V: Draining the Lizard

Hey, I’m back with more V.

Hoo-ray.

Let’s start off with the Previously On…

PREVIOUSLY ON V

Four things to remember:

1. Father Jack is now just Jack. Whatever.

2. Cohn handpicked Erica to become the worldwide leader of the Fifth Column.

3. Hobbes acquiesced to the V’s last week and blew up Cohn’s headquarters. Did anyone notice? Is he affected by this? The answer to both is: no.

4. Tyler is acting like a twat

Now then, on to the episode.

COLD OPEN

THE V MOTHERSHIP—MEDICAL BAY

This week we start with Tyler up on the mothership, after he’s forsaken his own goddamn mother so he can become a space pilot. He’s strapped to a V examination table.

I hope they’re surgically removing his douchiness.

The V’s say they’re doing a bunch of tests on him to make sure he’s ready to be a pilot, but in reality they are testing his phosphorous levels to see if they can breed with him. Tyler has no clue this is going on. He’s happy as a clam that has no concept of consequences.

Oh, and also, Anna mentions the fact that Tyler’s father just fucking DIED, but even this doesn’t faze him. Who cares? Ty gets to be a space man!

Then Thomas arrives and tells Tyler he has one more examination to go before he can become a space pilot. An assistant pulls out a Space Razor and starts cutting off Tyler’s hair.

Please tell me they’re prepping him for a lobotomy

THE V MOTHERSHIP

Anna and Thomas depart the teenager who should be dead so she can confer discuss the various aspects of Anna’s Evil Plan. I’m surprised they’re even bothering to hide things from Tyler because he probably wouldn’t pick up on things even they told him flat out they were going to use him to destroy his entire species. He would think Anna is just Erica in disguise trying to trick him into mistrusting the V’s.

Fuck Tyler.

As they walk down a hallway, Anna helpfully expositionspeaks the latest developments: Cohn is dead and the Fifth Column is on the ropes. Marcus will recover from his injuries.

“Concordia moves forward!” Thomas blurts out in response. The next phase of the Evil Plan can begin. But that’s not really accurate, because this whole episode will concern Anna trying to find alternate ways to move Concordia forward. It firmly remains in the current phase. Thomas could have also said: “Concordia! That thing we were working on! It’s still a thing!”

MEANWHILE, AT FIFTH COLUMN HQ

In the wake of his dismissal from Catholicism, Jack is crashing at the FC HQ for a couple days. I actually forgot this, but the FC HQ is also Hobbes’s house-dungeon. As Jack comes down the stairs with a couple duffel bags, Hobbes remarks he’s surprised Jack didn’t bring a hatbox with him, which I’m pretty sure is a dig at Jack’s sexuality, but Jack doesn’t seem to pick up on it.

So Jack teases Hobbes for only wearing black t-shirts. This is exactly what Hobbes would have suspected, because Hobbes believes Jack to be a closeted gay man, but Jack’s joke doesn’t seem to register with Hobbes.

Atonal banter aside, this is a classic Odd Couple setup:

Yep. The defrocked priest with no character flaws, and the terrorist who gets boners whenever he murders people. Hilarity can’t NOT ensue.

Then Erica arrives, and also makes a joke about the situation despite the obvious lack of energy or chemistry between Jack and Hobbes.

“This…is…such…a….funny…situatio-zzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

Thankfully, the show gives us a break from its wonderful characters and switches over to some plot. Erica hasn’t spoken with Tyler since Joe’s funeral that we never saw take place. Tyler won’t return any of her calls, either. Hobbes and Jack ask Erica if she’s feeling OK in the wake of Joe’s DEATH, just to acknowledge the fact that she’s suffered a major life tragedy like two days ago and seems to show no effects whatsoever. But she’s fine.

Then Cohn’s former right-hand man, John Fiero, shows up outside. I’m going to refer to him as Guy Fieri from now on, and also use this picture of Guy Fieri, because I’m bored:

And when you got Guy Fieri, things ALWAYS heat up.

Hobbes and Jack briefly worry whether Guy Fieri is trustworthy but Erica steamrolls past their doubts. She wants a war, and Guy Fieri will help her fight it.

War with a little kick to it.

Guy Fieri introduces the first order of business. Cohn’s top lieutenants from around the world are meeting in, of all places, Bangkok. The one in THAILAND.

This is great news, because Erica can use the Thailand meeting to take command of the Fifth Column, and Hobbes can act on his pedophiliac urges.

We all know ABC didn’t really send V to Thailand for filming. This next sequence will be shot in either a soundstage or in Chinatown in New York. I can’t WAIT.

THE V MOTHERSHIP

Anna, meanwhile, gets the test results on Tyler. His body is rejecting the phosphorous, even after he was doused with Red Rain.

Even Tyler’s body is smarter than Tyler.

In case you’re just joining us, this is either hugely important or completely unimportant, depending on which way the show weathervane is pointing. Two weeks ago Tyler wasn’t crucial to the Evil Plans, as Anna had tampered with several other boys’ DNA. Last week, Tyler was the key to the whole thing. This week, it’s not such a big deal again.

Anna has a backup plan. Now Lisa will drop Tyler and mate with a Spanish Peace Ambassador named Raphael, whom Anna also gave the half-DNA thing to.

Does Anna worry Lisa will balk at this assignment? Never. Lisa will bone whomever the queen desires.

And finally, they’re going to give Tyler one last shot. Joshua will give him a concentrated dose of phosphorous. If that doesn’t work, my greatest wishes will be fulfilled, as Tyler will be disposed of.

ACT ONE

So that’s fantastic. All of my least favorite characters are being picked off. Should be smooth sailing from here on out. Oh wait…

You mean Morris Chestnut isn’t dead? Noooooooooooooooo!

He’s gonna show up in here somewhere. Let’s just get through this.

THE CITY OF BANGKOK

So how does it look?

Here’s the establishing shot. Is that bridge actually in Thailand? No idea. Good thing it’s in English, though

And here’s the set. Know how it’s in Thailand? Those two monks. DONE.

Now it’s time for Erica to meet with Cohn’s lieutenants. They don’t like her or accept her authority, even if Cohn handpicked her. He didn’t consult with them first. More, they already have plans in place and certainly don’t need Erica coming in and mucking everything up. The only one who agrees with her is Guy Fieri.

Hobbes makes fun of them for being terrorists, so how could their plans be any good, but Erica stops everyone’s bickering. They want a plan? How about taking the war to Anna.

Cohn’s guys still aren’t impressed. But they’ll give her a shot to prove she’s capable.

THE V MOTHERSHIP

Up on the ship, Anna fills Lisa in on Tyler’s progress. Lisa doesn’t know too much about Anna’s plans for Tyler, so all Anna tells her is that Tyler is progressing through flight school.

And then, Anna gives Lisa her new assignment, to rail Raphael.

her newest assignment, to fuck Raphael. Lisa resists, under the guise of not upsetting Tyler, but Anna comes down hard. Don’t question me again!

A HOTEL SOMEWHERE IN BANGKOK

After the inauspicious meeting with Cohn’s lieutenants, Erica goes back to her hotel to teleconference with Hobbes, (who’s in a different hotel for some reason), Jack, and Sid the scientist—he’s been plugging away at the research for the last couple episodes.

First, Erica admits that Cohn’s lieutenants do not respect her. She needs some way to impress them. What’s the plan?

It’d be pretty baller if Erica could come up with a plan to destroy the V’s once and for all, probably. To do that, they have to figure out why the V’s have come to Earth. They know it’s for some kind of weird breeding thing, but that’s the extent of their knowledge.

Chad figures everything is related to the Live Aboard program—the folks who volunteered to be the first humans to live on a V ship, aka were kidnapped and are now being used for nefarious experiments involving those needle bed things. Chad will look into this.

Sid the Science Guy has an update, too. He’s asked “the scientific community” whether there were any other baby boys born with part of their DNA missing, like Tyler was. He’s found some, but they all died at birth. The OB/GYN’s involved blamed SIDS on these deaths. (Because, Miller Time!) Sid will keep looking.

A RESTAURANT SOMEWHERE IN BANGKOK

Later, Erica and Hobbes sit down at a fancy Thai-seeming eatery for some more planning. A long time ago Guy Fieri investigated the doctor who delivered Cohn’s baby. The doc’s name was Abraham somethingorother, and he’s dead now, but the strange thing is, several other babies he delivered at the same time ALSO died at childbirth. I’m guessing the doc died from an avalanche malpractice lawsuits.

All these dead babies have two things in common. One, all of their mothers were treated for preeclampsia. It’s a pregnancy thing. I don’t feel like looking it up.

And two, all of them were treated by the same specialist. I still can’t make out the specialist’s name, but it sounded like Dr. Veena Rye. But I like “Wry” better, so I’ll use that.

Dr. Rye is still alive. And she’s gone where all disgraced OB/GYN specialists go eighteen years after overseeing an abnormally high number of child deaths.

I’m talking about Hong Kong.

We’re gonna try faking TWO foreign cities this week? I have a bad feeling about this…

THE V MOTHERSHIP

In the wake of Lisa’s mild insubordination, (and in the wake of, um, everything that’s happened on this show ever), Anna is suspicious of Lisa’s loyalty. Has Lisa developed human emotions?

Anna enlists Joshua to find out. Here things get a little silly…Joshua used to be Fifth Column but then died and was brought back to life with no memory of his past, meaning he’s a loyalist now. Anna now wants Joshua to approach Lisa, pretending to be a Fifth Column rebel, and see how Lisa reacts.

I’m gonna pause for a second, and lament the fact that there isn’t more of this shit. My FAVORITE aspect of this show is the fact that Anna’s a hive mother and wields near complete control over her subjects, so she can get them to do all sorts of ridiculous shit like try to trick her own daughter into admitting her treachery. He’s just a medical officer! What’s she doing asking him to spy for her? He doesn’t even bat an eye!

But let’s get back to the plot.

DIANA’S CAVE LAIR

Lisa has come to visit her grandmother for a little girl talk. All of this breeding maneuvering is giving Lisa a headache. First her Momz wanted her to fuck a very nice boy named Tyler, and now she wants her to fuck some strange Barcelonan dude. What’s a girl to do?

Diana quickly surmises that Lisa has feelings for Tyler, so she advises her to embrace those feelings, and by implication, disobey Anna.

I bet Diana doesn’t even really care about Lisa, she just wants to dick with Anna. I love it.

And what about the Raphael situation? Well, Diana doesn’t think Lisa should sleep with him, but she also doesn’t she should just flat-out refuse. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, sweetie.”

By the way, if Lisa ever does make it to queen, she’s going to be a terrible ruler. She can’t even tell when her own grandma is being duplicitous. She’ll probably get eaten well before that ever happens, though.

ACT TWO

THE V MOTHERSHIP

Now Chad follows up on his investigation into the Live Aboard plan. He approaches Lisa, at first under the guise of doing a news piece on what it’s like to be the First Alien Daughter/Upcoming Brood Mother, whatever, and since she has no idea what he’s really after, so she turns him down and walks away

Chad chases her down and tries the direct approach. He tells her he’s Fifth Column, and Lisa believes him. He asks her to investigate why the Live Aboards are being tortured, and she agrees.

THE V MOTHERSHIP—MEDICAL BAY

Lisa heads straight over to the medical bay to carry out Chad’s request. She logs onto the holo-computer filing system and riffles through the medical files, pausing briefly on Tyler’s before accessing the rest.

Just then, Joshua rounds the corner and spots her snooping around. But he doesn’t confront her about it. He quietly backs away, allowing Lisa time to finish the job.

But as she leaves the Medical Bay Joshua pops up behind her and asks for a moment of her time.

He plays it subtle, not mentioning her computer use. Instead, he does as Anna asked, lying that his Fifth Column memories are returning, and he’s beginning to re-feel the old human feelings. What does Lisa think about that?

Somehow, between the Diana scene, the Chad scene, and now, Lisa’s wised up enough to see through the BS. She plays dumb.

Lisa is somehow smart enough to see through it and play innocent

HONG KONG!

Welcome to Hong Kong!

Home of the legendary Chinese Man with the Filter Mask

Erica, Hobbes, and Guy Fieri are sitting at a table in some kind of café. The show makes another foray into the funny, as Hobbes complains about the fact that in China, they eat chicken feet.

Gross! Hobbes is in a situation atypical to what he is used to! What a fish out of water! (You are legally required to laugh at this scene)

They are meeting with a Hong Kong police detective who sympathizes with the Fifth Column. He speaks better English than I do or will.

As Guy Fieri’s contact, he’s tracked down Dr. Wry. She lives in a posh apartment building in town. Problem is, the building has tight security. The reason is because they needed to pad the episode out to an hour.

The building’s got a security system on every door, and it checks itself every fifteen minutes for disruptions, blah de blah. Guy Fieri can easily bypass any security system, so the only trick will be buttonholing Dr. Wry before the system notices. Let’s roll.

HONG KONG APARTMENTS

Erica and Hobbes make their way into the basement of the apartment building. An oblivious security guard is coming down the stairs as Guy Fieri deactivates the entrance door, and Hobbes cold-cocks the guy.

And doesn’t just murder him like always

And then…get this…

Yup. The six-foot-four, 250 lb white dude dons the uniform of the unconscious Chinese security guard.

Maybe you think I’m rushing to judgment and in the next scene the plan utterly fails, but no. This completely fucking works.

They even go so far as to have Hobbes knock on Dr. Wry’s apartment door and ask her IN CHINESE to let him in.

And she even fucking looks through the peephole!

I got nothing left any more…

Obviously, the plan works FLAWLESSLY, as Dr. Wry is dumb enough to open the door for the large Australian man pretending to be a security guard at her building. Erica shoves a gun in the chick’s face, then shoves her over and sticks a knife behind her ear. In full mama bear-mode, Erica threatens to flay Dr. Wry alive unless she tells her what she did to Tyler.

Then, Erica realizes Dr. Wry is a V. God knows how. She surmises the doctor must have a secret V safe, and Dr. Wry confesses it’s in her bedroom.

They take her to the bedroom closet and find that Dr. Wry was referring to a normal, .visible safe, and not the hidden V one. Undeterred, Hobbes feels around under some shelves and finds the activation button.

But Wry slips away. She flees the room, jumps off her balcony, and on the plummet to her death takes a suicide pill. Bummer.

Maybe the she jumped because she realized she was a character on V

ACT THREE

DR. WIGHT’S HONK KONG APARTMENT

But as Hobbes and Erica watch the V doctor plummet and disintegrate, they realize they can’t waste any time with the 15-minute window soon closing. They have to find a way into the secret V-safe.

Luckily, Hobbes knows exactly how to do that, and has a detonator cord hidden in his watch. As sirens start to wail off in the distance, he hurriedly rigs up the det-cord to blow the lid off the safe. When he realizes his hands are a little too big for the job, Erica takes over, and they share a moment.

Does anyone in the world give a shit if these two characters hook up? Me neither.

You know who has more chemistry than Hobbes and Erica? EVERYONE. Even Fred and Ethel turn my crank more than they do.

Whatever, Hobbes blows the lid off the safe, and inside they find one of those portable holo-projectors that are handy for explaining your top secret mission to the people who kill you and break into your secret safe. It’s just like the one Malik had.

Also they find a bunch of passports, and a vial of prenatal vitamins. They grab those too and bust out.

NEW YORK STREETS

Here’s more motherfuckin’ Morris Chestnut, like I told you would happen.

Jack is just walking down the street, when a scarred but otherwise perfectly healthy Morris Chestnut corners him

How did he survive the complete demolition of Cohn’s headquarters and the ensuing police investigation last week? Let’s let him explain…

Oh wait, he doesn’t explain at ALL.

Just like always, Morris Chestnut JUST WANTS HIS MANBABY BACK! He’s outlived his usefulness to Anna, and now he’s got nobody left but the people he fucked over.

Jack, appropriately, scoff. Why would he help the guy who betrayed them to Anna and got Cohn and Joe killed? Jack isn’t a priest any more. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

There will, however, be plenty of Mr. Bland Guy

SOMEWHERE IN HONG KONG

Let’s head back to China to see what was inside Dr. Wargh’s safe.

The holo projector contains a world map, and on the map are highlighted the twenty-nine cities where V ships are hovering. Each city also has a headshot of a teenage boy. New York City has Tyler’s picture, so they surmise that the other twenty-eight guys must be former V test babies. Erica deduces that if there are twenty-eight other boys, Tyler must be expendable. (Which is a pretty big leap if you ask me, but whatever).

Let’s see what was up with the prenatal vitamins…

They crack the tube open and Erica notices they’re the same pills as she took when she was pregnant. Hobbes slices the coating off one of the pills, revealing another metal coating, and when he splits this in half, these guys come rolling out:

They might look like the Boston baked beans candy, but in fact they are metal bugs. That’s why they look like that.

ACT FOUR

BACK AT FIFTH COLUMN HEADQUARTERS…

Kind of a flat scene to start the penultimate act…Hobbes gets back to HQ and bristles over Jack’s new crucifix sitting on the table. Then Hobbes fills Jack in on what they found in China. Nothing we didn’t know already. Moving on.

EXPOSITION TONIGHT

Chad is getting some pre-show makeup when he gets a phonecall from Lisa. She’s ready to hand over her information on the Live Aboard program.

SID THE SCIENCE GUY’S SCIENCE LAB

And now it’s time for a big scene where everyone goes over all the information they’ve gathered on the V’s…

-Sid has dissected one of the weird red bugs from the prenatal vitamins and learned they get into human blood and seek out Y chromosomes.

-Chad shows up with medical reports on all the Live Aboards from Lisa. The common link between the LA’s is that they all have one extreme physical characteristic, like height or intelligence. The gang figures Anna must be stealing their genes to get the best of the human gene pool.

-Sid fits this into what he’s learned himself…the DNA from Alpha, (the skeleton), was 100 times more complex than ours; the DNA from Malik a thousand. That kind of evolution would take 5,000 years in humans, but it only took the V’s fifty, so they evolve at a crazy-accelerated rate.

Bing bang boom, and here’s the kicker: since they’re taking the best of our DNA, they must intend to insert it into their own gene pool. They’ve probably done this throughout the galaxy.

THE MOTHERSHIP

Let’s see how the shit with Lisa is going…

Joshua reports to Anna, telling her Lisa remains loyal. But Anna isn’t buying it. She figures Lisa must have just played him. Josh then mentions spotting her looking over the medical files. He has no idea what those files were, but it’s suspicious enough for her to confirm her doubts.

LISA’S BEDROOM

Hold off on that for now. It’s time for Lisa to fulfill her royal duties and sleep with Raphael. He’s waiting in her bedchamber with a vase of space-flowers. He knows how to properly romance a lizard woman.

Anna watches on a monitor as Lisa gets right to the point. She plays it seductively. When he says the mothership is magnificent, she replies that he hasn’t even seen all of it yet, referring to her labia. She remarks how handsome he is, and then kisses him. (I wonder what the hell Anna told Raphael when they were bringing him onboard the ship).

But she can’t make herself do it. Her feelings for Tyler are too powerful.

LISA’S ROOM MOMENTS LATER…

Anna storms in and confronts Lisa over her disobedience. But this time, Lisa doesn’t bend. She demands to know what Anna’s plan for her is.

Anna scoffs. Does Lisa want to strike the queen? Lisa does, but can’t bring herself to. So Anna slaps Lisa instead. That’s enough to get Lisa to retaliate. She dishes it right back, drawing a little lizard blood.

This is supposed to be titillating. ABC will sue you if you disagree

Immediately Lisa apologizes for her insolence, but Anna, surprisingly, shrugs it off. This is just Lisa’s hormones. Her breeding cycle is kicking in. But that’s no reason to forget her place.

THE V MOTHERSHIP—MEDICAL BAY

It’s become clear to Anna that in addition to moving on from Tyler, she may have to look to options beyond Lisa.

Luckily, Anna’s got one remaining Queen Egg. She’s been saving it for a rainy day.

Maybe she could turkey-baste her way around this problem, but Joshua is concerned about the length of time it would take for the egg to reach physical maturity to replace Lisa. He’s got another idea: what if he accelerates the the development of Morris Chestnut’s freakish Manbaby? Sure, it might wind up killing the monstrosity, but, you know, fuck it.

ACT FIVE

VIDEO CONFERENCE WITH THE FC LIEUTENANTS

And now, the final act of the week. Everything Erica and her cohorts put together in the last scene is enough for her to approach the lieutenants with a plan, or at least a direction for them to go in.

She’s got them on the horn, and after briefing them on the situation, propose they strike the V’s where it would hurt most—by preventing them from getting their last load of Live Aboard participants.

It’s enough to win their trust. Time to move forward.

ALL YOUR MOTHERSHIPS ARE BELONG TO US

In the little time that’s elapsed, Joshua has managed to successfully accelerate Manbaby’s maturation, so now it’s a Mantoddler.

Maybe a little less mannish now, but I’m sticking with it

The acceleration has cured the thing of that chronic discomfort it was feeling, (which I thought Anna was deliberately causing in the first place…), so they might not have any leverage over Morris Chestnut any more.

Speaking of which, they bring him into the room now to show him his rapidly aged daughter. He’s so glad to see her he doesn’t seem to notice the fact that she’s two years older than when he just saw her.

I guess they forgot to put “ACT LIKE THIS BLOWS YOUR FUCKING MIND” in the script for him

Instead, he’s mainly concerned with the fact that the Mantoddler recognizes Anna as its mother and doesn’t seem to regard him. But as a reward for destroying, Anna lets Morris Chestnut hold the thing for a moment.

She and her minions leave the father and mutant alone. Outside the room, Anna remarks that Morris Chestnut’s cover has been blown with the Fifth Column, so he’s useless to her. Time to throw him out.

I don’t buy it for a second.

ELSEWHERE ON THE MOTHERSHIP

After her Raphael encounter, Lisa needs some time with Tyler. She catches him disembarking from a successful space flight. He’s elated. The training is going well.

Concerned, Lisa asks him why he isn’t the least bit sad about Joe’s death. Tyler cheerily replies that he’s left all his emotions behind. He doesn’t want to feel anything ever again.

I don’t want him to feel thing either, but only because that would indicate he’s, you guessed it, dead

DIANA’S LAIR

This development horrifies Lisa. She seeks out her grandmother for comfort. What should she do now that Tyler doesn’t reciprocate her feelings for him?

Diana offers some comforting platitudes, that everything will be OK as long as Lisa keeps her relationship with Diana a secret. (More evidence Diana couldn’t give less of a shit about her granddaughter and just wants to stick it to Anna).

Finally, somehow, Lisa becomes a bit suspicious of Diana’s intentions. She wants to know why Diana’s doing all this for her, acting all motherly and such.

Diana clearly prepared for this occurrence, as she has a ready reply—because Anna never acted this way. Awwwwww.

And in a token of her appreciation, Lisa gives her mee-maw a gift. It’s one of those communication balls like Joshua was using last season. Now Lisa can talk to Diana whenever she wants and they can be BFF’s, while Diana milks her granddaughter along further.

AND THAT’S ALL

On that note, I’m gonna commemorate this recap by having some Thai food. But I always do Thai Thursdays. It’s not because V went to Bangkok this week. Fuck them.