Falling Skies 4.5: Cloudy

Well, I took a break from reviewing Falling Skies last week, hoping my opinion of this season would rise, but it hasn't.  Indeed, when the news broke that Falling Skies was renewed by TNT for its fifth and final season a few days ago, I wasn't surprised, given the weak and cliched story lines the series has descended to this season.

The biggest action for Tom in episode 4.5 was his falling in with a pair of brothers who seem to be good, but raise his suspicions when they talk about getting booze from a Mormon home (Mormons refrain from drinking).  They soon turn out to be not so good, lie to Tom about killing Matt, and in the end get killed themselves after coming pretty close to killing Tom.  Sound familiar?  This is the exact same thread already spun a dozen times on The Walking Dead, and spun much better, because sometimes the bad humans do lasting damage on that show to our heroes, which makes for a much more compelling story.

Meanwhile, the Lexi story is proceeding at such a snail's pace that I'm beginning to think there's some alien snail DNA at large in the people who make the show.  We've suspected to the point of knowing since last season that Lexi's father was an alien.   Anne had to know it, too.   So the big reveal last night was ... what?

Hal continues to be a somewhat interesting character, if only because it's unusual to have a son be almost exactly like his father in voice intonation and delivery of lines.   Drew Roy, who plays Hal, is seriously a good Noah Wylie (Tom) study.

As I've said before, this is sad.   Although post-apocalypse stories as as common as dandelions on television these days, alien invasion stories are not, and Falling Skies started out as something much better than Defiance.   Optimist that I am - about our ultimately beating the aliens in story lines, and about failing series beating the odds and coming up with a good resolution nonetheless - I'm still hopeful that Falling Skies can somehow come up with a good ending this season and next.

See also Falling Skies 4.1: Weak Start ... Falling Skies 4.2: Enemy of my Enemy ... Falling Skies 4.3: Still Falling

And see also Falling Skies 3.1-2: It's the Acting ... Falling Skies 3.3: The Smile ... Falling Skies 3.4: Hal vs. Ben ... Falling Skies 3.6: The Masons ...Falling Skies 3.7: The Mole and a Likely Answer ... Falling Skies 3.8: Back Cracked Home ... Falling Skies Season 3 Finale: Dust in Hand

And see also Falling Skies Returns  ... Falling Skies 2.6: Ben's Motives ... Falling Skies Second Season Finale

And see also Falling Skies 1.1-2 ... Falling Skies 1.3 meets Puppet Masters ... Falling Skies 1.4: Drizzle ... Falling Skies 1.5: Ben ... Falling Skies 1.6: Fifth Column ... Falling Skies 1.7: The Fate of Traitors ... Falling Skies 1.8: Weaver's Story ... Falling Skies Concludes First Season

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