Well, that was fun.
Over the course of two seasons and 22 episodes, V has tried to be a political commentary, a religious commentary, a general invasion series and probably three other mediocre ideas that I can’t remember right now. The series has had a rough going for the most of season two while those growing pains continued and even in the season’s brightest moments — “Siege” and the last two episodes most notably — V hasn’t really gotten it all right. Sure, Craig pays me the big bucks to be critical but even if I separated myself from that role, I could still point out the obvious flaws in this season’s narrative and “character development.” From the beginning, V has been trying way too hard to be something it’s not. Whether that means political allegory or religious commentary, the series has been rudderless — and in a lot of cases, boring — for most of the season.
I say all this because it appears that when writing “Mother’s Day,” the production team figured out what kind of series V should have been the entire time: an insanely fun, albeit ridiculous stupid in spots actioneer with lots of scenery chewing and jaw-dropping moments. For whatever reason, all the post-Lost serial dramas have tried so hard to be serious when in reality one of the reasons people loved Lost from the beginning was because it was flat-out fun. In “Mother’s Day,” V presents us with re-tooling on the fly, but one that suggests a more fun, entertaining and awesome series in the future.
Of course, we probably won’t be seeing that future and that’s what makes this all so unfortunate. While I, like Craig, found this episode to be a riot, it’s an empty riot. There is really no reason why V couldn’t have been this version of itself in the season premiere or even in like the fourth episode. “Mother’s Day” shoos away the soul nonsense, basically implodes the Fifth Column storyline and kills a whole bunch of people that weren’t useful in the first place. So on one hand, awesome! On the other hand, pointing out the terrible error of your ways by wiping those errors away doesn’t make me totally forgive you for them.
But it does make me forgive you just a little bit, I guess. “Mother’s Day” is most certainly the best episode of V has produced because it fully embraces the insanity of this situation and finally lets Morena Baccarin run wild all over the screen.
Everything the season has been building to gets blown up within a few moments and it’s just awesome. Lisa cannot bring herself to kill her mother, destroying Erica and company’s last “great” idea for Visitor defeat. Fortunately for us, Anna CAN bring herself to kill HER mother, which leads to an awesomely crafted scene where Anna stabs Diana in the chest with her tail. Again, I’m not sure what the hell the point of having Diana on this series to begin with was — aside from trying to pull in some original series viewers — but the way she left was roughly 4,203 times better than anything she did while alive and apart of the season’s narrative.
I could say the exact same thing for the episode’s other big deaths in Ryan and Tyler. I really like Morris Chestnut and thought Ryan became something of an interesting character at the end of season one, but this year, he’s been an awful anchor weighing the narrative down. His shifting loyalties were supposed to be compelling and put a sheen of mystery over everything he did, instead, it was boring and completely void of tension. Ryan never dealt with any consequences of his actions — Anna kept him around and Erica was too willing to overlook his deadly decision-making. Because of that, his subterfuge didn’t matter. But hey, another tail-related death! By a little kid!
And like everyone else who has ever watched five minutes of V, I fist-pumped when Tyler was killed by the Lisa clone thing. The scene had absolutely no tension in it because there has been no reason to care about Tyler or his relationship with Lisa, but hey, another gruesome death! By a clone! I think it was at that point in the episode where I tweeted something along the lines of “WHAT IS HAPPENING ON V RIGHT NOW?”
Oh, but the episode wasn’t done blowing up its own narratives. Hobbes is missing or running or something, and Erica gets pulled in to something known as Project Ares. From the beginning, my biggest complaint with the series has been its lack of scope, and finally, Ares possibly presents that to us. It’s a damn cabal! I love cabals! Again, it feels absolutely ridiculous that the series took this long to present us with a group that could possibly stand up to the Visitors, but I sort of see the logic in the development: Right at the moment where it looks like Anna has won this war, Erica finds herself a new team to fight back with. Of course, we probably won’t see that fight but hey!
And lest we forget the cliffhanger: Bliss for humans! Given by Ryan’s daughter! Listen, I don’t really have any clue how or why that happened, but I’m all for the series getting crazier and there is very little that’s inherently crazier than creepy little kids. Plus, it only makes Anna seem more deadly.
V will probably not return for a third season. There’s an outside chance, but that’s only because ABC’s schedule is full of holes. Just full of ’em. If this is the end, I am sadder now than I ever thought I would be. But you know what? This could have been the series from the very beginning and the writers chose to dance around some mediocre and terrible ideas.
1 Comment
This episode just seemed like a big let down. The cliffhanger ending was really the only good highlight. It was a good way to either end the season or end the series on the premise that the V’s had won or, more likely, Project Ares, as a bigger more sophisticated group than the 5th column, was strong enough to take down Anna even against unsurmountable odds.
However, the ending also sort of makes the entire episode unnecessary. The plan was for Lisa to kill her own mother. When Erica was telling Lisa the plan and the part Lisa would play, I immediately felt that that was a stupid move. How can mother struggling to save her own son, expect a daughter to DIRECTLY look her mother in the eyes and kill her. And guess what? Lisa so easily agreed to do such a cold-blood act. Really! But she couldn’t complete the task. Why?Because one specifically positioned mirror allowed Anna to see Lisa, but not Lisa to see Anna. Com’on! Why was all of this unnecessary? Because Anna did not need to get of her ship to show the world her compassion as a mother and gain the human’s favor. She had already learned how to bliss humans in the last episode, and could have stayed on the ship and simply gained their obedience through bliss. O, and I thought only the queen could bliss. And even if it was because Ryan’s daughter is half human or because she’s been receiving blisses from Anna, how did the little girl know how to perform it and to such a massive scale.
Why was Project Ares never alluded to in the form of other anti-V attacks or Anna’s suspicions of other groups. This is especially odd since the writers were (possibly) already planning on bring in Project Ares, since they had planted Chris as Erica’s new FBI partner many episodes earlier. And how does Project Ares, which has been so low key, know so much about the V’s and things they can do that they did not even know they can do.
And so many other things, like where did Sidney, the bio wiz-kid, go? “Breaking-In”?
This show should just be cancelled.