“I want those bodies on this ship.” – Anna
It’s 10 years back in rural New York. “There’s no such thing as a UFO. Go back to bed.” Followed by a phone call. “They’re here for me,” and a grab for a gun. Ryan (Morris Chestnut) chases down this guy… could it be the legendary John May?
“One day you’ll understand,” May says.
Ryan, it seems, was recruited / converted by May back in the day.
Georgie (David Richmond-Peck) is imprisoned up on the mothership, and the gang wants to rescue him before he breaks. They want to use Joshua (Mark Hildreth), a high ranking 5th columnist up on the ship. They need to find a “comm” device that’s up in Reedsville, New York. And apparently May’s stepson will be able to lead them to it.
Anna uses TV anchor dude Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) to talk up the Live Aboard program and says the JOHN MAY LIVES message was a “glitch” she knows not the meaning of. And meanwhile we see Georgie getting tortured, real horrorshow-like. Later, Decker confronts Anna with the odd health history of people selected for the Live Aboard program. They agree that they will “keep helping each other” for some time to come. I like Wolf, but his character is awfully superficial at this point, the ambitious-to-a-fault journalist with a twinge of a conscience. We get it.
Ryan and the gang show up at the May residence, and looks like May’s stepson is living with a V sleeper cell agent. The stepson believes that May killed himself, but Ryan attempts to set him straight. Meanwhile, the sleeper cell agent gets tripped up by Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) on a pretty lame “trick question” about who the mascot for UCLA is (come on guys, can’t we come up with something better than that?).
I can’t help being a bit disappointed by the pacing, and the stepson’s girl is a great example. Why reveal her as a V sleeper cell agent two minutes after we meet her? Why not let her get to know the gang, gain their trust a bit, give her the opportunity to really screw over the gang a bit before she gets sniffed out? I mean, I think a sizzling slow burn like The Wire would bring is a bit too much to ask, but how about an episode or two to play this out, you know? And same goes for the tracking device.
On a slightly brighter note for the show and darker moment overall, I like how Anna implants memories of Georgie’s family getting murdered in retribution for “not being able to use his memories.” The V crew ain’t strictly business when it comes to torture, it seems.
On another pacing note, Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) can’t wait to run to Tyler to tell him that his dad ain’t his dad. Again, from a story perspective why not hold onto this intel and use it at as a juicier plot point down the road? And Tyler’s dad comes clean, and now that whole mystery is wrapped up into a nice tidy package. Looks like the audience won’t have to go to the trouble of worrying/thinking about that bit ever again (more brains space to obsess on Breaking Bad, I guess!). And now that it gets down to it, John May himself was set up as this highly mysterious character, and after this episode we know a lot about him. Including that Ryan killed him!?
That gets to the heart of where we are with this show. It’s awfully light entertainment even with its creepy alien conspiracies and machinations.
I’m watching still, but my personal “countdown clock” has started ticking to give up and concentrate on worthier fare.
More thoughts on “John May”:
* “I want those bodies on this ship.” — Anna (Morena Baccarin)
* Anna’s daughter Lisa shows up at Tyler’s (not) Dad’s house. I like that she invites herself in and to breakfast. Turns out she slept over the night before, whoops!
* “And remember, we are of peace. Always.” — Anna
* Anna’s #2 dude Marcus (Christopher Shyer) deploys a bunch of sleeper cell agent V’s to sniff out the 5th columnists. Sounds like some espionage/spycraft stories coming ahead.
* We find out that Tyler’s father is not really Tyler’s father… that’s the “big lie” that was referenced a few times. And meanwhile Lisa overhears, ooooh!
* Ryan’s wife’s half alien/half human unborn baby is kicking it… and not in the chilling out sort of way. More like in the clawing through flesh to break through to our plane kind of way.
* Looks like Ryan hasn’t aged a day in 10 years, remarkable! On a more serious note, it shows the meticulous genius of a show like Mad Men, which does a truly remarkable of making Don Draper (John Hamm) look younger during flashback scenes.
* In an emotional, if not affecting, scene Joshua kills Georgie so that he won’t give up the goods on the 5th column.
* I love the shots of Valerie (Lourdes Benedicto) discovering that not only is her husband not who she thinks he is, but that she is carrying his half human/half alien child. Now that’s a horse of a different color!
* “Let them have this one victory, because I’m about to deliver them a thousand defeats.” — Anna
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.