Episode Report Card LuluBates: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT V is for Visa
By LuluBates | Season 1 | Episode 3 | Aired on 11.17.2009
mileage record. He pulls up to the most recent address he could find for George Sutton and he just walks on into the house. I guess as a priest you can get away with breaking and entering if you swear you are on a Mission from God. He walks around the house, which is apparently on Staten Island (the loneliest borough), looking for clues to find out who is George Sutton. He finds a picture of a young girl (which can't bode well) and the wall is papered in clippings documenting a Staten Island family who was murdered. He is caught red-handed mid-snoop by a neighbor who wants to know what he is doing in there. He doesn't have a great excuse, so he just points at his clerical collar. She accepts it and explains that George hasn't lived there since the murders. Father Jack has no idea what she is talking about, so she explains that George's entire family was killed and he went a little crazy after that, blaming aliens for his family's killing. The priest looks stunned although if he was like, say, Father Dowling, he would have been able to make the leap from the wall clippings to the fire fueling George's hatred of the Vs. Father Jack gives the neighbor his card, and asks her to pass along the message that he was at the warehouse and is looking for him.Back at the coffee shop, Cyrus and Ryan are still catching up. When Ryan tells him that he has to get the Fifth Column back together, Cyrus won't enlist, but promises him the names and numbers of others who might. It's the best he can do right now He is in the middle of remodeling, you know? And rebellions don't pay as well as they used to. There is something about the way Ryan and Cyrus keep talking about the good old days and Ryan's attempts to re-start the rebellion that feels like a bunch of middle aged men sitting around talking about their high school football days and maybe getting the team back together to win the state championship. I sort of expect him to start whistling "Glory Days" or production on Rocky VII. Cyrus heads back to the kitchen to get the info and asks Ryan to grab his glasses for him. When Ryan follows him into the back, Cyrus has pulled a gun on him. Ryan does not look particularly surprised by this turn of events. He reaches under a counter and finds a red button-y scanner-y thing. Cyrus has the gun trained on him and explains that he is going to turn him over to the Vs in exchange for being reconnected to "The Bliss". Ryan tries to reason with him, because they are never going to reconnect him, they are just going to get as many Fifth Column members as they can from him and then skin him. The Bliss is how Anna controlled them for so many years -- he is just a junkie with junkie hair. They tussle for the gun. Ryan wins, points the gun at his head, and reminds him that he has to be alive to be reconnected.
At the Visitors' Visitor Center, Erica is still investigating the death threat against the Vs. If you call in a death threat to the FBI, is that like trying to commit suicide via baby aspirin overdose and actually just a cry for help? Because if you are really going to kill someone wouldn't you just do it? It's like in (spoiler alert?) Austin Powers when Seth Green just wants to shoot the super spy, but Dr. Evil insists on a wildly elaborate scheme. If you're serious, you just do it. Erica and her partner are perched up at a vantage point, surveying the crowd. Obviously she notices that a guard is missing, not her V counterpart. She is the one who finds the downed guard and sends out the alert that the shooter is wearing a V uniform. And it is intrepid Agent Erica who spies the suspected killer making his way into the visitor center and tackles him to the ground while the crack V security just stands there looking mopey. She hands the killer over to the Visitors for holding. There is something really off-putting about how Agent Erica is the only person -- FBI or V -- who ever does anything police-y on this show. Even when she is in a room full of security, it is still a one-woman show. It just seems unrealistic, like someone is just off-camera saying, "Back off, folks, let the star do her thing." Maybe it looks more egregious because she doesn't have a partner to share in the action, but she wasn't the only agent the FBI called in, yet she was clearly running the entire show.
One Visitor missed all the action, because she was sitting alone staring at an empty table at a pizza joint. Hoping, just hoping, that out of all the pizza joints in all the world, meathead Tyler will happen to walk into this one. He does. His jowly friend Brandon managed to string together four whole sentences to set it up, too. Brandon makes like a banana and splits so Tyler can grin stupidly at Lisa in private. She was granted her visa today and all she could think about was reconnecting with Tyler. She adds that she spoke to the Council today and Tyler has been reinstated in the Junior Peace Ambassador program. He grins again and watches her through the strands of his greasy hair.
Erica marches her prisoner through the gray lino-lined hallways of the Vs' municipal building. Her boss and her V security counterpart accompany her so that they can pretend they earned their paychecks today. Then they surprise Erica by taking her prize away -- the Vs will be taking custody of him. Her boss doesn't bother explaining beyond that, much like Denise Richards, "It's complicated". Erica looks quizzical, but her boss doesn't elaborate. Erica hands the prisoner over to the Vs and her boss tells her to meet him outside. She decides to go snooping instead. She heads to the door where earlier she saw the Visitor entering the secret access code. She pushes the button sequence once, but hits the wrong sequence of buttons. She tries again and succeeds in unlocking the door. She walks in and finds the Vs' real surveillance room. It's not just the building, but the entire city of New York. She touches one floating screen and she can suddenly see and hear some joggers who are talking to one of the Visitors' Junior Peace Ambassadors. She touches another screen and can see and hear an NYC street scene (strangely no public urination, though). She notices that she is on one of the screens. She enlarges it and sees that indeed it is her and she is being watched while she's watching the screens. It's all so heady, I'm sure Foucault would be proud. She snaps her fingers in order to echolocate the camera and finds the camera embedded on the Visitor's uniform that is hanging on the back of the door. She puts the uniform down and scurries out of the room right before her knuckleheaded son and his hot V girlfriend walk onscreen. They are both in uniform.
Anna prepares her words of condolence and practices looking human. She has to practice a lot because true sorrow is hard to fake. Morena Baccarin is really a fantastic actress. The way she makes subtle shifts in inflection to completely change the meaning of the words. The way her eyes completely change expression each time she starts over. You know how Tyra Banks is always trying to teach her Top Model wannabes to tell a story with their eyes and she always gets a blank stare, an ogle, and if she's lucky someone gets some glitter in their eye and starts to tear up? Tyra would be really proud of Morena Baccarin right now. I mean if Tyra was capable of human emotion. Anna manages to manifest a tear just in time for her Executive Assistant to come fetch her. Outside, a beleaguered woman dressed in black pulls up in a car. She steps out of the car, seemingly headed towards the protesters standing outside the Visitors' Visitor Center. It is Mary Faulkner, the woman who was widowed on the day of the Vs' arrival. Anna opens a door blocking her path to the protesters. She asks Mary if she can have a moment of her time. Mary isn't particularly interested in hearing what Anna has to say, but Anna uses all her hard won sympathy skills (use active listening, Anna!) to convince Mary that all she wants to do is offer her heartfelt condolences. She ex