If you go back and look at my review of the first three episodes, you’ll see I complained a lot about the lack of stakes. For a series about an alien invasion, there wasn’t a lot to hang onto in terms of personal stakes or any sort of global scope. I mean they are lizard creatures, after all. Fortunately, it seems like the V staff realized that they’re really never going to have the budget for any sense of global storytelling, they’re going to make up for that by making some of the characters as miserable as possible. And even though this probably makes me sound like an awful person, this is a decision that I completely agree with. At the end of this episode, Erica Evans has gone through the ringer, from almost being identified as a Fifth Column member and learning that Ryan has more or less betrayed her, to reuniting with her husband only to watch him get shot down in the middle of a crazy moment. In a number of ways, it’s unfortunate that it’s taken almost 20 episodes for Erica to be fully invested in bringing to Anna and the Visitors, but at least we’re there now.
Similarly, it does feel a bit sad that the season is just circling around to some actual great moments and possible tension-filled developments when there is now only four episodes left, probably ever. I understand the desire in resetting the stage and the players like Scott Rosenbaum and his team did in the first three episodes of the season, but thus far those slow-moving introductions and possible plot points haven’t really paid off. Sidney’s gone, the series doesn’t seem as interesting in discussing the stuff about the soul and other threads are just hanging there.
The thing is, V is never, ever going to be a great drama. It works much better when it pushes the pedal down and tries to shoot the audience full of adrenaline and then perhaps pull the rug out from underneath them a bit like the end of this episode. The last two episodes have felt more like the action-oriented, goofy kind of series that V should be. Again, THIS IS A SHOW ABOUT ALIENS. There is a time and a place for the exploration of the evils of man, but I don’t think this is it.
With that said, this is why “Siege” works on the most basic of levels. Hostage episodes aren’t particularly new or high-concept, but they work wonders when you’re trying to inject some energy and life into your narrative and they raise the stakes in some way, which were two things V needed coming into this episode. High-pressure situations like that bring out the best and worst in people and here it also allowed for Anna to plot from a distance in some interesting ways that didn’t just involve manipulating the media or something. Some of the rapid editing and cross-cutting between all the action was a bit overwrought and the character motivations continue to be a bit sketchy or easily altered on a whim, but at a certain point, I’m willing to sit back and watch things blow up and people die.
And by my count, it looks as though “Siege” brought us the deaths of three fairly important characters. Cohn and his Fifth Column crew died in the massive explosion, as did Ryan I believe. Throw in the death of Erica’s husband at the end of the episode and that’s a whole lot of dead people for a series that usually doesn’t try to accomplish anything like that (and it’s not as if killing characters off is a super-original idea). I still don’t entire see the point in Cohn and his sector of the Fifth Column and I think Ryan was severely mishandled this season, but if their deaths, along with the ex-husband’s death obviously, can serve as some sort of motivation for Erica to step up and actually fight Anna, I’m in.
Hobbes taking Ryan’s place as Anna’s puppet after being the one who never trusted Ryan to begin with is a moderately interesting development, especially since we’ve known that Hobbes has been playing both sides at certain points throughout the series. It seems like the writers have tried to build up an interesting relationship between he and Erica so once she finds out about this betrayal it’s going to be explosive and I think I’m willing to go with that. Ryan’s actions weren’t really hashed out that well, so I hope Anna comes calling again with information about Hobbes’ family so that we can see more of the behind-the-scenes plotting.
I don’t know where V is headed in these upcoming episodes, but at least there is a sense that the series is going somewhere. It might not be executed with the largest amount of grace and subtlety, but I hope the series figures out a way to go down swinging. It seems like the creative team was willing to go there in the second half of this truncated season and so that’s why Erica’s finally ready to fight for real. I am ready for this as well.
