Episode Report Card LuluBates: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT God Bless You, George Sutton
By LuluBates | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 04.13.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Ten years ago, the Visitors came for John May. Who did they send? A certain V named Ryan Nichols. Even more exciting than that is: John May is played by Anders from Battlestar Galactica! They decide to track down John May's stepson, but they don't know that he is simultaneously ignorant, sort of stupid, and his girlfriend is a V sleeper agent. Erica and Kyle entrap her via a lack of football knowledge (she was TOTALLY thinking soccer) and off her in the kitchen. But guess what? Proof that his girlfriend was a lizard means the stepson is totally on their side now. With his help, they track down the communication device that allows them to talk with Joshua on the mothership. Joshua doesn't even know that Georgie is on board, but promises to go find him. While they wait for news, Ryan decides to tell John May's stepson the truth about his stepfather. John May didn't commit suicide, because Ryan killed him. But he did it for the right reasons -- keeping him out of the hands (claws?) of the Visitors who wanted to capture him. Ryan explains that John May taught him how to be a human. He taught him how to love. This is some how comforting to everyone instead of incredibly fucked up -- I mean, DUDE, you KILLED him! Yet it's comforting even to his co-rebels who totally thought John May was alive and was going to help rally the troops. Ryan adds that every time John May's name is mentioned, an angel gets its wings and Anna gets a wrinkle.
Pregnancy does not agree with Anna, but she has no time for morning sickness, she has an evil mission to jumpstart! So who you gonna call? Chad Decker, of course. Anna uses his news broadcast as a personal soap box to extol the virtues of the Live Aboard Program and to downplay the "John May Lives" message that Ryan and Joshua embedded into her announcement last week. But Chad remembers his discussion with the priest (because, really, you can't lie to a priest and still consider yourself a good person, right?) and is trying to figure out whether the Live Aboard Program and the Healing Centers are as safe as the Visitors want them to believe. He starts finding an interesting pattern among the "lucky few" selected to live aboard the program in that they tend to be brilliant or hyper-fertile or otherwise blessed (is hyper-fertile a blessing?) people who are some how broken or unlucky and haven't lived up to their potential. But wait, there's more: Instead of taking it to the priest, though, he takes it to Anna and confronts her with the story. She promises to keep Chad in the loop and far from his fears of an ordinary life if he keeps it to himself.
Lisa, Tyler's alien girlfriend, has shown up at Tyler's dad's house uninvited and at the encouragement of her mom, Anna, who wants her to get Tyler's teenage behind on the mothership. Lisa eavesdrops on a private conversation between Erica and Tyler's dad (hive minds do not lend themselves to a sense of privacy) and finds out the big secret: Tyler's dad is not really Tyler's dad. Which I guess means I will have to learn his name. When not-Dad wants to tell Tyler the truth, Erica explains the situation to Father Jack while seeking counsel: Apparently after Tyler's motorcycle accident, routine blood tests revealed that Tyler wasn't related to his father. Erica thought it was a mistake, but the dad didn't. Obviously, Lisa tells Tyler the news, and then his "dad" confirms it. Tyler is not happy. He comes back to cry and yell at Erica for awhile and then storms off.
Val finds a secret safe buried in the back of Ryan's closet. Why would a wealthy stockbroker in Manhattan have a safe?? Obviously something nefarious is going on. She hires a locksmith to get to the bottom of the mystery. Inside she finds some of the clues to Ryan's secret life. And she does not like what she finds. She takes off before Ryan can explain.
While the Fab Four struggles to come up with a plan to get Georgie off the mothership, things are going pretty badly for Georgie Sutton. The Vs have gotten some inspiration from the Wrath of Khan and insert some bug like torture devices in him, and then Anna fills his head with the memories of the Visitors slaughtering his family. She does have a way with people. Georgie can't take much more, and when Joshua finally finds him and puts him in touch with the team on the ground, he bids them farewell and has Father Jack offer last rites. Then Joshua eases Georgie out of the mortal coil.
Watch the episode here, discuss it in our forums, then refresh your V-knowledge with our guide to the A to Z of V. And check back soon for the full recap!
Melissa Locker a.k.a. Lulu Bates is a writer in New York City who is never going in a hot tub with Anna. You can follow her on Twitter @woolyknickers.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ten years ago in Reedsville, New York, which, according to Google Maps, is not a town that actually exists. Perhaps they are worried about alien retaliation if they use a real town? Either way it will be great to fuel the alternate reality rumors that are surely spilling over from Lost. It is evening and a man sits in his study making fishing flies (do people in the exurbs do that sort of thing? Maybe he's making ammo). when the table shakes and the lights flicker. His son rushes in convinced that he saw a UFO, but his dad reassures him there is no such thing as UFOs and rushes him back to bed. The second the kid is out of the room, the guy picks up a phone, hastily dials a number and announces, "They came for me. Tell the others I'm going dark." He hangs up his phone and picks up a shotgun. By the way, the man is played by Michael Trucco, who will forever be Samuel Anders to me. He runs outside with his gun and sees a V ship de-cloak (I guess that Klingon technology is real!) overhead. He scurries through the underbrush when out of the darkness and fully armed steps...Ryan (??) He and John May tussle, but when Ryan steps in a wolf trap (a wolf trap and a ten-year old boy do make for some exciting birthday parties), John May points the gun at his head. Ryan spews some vitriol about John May turning against his own kind, but John May returns the harsh words saying that Bliss is a drug and human emotions are the real thing. Yeah, Up With People! Ryan claims that John May has just been in his skin sack too long and his cold blood is fading. Ryan instructs him to kill him now, because he will NEVER stop hunting him. John May stupidly lowers the gun, because he is pro-life and tells Ryan that someday he will understand. Then he bolts. The show awkwardly cuts to Ryan in the present. Maybe the editor was taking a Mentos Moment and couldn't be bothered to edit properly. It's hard to tell whether Ryan is simply remembering this scene or whether he has just finished recounting it to the Fab Four. Kyle doesn't know who John May is and Ryan quickly explains that John started the resistance against the Visitors...and Ryan sort of knew him. Erica and Father Jack are shocked that Ryan didn't mention that he knew him before, but Ryan shrugs that he's not much of a name dropper and they aren't leaving Georgie to die, like those two things are related somehow. Ryan is determined to get back on the ship and rescue Georgie and Erica agrees. Kyle however doesn't, because his entire point on the show thus far is to be a foil and to disagree with everything anyone says. Keep it up, Kyle, the Foreign Press is watching! Kyle doesn't think that Georgie is weak, but he does have a breaking point and whatever information Georgie has will end up in the hands of the Visitors. Ryan disagrees. Beneath that squidgy bearded body is a Man of Iron who will never break under V torture. But wait, Kyle, doesn't that mean you should rescue Georgie NOW before he can give up any information? Are you just disagreeing because you have to? Ryan then realizes that he doesn't agree with his own rescue plan. Instead he wants to go find John May's long lost communication device and his next of kin and get in touch with Joshua up on the ship. Hopefully Joshua can organize a rescue. Even Kyle likes this new plan.
Up on the old V homestead, pregnancy is not agreeing with Anna at all. She pulls up a mirror to see if she looks as bad as she feels and sure enough she does, but not for long! She concentrates and suddenly looks as lovely as Morena Baccarin as Anna, but not as pretty as Inara, and almost as attractive as Michael Cera. So, I know the Vs have advanced technology and their skin is grown in a lab, but how long until Neutrogena puts out a product that can do THAT? And do the Vs' healing centers address dermatological issues? Because I am pretty sure women would go there for free oxygen facials, dermabrasions, and chemical peels, even if the Vs are kind of creepy. The Visitors could also use their technology to predict pimples the way they predicted Chad Decker's aneurysm. You could plan your big days around them, like, don't get married June 6th you'll have a pimple to rival Eyjafjallajokull. And if the Visitors say that the R6 reduces wrinkles and prevents the flu, women will be lining up. Heck, the Visitors could even tell them they were reptiles and who would care, because: LOOK AT THEIR SKIN! It's glowing! Girls are kinda stupid like that. No. 2 comes to give his morning report. Georgie is not responding to the memory chamber, which I assume is that laser light show they made Tyler suffer through last week. Although Tyler didn't seem to mind it, but maybe they let him take a toke first. Anyway, No.2 doesn't think Georgie is going to cave anytime soon and they aren't getting any information from him. Anna tells him to kick it up a notch with Georgie. Maybe show him Emeril reruns. That would make anyone crack. No. 2 also tells Anna that there is a resistance growing among the humans invited to the Live Aboard Program. Anna frowns and orders No. 2 to find Chad Decker. What, no Chad Decker Bat Phone yet? She wants to take to the air to convince the humans herself. She wants "those bodies on board". Ooh are they going to be human incubators? Shocking! Except that we have all seen Aliens. Almost twenty years ago. Yawn.
Tyler's Dad lives in Georgetown, Connecticut, a town that is lucky enough to reside between Norwalk and Danbury. Also, to actually exist. Tyler's Dad heads off with newspaper and coffee into his office, only to be surprised by a lithesome (and loathsome) blonde buttoning her shirt on the way out. Can't a man use his bathroom anymore without risk of catching herpes from a V hussy?? Now he's going to have get a whole new toilet. But before he heads off to Home Depot, he would like to know WHO THE HELL SHE IS. She smiles and says she's Lisa, Tyler's girlfriend. Dad's confused, when did she get there? Who invited her? Who said she could stay? She smiles coldly and says she just wanted to come check on Tyler. She remembers what she learned from Tyler's memory extractor and Human Emotion lessons and quickly tells him that Tyler's been having a really rough time since his dad left and she wanted to make sure he was okay. Dad's irritation quickly turns to guilt over abandoning the family and instead of grilling Lisa as to what exactly she is doing there adjusting her clothes and using his goddamn bathroom, he asks if Tyler ever talks about him. Lisa knows she has won this round and reassures him that Tyler never said anything bad about him. Tyler's pop is REALLY out of practice in being a dad, because trust me, if a strange girl had wandered out of my dad's bathroom first thing in the morning, there would have been some pretty alien butt on the porch with a door shut in her face pretty darn quickly. But Lisa just trots downstairs for breakfast as if she owned the damn place. Next thing you know, Ty and his dad are going to be putting the toilet seat down and using napkins. Downstairs, Tyler hurriedly explains that he slept on the couch and then begs his dad to let Lisa interrupt their guy time. You see, he really likes her. Yeah and John really liked Yoko before she ate him and spawned an army of Nickelback fans.
Anna has called Chad Decker to the ship so she can try to explain away the hacked message that appeared on the bottom of the ship during her announcement of the Live Aboard Program. She claims that they simply can't explain the message because they think it was a glitch, some old code. Some day they will all be laughing about this! Ha ha ha, John May! She then changes the subject to her excitement about the Live Aboard Program and a chance to repay the hospitality the succulent and delicious earthlings have shown them during their stay. You know, before they leave. Anna is great at slip