'Falling Skies' Season 2, Episode 7 Recap - 'Molon Labe'

Well, Ben's little excursion with Kara goes predictably badly, and I say predictably because whenever the characters on this show aren't suffering some of the worst luck in the world (see last week's commentary on how prevalent Murphy's Law is on this show), they're making some of the worst decisions.

It's really astonishing how often these people are wrong. They fail to trust the people that they should trust (remember how much of a dick Weaver was to the woman from Charleston?), and they all too easily trust the people that they shouldn't.

In any case, the whole thing was an ambush and Kara puts her harness right back on as her master steps out. Apparently the fish heads wear little jumpsuits when they're out of their ships. Aww.

Ben is saved by Tom, Hal and the rest of the squad, as they make enough of a diversion for Ben to get to cover. Once Tom gets close enough to the Overlord, though, the mechs stop shooting: apparently he's too important for them to risk killing him.

So, Tom carts back this prisoner, assuming that it's going to be a great idea and that there's no possible way that, I dunno, Kara might be able to track him right back to the 2nd Mass and bring an army of mechs or anything. See what I mean about making terrible decisions?

That starts a bit of a standoff, as Kara won't continue the attack for fear of Tom killing the Overlord. Instead of attacking head on with skitters and mechs, it seems that the aliens send in a weapon we haven't seen yet: a small army of spider-like creatures that are quite icky indeed.

These provide problems for Lourdes, Anne, Jemile and Matt, who get stuck in the basement of the hospital after an explosion. I just now learned Jemile's name in this episode, and this also happens to be the episode in which he dies. So, clearly I cared about him a lot.

For a moment, I'm actually kind of glad he's gone, because it will cause Lourdes pain and Lourdes is the worst character ever. But it soon becomes clear that it will only make Lourdes more obnoxious, because now she's just sitting around and giving Anne attitude because her boyfriend died. I still think this is a win overall. Although I wasn't a huge fan of the spiders coming out of Jemile's mouth.

Tom has a talk with the Overlord, who is the same one that Tom spoke to on the ship, coincidentally enough. In this encounter, we learn that apparently the aliens are just conservationists who are here to wipe out the humans, or at least control their population, so they don't destroy the planet. At least, that's the implication. And boy, are people going to be annoyed if this show turns out to be one big global warming cautionary tale.

The impasse is solved by Tom shooting the Overlord ('Merica!) and using him as a bargaining chip to get the 2nd Mass a safe distance away. As they leave, though, Ben heads off in another direction, alone: he's decided (probably correctly) that he's too much of a danger to have around, especially now that the overlords are coming after him.

Some stray observations:

- Another dude died in this episode, in rather dramatic fashion, as if we were supposed to care. I did not know this character's name either. This show needs to learn that, in order for a death to affect the audience, we need to know who the heck the character is first.

- Why does everyone carry their weapons with them at all times? There's rarely a scene in which someone isn't holding some kind of large assault weapon. I get that the aliens could attack at any time, but I really don't think they need to be THAT on edge. They could at least sling it over their shoulders or something. Even Matt was just holding his rifle and looking out the window.

Random History Lesson of the Day: "16 YEAR OLDS FOUGHT IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!"