So Shannon father and son are handcuffed to some red poles in the colony's brig, giving them a chance to bond over the fact that they're both prone to punching away their problems without much regret or realization to the fact that it's the punching that causes most of their problems in the first place. After all, Josh now realizes that his dad can't help being a rage-aholic, I guess. Lucas comes in, with the good news that he's letting Josh go -- Josh refuses to go, but then sees Skye's guilty face standing there, with Lucas saying that as much as he wanted to kill "young Shannon" he was persuaded not to. Josh is dragged out of the brig, hilariously warning Lucas not to hurt his dad. Lucas has other ideas, and he pulls out this long stun-gun-type device with electricity zapping between two prongs. He asks Jim where Taylor is, and again I'd like to point out that, implied Skye-sex or not, Lucas would be much more likely to get an answer out of Jim if he were turning the torture on Josh, with the added benefit that we'd get to watch Josh being tortured.
Over at the infirmary, Weaver's pissing and moaning about his big bug scratch as well as life in Terra Nova in general. He doesn't understand how these people tolerate it -- and I'm sure he can expect a lot of sympathy from the people he's more or less enslaved -- as the nurse injects him with an antihistamine. Then Elisabeth takes over and starts asking Weaver if he knows anything about the trichomonas sastre parasite, and she describes the excruciatingly painful deaths it causes. Weaver's a mite concerned about why she's asking, and she explains that he's just been injected with the larvae, and not the antihistamine he thought he was getting. She's got the cure, and the only way for him to get it is to help her get her husband out of the brig.
Back in the brig, Lucas is zapping Jim for information on where Taylor is, but Jim's not putting out. Instead he snarls things like, "What the hell did he do to make you hate him so much?" Jim asks what happened in Somalia, and Lucas tells this ridiculous story about how when the rebels took the city, they lined up all the civilians and let the enemy soldiers pick one family member to save, which is utterly ludicrous, and Taylor had to choose between his wife and his kid. Lucas figures the soldiers would have just executed him, but they "took their time" with his mom. Jim says the rebels made Taylor choose, and Lucas can't blame his father for that. "No, he blamed me," says Lucas, and gets back to the torturing, which is stopped when a sweaty Weaver comes in to tell Lucas that they found his father's camp and they've got an assault team ready to roll. Lucas bounces on out of there and orders Weaver to keep Jim alive. Which he will do, after a fashion, I suppose.
Weaver and Jim somehow hobble their way through the guarded colony, searchlights everywhere, back to the Shannon household, where Weaver demands the cure from Elisabeth. She zaps him in the arm, at which point we find out that she never injected him with any parasites, but she just now did inject him with a sedative. Weaver's conked out -- Josh's assessment: "Mom, that was awesome" -- and the family Shannon is making its escape.
They sneak out and hide among the huge shipping containers the army has brought to cart the meteoric ore. Then the alarms go off, with Weaver's ruse having been discovered -- Lucas has brought soldiers back to the Shannons' place, where he discovers the idiot Weaver unconscious.
Elisabeth says Skye got a message through to Taylor and someone's going to meet them to escort them back to the camp, but they've got to make it to the tree line. Fortunately, Washington shows up with a controller to disable the new perimeter detection system that she stole off a drunken guard, so it's great that this new perimeter detection had zero impact on any kind of on-screen action. They've got five minutes to get through the fence before anyone notices that the system is down, so this is some kind of amazing new detection system that can have whole sections shut down by a single low-level guard without anyone noticing.
Jim points out that they'll trace the card to Washington so she's going to have to come with them, but she says that it's a hundred yards to the tree line, and they'll never make it unless someone distracts the guards. Given the way the colonists seem to be able to come and go at will -- how exactly did Skye get a message to Taylor and receive one back? -- that's a load of garbage, but they're trying to set up a poignant scene, I suppose. She asks them to tell Taylor something for her: "Remember Cu Lao Cham." Jim's confused (big stretch) because he doesn't know what that means. Well, it's not a message for you, Jim.
So Washington runs out, and moments later there's an explosion far enough away from where they are that I suspect Washington must have teleported over there, and with the soldiers' focus pulled to the chaos of the explosion, the Shannons head for the trees, Taylor and Dunham watching them.
Wash, meanwhile, has been caught by a couple of soldiers and -- while the family races to safety -- she's dragged to Lucas and forced to her knees. He tells her to tell her where the family's gone and he might let her live. He grabs a gun and, with Taylor watching from the trees, points it at her and tells her she's got three seconds to tell him.
Taylor grabs a rifle and is about to get all shooty with it and Jim has to stop him, telling him it's suicide. So we watch as Washington simply tells Lucas that he has his father's eyes, and he shoots her and she crumples to the ground while a searchlight illuminates her nice and cinematically for the commercial break.
It's daylight when the crew arrives -- and given the infrared technology that we know the Phoenix group has and used JUST LAST EPISODE, I find it ludicrous that any of them made it out of there. And somehow the news of Washington's death has preceded them back to the resistance camp.
So the Shannons are going to get settled in, with Zoe being told by her dad that they're going to live here for a while until the bad men go away and they can go home again. Maddy, meanwhile, starts asking the soldiers about where she can find her hunky wunky boyfriend Mark. Riley tells her he's on patrol, and then is so moved by Maddy's disappointment over not getting to see her sweet baboo right this very second that she orders Dunham to go find Reynolds and take his shift. Don't worry about maintaining a disciplined watch -- love comes first, you guys!
Back at Terra Nova, Mira's returned from her trip to the Badlands with Weaver coming out to greet her and excitedly ask her how it went. She says it was good but she's more concerned about their end of the bargain being held up: she wants to get back to 2149 to see her daughter.
"When the terminus is repaired, your people are free to go," he says, brushing her off to go see what they brought back. Lucas strolls past and smirks at her, and then everyone stands around cinematically posed as Weaver pulls the tarp off -- something we don't get to see.
Back in the resistance camp following a scene in which Zoe hugs a brooding Taylor and tells him about what a "nice lady" Washington was -- so laden with sugar that I believe I now have diabetes -- Jim frets to Elisabeth about how many more people are going to die before this thing is over, what with the army bringing reinforcements and all, and she blathers on about the need for hope.
Jim goes to give Taylor Washington's message. He didn't do that already? Well, no, because then we wouldn't have been blessed with the icky scene of Jim stumbling upon his daughter playing tonsil hockey with Mark. The young couple gets understandably embarrassed and splits apart, with Mark decided he should probably get back to sentry duty.
Anyway, the message from Washington has to do with a battle the two of them were in where they were really outnumbered and decided to blow up a bridge and trap them with the enemy rather than continuing to face more enemies or some damn thing. What it all amounts to is Taylor gets the idea to blow this new bridge -- meaning Hope Plaza -- and stopping any more soldiers and mining equipment from getting through. Jim points out that it would also cut them off from the future -- no new meds, no new technology, no more colonists, just a thousand people to restart civilization. Taylor says a thousand people is a good, round number, which appears to be all Jim needs to hear to agree to this cockamamie plan. "This is our home. If we have to cut ourselves off from the future to hold on to that home, then we'll just have to survive out here with what we've got," he says, like yeah, that's exactly what Taylor's saying. But good job convincing Taylor to go with his own idea. "We'll survive. But first let's kick some ass," says Taylor, and I can't believe such a well-written show like this is in danger of not coming back for a second season.
The day, Weaver is lamenting their current inability to ship back to 2149 the three containers of meteoric ore they have just sitting there, but Lucas tells him Malcolm fixed the terminus so their employers will have it by nightfall. They toast each other, and they really need long mustaches to twirl while they cackle.
Then Skye comes in to tell Lucas that she thought about what Lucas said about his father never forgiving her, so she's thinking that maybe she's being loyal to the wrong side. We don't get to see Lucas's reaction to what is obviously a trick.
And now here's Elisabeth complaining about the plan that's apparently going to send Jim back to 2149, with him lecturing her on how they have to be prepared to fight for the life they want, which is apparently something she said to him earlier during a point when I must have fallen asleep.
Then Riley shows Jim how to rearm the pyrosonic, because I guess the plan is to blow up Hope Plaza and also kill as many innocent people as possible? Seriously, WHAT? The resistance has a rover all decked out to look exactly like the Phoenix group's equipment, but it all looks the same to me anyway. Anyway, Taylor tells everyone they're moving out in five minutes, and Elisabeth has some sort of huge syringe for Jim. He asks if it's enough, and she says it's enough to kill three normal men. Then he starts to give her a message to tell the kids but she does that thing on television where she refuses to let him say anything like that and tells him that he'll tell them himself when he comes back, because he will be coming back. Then they hug and look sad and pretty.
Back at Terra Nova, Lucas's group is similarly ready to set out, and Skye manages to get the soldier escort out of Lucas's rover by pouting that three's a crowd. And then, after the convoy is motoring along through the jungle, she stares at him and then asks, "What if I told you I knew how to get in touch with your father?" So he pulls the rover aside while the rest of the convoy continues on. I think Skye really made a mistake by not saying, "...not that this is a trap or anything." I mean, she's practically doing everything but that.
So he radios ahead to the terminus to tell them he's going back to the colony, because he's got some new information about his father. Then he asks Skye if she's really ready to lure Taylor into an ambush, and she says yes -- "Well, the ambush part, anyway," at which point Reynolds and Dunham step out, guns drawn on the isn't-he-supposed-to-be-a-genius Lucas. They steal the tag from the cargo canister on the back of Lucas's rover and stick it on their own. And then for the life of me I can't figure why anyone thinks it's a good idea to leave Skye on her own to drive a trussed-up Lucas in the rover back to the camp. But that's what happens.
And then the rest of the plan involves Reynolds and Dunham swaggering around with the other Phoenix guys at the terminus, delivering the cargo from Lucas's rover, and we can see now that Jim is in the back, and there's a brief fakeout where the ID tag doesn't scan properly like OH NO and then it does like OH THAT WAS CLOSE and then they push the canister through the terminus, Jim putting on his gas mask. You know, for safety.
And he comes out the other side in the fairly impressive-looking futuristic setting, of 2149, and the canister gets loaded into place in a storage area, and then Weaver is welcoming three old greyhairs -- even a century and a half from now, evil old white men will still rule everything -- and starts talking about the two-way pipeline to the richest resources they've ever known.
Back in Terra Nova, Skye hasn't even been able to get the rover going because she doesn't know the code and she's having a hard time "jacking the starter" and meanwhile Lucas has figured out that his dad plans to blow up the terminus, and he chatters away while Skye is distracted by working on the rover and so doesn't notice him working away on the bonds around his wrists, until he's behind her and it's too late and he bashes her head against the hood of the rover.
Then he can't get the damn thing going, and he tries radioing Hooper at the terminus, but the electrical interference is too strong and Hooper can't make out Lucas telling him that they need to get a message to Hope Plaza that it's under attack so they need to power down the terminus or risk losing it forever. Disgusted, he grabs a rifle and heads off on foot.
And now Malcolm, at the terminus, springs into -- well, "action" isn't quite the right word -- and presses a detonator that sets off a couple of sparking charges on the portal. Then he yells at Hooper and says the induction coils are blown, because his men must have damaged it when they moved it. And darn it, he's got to go all the way back to the colony to get the things he needs to fix it.
Nearby, Taylor and Elisabeth are watching, with Elisabeth fretting about where Jim's going to come back if the portal here is shut down, and Taylor reminds us again that he'll come out somewhere within three klicks of here.
Back in 2149, Weaver is still going on about the meteoric ore, and how the three canisters they've brought back contain thirty metric tonnes. Glad to see that America finally switched to metric! "Gentlemen, today you're rich. Tomorrow -- well, it's just gonna be stupid," he says. Too bad it's too late to put "It's just gonna be stupid" in the reviews for this show.
Of course, being evil old white men, being rich isn't enough, so they ask about whether they investigated the Badlands. Weaver says they did, and they can see for themselves what they found, and he moves to open up the canister that Jim's in, at which point he heads to the back of the canister, whips out the syringe and jams it into something -- which turns out to be a carnosaur that awakens, very angrily, and rather satisfyingly emerging from the canister, flattening one evil old white guy with his foot and eating another -- who rather ridiculously doesn't even look to see if the dinosaur's there but just asks Weaver if it's clear, with Weaver lying so the carnosaur will eat the guy while Weaver gets away. He runs screaming for security, and I have to wonder what kind of lousy security Hope Plaza has if it DOESN'T KNOW THERE'S A DINOSAUR STOMPING AROUND KILLING PEOPLE.
Meanwhile, Jim slips out from behind the inner back wall of the canister and starts setting up his pyrosonic in some dark recess of Hope Plaza but is interrupted by a few Phoenix guys, so it's gunfight at Hope Plaza!
Well, first we're going back to Terra Nova, where Skye has come to and radios Taylor to tell him that Lucas got away. "My guess is headed your way." Fortunately for Taylor, I guess he knows exactly which way Lucas is going to be running, so he hides off to the side and then clotheslines his son as Lucas goes running by. And now it's time for father-and-son fisticuffs! Action overload!
Back at Hope Plaza, Jim dispatches all four trained mercenaries in about ten seconds and then finishes setting up the bomb. Phoenix reinforcements arrive, and Jim distracts them by shooting one of those always-handy-in-action-dramas steam pipes, and then hightails it out of there, as explosions start popping up throughout the very-poorly-lit Hope Plaza. Wait, isn't the pyrosonic one big blast that kills everything for miles?
In Terra Nova, Taylor is pounding the ever-lovin' shit out of his own son, even using the always-entertaining slam-him-face first-off-a-tree technique, and then he says that for the first time, he's glad Lucas's mother is dead, what with the shame and all. Lucas, beaten and bloodied on the ground, says it wasn't his fault she died. "Of course it wasn't. Is that what you think?" says Taylor, staring at his son, crying on the ground, begging for forgiveness. Taylor says he's got to answer for what he's done, and Lucas scrambles to his feet, hugs his dad and saying he's sorry, and Taylor hugs him back and says Lucas is still his son -- right before Lucas knifes him in the gut, because who didn't see that coming ? Well, besides Taylor. And, of course, everyone watching.
"You arrogant fool," says Lucas, as Taylor collapses. Lucas's diatribe on how Taylor should be begging for his forgiveness is interrupted by a shot from Skye, wounding him. He stares at her for a moment, then lunges to finish Taylor off, prompting the kill shot from Skye. She attends to a weakening Taylor, and apologizes for killing his son. As you do.
In 2149, Jim still isn't finished outracing the random explosions that are happening among the pipes in the dark corners of Hope Plaza, but he's brought up short by Weaver, bitching about how much he's cost them. Fortunately, the progressing explosions that were just on Jim's tail stop suddenly. And then Weaver gets eaten by the carnosaur, and Jim races on back down the long ramp to the portal, followed by the carnosaur once it's done chewing on Weaver. And the random explosions start again, along the ramp, as Jim heads for the portal, past guards who are flinging themselves over the railing and plummeting the hundreds of feet of open space below the gangway that makes it look more cool and futury.
Then there's a flash in the jungle in Terra Nova, and Jim's back, and the dinosaur doesn't seem to have followed him through.
Skye helps Taylor to his feet, at which point they realize Lucas isn't there anymore. Lucas is either some kind of ninja, or Skye is just really terrible at noticing things happening right in front of her.
And this big to-do over how the fracture dumps you somewhere else, which had Elisabeth worried, turns out not to be a big deal, because Elisabeth and the search party find Jim instantly, and he's all, "Told you I'd be back," and then they start making out.
But we're not done yet. It's nighttime, and Mira shows up at the terminus, where she finds out from Hooper that Hope Plaza's been blown up. "We're stuck here. Forever," he says, and Mira stares into the middle distance, telling us that Mama Bear is going to have something to say about this, season! You know, if there were going to be a season.
Over in the resistance camp, everyone's sitting around moping about the terminus being closed for good, and the Shannon family plus Skye get to hog the campfire.
Then Dunham brings a comm to Taylor, recuperating from his physical and psychic wounds, telling him Boylan's on the other end. Boylan tells him that Phoenix picked up and moved out about fifteen minutes ago. But they're not after the refugees. They headed north, although he doesn't know why.
So the resistance trudges home -- presumably after Taylor sent someone on ahead to make sure Boylan didn't throw in with Phoenix and was leading them into a trap -- for a happy reunion with the rest of the colonists.
And soon Taylor's back on his deck, looking out over the colonists as they set about cleaning up the place. Jim comes up the steps to suck up over how it's good to see him back where he belongs. It's a mutual lovefest, because Taylor's pretty impressed with what Jim pulled back at Hope Plaza, which, again, seems to have included hundreds dead. Then Reynolds shows up to tell them that before the Phoenix convoy -- a dozen vehicles, a hundred men -- headed out of range, they were spotted going to the badlands. Jim remembers that the container they switched out had something Weaver brought back from the Badlands, so they all decide to go find what it was.
They open up the original Phoenix container, which has some large object wrapped in burlap. They uncover it -- it's a wooden statue of a woman, from the prow of a ship. Malcolm, who knows everything, says it's from the eighteenth century. "How did a ship from any century wind up in the Badlands?" asks Jim. I think the answer may be that the writers watched too much Lost? And now it's question time for everyone! Elisabeth wants to know how it got to this time period, Taylor wonders what else is waiting for them out in the Badlands, and Jim asks why Phoenix headed out there as soon as they were cut off from 2149? All good questions! Too bad we will never know the answers to them.
Jim and Elisabeth head home, discussing how Taylor wants to keep the prow a secret until they know more about what's going on, and they find their kids out on the porch, watching the skies. "Maddy claims there's a meteor shower tonight," says Josh, but they haven't seen anything yet. "One's coming. I know it," says Zoe, and the last image of this season, possibly this series, is the Shannon family watching meteors streak across the night sky. And thus endeth Terra Nova, with a finale that wasn't that bad. I mean, all the characters are still morons, but at least there's a decent amount of action. Is there any reason why people can't get eaten by dinosaurs every episode? I don't believe there is.
Daniel is a writer with a wife and daughter in Newfoundland. He thinks the advice his father gave him is best: if you're ever being stalked by a carnosaur, look for yourself to see if it's gone before you run blindly right into its maw. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.