Hobbes (Charles Meshure) is becoming more of a player than his standard background antics as he helps Jack (Joel Gretsch) and Ryan (Morris Chestnut) rig a Sidewinder missile launcher with Visitor technology. Why would he do such a thing you ask? Well it turns out that Ryan’s on-board friend has sent some important info that Anna (Morena Bacarrin) is pissed about losing her soldier and plans on sending a shuttle full of seekers to find the Fifth Column and pinpoint their location for an army of soldiers. Now if you recall from the last episode, these soldiers are no f-cking joke. They can take damage, heal up and continue to pursue you even after suffering wounds that would prove fatal to a normal Visitor or human being. Fearing the worst Ryan convinces the team to shoot this shuttle out of the air and all is well until they find human remains within the debris.
Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) is at a crossroads between her Fifth Column affiliation and her FBI career. With every episode it is inching ever closer to a time when she will have to stop playing both sides and just become full on rebel. I can’t help but run a Sarah Connor parallel to this character especially with the whole motherly femme fatale thing she has going on. In one of the only peaceful moments of this episode, father Jack is hitting a heavy bag and Erica pops up to critique his form. Challenging her to do better, Erica straps on some gloves, starts in on the bag and ends up in a back-and-forth with Hobbes about their boxing knowledge. If you weren’t convinced that this blond mommy was a fighter before, the writers wanted you to damn sure get it this ep.
With the human debris shocking the Fifth Column team into thinking the worst, Father Jack quits and Erica makes a desperate call to check on Tyler (Logan Huffman). This sends off a chain reaction as the media catches hold of the “terrorist attack” and Tyler seeing this on television, runs off to the ship to check on Lisa (Laura Vandervoot). Why doesn’t Lisa have some sort of space-aged telephone for Tyler to call? This was so friggin stupid that the boy had to go all the way up into the Mothership and cry on Anna’s shoulder in wonder of his new girlfriend. Anna seems pleased at his inquiry and tells him that if he joins “live aboard” he need not worry where she was anymore because they will be together. Pause. So if I’m some teen that’s getting the booty from a sexy young thing who I think I love, having her mom creepily smile at me like “you guys can be together all the time” would creep me the hell out. Not Tyler though, he’s all “Yay live aboard! Space-aged sex for days!!”
Prior to Jack running away his delayed reaction in crying over the lost humans delayed the team so much that the FBI got the license plate at a toll booth on their escape. The photos and evidence are picked apart by Erica as her co-workers darted about, hustling to make a team to go after the Fifth Column terrorists. She calls Ryan and tells him he has to destroy the evidence from the toll booth surveillance and conveniently he and Hobbes beat the actual FBI to the location and fry the computer holding the video. Within FBI HQ one of Erica’s colleagues is sent by the head man to visit Anna and let her know the FBI is going to put all their people on the job of finding the Fifth Column after she holds a press conference to tearfully express her regret at the tragedy and how it may send them away from earth (nice play lizard lady).
The person sent by the FBI reports to Anna not as an agent but refers to her as “my Queen” which reveals her to be another Visitor plant who now has the full FBI behind her in tracking down the Fifth Column. Media hound Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) is back and forth to father Jack about the Fifth Column as he suspects that Jack is a member and keeps at him to see if he’ll own up to it. When Decker reveals that he has access to Visitor-only shuttles (all of this prior to the explosion), Jack panics and warns him not to fly one that day. This tips Decker off and he runs to report it to Anna… at this point I am not sure what side Decker is on. I can see him wanting some of that sweet lizard sex action based on his dream from two episodes ago but his hesitation to trust the Visitors from the beginning has me thinking he is playing Chess with the Queen in order to learn her true motives. What I predict? Anna will sleep with this guy eventually and he will lose his mind – think Gaius Baltar of Battlestar Galactica.
Anyway, Erica studies some bones in the autopsy pictures and notice that they are too smooth to have been freshly blown up. When she makes the revelation the V plant erases them instantly from another computer, so the setup by Anna still goes through flawlessly. The tearful press conference she makes sends the world into a frenzy of anti-Fifth Column and pictures of Hobbes begin to surface as one of the suspects. Onboard the ship, Lisa is losing a grip on her front to her mom as a stone cold daughter. Anna sees right through it when Lisa consoles a human mother a bit too convincingly and things start to make a downward turn for Lisa. Trying to save Tyler, she shows up at his house and gives him the old “I just had sex with you to see what it’s like” speech, expressing that she had no feelings for him so Live Aboard was out for him. Tearful and heartbroken the boy runs back to his mother, Erica and tells her that she was right about everything.
In the end Anna confronts Lisa who tells her that she had failed in wooing Tyler. Too bad for her that the Visitor Queen was 100 steps ahead of her and punishes her in the worst way. We FINALLY get to see Anna inflict first-hand violence as she delivers the bitch slap from hell across Lisa’s face, flooring her and leaving a bloody bruise on her once smooth cheek. Telling her she did it as a method of winning Tyler back, Anna does not stop there. She motions to a guard to “break both of her legs” in reference to her daughter. This bitch is cold blooded people, and I feel so sorry for Lisa who is not only going to be used to bring her lover back onboard but will be disfigured as well by her own mother.
The series is at its peak with the craziness occurring between the Fifth Column and team Anna. Next week we get to see the “Damsel in distress” plan come into play for Tyler and it seems that a catfight is inevitable by momma Erica and momma Anna, meeeeoww. Sign me up for that one, you know I’ll be tuning in.
Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 365 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
