BY MELISSA HARKNESS
When we left Charleston last week, our friends in the 2nd Mass were quite the scattered bunch. Anne confirmed that Lexi is in fact part alien and tried to flee the city with her. Hal showed his inner alien by intercepting her with a skitter and its harnessed kid. Meanwhile, Tom, Bressler and Pope were shot out of the air by an Espheni assault on the President's hideout and crashed in the forest.
Tom wakes from the plane crash to find Bressler died a hero's death saving them. He carries Pope from the wreckage and hides in the woods. It doesn't take long before an Espheni ship comes to search the area. This is one instance where Pope's criminal past comes in handy as he advises Tom on the best way to hide from the “authorities”. During all the bickering, we learn that they are some 400 miles north of Charleston at this point. Tom wonders how the spy could have known where they were since they didn't even know where they were going until they were airborne.
Back in Charleston, Weaver has discovered that Anne is missing with the baby. Ben wakes up Hal and Maggie and they rush off to hear Dr. Kadar and Lourdes tell Marina, Tom's aide, what happened. After exchanging incredulous looks upon learning that the baby is some sort of weird hybrid, they decide they have to go search for them. Marina is vehemently against this idea and has words with Weaver, but he takes his daughter and the Mason boys and heads out. Right before they leave she comes and wistfully tells him to be careful. His daughter smirks in the background, amused at her father's obliviousness to flirtation. It isn't long before they find a dead woman face down in the badlands. She looks remarkably like Anne, but when Weaver turns her over, it proves to be a stranger. Matt decides that they need to bury here. Hal doesn't see the point since they don't even know her, but Weaver insists they do as Matt suggests. It should also be noted that Hal has been walking perfectly during all of this, so I am left to assume that Hal 2.0 is still in charge.
Tom displays his Boy Scout training by building a fire in the face of Pope's obvious discomfort with outdoorsmanship. As Pope continues to mock him, he lets slip that he had a less than idyllic childhood and was fortunate to survive his alcoholic father. Pope looks slightly chagrined, but continues to lie against his tree. Story time continues, when they start talking about Pope's kids. He has a little boy and a girl. The last time he saw his son, he was working on his mini bike when a neighbor almost ran over the boy. Pope and the driver got in a fight and the man hit his head a little too hard and died. Guess Pope went off to prison and never saw his kids again. Sadly, all this camaraderie over the campfire doesn't last until morning. Pope decides it would be fun to wake Tom up by throwing a dead snake on him. Poor Tom must be feeling the stress, because they end up exchanging blows until a skitter shows up. They take off through the woods and end up jumping off a cliff into a waterfall and some rapids. The skitters stare forlornly over the edge after them.
Marina continues to overstep her bounds, and goes to see Dr. Kadar. He assumes that she is there to talk to him about the genetic testing of all the babies born since the invasion. He's wrong. She pulls out a folder and shoes him a picture of the Volm weapon. She wants him to figure out what it does. When he asks her if Tom knows about this weapon, she smiles and tells him that Tom asked her to show them to him. I don't trust her, do you?
Tom and Pope eventually wash up on shore ready to continue their own personal grudge match. Only Tom quickly realizes his ankle isn't working properly. This of course will leave him at Pope's mercy. I foresee more bickering. Pope does his best to patch Tom up and splint his ankle, but Tom is in too much pain to try and walk. Amazingly, Pope refuses to leave him and tries to cajole him into carrying on. Finally, Tom succeeds in goading Pope into leaving him behind. He makes himself a fire and sits there loading what ammunition he has as night falls. However, as the skitters inevitably catch up and advance on him, Pope steps out from behind a rock and puts some large shotgun rounds in their heads. Apparently, the only thing he hates more than Tom is skitters. Pope also scoped out a new ride and some of the aforementioned shotgun shells. The pair head off towards home.
The search for Anne and Lexi continues. In the light of the new hybrid theory, Jeannie makes her father promise to not let the Espheni get her. He reluctantly promises to never let that happen. They shortly come across tracks which would indicate that perhaps Anne and Lexi were found and taken by skitters. The group decides to head back to Charleston and ask the rebel skitters to find out what they can about her.
Marina pays another visit to Dr. Kadar to see what he has figured out about the weapon. Dr. Kadar is very frustrated. He says the device is pulling way more power than is necessary. It is in fact overkill, he says. At the look on Marina's face, he finally realizes that Tom never asked her to look into this. She admits it, and advises him to not mention this to anyone. He agrees that would be good idea. He then dispiritedly tells her that the other babies DNA tests were normal. She doesn't really seem to care and mutters an acknowledgment as she stomps out of the room.
Tom and Pope finally make it back to Charleston. When Tom wakes up in the hospital two days later, Pope is sitting beside his bed. He just wants him to know that they're even. The boys and Weaver come in and get all sappy on him. After all the hugs, he asks for Anne and Lexi. At the sad look on everyone's faces he demands that Weaver tell him what's going on. Weaver finally breaks it to him that they are missing and the screen fades to black.
So, who do you think is the mole? Could someone else besides Hal be compromised in Charleston?
The next episode of Falling Skies, “Be Silent and Come Out” airs Sunday, July 7 at 10 p.m. ET on TNT.