Falling Skies: Season 2, Episode 8 “Death March” (C+)
This wasn’t a horror episode like the previous installment, but this show continued to head nowhere fast with a relatively monumental ending after a completely useless and unnecessary hour of slow travel. Hal, Maggie, and Pope sure didn’t do a great job of scouting ahead, running into car trouble and thus proving entirely unhelpful in ensuring everyone else’s safety. Pope continues to be a nuisance, tormenting Maggie with some mysterious information that, as expected, was completely inconsequential. Hal is into Maggie and he’s not going to let something like a prison history and a baby born in prison upset him. I do like this show’s continued references to real Massachusetts locations, and I used to drive by the Framingham women’s correctional facility multiple times a week. It’s nice to see Matt make a new friend, but it’s about time that the adults learned that you just can’t trust a harnessed kid, no matter how adorable or innocent they may seem. They just end up running off into the night and then returning at some inopportune time. Weaver had a great time harassing his driver, and he didn’t even take too much convincing to make his grand inspirational speech after they came upon a devastated, abandoned Charleston. All hope is not lost, of course, because, though this show doesn’t mind showing dead children, it’s impossible not to have a happy ending, and the wondrous hope of Charleston still awaits, sure to be seen in the show’s final two episodes of the season.
