Episode Report Card LuluBates: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Red Sky
By LuluBates | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 05.18.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Erica receives an intriguing invitation through Tyler: Anna wants the four of them -- herself, Erica, Tyler, and Lisa -- to have an intimate little dinner together aboard the mothership. Erica plans to come for the food and stay for the opportunity to blow the shit out of Anna's soldier-eggs. There are just a number of logistical issues to be overcome. First and chief among these is the fact that Joshua is forced to ditch his secret communication device before his part in the plan can be finalized, so he decides it's time to call in that favor Lisa owes him. Father Jack tries to get a message up to Joshua through Chad, hoping that the message will be cryptic enough to keep everyone out of trouble while testing Chad's loyalties. Chad flunks that test with flying colors, and Joshua is exposed and confined. Joshua does his best to convince Chad that the Vs are not our friends, and tells him where to look for proof. Sure enough, Chad secretly finds the chamber of horrors, but it's not immediately clear what his next move is other than to have to listen to some of Anna's veiled threats.
Kyle's job, meanwhile, is to keep Marcus off the ship during the operation. That goes well enough, but Marcus has an agenda of his own: he expects Kyle to infiltrate the Fifth Column and spy on them for the Vs, counting on Kyle's history of retail loyalty. Kyle doesn't offer a discount for having half the job completed already.
What else is going wrong with the plan? Well, the tiny purse Erica used to smuggle a tiny bomb aboard is confiscated before dinner, and the scheduled diversion Joshua was supposed to create doesn't seem to be materializing. Fortunately, when Erica makes an excuse to leave the table, Lisa "busts" her, tells her she's on her side, gives her a new and better blue energy bomb, then springs Joshua so he can create the diversion as planned. Erica finds her way to the (unattended) egg chamber so she can blow the place to shit, which she does. And then she kills Joshua, at his insistence, to keep herself above suspicion. Which also works, and Erica and Tyler leave after Anna assures them that Joshua was a human in a V uniform.
In other news, Val has been rudely abducted, right in the middle of labor. Upon hearing that Val's been nabbed, Ryan bulls his way up onto the ship, but only because Anna wants to take a shot at bringing him back to her side anyway. Out of Ryan's sight, Val pops the little beastie out, and then is killed by Anna. Afterward, she denies the latter act to Ryan, and offers to take Val's place. And then she hauls off and Blisses him. As for the child, we don't get a look at it, but we know it makes electronically altered cooing noises and has a digital reptilian tail.
Even after such a busy evening, Erica and Kyle make it back to the church in time to hear Father Jack commit professional suicide, speaking out against the Vs to the congregation in defiance of Father Travis's orders and all but clearing the place out before getting his own ass fired. But Chad's there too, and it looks like he's chosen his side.
Given all the irons she's had in the fire, it's perhaps understandable that Anna's so slow to discover the massacre of her soldier eggs. She gives quite an impressive emotional display for a first-timer, ugly-cry and all. In revenge, Anna does something that turns the skies worldwide to a roiling pink. Prematurely or not, she's getting Biblical on humanity's ass.
And finally, Joshua is brought back to life, presumably so Marcus can ask him who he was working with. If Erica's serious about fighting Vs, she's really going to have to get a lot better at killing them.
--M. Giant
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Under the cover of darkness, Anna's Soldier is feasting on venison sushi. No, not at the latest Emeril Lagasse restaurant. His CGI mouth with its 962* teeth (*not all shown) are neck deep in dead deer in a darkened wood. He hears something (us?) and loses the jaw but gains some pretty reptilian eyes. All the better for seeing your beating heart, my dear. Elsewhere in the daylight, Val is hard at labor with Dr. Pearlman's assistance. Val is lying in bed, panting, whinging, and is two-centimeters dilated. Some women are waxing the floors and making meatloaf at two centimeters, but it does not surprise me at all that Val is flat on her back and whining. Dr. Pearlman pats her on the shoulder and uses her vast intergalactic medical knowledge to tell Val that the baby is coming. Val asks Dr. Pearlman for a fateful glass of water. You know in the story The Beauty and The Beast where Beauty asks her dad for a single rose and it sounds easy enough but he swipes it from the Beast's gardens and Beauty ends up in indentured sex slavery to repay the Beast for the cost of the rose? This was just like that. Dr. Pearlman goes to get the water, opens the door and The Soldier is standing there. He smashes her across the room while Val screams. Then he grabs Val.
Things are happier and less shitty in other parts of the world. Erica is pouring Tyler his orange juice while he moodily eats his brekkie. Erica smacks him around (with kindness!) until he confesses that Anna invited them to dinner Chez Alien. Erica surprises Tyler by quickly agreeing to break bread with Anna and Lisa. Tyler runs off to tell Lisa the good news, while Erica runs off to call Father Jack. She has a plan. At the church, Ryan is M.I.A., so Erica tells Father Jack and Kyle her plan. Tyler is joining the Live Aboard Program and there is nothing she can do about that, but she can try and stop Anna from birthing those babies. She is going to charge aboard the ship and blow the shit out of it. Kyle, obviously, really likes this plan. Father Jack, obviously, has some doubts. He points out that none of them have ever been up there and have no idea where the egg nursery (hatchery?) is on the ship. Erica concedes that point, so they call up their Man on the Ship, Joshua. He declares the plan impossible. Actually he said "Kim Possible" but he watches WAY too much Disney Channel. Ever since they done blowed up that shuttle, Anna has had the ship on lockdown. It is too hard to get around, even for him. Besides, there are only two ways into the hatchery: Through a guarded corridor and through a secret passage in Anna's bedroom. Erica quickly explains that she has been invited to dinner in Anna's chamber and can sneak in to the hatchery between courses. Joshua exclaims, "That's so Raven!" while Kyle reminds him that he has to create a diversion to distract Anna while Erica does her darndest to blow those eggs into alien omelets. Joshua will do his best, but he needs to know that they will really be there before he risks everything on his end. He has to go because his Fifth Column cohort has an urgent message: Anna has released a new fleet of guards. They are searching everyone. Joshua has to ditch the communication device or risk being outed as a closet Fifth Column fan.
Erica, Father Jack, and Kyle show up at Ryan's house with an Edible Arrangement, an entire season of Emeril: Kicking it Up a Notch--BAM!, and a Whitman's Sampler. But he is still having a sad. In fact, he is too sad to even sit in a chair and instead is hunched on the floor like he is hyperventilating and needs better circulation. Erica asks him what's up and he tersely answers that he needed his phone line free because Val is having his baby. Everyone looks surprised. Especially because he has an iPhone and they do have call waiting on top of a variety of other useful functions. They then explain that Erica is going to blow the Mothership out of the sky. The prospect of blowing shit up snaps Ryan out of his funk and he quickly grabs his car keys and Certs, because he's going with her. Erica wants him to stay in case Val needs him, but Ryan protests, "Damn, woman, I have an iPhone! She can call me." Erica remains firm, but Ryan wants to know how she is going to get out from under both Anna and No. 2's watchful eyes. Kyle steps forward and volunteers to get No. 2 off the ship. He pretends he has never met the man before, but knows that as No. 1 on the V's Most Wanted List, No. 2 will probably heed his call. They have a plan!
Up on the Mothership, Anna is painting her nursery green and humming lullabies to her pretty pretty soldier eggs. They are almost ready to hatch and she is just bursting with pride. No. 2 joins her to report that the armada from the home planet has arrived early. They are cloaked and within striking range of earth. Anna smiles at the news, but orders the ships to remain cloaked until they are ready for the next stage. After the soldier babies are hatched and the ships uncloak, earth won't know what hit it. Oh, I think when thousands of flesh-eating soldiers and hundreds of alien crafts appear in the sky, earth will have some sense of the shit storm raining down on them. We're smart like that.
Kyle has realized that Joshua's communication device has stopped working and they have no means to get in touch with him. Father Jack demands that without Joshua's support Erica has to abandon the plan. Geez, what a wussy. Kyle suggests they skywrite a message to Joshua, which isn't half bad, really. Father Jack has a much much worse idea: Use Chad Decker to deliver a message. Erica and Kyle are like, dude, have you been sipping from the communion cup again? Because that is the WORST idea since the time Ryan thought it would be super easy to blow up that space shuttle. Father Jack promises to write the message in a code he got off his Little Saint Josephine Secret Decoder Ring, so if Chad delivers the message to Anna, she won't be able to understand the note. And if Chad gives the note to Joshua, mission accomplished! Erica and Kyle are both stunned by the stupidity of this plan that they don't have the strength to argue.
Ryan's phone finally rings. Dr. Pearlman breathlessly announces that the Visitors took Val. She fails to mention that she is a crap fighter. Ryan grabs his coat and marches down to the Visitors' Visitor Center. He closes his eyes and starts punching. Anna watches the turmoil and decides they should let him on board. He is an interesting specimen and she would like to...um, study him. Alone, in her quarters, without his shirt on. No. 2 looks offended because he is basically Smithers to her Mr. Burns and is so obviously in love with her. Anna straightens her tie (well, she would if she was wearing one) and restates her case: Ryan resisted her Bliss, fell in love with a human, joined the Fifth Column (no, not the boy band), and spawned a baby. If she can turn him back to her, she can turn anyone. No. 2 almost believes her, but then she licks her lips and fixes her hair.
Somehow Father Jack has gotten Chad Decker's phone number and left him a message. Chad shows up at the church wearing his quizzical face. Jack explains that "one of his parishioners" gave him an urgent message that has to be delivered to the Mothership. He doesn't know who it has to be delivered to exactly, but Chad can just leave it in the medical bay. Um...nice move, Father Jack. You totally just set Joshua up to go down. Brilliant plan. Chad doesn't believe that there are any Visitors in the Fifth Column, but Father Jack swears that even Anna's own people-like subjects are turning against her. He then places all of his eggs in Chad's basket and tells him that Anna is setting up the Fifth Column as a terrorist organization and Chad is helping her do it. Chad looks a bit chastened, but also doesn't totally believe it. Although it is kind of hard to call a priest a liar. Father Jack pleads with Chad to deliver the message.
Up on the ship, Joshua is taking a risk of his own. He tells Lisa that he is cashing in on the favor she owes him for faking