Falling Skies Recap: “Young Bloods”

by Merrill Barr:

Falling Skies Recap: “Young Bloods”
Original Air Date (TNT): July 1, 2012
Season 2 Episode 4

There’re many marks of a well made television series. One of the most important is whether or not the writers are capable of realizing the potential of a new story line. Plenty of examples exist where story lines that should only run one or two episodes, dominate entire seasons. In the case of “Young Bloods,” the story line in question is that of Weaver’s long lost but now found daughter, Jeanne.

Many shows would have let the Jeanne story line play out over the rest of the season. Let the relationship of Weaver and his daughter build up just so it could be struck down with massive dramatic overplay in the season finale. But in a sign of true foresight for the Falling Skies room, they knew there was really only enough meat on the bones of Jeanne’s character to last one really cool episode.

Now that Jeanne has left her father, the fall out from that will haunt Weaver far more than her being there ever could. Not only will Weaver be devoting time to protecting the Second Mass, but now he’ll also deal with the mental struggle that somewhere in Skitter central is his daughter, whom he’ll never have a status update on. Maybe until it’s too late. A parents worst nightmare, the fear of the unknown.

But of course the Jeanne story line was merely the result of something I’ve said I wanted to see more of from the show. The reveal of more packs of survivors around the world. We all knew there were more people to be discovered in Skitter land, it was just a matter of when. What I like about this group compared to some other possible discoveries is that there was never a debate of “we NEED to take the parentless children with us!”

Weaver, Tom and the rest of the Second Mass just accept early on that this group can take care of itself (for the most part). It goes back to the credibility of the writers room. Not everyone needs saving and sometimes you just have to accept when there is nothing to be done. Much like last week, a real read between the lines moment.

One moment that absolutely needs to be talked about is the opening scene. Not the fact that Matt was used as bait and not the fact that the two snipers were so happy about hunting Skitters. It’s that Matt was so excited, disturbingly excited, over the horribly violent death of two Skitter whose blood ended up all over him.

It’s a small moment that truly adds to the visualization of how society is breaking down. That an eleven year old has been around so much violence and death already that not only is he unfazed by it, but excited about it. It sends small chills up my spine thinking about the way Matt now sees the world. Especially since he’s the one Mason son whom we see so little of per episode. “Young Bloods” was a real character episode for him.

The last point of the episode I want talk about is the harness warehouse. Up until now we were never given many facts about how the harnesses were applies. But now we know two very imporant details:

1. The Skitters have taken over man-made factories for their production.
2. The harnesses are fully biological until application.

The second detail is the most intriguing. It means the harnesses don’t need to be given orders like a computer, it’s all biological instinct, as we saw when one of them attached to Weaver’s leg. What that first detail means is given the right kind of man-power humanity could create a counter-agent to the harnesses. A vaccine or anti-biotic much like the way we treat illnesses caused by micro-organisms.

It’s clear the battle for humanity’s survival is long from over.

~Merrill Barr, DarkMedia Resistance Group 49 – out~

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DarkMedia contributor Merrill Barr can also be found on his podcast, The Idiot Boxers and on Twitter @sonic43.