So last episode a lot of people died who I didn’t really
care about. In the aftermath, the survivors (who I don’t really care about
either) now emerge from their bunker. Thankfully the Espheni didn’t search very
hard with their army of agile skitters and the not-very-hidden bunker wasn’t
found.
They search the ruins for survivors, finding many bodies
(and Pope finds a wounded Skitter – which Sarah insists on finishing off rather
than Pope.)
Ben wakes up as Lexi’s prisoner among the Espheni where
they can hear the screams of people held captive (but Lexi is still on team
Espheni? Yup, evil). She calls all the screaming a “peaceful solution”. It’s
the e3volution of the species to have humans imprisoned and experimented upon.
Did I mention she was evil. Ben finally tells her that what she is planning is
genocide, is extinction – at last someone said it to her! She uses his spikes
to control him and he gasps “you’re going to kill me like you killed Lourdes”
as he collapses, bleeding from his eyes. She tries to spin her evil and Ben
tells her he’s making him her slave, just like the Espheni did. She says she
still wants to be family and he walks away from her.
Hal finds Maggie and she’s alive (I’m shocked. Truly.
This is my shocked face. Just look at how shocked it is). They get Maggie to Anne for treatment but Anne
tells Hal that Maggie is paralysed due to spinal cord damage. To cure her they
talk to Cochise who suggests taking super-healer serum out of Deni’s spikes and
injecting it into Maggie – which could kill both of them. Deni agrees but Anne won’t
go ahead without Maggie’s say-so. Maggie is unwilling to have alien DNA
injected into her despite Hal begging her to.
Hal lies to Anne about her refusal. She’s too out of it
to stop Anne from injecting the fluid. After the procedure, Maggie is so weak
that Anne doesn’t think she can survive and Hal cries and admits he lied – Anne
says she would have done the same for Tom. While they’re all sad, Ben returns
and tells Anne about Lexi’s lovely genocide plot and how impossible it is to
rescue her – and even if they could, it’s pointless because Lexi is gone, there
is only Espheni. Ben also suggests using a full spike transplant on Maggie to
save her – Anne is all angry and stompy (curse you Ben and your truth telling!)
and is worried that a full pike extraction would kill Ben (since just removing
the fluid hurt Deny a lot). Ben insists and with Volm tech they remove the
spikes (which are wiggly living things). She gets three before she worried
about Ben. Maggie and Ben’s spikes glow and they start synchronised seizing
Under the rubble Tom is alive (no, really, this is my shocked expression honest) and even buried under 10 tonnes of rocks he manages to be the big damn hero, pulling Botha out from under a slab. On the surface Weaver organises the digging while Pope declares Tom is dead and Matt leaps at him for the suggestion. Even Pope recognises that talking about a kid’s dad being dead while he’s present is not a nice thing to do.
Tom and Botha look for a way out, Botha having a panic
attack and needing Big Damn Hero Tom to calm him down. Botha is all sad and
despairing until Tom yells at him to
pull it together. They find the Beamer that crashed and get inside after Tom
pokes his hands into the door latch - which hurts and does something odd to his
hand. They go inside and the mutant bitten hand starts consuming and moving
around Tom’s body. Nasty. They tourniquet Tom’s arm and Botha cuts out the
alien nastiness with lots of screaming. After which they realise they’ve accidentally
triggered device they think is a bomb, Botha has another panic attack. He
decides the reason they’re buried is karma for when his child died being buried
when they tried to construct a pool (what an elaborate excuse to make Botha so
completely useless to Tom)
Tom gives another reassuring speech and the bomb goes up,
then hidden behind a blast shield, breaking open a hole to the surface – Botha hallucinates
his dead family. Matt finds them – joyful reunion time.
We need to spend time with Pope and Sarah for… reasons.
And Sarah is all jittery. They find a body of one of the sentries and Pope
insists on burying him. Sarah talks about how afraid she was during the attack
and how she’s not used to caring for people and she thought Pope was going to
die – yes kissing follows.
Ben wakes up and, when Hal thanks him, Ben says he didn’t
do it for him (oh love conflict).
The whole community gathers and has a send off for those
who died. Anne is still determined to find Lexi and Sarah decides to derail the
whole funeral to say how she’s going to be a different person, less focused on
herself and more concerned with others
Maggie wakes up and hugs Ben. She also seems to forgive Hal (after smacking him for betraying her) but Hal is sure to credit Ben
Tom tells Hal; they can’t go after Lexi, they have to
stay with the people who need them who didn’t leave and switch sides (about
time). They see an odd green light on the moon
Botha spent this whole episode being a useless burden for
Tom, he was there to remind us all what a great leader and Big Damn hero Tom is
Deni gets to be a resource tapped to save Maggie – but she
doesn’t even get to be the one that saves Maggie, that goes to Ben.
I want to see the fallout of Maggie’s consent being
completely ignored – and I want it to be more than a storytelling tool to put
Maggie with Ben rather than with Hal and for Hal then to have the Manpain.
At this point I think I will be actively nauseous if Lexi
is actually redeemed. Already every time Anne speaks up in her defence I
cringe.
We also had another side order of disability = worse than
death. Because it’s far better to implant dangerous alien DNA that could kill
Maggie (and leave her open to possession) and both her donors against her
express consent than to let her be paralysed.
