The more I watch Falling Skies, the more I’m convinced that Tom Mason: Action Professor could kick Rick Grimes’ ass.
Of course, their situations are vastly different. Mason is facing an organized, militarized invasion, while Grimes is facing a more Libertarian insurrection of individuals with an accidentally common purpose of eating living flesh. In a way, Rick Grimes has it easier because his enemy doesn’t have the capacity to work together or learn new tactics.
The only strategy Rick has to master is inflicting head injuries. Tom Mason: Action Professor has to continually assess, pull from his vast knowledge of history, and revise.
However, Mason fought his way off an alien ship and always knows where his damn kids are. He wins just by virtue of his capacity for reason and what we in education call “with-it-ness”.
“Young Bloods” opened fairly ominously, with visions of an abandoned tricycle. It’s a signal that I’m meant to see the children in this episode and think of how the Skitter invasion has robbed them of their childhood.
- This is your cue to think about lost childhood. Get nostalgic, you sap!
And I’m sure if I weren’t a nerd, if I were a mundane, that’s exactly what I would have felt. But, I am a nerd and have taken film classes. I recognize such discarded and beat-up trinkets of childhood as an indicator that I’m going to be emotionally manipulated (which Falling Skies has a history of doing – that’s how they effing opened season one).
But, then I see Wee Mason and his glee at being spattered with alien guts and think, “What kid wouldn’t think that was awesome?”
- My life’s goal was to get covered in goop on “You Can’t Do That On Television” or “Double Dare”. I failed.
Maybe the message of “Young Bloods” is that, as a whole, we don’t give kids enough credit. Maurice Sendak famously said that children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. Kids have to learn to fend for themselves in any situation, apocalyptic or otherwise, and adults have to learn to trust kids’ survival instincts. Diego, the leader of this ep’s Goonie tribe, even flat out said, “Adults get us killed.”
Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee loomed over the entire ep, with his quote about war: “It is good that war is horrible, or we might grow to like it.” Let that be a lesson to you. At least it’s far more subtle than Tom Mason: Action Professor giving viewers a lecture about it. He’s completely ruined my planned Falling Skies drinking game, BTW. The game would have been to take a drink whenever Mason gave a history lesson, with some possible variations for quotes and such. There go my dreams.
- You should have paid more attention in history class.
Somewhat less subtle was the product placement on behalf of the US Army:
- This episode of Falling Skies presented with promotional consideration from the US Army.
On the patriotism note, I understand Weaver’s need to have US flags all over the place. Seriously, everywhere you turn in camp, there’s a flag hanging there. What I don’t get is the world map:
- You also should have paid more attention in geography class. Everything south of Texas isn’t Mexico.
The 2nd Mass isn’t even able to contact Charleston…. why do they need a world map on their commander’s makeshift wall? Are we worried that we’ll forget where the continents are located?
I’m still very interested in the Skitters, which is a testament to the quality of the show. There’s marked affection in their interactions with human children. Even in the harnessing facility, the available Skitter showed a great deal of affection toward the kids who one can assume will be his/her charges. The way it caressed that poor boy’s head was warmly parental and, you might notice, that the Skitter continued that contact through the harnessing process – a sign of concern.
- It’s CG, but it’s something like love.
Then it got silly toward the end. It didn’t have to be that way. Really, Show. Did you have to use a Latin guitar soundtrack when the estranged daughter was running away with the Latino boyfriend?
- “Do I hear Latin guitar? My daughter must be leaving me for that young, Latino boy.”
- “Oh. It’s just a white guy capturing the sound of my loss… which has a conveniently Latin ring to it.”
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Great review!
I was annoyed and liked this episode at the same time. Diego’s character was particularly annoying. Did anybody else get the vibe that instead of ”protective” as Weaver’s daughter described him, he seemed jealously possessive and controlling? The show projected the romantic fulfillment of a young girl is some guy whose traits and actions would suggest an abusive manipulative relationship later, guys we all too late find out about after the wife/girlfriend has been murdered.
I did like some of the aspects of this episode, showing how they harnessed kids and what the harnesses looked like pre bonding, liked the message that the youngest mason still needed his father in the end:-)
I’m really glad you said that about Diego because it addresses a really disturbing trend among teen girls: it seems like so many more of them are willing to accept that sort of behavior from a guy and even defend it as “love”. I was a teen in the 1990s and was constantly bombarded with workshops and assemblies and magazine article and such, all of which made it very clear that if he hits you and tries to control you, then he doesn’t love you and you need to get away.
I feel like somewhere along the line we’ve completely failed this generation of girls in this area. Just because we learned it, doesn’t mean they’re going to know it through osmosis or something. Maybe we should blame it all on Twilight. That seems to be a convenient scapegoat for this sort of thing.