V: Bestiality

Because, that’s what this show is really about. A bunch of space lizards who want to fuck human beings.

Bestiality.

But none of the characters seem to think so. For example:

“It’s weird enough my Mom makes me have sex with a human male. It’s even weirder Mom makes me use my fake human vagina instead of my real, lizard vagina. If you wanna understand what that’s like, have someone hump your armpit. That’s about it.

All the same, I don’t dislike it, because I do kinda have feelings for this human.  I didn’t think that was possible, that I could fall in love with a completely different life form, especially when the physical aspects of the relationship are so foreign to me. So without my fake vagina, I’d never get to experience that.

I never thought I’d say it, but having a vagina from a completely different species grafted onto my body isn’t such a bad thing,” is something Lisa would NEVER think or say.

Or similarly,

“How the hell did I get Val pregnant? When I undertook my undercover mission, nobody said I could get boners or anything. I didn’t even think my fake human penis worked!

The first time I got a boner I had no idea what was even going on. It happened on the subway. I was just listening to a Marketplace Morning Report podcast on my iPad, and wham, there it was. Is that how it is for humans? Do you just get boners once in a while for no reason whatsoever? I’ve been trying to research it on the Internet but I don’t even know where to start.

In fact, like most lizards, even ones on Earth, my Space Lizard Penis is very small and retracts inside my body, so there was quite a learning curve in terms of just walking around with that human penis down there.

It’s pretty itchy, too.

Having a human penis sure took some getting used to. But if it weren’t for my human penis, I wouldn’t have had a wonderful relationship with Val. And I wouldn’t have my daughter.

Oh, and one last thing—I have no idea how I pee,” is something Morris Chestnut would never say either.

Now, you might say, hey, it’s not really bestiality because the V’s are wearing human suits. So really, it looks the same as two people fucking.

And to you I respond, this is a sci-fi version of Furries. Lizard putting on a human suit = human putting on a lizard suit.

INTRO

ERICA’S OVERTURNED CAR

We start out with Erica and Malik back at the scene of the accident. Erica manages to free herself from her seat belt, only to find that Malik’s already loose, and a lady fight ensues.

I would think there’s no way in hell Erica could win this, right? There’s no way we’d go along with it if she were fighting, say, a crocodile.

Unsurprisingly, Malik doles out more damage than pretty much any human could withstand. At one point she executes a counter-punch that clearly shatters Erica’s wrist, and right after that lands a couple solid kicks that obviously cave in a few of Erica’s ribs.

But then, when Malik pauses to open up her giant lizard jaws, Erica sees an opportunity, tackles her, and pile-drives her into a tree, knocking her out cold.

So let me just check my scorecard real quick…

THE NETWORK TV FIGHT SCENE, HUMAN vs. V

Human woman in her late thirties: Just fine despite absorbing enough blows to kill an elephant.

Space Lizard with super-human strength, reflexes, agility, and fighting prowess: knocked out after one hit.

OK, we’re good.

Hobbes and Jack arrive next. How did they find her, being that this is taking place in a field in the middle of nowhere? Well, they knew she was going to Ossining, so they just decided to head there themselves. They saw her overturned car from the road. (That’s actually somewhat plausible, so I’m cool with it).

They ask what happened, and Erica tells them the shocking news—Malik is a V. Hobbes immediately draws his pistol and prepares to murder Malik in cold blood, but Erica stops her.  After all, Malik is alive and could probably be interrogated.

Hobbes and Jack load Malik into their truck, but not before Hobbes turns his gun on Erica’s tires and pops off a couple shots, without telling anyone first he’s going to do so, because he’s “badass” or whatever. As he wedges a rag into her gas tank, he finally explains that he’s giving Erica a cover story: tell everyone the Fifth Column attacked her car, and they abducted Malik.

And on that note, he blows up her car.

Oh my god, I was so bored. Thank god they blew something up.

THE V MOTHERSHIP

Up on the mothership, Lisa’s getting some shuteye when something weird starts happening to her arm…

She’s also naked! Later in the scene you can almost see some boob

Why is her skin moving?! Or turning green AND moving?! I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.

Anna shows up to explain—this is Lisa’s “breeding skin,” as her body will soon become fertile. So it’s the V equivalent of getting your period, basically.

Anna reassures Lisa that she’ll help her through these times, then drops some interesting information. Anna mentions how her own mother, Diana, helped her through the breeding-skin days, but then tells Lisa that Diana is dead. Hmmmm…

DIANA’S CAVE

After this, Anna heads down to onboard lair to share the news with Grandma Diana. At first Diana interprets this as Anna coming down to gloat, but then realizes Anna’s really just here for advice. How should she raise Lisa?

Which is pretty asshole-ish, don’t you think? A woman who disobeyed, overthrew, and imprisoned her mother later asks her mother for advice on how to raise her own daughter?

Diana’s advice pretty much conforms to her own life experience, though. She warns Anna that no matter what she does, Lisa’s still gonna dick her over.

This is where the show runs out of steam for me. If Anna were human, I might care about her predicament. But she’s a lizard. So…?

BACK AT THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDENT

It’s morning, and now Erica’s FBI cohorts have arrived to find out what happened. Like Hobbes suggested, she spins a story about how the Fifth Column is responsible and kidnapped Malik. (I don’t know why, if she can tell them anything she wants, she chooses to further incriminate her allies, but whatever).

Her boss thinks she looks tired. He gives her the day off to recover.

V MOTHERSHIP

Marcus then brings Anna the news of Malik’s disappearance at the hands of Fifth Column. (Again, why point the V’s toward your own allies?) Her first reaction is to cover Malik’s tracks so that nobody knows Malik was a sleeper agent. She orders Marcus to dispatch a team of Trackers to get rid of the evidence.

As for finding Malik, Anna has that under control as well…

MORRIS CHESTNUT’S HOTEL ROOM

Because she plans to finally leverage Morris Chestnut into betraying the Fifth Column. Here, she appears on his holo-player-thing, holding Morris Chestnut’s still-enormous baby.

Clearly this is the first time the V’s have tried to make a human baby. That thing is a freak.

Morris Chestnut has been doing some thinking in the meantime, and now he makes an accusation—he thinks Anna made the baby sick on purpose to force him to help them. Anna denies it, then gives him the instructions—find out where Malik is. She wants names by tonight.

Look how sad and conflicted he is! Too bad this is the last time they suggest Ryan might be betraying his Fifth Column friends. That would be kinda cool, if they kep that going at all.

ERICA’S HOUSE

And then it’s over to Erica’s. She’s just arrived back home. That doctor from last week, Sidney Miller, has come by to show her the results of his analysis of Tyler’s DNA.

On the top is normal human DNA. On the bottom, Tyler’s:

So Tyler has Down’s syndrome. I figured as much.

They delve into the sci-fi a little this point…why does Tyler only have a fraction of the DNA of a normal human?

Miller’s response: SO THE V’S CAN FILL IN THE REST WITH WHATEVER THEY WANT!!!!

But wait, if Tyler has so little DNA, wouldn’t he be some kind of mutant, or not even alive at all? How’s this even possible?

ACT ONE

FIFTH COLUMN HIDEOUT

Erica’s come by the hideout to tell the others the news about Tyler’s DNA. Everyone throws around all the skeptical question you’d ask, too. How is this possible, how did Erica never notice anything, what did they even do to her while she was pregnant, and so on.

And Miller’s response: THE V’S USED SCIENCE! THEY CAN MAKE GIANT FLOATING SPACE SHIPS, SO WHY CAN’T THEY DO THIS TOO????

No really, I didn’t even make that last part up. That’s what Miller really says to explain the confusion.

Or in other words: “Shut up, audience disbelief. Just shut up. Here, look at Morris Chestnut again. Isn’t his face symmetrical?”

The only conceivable way Miller could solve the puzzle is if he had V DNA to compare Tyler’s too. Malik would be a suitable donor. The guys have strung her up by her wrists, so Miller prepares to swab her mouth, but luckily Morris Chestnut shows up and warns him not to. Malik’s got fangs. And a tail. He snaps a chastity-belt-type-thing around Malik’s waist.

Now it’s time to figure out what to do next. They could torture Malik to find out what’s up with Tyler’s DNA. Erica’s cool with that. But Morris Chestnut thinks differently. You can’t just torture a V. They have a much higher tolerance for pain than humans have. (Which makes total sense in light of that fight scene a couple minutes ago).

The best way to torture a V, Morris Chestnut says, is to skin them alive. But it’s not ideal, as V’s die within thirty minutes of being skinned. Plus, Malik may not even know anything about Erica and Tyler’s genetic experiment—remember, Malik originally on a different sleeper mission and only got reassigned to Erica after Erica’s original partner, Dale, got whacked.

So what was Malik’s first sleeper mission about? They decide to figure that out.

One question: Is Morris Chestnut helping the Fifth Column? Or is he secretly sabotaging them? We don’t know for sure, because, again, the show is not addressing it.

V MOTHERSHIP

But before we get to that, it’s time to introduce another plot element into the episode. Tyler has come to Lisa and Anna with some concerns.

He’s freaked out his Mom was almost murdered again this morning. He too was fed the Fifth Column cover story, and he’s had just about enough of these Fifth Column fucks. Nobody will listen to him.

So he’s brought Anna some information. Somehow, Tyler knows all about Jack, and now he’s telling Anna Jack is part of the rebel movement. Anna promises to look into it.

FIFTH COLUMN HIDEOUT

One cool thing happens right here. Hobbes planted a lipstick camera back at the site of the accident. Now they’re watching a video feed, and they see the team of V Trackers show up. One of the V’s spots the camera and leaps up into the tree to disable it.

So now they know they’re being tracked. And, whatever Malik’s mission was it must be important.

Morris Chestnut suggests they head to Malik’s apartment. Even though the FBI has likely been there already, they still wouldn’t be able to find Malik’s V safe. So Morris Chestnut grabs a cigar-cutter, heads over to Malik, and chops off a finger.

MALIK’S APARTMENT

The finger, turns out, was so they could activate Malik’s secret V Safe, the same kind Val found in Morris Chestnut’s apartment back in season one.

After a little searching, they find Malik’s hidden inside her oven. Morris Chestnut takes out the severed finger and they get inside.

Inside, Malik’s got the standard pile of fake passports, along with something called, I think, a “V-Tech,” which is basically a holo-projector. This one contains a cache of dossiers, all for random humans. Who are they? Erica will have to look through the FBI database for answers.

But first they have to deal with a little problem. Malik’s got a bunch of security cameras set up, connected to some monitors, and now the Tracker team has shown up at the front door.

The V’s hunt by scent, so even if Morris Chestnut and Erica escaped, they’d still need a way to conceal their musk. Morris Chestnut has an idea. He grabs a bowl, some tinfoil, what looks to be bleach, maybe some other chemicals. Everything goes in the bowl. The bowl goes into the microwave. He turns the microwave on. He and Erica escape through the balcony. And…

Apparently Malik breathes pure hydrogen, because microwaved tinfoil is enough to blow the entire place up.

ACT TWO

V MOTHERSHIP

Were you still interested in that Father Jack storyline? Me neither. But oh well, because here’s another scene about it…

Chad’s paying Anna a visit on the ship. They make small-talk about his proximity to last week’s terrorist bombing

And unfortunately, Chad continues not to be blown up this week

Then Anna asks him if he knows anything about a Father Jack Landry. He’s a priest, she says, who makes weekly anti-V sermons.

For a guy who makes his living saying whatever shit is put in front of him, he has a remarkably poor poker face

She wants Chad to interview him, under the pretense of presenting all sides of an issue. So clearly she has some nefarious intention. Chad does his best to get out of the assignment, pointing out how Jack is widely considered a fringe lunatic. Why bother giving him a voice? But Anna orders him to do it anyway.

ST. JOSEPHINE’S

Down on Earth, Chad asks Jack if he wants to be interviewed. Both men know this is a trap, but Jack agrees to do it. It would raise his profile, right?

FIFTH COLUMN HIDEOUT

Back at the hideout, the gang looks through the dossiers from Malik’s apartment. The one thing these people have in common is that they’ve all fallen off the grid. Disappeared. That can only mean one thing—Anna is abducting them.

 

V MOTHERSHIP

Up on the ship, we return to that business from last week, about finding and killing the human soul. Anna, Joshua, and Lisa stand before an ominous, familiar object, the needle bed:

As Anna says-out-loud-to-people-who-already-know-this-information, this is the key to finding the human soul.

(So if you’re keeping score, last week they had to find a way to extract the human soul, and this week they have a device that does just that—the same device they had back in season one. Don’t think too much about it our you’ll get a tension headache).

Yes, the needle bed’s purpose has been revealed. It extracts the human soul from the body. Joshua, recently revived and brainwashed back to being loyal, is conducting the soul extraction operation. I guess they don’t have all the kinks out yet, because they still have to perform a bunch of tests. Problem is, whenever they try to use the needle bed on someone it kills the test subject, so they’ll need lots of people. Hundreds of thousands, in fact. This is why they had Malik inside the FBI—one mole can TOTALLY cover up that many disappearances.

EARTH

And right on cue, we cut to a back alley, where we find a van with a Jesus fish on it. A man gets out, carrying a guitar. He walks past a teenage girl. And then quickly turns back, pulls out a syringe, injects her, and throws her in the van. Alongside dozens of other victims.

So: the V’s can create humans with only half their normal DNA, they can build hovering space ships, and they can sort of extract the souls from our bodies…but if they wanna abduct somebody they go about it like a third-tier rapist? What happened to the beam of light that sucks you into the flying saucer?

ACT THREE

FIFTH COLUMN

The rest of this episode will feature the Fifth Column trying figure out the extent of the plan we just learned in its entirety. You might want to hit the bathroom or get a snack before we continue.

I’ll wait.

OK, back? Good.

Morris Chestnut’s just discovered that some of the people on the dossiers also have missing person files. That’s a start. Using the most recent missing person file, maybe they can track down the latest abductee and figure out what’s going on.

Conveniently, the teenage girl we just saw get taken already has a file out for her. Her name is Sophie Allen. Morris Chestnut and Erica set out to find her.

ST. JOSEPHINE’S

Meanwhile, Jack prepares to give his sermon. Chad tells him his interview will air on tonight’s news. (This means Chad has interviewed Jack somewhere between when we last saw them and now, but they put too much into this episode so that wasn’t clear to me first time around).

Jack starts sermonizing about how, even though he previously told everyone the V’s are evil false prophets, he never meant for anyone to blow the V’s up. A man interrupts. His wife was killed in the bombing, and he holds Jack personally responsible.

And what does he call the man he holds responsible for the death of his wife? A jerk.

Another guy stands up and tries to restore a sense of propriety, but the bereaved guy gets up in his face, they start shoving, and soon a minor scuffle breaks out. The first guy gets knocked over, and in anger,

Blinks his V-lids!

But only Chad sees it.

Jack steps in and breaks things up. If this widower wants a fight, he should fight Jack! That calms things down.

A CONVENIENCE STORE

Morris Chestnut and Erica show up here, the work address for Sophie’s mother, Betty. In order to get Betty to lower her defenses, they need cover stories. Erica tells Betty she’s here unofficially, not as an FBI agent but as a mother

Mom Squad: a team of concerned Moms who band together in order to protect hildren. THAT is a show I’d watch

And Morris Chestnut makes up some bullshit about being with child services. So he IS here officially.

Betty has no information for them, as Sophie ran away six months ago. But she really hopes they find her, at least!

FIFTH COLUMN

Aaaaaand moments later, Erica and Morris Chestnut have given up on finding Sophie themselves, and have decided to just torture it out of Malik.

“See? We tried. Now can we just go torture her already?”

Sidney puts up some resistance. If they skin and kill Malik, he’ll lose his only female V test subject and they won’t find out what’s up with the DNA experiment. But if they don’t, this crazy abduction thing won’t be stopped.

It’s Erica’s call…

V MOTHERSHIP

Chad has returned to Anna to give an update on his piece on Father Jack, but Anna has some shocking news: she’s taken footage of Jack saying the, “If you wanna fight with someone, fight me!” line, from earlier when he broke up the fight at his church, and she’s edited it together with a clip from his interview, in which he says he isn’t a violent person.

Gasp! People will hear the nonviolent thing, then see him stopping a fight, and they’ll think he’s a terrorist!

Hey! It’s just like The Daily Show, except nonsense

Chad stands up for journalistic principles here, as this is only half the story, but Anna dismisses him. “That’s not what the rest of the world is going to see on your Internet,” she says.

FIFTH COLUMN

Now Erica’s got to make her decision. Does she kill Malik and potentially save the abductees, or does she spare Malik and learn what’s going on with her son?

She and Morris Chestnut hash it out on the balcony. Morris Chestnut offers his advice, which is, you’d be surprised the things you can do for the sake of your children.

But his advice didn’t take, as she promptly walks back inside and tells Hobbes to commence with the skinning.

ACT FOUR

FIFTH COLUMN

Now then, Malik just having been skinned, the gang proceeds to find out what she knows. Hobbes offers her two drugs. One will prolong her pain and keep her alive. The other will kill her instantly.

Malik appeals to Morris Chestnut. How can he do this to one of his own? Morris Chestnut promptly yanks her wound open a little wider, then chops off her tail. I think that’s your answer.

That’s enough to get Malik talking. She spills the beans on what’s going on with the abductions. The guy with a van poses as a member of a meals-on-wheels type of organization called Midnight Samaritan, and like we saw, uses his van to capture people. Midnight Samaritan is based in New Jersey, and tonight is the night they take their (hundreds of thousands?) of victims onto the mothership.

One final question: does Malik know what Anna’s doing with Tyler? Malik doesn’t. And Hobbes gives her the instant-death drug.

There’s a long, slow shot to suggest our heroes have crossed some ethical line, but whatever, this isn’t a morally ambiguous cable drama, it’s an alien drama

THE NEW JERSEY WOODS

Hobbes, Morris Chestnut, and Erica next come upon the Midnight Samaritan van, because apparently all you need to know to pinpoint a van is what state it’s in. The van’s empty.

Off in the woods they hear screams, and far down a trail they can see Sophie being dragged away. They give chase. Eventually the V drops her and sprints on.

Eventually they come to a clearing, where Erica takes aim and shoots him in the shoulder. He staggers to his feet, but before they can collar him, he takes his suicide pill.

Oh well.

They run back to get Sophie, and they realize the V gave her some amnesia-type drugs. She won’t remember any of this encounter.

Morris Chestnut stays behind with Sophie, and Erica and Hobbes run back into the woods to see if there are any other humans.

In another clearing, they come upon a V dropship, and off in the distance they can see a few V dragging bodies onboard.

 

Erica wants to run after it, but Hobbes stops her. It’s too late.

V MOTHERSHIP

And finally, Joshua is ready for his first test subject.

Here’s how the Soul Sucker works: the machine pulls away all the parts of the body one by one—skin, muscles, bones. Eventually the whole body will be destroyed, so whatever’s left must be the soul!

She burns when we set her on fire! She must be a witch!

Their human test subject begs for mercy. Anna looks on, full of good cheer, but Lisa looks concerned. Has she developed the loathed Human Emotions?

Let’s find out. Anna orders Lisa to press the button to initiate the test. And so she does, killing the dude as well as her morality.

ACT FIVE

CONVENIENCE STORE

Erica and Morris Chestnut escort Sophia back to her Mom’s convenience store. Sophia has no idea what happened to her, so they give a thumbnail sketch of the night’s events. It’s a little confusing…

“It was a bad dream, Sophie. You were also abducted by aliens today, but mostly it was a bad dream.”

The tearful mother and daughter reunited, Erica and Morris Chestnut head back to the hideout. They can’t consider it a victory, since they couldn’t save 99,999,999 of the victims. Morris Chestnut’s mostly worried about his daughter, and Erica promises to get her back.

ST. JOSEPHINE’S

And finally, Chad returns to Jack to warn him about the approaching shitstorm. He’s brought a laptop, to show Jack how his fight (not fight) video has gone viral.

It’s even on FaceTimeVid. Jack is F’d in the A.

Chad also tells Jack how the guy who interrupted the sermon was really a V. But does Father Jack care about any of this shit? Nope.

Why? As he says, it’s because he has faith. That’s all he has.

Just what you’d EXPECT a priest to say, amiright?

FIFTH COLUMN

Anyway, Jack’s decided now is the time to introduce Chad to the other members of Fifth Column. This could prove deadly for Chad, as now Morris Chestnut has seen Chad working with the rebels. Did you forget Morris Chestnut has to serve Anna now? I did. They remind you at the end of the episode, though.

But that’s not the point of the scene. Chad admits to them he’s dicked them over in the past with his news reporting, but now he wants to help them in any way he can. Morris Chestnut points out that Chad actually can’t help them much because Anna’s completely manipulating him, and only shows him what she wants him to see, so whatver.

Erica has something to show Chad, though. Like almost all of humanity, Chad takes the V’s appearance at face value, (pun intended!). He has no idea they’re really space lizards. Until now…

“Do you still want to help them NOW?! I know you said you’d already help us, but I’m asking you anyway!”

Chad starts to get depressed now. Since the V’ are really space lizards, why don’t they just kill us?

And Erica tells him, it’s because they want to breed with us.

V MOTHERSHIP

Only a few more scenes to go…

Anna thanks Tyler for capturing the footage of Jack’s fight on his cell. Tyler’s not just a friend, he’s like a son to her. Her human-in-law.

ERICA’S HOUSE

While Lisa visits Erica at home. Without going into the details, Lisa reveals that Anna’s trying to change her in horrible ways. Erica soothes her worries. Anna can’t change what’s inside Lisa, which actually I think is exactly what Anna’s doing.

DIANA’S LAIR

Anna shows up to gloat again, that her plan is going according to plan, but Diana warns her to be vigilant again.

Also, Diana hangs out inside a hemp cocoon

THE MOTHERSHIP

And finally, Anna has Morris Chestnut visit the mothership. She has his daughter in her arms. She asks him to spill about the Fifth Column.

And just as he starts to do that…the episode ends.

THE END

I just saw Morena Baccarin, the “actress” who plays Anna on this show. Literally just now—I saw her and came straight to my computer to write this. She was at the Rite Aid on Larchmont. It was definitely her, because we briefly made eye contact and she could tell I recognized her.

I thought about going up to her, but then remembered I would have nothing to say beyond, “Hey, I recap your show for this website, but really that just means I make fun of it every week!” (Like the way I put quotes around “actress.”) So I didn’t follow up. Sorry.

I also didn’t see what she was buying at Rite Aid.

Thanks for the read!