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The team speculates that the 538 worldwide Concordia sites aren't just energy sources, but docking stations for a fleet of motherships more than 500 strong. Obviously, they're not about to let that plan go ahead. Sid figures out a way to sabotage the new blue energy reactor going up in New York, so that humanity will freak out and rise up against it like we did with nuclear. What could go wrong? They're doing it using a couple of blue energy balls stolen by Lisa. The problem with the plan -- which they don't know -- is that weaponizing the blue energy could cause an explosion that wipes out everything in a hundred miles. Diana warns Lisa, and Lisa warns Ryan, but obviously Ryan has a little trouble convincing the team to trust him. At the last moment, Erica decides it's not worth the risk and calls it off. And after Anna fixes the resulting blackout, blue energy is more popular than ever. At least, until Chad puts She-Chad up to blaming blue energy, live on the air. But that only gets her stupid ass fired, just as Anna wanted.
Anna's other project is figuring out how to control human emotions. Since plan A isn't working, she decides to try blissing humans. Even though it makes Anna cry tears of blood, it works on a test subject -- and then on Tyler, who was just about to reconcile with Erica. Marcus, back at work but keeping his recent meeting with Diana a secret, seems satisfied that Anna's solved the emotion problem, until he witnesses Amy melting his queen's cold, green heart.
Joshua's memory comes back at a crucial moment: just in time to save Lisa from getting busted while returning the blue energy she stole. So that's two more allies for the Fifth Column -- if we also count Diana, who gets to meet the team via hologram.
But they'll have to move fast, because Anna's egg is almost ready to hatch, and those 500-odd motherships? They're here.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!At some kind of groundbreaking ceremony in the industrial outskirts of the city, the sound of applauding thousands washes over a rainswept field. Which is odd, because there are like 50 people there and they're all too busy holding their umbrellas to clap. Erica's present, as are Tyler and Lisa apart from her, all looking pretty blank and thus fitting in with the visual mood of the scene if not the aural one. Anna steps up onto the stage between a couple of blue energy orbs on poles and silences the cheers with a gesture -- or, more likely, a hidden button to stop the recording. If the Visitors were really here, sitcoms would still have laugh tracks. Anna delivers a speech about sharing technology and how the new Concordia sites -- plural -- are all about that. Her address is also being simulcast on subtitled Jumbotrons in Beijing, Macau, and Tokyo, where it's also daylight even though there's a twelve-hour time difference, and where also nobody cares. With a gesture, Anna cues the two blue energy balls sharing the stage with her, and they go full-on Frankenstein. At the sight of the terrifying, mysterious, 1950s sci-fi lightning, everyone applauds (visibly this time) except Erica, who looks at Anna from the audience like she just shaved her dog. Which is actually not that far from the case.
Kyle and Jack are watching the news coverage of the event. Chad's doing a live stand-up, talking up the new blue energy plants. But his new counterpart Kerry (or She-Chad, as I'm calling her) is playing her skeptic's role to the hilt. In fact, she compares Concordia to a candy store where everything's free. "Be careful what you eat. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." That'll play well on Jon Stewart tonight. Instead of responding, Chad turns to cast a guilty look at Anna, so I guess the remote Chadcast is over, without so much as a self-congratulatory signoff.
Anna's still on the stage, just having a quiet conversation with Mr. Turtleneck off to one side. They tell each other what they already know, purely for our benefit: now they can start building Concordia sites around the world, "landing sites for the breeding ships will be ready," and "the annihilation of humanity can begin." Anna had better hope nobody in the crowd of dozens has a parabolic microphone, or the ability to read lips, or two neurons to rub together.
Erica heads to her car, but Tyler in his V-pilot jacket and his slightly-less-dorky new haircut stop her. They have a moment under their umbrellas. It's very Four Weddings and a Funeral. Erica says she brought him something, and reaches into her SUV for his dead dad's biker jacket. Tyler slips out of his V jacket and into his dad's, while Anna watches unhappily from across the lot, clearly not failing to recognize the symbolism that's literally obvious from even a hundred yards away. Tyler comes over all emotional, apologizing to Erica for blaming her after Joe's death. Anna looks increasingly pissed as she sees Tyler and Erica hug. Erica invites Tyler over for dinner, and he accepts and walks off, smiling back at her and carrying his V jacket folded under his arm. Erica drives off, past a sinister shot of Ryan watching her go by in his rearview mirror. He'd better not sit around there too much longer if he wants to beat the traffic.
Up on the mothership, No. 2 visits Diana in her swampy bilge (that sounded dirtier than I meant it to, but I'm keeping it), looking very out of place. Although maybe that's because the crappy CGI sets on this show make every actor in every room of the mothership look like a moving Colorform. No. 2 is pretty confused, not to say surprised, that Diana's still alive, and wonders why Anna did this to her. "Human emotion," Diana says simply. As an example of Anna's feelings, she points out the premature-Red-Sky thing, which Marcus downplays. "Anna has exhibited no further signs," he says. Diana points out that Anna disagreed with her 15 years ago when Diana decided to ditch the mission. "Her first emotion, pride, caused her to betray me. Under her leadership, our enemies have grown stronger." Strong enough to almost kill No. 2, in fact, as she points out while stepping forward to put a hand over his wrong-sided heart. When he asks her to get to the point, Diana cites his loyalty to the species, and he says that's why he has to report this meeting to his queen. "I am your queen, Marcus." Diana snaps. And while she's at it, she points out that this little side project where Anna's trying to remove the human soul is as stupid as we viewers already knew it was. No. 2. leaves without arguing the point.
At Fifth Column HQ, Sid has called an emergency meeting of everyone. Which, everyone being himself, Erica, Jack, Kyle and Chad, is a little sad. He unveils a 3-D model of a Concordia site and says that the blue energy reactor set to be installed in the middle of it is way too big for what it's supposed to do. As an example, the little holo-device Erica and Ryan stole from Malik's safe the last time I recapped this show? It's also powered by blue energy -- about half a watt. Why am I not surprised that the standard unit of V energy is the half-watt? Compared to that little vPod Nano™, the Concordia reactors would generate "nearly a trillion times more." So half a trillion watts, then? I'm not a scientist, I'm asking. Sid thinks there's only one reason the Vs would need that much power, and it has to do with the fact that the footprint of a Concordia site roughly matches that of a mothership. And to demonstrate, he's got a model of a mothership right there, the bottom holes of which fit neatly onto the four towers of the Concordia model, like a laptop docking station if your laptop looked like a stack of half-melted stingrays. Quadruple penetration! "They're building landing sites," Chad realizes. "For what?" Jack wonders. Uh, landing? "For their invasion," Erica says. The title card hits before she can add the appropriate coda to that statement, which would be, "Derr."
Back from the ads, Kyle figures that with 538 Concordia sites and only 29 motherships currently in place around the world, more are on the way. But Erica's not about to let them land. Kyle wonders how she plans to stop them, since not even he thinks they can blow up 538 sites, but Erica thinks she knows how to stop them from being built in the first place: stage an accident to make people as scared of blue energy as Three Mile Island made them of nuclear. Right, Erica, take the battle to Anna's home turf: PR. Why not get a pixie haircut and wear heels all the time while you're at it? Kyle likes the idea, even if it's a little "subtle" for him (not an accusation that can be leveled against most of what goes on on this show), and Sid says he might be able to figure something out if he can just get his science-kid hands on some more blue energy to study. Erica figures Lisa can handle that, while they "need to get into that reactor and destroy it before Anna drops five hundred more ships on our heads."
No. 2 and Joshua enter Anna's office. She welcomes No. 2 back, and he formally congratulates her on Concordia. You know, instead of telling her that he talked to her mom, so he's either keeping that to himself or it's just sloppy writing. Not that the two are mutually exclusive. She says they still have one problem they haven't been able to solve: "Controlling human emotion. Tyler has reached back out to his mother." Joshua says Tyler's new pro-Erica mood has to do with the pooled human DNA in him, as if an explanation that makes no sense is better than no explanation at all. "All of your plans rest on eliminating human emotion," No. 2 reminds Anna emotionlessly. Those are pretty sucky plans, then. "Unless we do so, a new generation of Visitors will be born with them." And Joshua doesn't think he can solve the problem in time. Anna figures the key is Amy, whose human side doesn't reject her bliss. She orders tests on her to figure out why. Joshua points out that this could hurt the kid. When Anna hesitates -- exactly the kind of emotional response No. 2 is watching for as a result of the doubts Diana planted in his head -- he reminds her, "We must find away at any cost." Anna gives the order to begin testing immediately. Joshua doesn't even waste time responding.
Down at ground level, Erica and Kyle are waiting for Lisa in a car parked on a busy street in the city. This gives them a chance to talk about what happened the night, which I wish they didn't because ew. They agree that it was fun, but Erica tells him, "I needed a break... I can't lose focus on the bigger picture. This war." In other words, it's not you, it's V. Just then, Lisa climbs into the back of the car and hands over a little metal carrying case with its pair of blue balls tucked neatly inside. She was able to steal it from the ship, but she'll have to bring it back, since it'll be traceable back to her if someone notices it's gone. She asks what they need it for, and Kyle comes right out and tells her they're going to sabotage the blue energy reactor. This group doesn't really work on a need-to-know basis, does it? Erica adds that they think the reactor is part of Anna's invasion plan and they need to stop it. "That's why you need to find out anything you can about it," Kyle reminds Lisa, like she's just been slacking aside from the blue energy theft. She gets out and they drive off, but they're being watched from an upper floor by a sinister figure. Fortunately it was just Ryan.
Joshua's been busy in the lab. He says it looks like Amy's "abilities" are probably a result of Ryan having stolen phosphorus and given it to Val during her pregnancy. He won't know what else Amy's capable of without more tests, and preferably a third season. Anna's more immediate interest is in this theoretical frequency of bliss that humans will accept. No. 2 reminds her that trying to bliss humans nearly killed Diana. "My mother was weak," Anna snaps, and steps over to the terrified human test subject immobilized on Joshua's slab. While Anna reassures the young Asian woman, Joshua and No. 2 argue the issue -- No. 2 not wanting Anna to risk it while Joshua says that bold action is needed. Anna shuts them up: "If I can control them through bliss, I can stop any resistance." She puts her hands to the sides of the woman's head and starts blissing. But it's the worst blissing ever. The test subject starts screaming, and Anna doesn't look too happy herself. In fact, blood is leaking from her tear ducts, like that dude in Casino Royale but with shorter hair. No.2 tries to put a stop to it before Anna's whole face goes full Raiders of the Lost Ark, but suddenly the human smiles. Blissfully, even. Anna totters back on her high heels and falls to her knees, fat rivers of blood streaking her face. No. 2 helps her to her feet, while Joshua helpfully observes, "The subject appears to be blissed." And that's why he's the Vs' top scientist. Anna figures the best way to be sure of the blissing is to give her an immolation pill, tell her it'll kill her, and tell her to take it anyway. The subject blissfully complies, and is instantly incinerated. Well, the bliss is probably worn off now. Anna asks if this means she can bliss en masse. Well, it doesn't seem advisable, unless she's going to limit her eye-melting activities to one horror-movie set at a time, but Anna insists, "find a way."
Sid's "study" of the blue energy seems to consist of touching the two blue balls together in an isolation tank. The tank fills with blue sparks, so, success, I guess. Being a scientist is easy! He starts technobabbling to Kyle and Erica, but then dumbs it down for them by comparing it to sticking a fork in an electrical socket. "Same idea. Meltdown." With half a trillion watts? Sounds perfectly safe. And he's confident that it won't look like sabotage, because suddenly he's an expert on blue energy, in much the same way my son learned the alphabet and then won the Nobel prize in literature later that day. Jack enters the room, all impressed that Sid seems to have done it. Jack has also arranged for two Fifth Column V guards at the site to help them get in, because it's not like he has anything else to do. Conscience isn't a full-time job even with this crew. "Tell them we're good to go. Tonight," Erica instructs. Because after spending the afternoon playing with a few inches of yarn, Sid's ready to unspool the Brooklyn Bridge. To his credit, he looks a little rushed. Why does every episode have to take place in one day? he wonders to himself.
Up in the mothership's bilge, Lisa asks Diana what Anna's plans are, but Diana isn't ready to let go of that bargaining chip yet. Lisa pushes the issue by comparing Diana to Anna. "All you do is keep secrets." She asks if Concordia is really a series of landing sites, and Diana confirms it, basically saying Lisa is smarter than she looks. "My friends figured it out," Lisa says modestly. So she's telling Diana about her human buddies, and their plan to sabotage the reactor. Again with the need-to-know thing. "You must stop them!" Diana says with something like alarm. She explains that blue energy has two forms. "In its stable form, it powers reactors. But it can also be weaponized." And this isn't something that every V grade-schooler knows? Diana warns, "You must stop them, before it's too late!" Good thing they have all day.
Oops, it's nighttime. Construction is going on at the site, and outside the perimeter, Erica, Kyle and Jack are watching Sid nervously vomit his guts out while wearing the disguise of a construction worker. A sick or drunk construction worker, which should get him in even more easily. After he pulls himself together and picks up his toolbox, Erica shows him a mug shot of their Fifth Column contact at the gate, who will get him through security. Jack also clips a V ID to Sid's day-glo vest. Kyle adds that the tricky part is getting into the reactor building unseen, but Jack says the second 5C contact will help with that. "Once you're in, you're on your own, cowboy," Kyle adds helpfully. Good thing Sid's stomach is already empty. Erica reassures Sid that he can do it and reminds him it has to look like an accident. "The Fifth Column cannot be behind it." With that, they send him on his way to do the work of the Fifth Column.
Ryan's still pursuing his new hobby of secretly stalking the team. He gets a holo-call from Lisa aboard the mothership, who has apparently spent the intervening hours trying and failing to reach Erica due to some kind of solar contrivance flare. She says she's calling in that favor he incurred when he escaped the mothership, and explains about the blue energy and how they need to stop Erica's plan. "If they weaponize it, it could destroy everything within a hundred square miles." So that's bad, right?
Sid joins the double line of second-shift workers entering the plant. The guard who's not the one in the photo waves him over, but the right one steps between them and waves Sid in. Ooh, close one, if I cared.
The rain starts again. Kyle, sitting in the SUV with Erica and Jack, spots Ryan sneaking toward the gate. Jack wonders what he's doing there, and Erica says she's not waiting around to find out." So the Fifth Column jumps out of the truck, guns drawn, to protect this operation that the Fifth Column can't be seen to be involved in. Inside the site, the rain has turned to snow when another V guard roughly grabs Sid from behind. Luckily it's just their inner contact, but he really needs to work on his people skills. He enters a key code and lets Sid into the reactor building. Outside, Ryan sneaks up behind a perimeter guard and delivers a flying punch to the V's brainstem. Serves the guard right for facing the thing he was supposed to be guarding instead of outward, where the threats come from. Sid makes his way through the bowels of the building wearing an MTV's Fear-cam. Ryan, now inside the grounds, runs through some handy culvert sections to follow him. Sam makes it into the room where the reactor's core lives, an unstaffed room behind an unlocked door. The core is basically a pair of big glowing blue balls with an old-school Kryptonian restraint circle whirling around its center. Topside, the team continues pursuing Ryan through the grounds. Considering how much work they put into sneaking Sid in undetected, they don't seem to have much trouble running around without anyone noticing. Although at one point, they do have to remain undercover as Ryan attacks the Fifth Column guy who's guarding the reactor building for Sid. Lucky for Ryan, nobody else seems to be guarding the reactor building, inside or out.
Sid approaches the core -- which just gets to stand there and do its thing unattended 24/7, I guess -- opens his toolbox, and removes the blue energy balls and a remote detonator. He holds up the balls and lets them float freely into orbit around the main core, where their blue halo activates. Did they really need Sid for this job? My six-year-old could do that, and his Nobel prize isn't even in physics. Just then is when Ryan walks in, telling him to stop. Sid picks up the remote while Ryan slowly steps closer, warning him that he's about to kill them all. Sid doesn't trust Ryan, but Ryan just asks him to be 100% sure he hasn't weaponized the blue energy. Sid's not, but when Ryan makes a dive for the remote, Sid hits the button anyway in the moment before Ryan tackles him. The core starts freaking out. "You have no idea what you just did," Ryan says, like that's unusual for anyone on this show. In burst Erica, Kyle and Jack, who apparently had no trouble getting past the nonexistent security. Sid says it's going to blow, and Jack suggests maybe getting out. "Not until we take care of some unfinished business," Kyle says, leveling his gun at Ryan, because just because they're all about to be torn apart by alien forces beyond their ken doesn't mean he has to go all wussy. Ryan argues that he's here to save them -- they need to deactivate the reactor before it kills tens of thousands in an explosion. And if he doesn't trust him, what about Lisa? "She sent me here to warn you." The core gets louder while Erica keeps holding her gun and Jack asks Sid if he can stop it. Sid doesn't know how. Ryan offers to shut it down. Kyle insists they can't trust Ryan, but Jack argues, "Tens of thousands dead? Can you live with that if you're wrong, Erica?" Well, she won't have to, because she'll be a drifting cloud of poorly CGI'ed blue ash, but she gives the order to shut it down anyway. Ryan activates to a holo-console while Sid yells at him to let the energy vent or dump or whatever, like he's such a big expert now. Ryan makes with the holo-fu. Lisa's blue balls drop free and Sid picks them up from the floor (and I'm sure Lisa would be thrilled to know how close she came to never getting them back), but there's still a lot of cheesy blue strobing to do as the core goes all China Syndrome.
The view from the mothership is of a darkened Manhattan. And Anna's eyes aren't much brighter as she gazes out at it, still looking dizzy and disoriented from her earlier ordeal of bliss. No. 2 and Mr. Turtleneck (two No. 2s, who will henceforth be collectively referred to as No. 4) come in to inform Anna that a blue energy surge from the Concordia site overloaded the humans' power grid. Not that the humans know this; they assume it was their own failure. But Mr. Turtleneck says this could have happened only if blue energy was used for sabotage. Nice one, Sid. "Fifth Column," Anna realizes, and gives the order to check the blue energy inventory. Mr. Turtleneck marches off to make it so, like maybe he could have come up with that on his own, and Anna tells Original No. 2 to use the blue energy to restore the human power grid. "We must use this... inconvenience as a demonstration of our benevolence." Funny, she's not looking all that benevolent.
Chadcast. She-Chad informs the viewers that high-voltage transmission lines in upstate New York are being blamed for the power failure. "Luckily, Anna and the Visitors wasted no time, using their blue energy reactor at the Concordia site to turn power back on across the affected areas within minutes." So now everyone wants the Concordia sites built even faster. Erica turns off the Chadcast in the lair (yep, everyone got out and back safely, although it looks like Ryan had some laundry to do or something) and angrily kicks over a stool. Excuse me, do you live here? "That is exactly why we should have blown the site," she says. Jack says it was too risky, but Erica says they aren't taking enough risks, and as a result they handed Anna another victory. Erica starts to leave, but Kyle stops her, saying Jack might be right. After all, Eli picked her as the leader because she cares, blah blah. Sure, he said the opposite earlier, but as he says now, "You're not me." Which, after all, is probably why his night was more fun than most of his nights. Erica reminds him that he told her that he's a solder who would follow her orders. "I'll let you know what our move is, "she says coldly before walking out. So, no after-party, then?
Up in the mothership, Anna has just finished screening the earlier Chadcast for him, and says she's worried about She-Chad. Chad assures her that Kerry isn't a threat, but after an overextended dog metaphor that gets batted back and forth until it's like a drool-covered tennis ball, Chad realizes that Anna wants She-Chad muzzled. "Concordia's my greatest gift to humanity," she says. "It would be a terrible tragedy for everyone if she would get in the way. I'm sure you agree, "she smiles. Chad leaves, apparently having understood his orders without Anna having to actually do something gauche like give them. As usual.
In one of the ship's cavernous corridors, Lisa lets herself into a storage room, unobserved by anyone but Joshua. Lucky for her, that moment is when all his memories start flooding back. He quickly follows her as Mr. Turtleneck and a couple of guards close in. He catches her popping the stolen blue balls (which the team already had time to return, I guess) back into a rack, and they stare at each other through a few more flashbacks of himself plotting with Lisa and Ryan, and also shooting Vs. So it's all come back to him, then. Lisa just stands there looking busted, until Joshua hustles her out through the storage room's highly convenient back door. By the time Mr. Turtleneck and his goons arrive, the room is empty. So how would the theft be traced back to Lisa if apparently just anyone can walk in there? In the other corridor, Lisa asks Joshua why he didn't let her get caught, as though he was any help at all in preventing that. Joshua says he remembered. "Who I am. That I'm Fifth Column. Like you." You know, Joshua was the most interesting subplot on the show for me. Was he faking amnesia? If not, would his memories come back? And if they did, would they come back without his old loyalties? Well, there's all those questions answered, in less than a minute, in the least interesting way possible. Congrats, V. My favorite Fifth Columnist just went back to being Robert Englund as Willie.
Chad's back at the TV studio for another Chadcast, and he's just sitting down at the desk as She-Chad is telling him she thinks Anna must be behind the blackout. After a moment's thought, Chad tells her she's right -- a source of his at the Department of Energy told him that the Concordia reactor caused the blackout. "It melted down or blew out, something technical." Whoa, slow down there, Scotty. She asks why he isn't reporting it, and he says Anna won't let him. "You, on the other hand, have a chance to make a name for yourself." Like she's going to go live on the air with second-hand, unsourced, incomplete, unverified hearsay with absolutely no details? With a half-story fed to her by her professional rival, who as far as she knows has no reason to want to help her? If she's that stupid, she deserves what she gets. Aaand it turns out she is; when the camera goes live, Chad gives her an encouraging nod and she stupidly announces, "I have just received exclusive word that tonight's blackout was not cause by an electrical grid problem as reported earlier. In fact, it was caused by the near-catastrophic failure of the blue energy reactor at New York's Concordia site." Unfortunately the scene ends before everyone in the newsroom starts scrambling around in panic, reprogramming TelePrompTers and looking for that old "Please Stand By" card they have around here somewhere while She-Chad ad-libs the rest of her "report" and Chad sits there looking like Mike Myers to Kanye.
Tyler visits Anna in her mothership parlor, wearing no jacket at all. Yes, we get it, he's teetering between his two worlds. Although it would have been funnier to see him walk in wearing both his V jacket and his dad's jacket at the same time. "Hi, I'm Tyler! Could I be wearing any more jackets?" He starts talking about how great Anna's been and how much he appreciates it, but he's been "acting wrong" ever since his dad died. I'd say it's been longer than that, but his point is that he wants to hang with his mom more. Anna pretends to be understanding, simply offering him a little something before he leaves: "A gift usually reserved for Visitors." She has him sit down on the round white coffee table and steps up between his legs as he asks what it is. "Peace," she says, and takes him by the head. She almost immediately makes with the O-face, and Tyler's much less resistant than the earlier subject, probably because he's even dumber than a person who unquestioningly takes a suicide pill. Anna's eyes don't bleed quite as hard, either. Tyler's a "light-flow" kind of guy, looks like. The two of them are still in this position when Lisa happens to wander past the doorway and take it in, then leave before either of them notices she's there. The blissing complete, Anna topples back on the couch, heedless of the danger of dripping bloody tears on the snow-white upholstery. They probably have magic blue fabric cleaner, too. Tyler just stares blissfully up at the CGI ceiling, looking a full IQ point stupider than he usually does.
Down in the bilge, Lisa reports this latest news to Diana. "If Anna can bliss humans, they will stand no chance against her," Diana says. Yeah, I think that's what Anna said. She asks if Lisa's sure she can trust her human friends. I think a more pertinent question is whether any of them can trust Diana. (Having been a regular viewer of the original series, I can say with confidence that the short answer is FUCK NO.) But Diana has a plan, and will need the help of Lisa's friends: "We must end your mother's reign. Once and for all." Which Diana wants to do out of purely altruistic motives, no doubt.
Erica's back home fixing dinner for Tyler, because in addition to being an FBI agent and the leader of a worldwide resistance movement and having spent much of the evening on an abortive sabotage attempt, she still has time to bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. There's a tentative knock at the door. Smiling, she calls out for Tyler to just come in, but it's Lisa instead, here to tell her that Tyler's with Anna. Erica's obviously crushed, and Lisa's explanation of how the bliss is working on Tyler doesn't cheer her up any. Erica asks if Tyler's okay, then reiterates for the third time something we've been hearing all episode: "If Anna can bliss humans, that's it. We've lost." Lisa says, "There's still a way we can win...if you're willing to take a risk." Magic words, those, given the mood Erica's in.
Joshua joins Anna in the incubation room, where the queen egg is growing so quickly it's only a few days from hatching. I swear, sometimes I think the biology source text for this show is Class of Nuke 'Em High. Anna asks whether Joshua has had a chance to test Lisa's loyalty. "I've seen no signs to indicate that she's any risk to you," Joshua says. Anna's glad to hear it, and it's a lucky thing that she has her back to Joshua so she couldn't see the dramatically tight close-up on Joshua's face when he lied to her. She adds, "But if Lisa fails me, thanks to you, this queen egg will save us." Behind her, Joshua makes a total Oh Shit face.
In the newsroom, She-Chad stomps on her high heels up to Chad's desk and spits, "You set me up." No shit. "You made it all up and you let me tell the world." Chad puts what he probably thinks are calming hands on her shoulders and says, "You can't prove that." Rather than pointing out that they were both wearing live microphones in a TV studio at the time, she just smacks him across the face. That gets the attention of the other newsdrones. She-Chad says she's being fired and asks if Anna put Chad up to this. Even now, Chad says he did it to protect himself, saying She-Chad is just too good at what he does. Especially for someone who never spent an hour in journalism school. She says that everyone told her to watch her back. "That all Chad Decker cared about was himself. I should have listened. You really are the shallow, self- absorbed snake that everyone says you are." It's not like he can tell her that if he hadn't taken her out, Anna would have. She leaves him to suck on that, like a boa constrictor digesting a rabbit.
Somewhere by the river, Jack and Kyle join Sid as he's gazing up at the mothership parked over the city. He's using infrared binoculars, which he has recalibrated to detect blue energy. As you do. Looking through them at the mothership, Jack sees it shrouded in blue lightning, the ship's energy signature. Although Sid describes it as a "blue splotch," because why would the special effects people bother to read the script. But looking over at the open sky in the other direction, there are a dozen or more smaller blue blips visible through the binoculars. "What the hell are they?" Kyle asks as he gets a look for himself. Sid says they're motherships -- cloaked to telescopes and radar and all other forms of human technology, but visible by their blue energy signatures. And there are probably 500 or so. Kyle gets the point, and lays it out for us dramatically: "Their invasion ships aren't on the way. They're already here." Oh well, at least the blue is pretty.
Anna's crashed out on that semi-circular couch, looking like she just got back from a three-martini lunch. Or three bloody marys, am I right? Amy appears in front of her. "Are you okay, mommy?" the little moppet asks. Anna says she's fine, but Amy starts caressing her head. "I'm making you feel better just like you make me feel better," Amy says. Anna takes Amy's hands and says she herself is the only one who has that ability. "Why would you think to do that?" As No. 2 drifts unnoticed into the doorway, Amy answers, "Because I love you." Anna's eyes look like they might almost shed tears of ordinary ice water, as her heart swells in the wrong side of her chest. She gathers the child into her arms and settles in for a snuggle. No. 2. quietly takes in the scene, visibly replays his earlier conversation with Diana in his mind, and leaves without announcing his presence, let alone mentioning Diana. Anna needs a goddamn door.
At 5CHQ, Sid, Kyle, Jack and Chad are hanging around aimlessly when Erica walks in, with Ryan and Lisa in tow. Erica tells an instantly worked-up Kyle to stand down. "He saved our lives. I don't like him, I don't forgive him, but we need him." Jack asks for what, giving Erica her cue to launch into a speech. "Every attempt we have made to take down Anna has failed." Because you suck. "We are surrounded by an invasion fleet." Nice of Sid to call and tell her that. "We are out of options. We don't stand a chance in hell of stopping Anna without help. This is help." With that, she cues Lisa to step forward with a holoprojector. And suddenly, right there in the 5CHQ, is a life-sized projection of Diana. Lisa introduces the glowing newcomer as her grandmother. "I was queen before Anna overthrew me," Diana tells them. Whether she's live or pre-recorded isn't immediately clear, not that it matters. Erica explains to her boys that Diana's going to help them make sure history repeats itself. "We're going to overthrow Anna. " But first they have a lot of standing around staring at each other dramatically.
So that's Erica's new plan? Replace the V's hubris-ridden, borderline-competent leader with a new, potentially brilliant one who's been marinating in her own revenge-juices for the last decade and a half? Hard to see what could go wrong with unleashing half a trillion watts of pent-up political and family enmity.
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M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.