TNT’s Falling Skies: Episode 5 – “Silent Kill” Review

Let me start this out by first saying Congratulations. Congrats to the show for proving me wrong and earning a 10 episode second season, which is slated to air summer of 2012, and was ordered only 3 episodes in to the first season. The show has managed to retain 3.8 million of the 5.9 million premiere viewers. Way to go Falling Skies, way to say “IN YOUR FACE” to an opinionated idiot that writes for a certain website.  Anyways on to tonight’s episode…

So for anyone who looooooooooves character development, this episode was for you. While the episode is centered around the rescue of Tom’s son Ben, we delve a little bit deeper into what makes Anne, Margaret, and a little bit of Captain Weaver tick. The episode kicks off with Tom and Hal once again coming up with a plan to rescue their missing family member Ben, and getting the ok from Captain Weaver. In short, the plan is to sneak in the hospital at night while the guarding skidder is sleeping, kill him without making a noise, and avoid alerting the patrolling mech. Hence the title SILENT KILL!

 After the plan is decided, we cut to the good teacher and Tom’s younger son Matt playing with radios and listening to a classic record. Captain Weaver picks up in the music while staring at a drawing from a child and calmly walks into the classroom, confiscates the record, and informs the good teacher that he can play record he wants, except that one. It appears the stoic Captain has a soft side after all. More on this later. Next, we have the best of the entire episode. The death of Dr. Harris!! While playing a little too close to the skidder cage and to study new noises the alien is making, the skidder manages to choke the life out of the cowardly doctor. Kudos to the writers for killing him off so quickly.

After Dr. Harris’s death, we then see Hal talking to the previously rescued boy about his time being harnessed with the aliens. From what he learns, Hal decides to change the original rescue plan and where a harness to disguise himself to save Ben. A plan not quickly approved by his father. Quick side note, I think they should have made this conversation a bit longer and more detailed. It would have been great to get more insight into what the aliens where doing with the captured kids. Anyways, we now join Anne, Tom, and Hal where they are discussing how best to kill a skidder without making any noise. Anne informs them of a weak spot in the aliens mouth that could provide a way to kill them. After placing a saucer of water, Anne attacks and kills the captured alien by stabbing it with a scalpel inside the creatures mouth at the soft palette location they were discussing. After killing the creature, Anne storms off to the lost child board and confesses Tom how easy it was to kill the alien by picturing her family and how she has nothing to reminding her of her lost loved ones, only the blood from the alien on her hand. We now see why she has shut down when it comes to discussing her family.

Next, we finally get the what we have been building up to for the past 2 episodes, the rescue of Ben. Hal is able to successfully break in to the hospital where his brother is being held wearing a harness as a disguise. He slips in line with his brother and the other harnessed kids being led by a skidder. This is where it gets a little weird. The skidder leads them all in to a room where they all lay down in a circle, and the skidder hovers over them, caressing their heads as they all go to sleep. This looked a lot like a mother nesting over her babies, showing that there is something more to this enslavement by the alien invaders. As skidder falls asleep, Hal attacks and thrusts a pocket knife into the skidders mouth as Anne did back at the base, but during his attack the harnessed kids pull at Hal to try to stop the attack. To make things even more weird, after the skidder dies and the rescue team starts save the harness children, we see the kids placing their hands over the dead alien showing a sign of concern and sadness. What the F is going on here?

With the kids rescued and Dr. Harris dead, it’s now up to Anne to successfully remove the harnesses from all kids on her own. After removing all the harnesses, the final child (don’t worry, not Ben) died on the make shift operating table. Despite encouraging words from Tom on the number of kids she just saved, she is focused on the one that died. Someone should really explain to her she needs to be a glass is half full kind of person. A ‘Debbie Downer’ is no good for surviving alien invasion.

While waiting for Ben to recover we see a conversation between Hal and Margaret, who was instrumental in the rescue due to her extensive knowledge of the hospital, where we get to learn that Margaret is a cancer survivor who was given a 50/50 chance to live, and its that mind-set that allowed her to survive not only the invasion but her time spent with Pope’s crew.

The show comes to an end with Captain Weaver watching Tom and his reunited family, then going off to play the record he confiscated in the beginning, and Ben waking up to recognize his dad. All in all, I would say this week the show was OK at best. While I know character development is a must for any show in order to gain sympathy and create a connection between us and the characters, I feel they went about it a little half assed for Margaret and Captain Weaver. They probably should have taken a page from Lost and spend an entire episode focusing on them mindset of each character, that’s just my opinion.

I’ll be curious to see what adventure the writers have in store for us next since we have spent the first few episodes wanting to rescue Ben. Do we go back and rescue Hal’s girlfriend, or is she just to be forgotten about and Margaret will take her place?

2.5 out of 5 grizzlies!

8 thoughts on “TNT’s Falling Skies: Episode 5 – “Silent Kill” Review”

  1. Ive been watching this show and am really disappointed on how they centered around just saving this one kid. This show could be so much better with a game of thrones approach where they center more around different people and dont waste time on such boring ass shit.

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  2. If they can power an entire stereo system to play records and have lamps left on all night. Then why does the youngest son have to sit there and manually spin a tiny radio to listen to static???

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  3. theasswhole is not so much of an ass hole i agree with him but remember this is not hbo! hbo has execs that would turn this show into a masterpiece! but its not hbo so dont expect the best! i wish it was hbo this show truly can be a whooooolllle lot better. maybe it needs a better director and the show needs to be slower, it moves fast like a scifi channel original series. ewwwww

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    1. While I agree HBO would make the show a he’ll of a lot better, I don’t think you can slow it down anymore without boring the audience. They spent 3 out of 4 episodes trying to rescue one kid, how much slower do you want?

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  4. It’s getting lamer by the episode. Gaping plot holes, more insults to the viewer’s intelligence and credulity than you can keep up with, and plot development which moves at the speed of treacle. I think I’ve had enough.

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      1. *The fact that kids and teens go out and fight while able bodied adults stay at home and play camping.
        *The long march through the suburbs in full view of the alien mothership parked over the downtown without being attacked.
        *The attractive female doctor repeatedly sticking her hand in the cage without being attacked. But strangely when the less likeable doctor did that he got killed.
        *Said caged alien never having a guard stationed. Even once it had killed the doctor! After they subdued it they just went off and left it alone again.
        *The electricity problem (see above).
        *General feeling that a simple story is being dragged out so they’ll have enough material left for a second season.

        The special effects are good, and the acting by the capable cast is decent, except you can see they are thinking “what on earth do I do with these lines?”. It’s a pity, I think Spielberg is simply showing his age.

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  5. I’ve really been attracted to Falling Skies because of the intelligence that the aliens seem to possess and because of my curiosity to know if the harnessed children are going to morph into an alien sub-species. I work for DISH Network so when they come out with the list of up coming shows that will premier I’m always excited when any horror or sci-fi related pilots are introduced. As for Falling Skies I was worried I’d struggle keeping up on the series since I don’t watch much TV in the summer. I remedied that by getting a free Sling Adapter from DISH http://bit.ly/kbum9m and now I’ve turned my Smartphone into my mobile TV. I haven’t been at home much and I certainly haven’t missed a single episode so far. Thanks for being quick to apologize and I love the “in your face!!”

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