'Falling Skies' recap: 'Strange Brew'

Courtesy TNT
BY MELISSA HARKNESS

When we left the intrepid Mason family last week, they were in quite the pickle. Tom went back to the hillbilly house to warn the Picketts that the skitters were coming. It was a trap of course, and he was captured. The boys were left watching more skitter patrols roaming the area on their way back to Charleston.

This week we get to see a window into the Tom Mason's less than exciting life back before the invasion. Tom wakes in his old house next to his old wife in his old job. He believes that all of the events of the last couple of years were just a dream. As he drives to his professor job he sees a bum that looks like Weaver holding a “The End Is Nigh” sign. But a kindly police officer that looks a lot like Karen leads him away.

As he gets to the university, guess who has a neighboring office? Give up? It's Pope! He's appears to be having an illicit relationship with a student that looks like Lourdes. Well, that does sound like Pope doesn't it?
 The denizens of Charleston and the 2nd Mass continue to populate his ongoing delusion. References to Anne keep popping up everywhere as well, but he can't remember who she is. It would also seem that whatever Karen is doing to him, she wants him to pick one of these cities: New York, Boston, Jacksonville, or Chicago. Throughout several days in this state, he continues to see Weaver every time he turns around.

They finally pull out the big guns, and send in Anne to ask him which of the cities they are going to visit. But he knows he would never have cheated on his wife, and this makes him suddenly remember his real life.

Tom then wakes in some dank nasty room where they have been using some squishy Espheni tech on him to get into his head. Karen desperately wants to know which of the four cities the Volm are going to attack: New York, Boston, Jacksonville, or Chicago. As she congratulates him on figuring it out, the boys and Weaver show up and promptly rescue him.

When Karen claims she doesn't know where Anne and Lexi are, he shoots her in the head. A harnessed girl then attacks him and he clumsily bangs his head into the wall. When next he wakes, he's back in Charleston in the hospital.

He immediately jumps up and heads to the War Room where Weaver and associates are discussing “the plan”. Weaver quickly asks Tom to lay out the attack on the map. But as he turns to the map stand, he quickly realizes that this is just another one of Karen's delusions. He then turns from the map stand and shoots Weaver in the head for good measure. This time when Tom wakes, Karen cuts to the chase and threatens Anne and Lexi if he doesn't tell her what she wants to know.

Back in Charleston, Weaver and Anthony have been investigating Pres. Hathaway's death. Oddly enough they've accounted for everyone's whereabouts except for Miranda. Weaver and Pope are becoming more and more convinced that she is the mole. They both wish that Tom was there to figure this out for them.

Anyway, Maggie catches up to Weaver asking to be put on the advance team for the attack. She wants to kill Karen, you see. Their conversation is interrupted by the radio room exploding beside them. After they get patched up by the ever helpful Lourdes, he agrees that Maggie can go in with the first team.

Miranda then corners Weaver and tells him that she knows he thinks she's the mole. She lays out all of the evidence pointing at her and says she doesn't blame him. She also makes an impassioned speech about democracy and incidentally against a military coup. Weaver pauses and assures her that he will be her strong right arm just like Tom told her he would be. He then goes to conspire with Pope some more.

Weaver tells Pope to get his people ready, the Volm mission is still on, but they don't need to tell Miranda everything. Shortly after this, Hal and the other Mason boys straggle into camp. The overjoyed Maggie runs out to meet them.

Tom's situation has not improved. Karen has fun new things for him this time, like Anne and Lexi's corpses wrapped in some sort of cocoon like thing. She claims that she had to kill them since he refused to cooperate. After he freaks out for a while, she consoles him with the knowledge that he can still save his sons by telling her what he knows.

The energy grid activates, forestalling any further conversation. Instead they walk out on a balcony to watch the blue beams of the grid crisscross the sky. Tom takes this moment to tackle the skitter standing next to the railing causing them both to go over the edge. Fortunately, the skitter breaks the long fall and Tom jumps up and runs off into the night. The skitter wasn't so lucky.

Tom slowly starts walking back to Charleston. It would appear he was being held in Boston, because he stops in his old neighborhood and pays a visit to his old house. He forlornly wanders in and meanders around the house until he gets to the bedroom. He lays down and then hallucinates his old wife lying beside him. They have a sweet and very sad conversation about love and the boys, etc. She then implores him to leave the house and never come back there. As the tears really get started, a stray cat startles him out of his daydream and once again he heads out onto the road.

The next episode of Falling Skies, “Journey to Xilbalba” airs Sunday, July 28 at 10 p.m. ET on TNT.