Falling Skies Season Three Recap and Comparison to V

Arrival of the Volm Reptilians
The Reptilian Volm that arrived at the end of Season Two join the resistance and provide advanced weapons to help the resistance wage war against the Espheni (Greys). Apparently, they have been waging a centuries long war against each other from star system to star system over a flower (or at least whatever the flower represents).

Hal's "Infection"
In the Second Season of Falling Skies, Hal becomes infected by an Espheni parasite. The parasite apparently impacts Hal's nervous system and paralyzes him during the day, or at least his legs. However, at night it controls his entire body and mind and leads him to rendezvous with Karen. Maggie discovers his nighttime treks from the mud on his boots, but Hal remembers none of this.

Lourdes the Assassin
Throughout the season, an unknown assassin kills several key personnel and funnels information to the Espheni, again through a parasite. The assassin eventually turns out to be Lourdes, the pre-med  student who has been helping Anne with medical issues and surgery throughout the series. She is one of the last people anyone would suspect to be an assassin. Lourdes eventually is discovered to be a mole and used to convey false battle plans to the Espheni.

Alien Hybrid Baby

Like in V, an alien hybrid baby is created. Unlike V, the alien is not a “love child” but somehow had her DNA corrupted with Alien DNA to produce a hybrid. This tracks well with alien conspiracy culture in the sense that it happened during Anne's (the mother's) encounter with Karen and the Overlord. Alternatively, Tom Mason could’ve been corrupted when taken aboard the alien ship to somehow produce an alien child

Unlike V, the child is not born into a welcoming group who want to protect it. Instead the mother (Anne) flees with the child from the human enclave in Charleston. However, the hybrid child is wanted by the aliens, and Anne and the child are abducted by them (again). In V, the hybrid child is viewed as a threat by all but the high commander and the child brings peace between the two civilizations. At the end of Season Three, it's not clear what purpose the hybrid child serves.

The Espheni Power Shield & Same-old, Same-old
Throughout the season, the Espheni have been constructing a power source in Boston to project a planetary defense grid. The destruction of the power shield becomes the main focus of the 2nd Mass, and their eventual success leads to an Espheni retreat and meeting between Tom Mason and the Volm Commander, who is the father of Cochise - the human name of the Volm's human liaison. Unfortunately, this meeting does not go down as one of equals and the Volm Commander essentially offers the same deal the Espheni did at the beginning of the Season: resettlement in a neo-reservation based in Brazil. The season ends with Cochise providing weapons and escape for the 2nd Mass to avoid resettlement.

Falling Skies Season Two Recap and Comparison with V

Season Two starts with Tom resisting the Espheni (Grey) Overlord who offers to settle humans on neo-reservations, leaving his species with the run of the planet. During this discussion, he declares that humans are brutal there is no point in negotiating with them when the Greys can just take what they want. He then declares that they have been studying humans a long time, which tracks with conspiracy culture mythology of the Greys.

During the opening episode, Tom attacks and injures an Espheni (Grey) Overlord. The Greys then release the human leaders they have captured and to whom they presumably have made the same arguments and deal which they offered Tom Mason. Once the leaders are released, most of them are killed in an ambush by Skitters and Mechs, though Tom escapes.

During the course of the second season, the 2nd Massachusetts and their outlaw friends make it South to the Reconstituted Government built underneath Charleston, SC. Much of the season's plot line deals with the configuration of the new government, and conflicts between the 2nd Mass and Majority Leader of the new government over the best way to accomplish the respective goals of each. The Majority Leader was Tom's thesis advisor during his PhD in the American Revolution. However, he is much more of a dictator than one who governs via consent of the governed. This leads to an eventual Coup and Tom Mason becoming the unwilling leader of the new government.

During the course of the season, Hal becomes infected by a parasite similar to the one that Tom carried back, which then infected Lourdes (though nothing happened on that plot line in this season)

Episode 5 of Season Two also seems to be pivotal. In this episode we learn that,like in V, a “Fifth Column” develops among the skitters. This Fifth Column is seeking freedom from the Espheni (Grey Alien) overlords, and wages war against their mechanical warriors, which is how the 5th Massachusetts becomes aware of the Fifth Column. During episode 5, the red-eyed leader of this rebellion is wounded and their is conflict among the 5th Mass as to what to do with him. We also learn that some of the Skitters have been able to resist the harness and have been trying to wage rebellion for 100 years. Red-Eye is hopeful that an alliance with the human resistance will lead to the eventual success of the current rebellion. 

The potential rebellion is alarming enough to the Espheni (Grey) alien overlords that they send Hal Mason's former girlfriend Karen to kidnap Ben Mason in order to obtain intelligence from Ben, who has been trying to help forge the alliance between the 5th Column and the 5th Mass. During this attempt, the 5th Mass captures the alien Overlord with whom Tom interacted and was tortured by earlier in the season.

Season Two ends with the death of the Overlord Tom dealt with all season and the arrival of new, winged "Reptilian" aliens. It is unclear if the Reptilians are good or bad from our brief introduction. 

Falling Skies Season One Recap & Comparison w/ V

Since the reboot of V does not seem to be coming back, it's a good thing that we have Falling Skies to watch now. It shares many similarities to both the original V and the reboot. Falling Skies also seems like yet another retelling, in modified form, of the American Revolution. For one thing, the series and the Resistance starts in Boston - the first reference to the Backbay neighborhood and the second to South Boston. 

The Resistance
The initial invasion of Falling Skies is dramatically overt, and more similar to what happens in Independence Day than in V  - Motherships arrive and launch attacks, then leave garrisons as they go somewhere else. Interestingly, the alien garrisons left behind are protected by large, odd-shaped structures. The initial attack is devastating and destroys all major cities and military forces. This attack uses a bright light, EMP-type weapon which bears some similarity to the "Blue Light" in V 2010.

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Resistance Leaders

Like in the mulitple V miniseries and series, the Resistance is largely lead by “moms and dads” – regular people in extraordinary circumstances. In V, the military is co-opted by the governmental collaborators who are their masters. In Falling Skies, the  military is essentially annihilated (as mentioned before).

 

One of primary adult characters and leaders is a female doctor, Anne, like Juliet in the original V. Another leading protagonist adult character is a history/military history professor named Tom Mason, as opposed to a journalist. Tom's PhD in the American Revolution lends more credence to the idea that the entire series is one entire retelling of the Revolution (similar to Star Wars). This is something we as Americans like to do in our storytelling.
 

In the original V, The Resistance teams up w/ mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries (whom would be called terrorists now) to help fight the invading aliens. In Falling Skies, the resistance teams up with a band of well-armed criminals. This merger of forces is bumpy and not at all smooth, but in the end it succeeds, partly because "Being the leader of a band of post-apocalyptic outlaws has been exhausting," according to Pope, the outlaw leader.

 

In Falling Skies/Original V, it is the outlaw criminals and mercenaries, respectively, who are the ones that develop alien armor piercing bullets. In the case of V, it was the lizard skin that the new ammunition penetrated. In Falling Skies it was the “Mech” armor that the new ammo could penetrate (made from destroyed Mechs, and inspired by a comment from one of Tom Mason's children). 

 

Alien Hierarchies & Evolution

The Aliens in Falling Skies seem to operate in a strict, racial/mechanical hierarchy, as opposed to the Visitors in V, who operate according to a military hierarchy. In Falling Skies, Skitters and Mechanical warriors (Mechs) comprise the lower caste helping the Grey alien-inspired "Overlords." One of the principal jobs of the skitters is to catch kids and attach biological harnesses to them. These harnesses turn kids into compliant servants of Skitters, and then eventually into Skitters
Ben, the son of primary adult character/leader is abducted (like in V) and harnessed to ensure his loyalty – in V, Donovan’s son is abducted and put into cold storage until putting him a conversion process to ensure his loyalty to the Visitors.

 

Episode 5 reveals a symbiotic relationship between alien Skitters and harnessed children – Aliens care for them, and according to one formerly harnessed child, “It’s like they care about us – part of a family – they know what we need before we do”  

Human Collaborators
The human collaborators in Falling Skies are much more nefarious than in V. In V, the collaborators are essentially upper crust society members seeking higher status by working with what appear to be alien "friends."After all, the aliens in V have a much more insidious, and less overtly violent agenda. They merely want to feed on "excess" humans. The collaborators in Falling Skies know that the skitters do horrible things to children, including turning them into harnessed slaves. However, they still try to deal children for peace to the skitters. The beginning of the collaboration to send children to aliens is revealed in Episode 5, which seems to be pivotal in revealing the connections between harnessed children and skitters.