows, so their belongings are soaked. The sheriff's car arrives, sirens blaring. Jesse asks why he's there. Larkin tries to get the kids to leave, but they won't, so she tells Russell that Mariel never made it home last night. Sheriff Tom called on the radio looking for her. Russell assures his kids that Mariel is probably just stuck somewhere, like he was.
Sheriff Tom gets out of his car in his immaculate uniform. I guess someone hasn't been doing the heavy lifting, helping people out in their time of need. Kira follows behind him. Sheriff Tom asks Jesse if he fought with his mother last night. Russell sticks up for his son, saying that it's not his fault. Russell says that he was the one to tell Mariel to leave. Sheriff Tom doesn't think that was the wisest decision, and then leaves to take a radio call. Kira tells Jesse that it wasn't his fault, and that her father is just upset, and Jesse says something about how his mother worries too much. They overhear Sheriff Tom telling someone to check a license plate, and then he tells everyone that they found Mariel's car.
Cut to Jesse, Sheriff Tom, and Russell in the middle of the swamp. Russell is arguing in Spanish with another ranger about something. Mariel's car is sitting there, empty. Sheriff Tom looks around, and finds a hank of Mariel's hair stuck in a nearby tree branch. Creepy.
Larkin, Dave, and Rose work on getting the house cleaned up. Larkin assures Rose that they'll find Mariel, and Rose agrees. Well, she's easy. Larkin says that she and Kira are leaving, and that they'll be back that afternoon. Dave tells Larkin to go down to the abandoned Air Force Base if she wants a good story. Larkin ignores him and takes off. Leaving Rose alone with Dave, after he lost her the night before. Good one. And why are all these people such good friends, anyway?
Dave tells Rose that he'll have the roof fixed in no time, and backstories that he worked fixing roofs after Hurricane Andrew came through. Rose asks what his job is now, and Dave says that he's in between jobs. He used to manage an apartment building with his girlfriend, but she kicked him out. Rose thinks for a second and then asks Dave if he saw the lights in the sky last night. She says that they were much bigger than sparks, and that they were landing in the water. Dave gets really interested, and sits down to ask Rose more questions about the lights.
The search team of Russell, Jesse, and Sheriff Tom walk through the swamp and call Mariel's name. Jesse wonders why Mariel would leave her car, and Sheriff Tom suspects that she felt safer among the trees. He accuses Russell of wanting to get rid of the trees, and Russell explains that they're killing the park. So they have another bone of contention besides Mariel. Jesse rushes up to a swampy area and starts calling for his father. There's a naked body lying among the swamp grass. It's Mariel! Sheriff Tom starts running through the water to get to her. Watch out for gators! That would have been another awesome commercial break -- if, just as Sheriff Tom reached Mariel, a gator came up and just chomped on her. Come on. You would watch that show, right?
Sheriff Tom gives Mariel CPR in a creepy way. Basically, everything Sheriff Tom does is creepy. Anyway, Mariel wakes up, surprisingly leech- and mosquito-bite-free for spending the night in the swamp. Jesse speaks to her, and she looks at him uncomprehendingly. Sheriff Tom tells her that it's Jesse, and she still doesn't really speak. Sheriff Tom sweeps Mariel up in his arms and yells to someone (who?) to call the hospital. Russell tries to speak to Mariel, but she doesn't seem to recognize him either. Jesse thinks Mariel will be okay, and wonders what happened to her clothes. Seriously. That kid is scarred.
Larkin does a remote report from some neighborhood about the strength of the human spirit, which is my least favorite post-hurricane type of story. Kira stands nearby, watching. Why couldn't she hang out with Dave and Rose again? Larkin, the reporter who cares, gives her phone number to a woman with a baby and tells them to call her if they don't find their family. Kira tells Larkin that she'd like to be on TV someday, to help people. She explains that when her mom died, it was on the news, and it seemed terrible, but then the reporters were laughing about another story seconds later, and it didn't seem so bad. Larkin is like, "Whoa. Counseling. Get some." Kira says that Sheriff Tom thinks television is good, because it distracts people from the truth. Whoa. Family counseling. Get some. Larkin asks what she means, but Kira doesn't explain.
Mariel sits in a hospital bed, and insists to Nurse Friend that she wants to see her kids immediately. Sheriff Tom shows up and basically kicks Nurse Friend out and won't take no for an answer. He tells Mariel that he thinks they need a quarantine. The mayor, standing nearby, doesn't know if it makes sense to isolate their community even more. Sheriff Tom says that the water or air may be contaminated, and the mayor totally agrees. What a pushover. Mariel cries silently, and Sheriff Tom tells her that they can go home now, because their work is done. Mariel agrees, and Sheriff Tom pushes her wheelchair out the door. She asks, "What's happening to me?" Sheriff Tom doesn't answer.
Rose and Dave take a swamp boat out into the, appropriately enough, swamp. He wants to know where she saw the lights. Should he really be taking a child out into the swamp the day after a hurricane? Shouldn't they be, I don't know, fixing the roof or drying out their possessions, or not putting themselves in harm's way? Dave stops the boat and floats along. Rose spots something shiny in the water. Dave tells her to stay back while he checks it out, warning her that she might get bitten by a gator. He promises that a gator won't bite him. Dave pulls a piece of metal out of the water, and theorizes that it's part of a boat. He looks for the rest of the boat or whatever, but gets freaked out when part of a human skull floats to the surface. Dave quickly runs back to his seat in the boat and takes off.
Post-hurricane scene at Russell's house. Trees are down, debris is everywhere, but the roof somehow seems to have been fixed. That's some quick roofing. Russell walks his kids outside, and Rose thanks him for letting her go back to her house. Russell reminds her that his house is her house, too. Russell hands the kids off to Sheriff Tom and Kira. Kira is really interested in Jesse, a subplot I'm sure they will develop later, so I should mention it now. Sheriff Tom is all happy and jovial now that Mariel has been found, and he assures Russell that by tomorrow, Mariel will be "better than ever," which is a strange choice of words. Russell says goodbye to his kids. He tells Rose that he loves her, but doesn't say it to Jesse, because he's a boy and doesn't need love. Sheriff Tom starts to get into his car, but Russell has a question first. He points out that Sheriff Tom says he spoke with Mariel as she was leaving the house before the hurricane, but that they lost cell service fairly early in the day. Sheriff Tom figures Mariel used a pay phone, which totally doesn't explain how she found a pay phone in the middle of a swamp. Russell is suspicious.
Dave pulls into the barn in an old car, and screeches to a halt. He gets out and lights a lantern, and then walks off as the camera focuses on the trunk of his car.
Russell watches television. The crew is interviewing a priest who spent hours in the swamp before being rescued. The priest looks dazed and confused, and he isn't wearing traditional priestly garb. Russell comments that it's the second time he's seen that look today. Larkin walks over and asks if Russell's talking about Mariel. No, he's talking about Carlita. Duh. Russell wonders how you spend the night in a hurricane, naked, and don't have any marks on your body. Very carefully? Larkin points out that Russell was out there too. Dave walks in and asks to speak to Russell outside, and Larkin, the reporter, isn't even curious.
Dave takes Russell out to the barn and explains that he thought the hurricane was cover for the military, but now he realizes it was something else. Dave pops the trunk of his car and shows Russell the skeleton inside that he pulled from the swamp. Russell thinks they should go to the cops, but Dave says that the cops will cover up the fact that they have "an extraterrestrial in their midst." Russell is like, "Bitch crazy," and Dave points out that the skeleton has spikes pointing through its head and neck. Russell thinks they need to find out who it was and what happened. Dave says that they need to go back to the swamp together, because Russell has been studying weird plants and animals his whole life. Russell thinks this is the work of an EBE or "Extraterrestrial Biological Entity." Russell is like, "Bitch still crazy," and Dave wonders what other explanation there might be. Russell can't come up with one as he takes a flashlight and examines the skeleton, which is covered is some sort of webbed goo. Russell touches the goo, which seems like a bad idea, and even smells it, and then posits that it's the work of a sea creature. Dave points out that they weren't in the ocean. Russell doesn't want to go out at night, but Dave says that he doesn't want their family to end up like the skeleton. He once again begs Russell to join him.
Mariel lies in bed with Rose, and they talk about how worried they were about each other. Mariel tells Rose that it's time to go to sleep, and tries to assuage her fears about another hurricane. Mariel kisses Rose's face and nuzzles her, and Rose kicks it promo-style when she says, "Mommy? You smell different." Mariel doesn't answer. She turns out the light and sees Sheriff Tom creepily staring at them from the other room.
Dave and Russell head out to the swamp in Dave's boat. Dave tells Russell what Rose said about the lights that fell in the water but didn't go out. Russell says that he hasn't been in that area of the swamp since he did search and rescue after a plane crash in 1996. Dave thinks the metal he found today was part of that plane. Russell jokes that maybe the Martians shot it down. Dave points at something that looks to me like swamp gas. It's a weird kind of phosphorescent cloud in the water. Russell thinks it might be a jellyfish, and Dave wonders where the light inside is coming from. Russell explains about bioluminescence. Dave gets closer, and Russell warns him away. Suddenly, a giant light bursts out of the water and sucks Dave down. Russell dives after him. And they both die!
Just kidding. After a suitable interval, Russell and Dave burst out of the water, and Dave keeps insisting that was no fish. Russell drags Dave back to the boat as Dave keeps saying that his leg is broken.
The day, Larkin does a report from a Red Cross tent outside the hospital. She also says that her brother got into a wrestling match with an alligator last night. I'm not sure why the viewers of Larkin's newscast needed that information. Inside the hospital, Dave watches the report from his bed, and Russell stands nearby. Shouldn't Russell be working or something? Dave asks if Russell told them it was a gator, and Russell says that's the most plausible explanation. Dave is sure it was an EBE, and Russell scoffs. Mariel shows up and greets them cheerily. She asks to check out Dave's leg wound, and tells Russell that she's feeling much better, and that the kids are doing well. Russell asks her about the full quarantine she ordered, and Mariel says they don't know what's out there since everything got stirred up. She tells Dave that he's lucky, because judging by the size of the teeth marks on his leg, the gator could have swallowed him whole. Russell asks how she knows it was a gator, and she looks at him strangely and asks what else it could be. She continues smiling a lot, and then walks out without another word.
Russell watches her outside in the hallway. Mariel leans toward a window and mouths what looks like, "One minute," although I'm not so good at lip-reading. Russell looks to see whom she's talking to, and it's Sheriff Tom, who checks his watch. Mariel blows him a kiss, and Russell looks outside to see what's going on. Sheriff Tom is talking to the priest who was found in the swamp. The priest turns around, and he still has that stunned expression on his face. He spies Russell and smiles creepily. Mariel has somehow teleported outside, and she gives Sheriff Tom a kiss.
Russell returns to his barn, and pops the hood on Dave's car to check out the skeleton again.
Mariel and Sheriff Tom walk out to the swamp, hand-in-hand. Sheriff Tom asks if she's feeling better, and Mariel says that she is. Sheriff Tom tells her, "The first days are the toughest, but you're gonna be okay. Baby steps, honey. Baby steps." They kiss and then gaze lovingly out into the swamp.