Episode Report Card Strega: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Invasion USA
By Strega | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.03.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.While everyone waits for the rain to stop, Hawkins suits up and gets a mysterious drum of mysteriousness from a storage facility, which he hauls back to his house and hides. Sternly finally turns up. And he might have radiation sickness, but then it turns out he doesn't. In other chain-yanking news, Dad has the flu, and there wasn't any fallout after all, so everyone's fine. Well, everyone except this one guy who flips out in the mine and then dies offscreen. After everyone else is unearthed, Heather gets all Nancy Drew about that, and it turns out that rather than cause a panic, Shep let the guy die. But he feels really bad about it. At the bar, they manage briefly to pick up a signal of a Chinese broadcast that gives them a vague idea of how much of the country went boom. Emily finishes freaking out about killing someone, and started freaking out because her fiancé must be dead. Jake decides that they need to send out search parties to find out what's going on. Everyone heads out, and pretty soon Jake comes across two airplanes that tried to land on the highway. One appears to have been successful. So Jake retrieves the black box, carts it back to Jericho, lets everyone listen to the plane crash, and even manages to isolate a bit of background chatter that establishes that Emily's fiancé's plane landed safely. You might wonder where Jake learned how to do all that, but I'm sure it'll turn out that he knew a guy. Jericho has a jolly block party with the last of Gracie's food, while Dale wanders off and finds the train with Gracie's next shipment. If he's smart, he won't give any of it to Skylar. Oh yeah, and there's this scene where Gary bitches out Dad for not keeping the shelters maintained, so Dad sucker-punches Gary and tells him to shut up because they're under attack and this is no time to upset everyone by second-guessing authority figures. In the context of the show, it sounds quite reasonable, and we come away thinking, "Yeah, go Dad!" Which means that in the context of our reality, which I assume is the same one that the writers inhabit, it's pretty fucking vile. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously...wow, they seem determined to include every plot point from the past two episodes in this clip show. I think they're trying to make it look more exciting than it is, since the shootings and explosions are prominently featured. So, previously: stuff blew up and everyone was ridiculous.
We open with shots of Hawkins putting on protective gear. He duct tapes it tight around his wrists and ankles and slips on a respirator. Then "18 hours after the bombs" fills the screen. Well, that settles that question. Those of you working on "maybe it was killer bees" scenarios will have to decide if you dare defy the all-knowing, all-seeing caption.
It's still raining as Hawkins parks a product-placed U-Haul truck and opens the back. He seems to have arrived at a self-storage facility of some kind. He unlocks a unit, looks around suspiciously, and then enters and pulls the door closed.
Casa Richmond's storm cellar. Emily is huddled up next to the preserves. Jake loudly tells one of the rescued cops, "She's still not talking." The cop wonderingly says that even he's never killed anyone, so he can't imagine how upset Emily must be. Emily rubs her head and decides against pointing out that she's not the deaf one. Bonnie wonders where Stanley is. Jake confidently says, "When the rain stops, he'll be back. Don't worry." Bonnie turns her back on him in a huff, and then there's some obvious looping as Jake adds, "I know Stanley, he'll be fine." Emily rubs her head some more and decides against pointing out that Bonnie is the deaf one. The other cop announces that he's finally reached Eric on the radio.
Town hall shelter. Eric tells Jake that they found Dad. Jake reminds Eric that as soon as the rain stops, they have to go dig out the mine: "I'm more worried the explosion might have put some debris into the ventilator." It's nice that the possibility occurred to him afterward. Eric says that they haven't been able to contact anyone at the mine.
In the spacious mine, Heather is distributing bottled water. She goes to check on a bearded, bald chap who turns out to be another teacher named Scott Rennie. He's a little tense, and says that he's having trouble breathing. Heather advises him to have some water. Scott takes a sip, and as a result feels good enough to look around in mild panic and wail, "I can't do this! Gotta get outside!"
The Richmond cellar is quite homey. It looks like there are paintings hanging on the wall. In a storm cellar. Jake pulls up a chair next to Emily and the preserves and asks, "You doin' all right?" Emily barely looks at him, and he follows that up with "Stupid question?" Emily finally breaks her silence to ask how they know the rain is radioactive. Jake says, "Well, we don't know how many bombs there were, we don't know..." If Jake lists all of the things they don't know, this show could run longer than Gunsmoke did. But Jake's list is cut off when they hear noises in the house above them. Sadly, it doesn't sound like the shuffling steps of a mass of zombies. Or the boings of Chinese hopping zombies, even. Everyone stares upward, and the cops pull out what I'll assume are Jake and Emily's guns. The cellar doors open. Emily moans, "Not more prisoners..." The music gets tense. And then Stanley descends the stairs, drenched. Duh. Bonnie starts to rush toward her brother, but Jake yanks her back and warns Stanley not to get icky fallout all over her.