Episode Report Card M. Giant: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Lock Up Your Daughters
By M. Giant | Season 2 | Episode 10 | Aired on 03.15.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When Diana tells the team to snap things up, the team hops to. Their brilliant plan is to pretend to kidnap Lisa, and then have Lisa kill Anna when she inevitably comes after her. Anna does a bunch of public grandstanding about giving her own life for her daughter's, and walks right into the trap. But she catches on just in time, and puts on a whole show for her daughter, pretending to be not evil. Stupid Lisa totally buys it and decides not to kill Anna after all. Even with phase one of the plan knocked into a cocked hat, Diana refuses to back down. That only gets her murdered by Anna in the middle of her big moment, and gives Anna a chance to utter what may be the best line of the series to date. With Lisa's betrayal out in the open, Anna decides to replace her daughter with the creepy-ass spawn of her newly-hatched queen egg, complete with a copy of Lisa's skin. And she's the one who ends up mating with Tyler -- and then eating his throat! Awesome!
Also, Ryan heads back up to the ship to rescue his own daughter, Amy, but now she's a rebellious tween who may or may not have killed him for his trouble. And Anna has figured out Chad was one of Lisa's "kidnappers," so it looks like his cozy relationship with Anna isn't going to be even one-way any more.
Pretty much the only good news is that Erica gets recruited by a shadowy, mysterious, anti-V organization that's even more shadowy and mysterious than the Fifth Column, whose leader is played by original V star Marc Singer. Oh, and Kyle has packed up and vanished, so that's good even if Erica doesn't agree.
After deciding that human emotion might be useful after all -- as a weapon -- Anna attempts a mass blissing of humanity. It gets messy, but a last-minute assist from Amy helps her pull it off worldwide, turning all of humanity into sky-gazing zombies. Except those lucky enough to be in an underground bunker with Erica at the key moment. Marc Singer had better know what he's doing.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Well, it's not every day a recapper gets to sub in on what may be a series finale, so let's get to it. Erica sits up in bed and looks over to see Anna sitting on the edge of it. Anna's in red, which is the second sign that something's amiss. The third is when Anna holds up an automatic pistol. "What the hell are you doing here?" Erica demands. Anna speechifies, "No one understands what it feels like... to have the weight of an entire species on your shoulders. Every decision... every hard choice. No one understands it. No one except you." You've probably figured out by now that this is a dream sequence, if you didn't the moment Erica opened her eyes, or even earlier when part of this scene was shown during last week's preview. Anna stands and yammers on, "You understand. To survive you must show no mercy. Be void of any humanity. Just like me." Erica says she's nothing like Anna. Which is true; Anna's not normally given to long, self-pitying speeches like Erica is, but I guess Erica's dream version of Anna is. When we all know the real Anna is more about long, self-congratulatory speeches. Anyway, Anna effectively wins the argument by shooting Erica in the face.
Erica jerks awake, because even the nightmares on this show have hacky endings. Oh, no, it's one of those nightmares within a nightmare, because Kyle and his hairy armpit are in the bed next to her! Erica's reaction is less horrified -- she just asks herself, "What are you doing?" So I guess this is real after all. Kyle wakes up, looking distinctly un-bedheaded, and asks if it was another nightmare about the visitors. "And what it'll look like when Anna is gone," Erica lies, for no other reason than to set up Kyle's next line: "Let's take the bitch down and find out." Yeah, good luck with that.
On board the mothership, Anna proudly tells No. 2 that Lisa will be mating with Tyler tonight. She seems even more excited about it than Tyler will be. No. 2 reminds her that they still haven't extracted the human soul and wonders how Anna will control her grandchildren. Anna says Amy "will provide the secret to blissing humans." What exactly is the problem? Won't Lisa and Tyler's offspring be a hybrid like Amy and thus subject to bliss? Internal logic is hard. No. 2 reminds Anna that one human-blissing nearly killed her. I'd remind him that blissing near-human Tyler went a little more smoothly. Anna's angrily pulling rank on him when Amy rushes in, looking about ten years old. If there's a third season, Amy's going to start it out looking like Lena Horne's mom. Anna dismisses No. 2 so Amy can whinge about a nightmare she had. She begs Anna never to leave her, and Anna promises never to "abandon you like your father did." Nice dig there. It's like they're in a bad divorce or something. Lisa happens by, and she and Anna exchange a long, cold look before Lisa moves on. Are all the corridors outside Anna's rooms heavy traffic areas or something?
Erica and Kyle arrive at Fifth Column HQ, where Jack, Chad, and Ryan are waiting. Apparently Diana called an emergency meeting but wouldn't say what she wanted until "everyone" was there. I guess Diana doesn't care about Sid. Ryan puts Diana on the holo-phone, and she says that according to No. 2, Anna's ahead of schedule, so they need to make their move quickly. Erica says they need Lisa, and Diana says she's on her way now. "We must act immediately." Kyle asks Erica what she wants to do, but she polls the team first. "We've come too far to turn back now," Chad says with his broadcaster's gift for cliché. Jack gives a whole mumbly speech about having looked to the sky to see God all his life, and now he sees 29 ships, and hundreds more beyond them. "I want to look to the sky and see God again." Sure, make it all about you. And God, I guess. Kyle just says loyally, "I'm with you." Ryan doesn't get a vote, just orders to get back on the ship and bust Diana out. "We're gonna need all the help we can get." She tells Diana they're on, and Diana responds, "You do your part, Erica. I'll do mine." So they're trusting not only Diana, but No. 2 as well? The sad part is that this isn't even the dumbest aspect of their plan.
Later, a hearse backs into a warehouse where Erica and Chad are waiting. Jack and Kyle get out, dressed as funeral directors, and roll out a coffin (zinc-lined, to foil the trackers, in case you care). They open it up, and there's Lisa, in what would be foreshadowing if it were well-thought-out enough to actually foreshadow anything. She's got the immolation gun Kyle asked for. They help her out as she says that while Tyler's not off the ship, "He's okay." But she wants to know the plan and why they wouldn't tell her earlier. "I didn't want you to have too long to think about it," Erica says, which should fill Lisa with confidence. Jack and Kyle explain that they're going to fake a kidnapping to get Anna away from her security Vs. Lisa doesn't think it'll work, since after the last assassination attempt, no one will be able to get close enough to Anna to kill her. "Except the one person she would expect least," Erica says. "You." With that, she offers Lisa the gun and a long, blank stare. Now we're at the dumbest aspect of her plan.
Chad's live from the studio, breaking the story of Lisa's kidnapping by the Fifth Column. Anna, No. 2, and Mr. Turtleneck are watching the broadcast in the mothership as Chad cuts to a ransom video supposedly sent by the kidnappers. It's two figures in alien masks (heh), one of whom is pointing a gun at Lisa's head while the other speaks in an electronically scrambled voice. The speaker demands Anna's life in exchange for Lisa's. "It's you we want dead, Anna. Trade yourself or we will kill your daughter." Anna's seen enough, and she orders a tracker put on the scent and her shuttle made ready. Mr. Turtleneck says they can't risk Anna's life by letting her go down to the surface. Watching Anna carefully, No. 2 points out that Lisa is the future of their species. Anna agrees with No. 2, and says that it won't come to exchanging her life for Lisa's because the tracker will find Lisa first. As usual, the Fifth Column is out of its depth. Or is it? Well, it is, but we'll get to that.
Down on the surface, in front of one of those crowds of pro-V demonstrators who apparently have nothing else to do but show up to support people who aren't going anywhere anyway. Anna and her entourage (which of course includes No. 2) meet up with the FBI people in charge of the case, who luckily for the Fifth Column's plans are led by Erica and Kendrick. Erica makes sympathetic noises and promises to get Lisa back. In the short term, they've been asked to bring Anna to Jack, who supposedly has been "selected" by the Fifth Column as their go-between to tell Anna the location of the swap. And who hasn't been arrested or questioned in any way to find out what else he knows. Kendrick adds that they'll use a body double for Anna, but Anna's not going for that, claiming she doesn't want to risk Lisa's life by failing to follow the kidnappers' directions. And besides, where do you find a double for this, is she right? Erica pretends to be understanding, relating it to her own concern for Tyler, but insists that they have to keep Anna safe. Of course she's just playing on Anna's tendency to do the opposite of what she's told, which is about as sophisticated as this 5C group gets. They give her a minute to think about it, and after Anna looks at the crowds of pro-V demonstrators, she tells No. 2 that she's decided to meet with Jack. That was easy.
In less time than it takes to type it, Ryan's up on the ship, blending in by wearing a red tunic. At the shuttle airlock, he meets Joshua, who reports that Anna took the bait. Ryan asks about his daughter, and Joshua says Ryan will see her soon. "It's good to be back on the same side with you," he adds in his usual constipated fashion. Ryan just nods, and Joshua leads him in the direction of Diana's "cell." Oh, it's a "cell" now? Pretty roomy for a "cell." I was thinking "zoo reptile house."
Inside the Center, surrounded by Vs an