With Tyler determined to take part in the Visitors’ “live aboard” program, Erica gives up on trying to convice him not to move aboard Anna’s ship, instead seeing an opportunity to get herself aboard and destroy Anna’s army of genetically-bred killers before they hatch. Ryan’s pregnant wife is kidnpped by V trackers and taken to Anna’s ship, where security has been beefed up in the wake of incidents such as the recent “attack” on Lisa, but he insists on going aboard to save her. But she’s already in labor, and can’t be moved. Having lost contact with Joshua and the other fifth column members aboard Anna’s ship, and fully aware that reporter Chad Decker is a direct link to Anna, Erica devises a plan to pass a message to Joshua, and even if Anna intercepts it, she won’t decipher its full meaning. Hobbes uses himself as the bait to lure Marcus, Anna’s chief enforcer and head of security, to Earth. With Marcus out of the way, Erica can move more freely, but she hasn’t anticipated the ever-shifting loyalties of Lisa, or the unpredictability of Decker, and Ryan’s whereabouts are unknown. Erica manages to deal a devastating blow to the Visitors, but the momentary victory is a costly one.
written by Scott Rosenbaum & Gregg Hurwitz
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
music by Marco BeltramiGuest Cast: Charles Mesure (Kyle Hobbes), Christopher Shyer (Marcus), Mark Hildreth (Joshua), Lexa Doig (Dr. Pearlman), Scott Hylands (Father Travis)
Notes: Jack’s message to his parishioners – “let V stand for victory” – is a deliberate echo of one of the closing lines of the original V miniseries broadcast in 1984. The birth of the first human-Visitor hybrid harkens back to V: The Final Battle, but is presented very differently here. Another callback to V: The Final Battle is turned on its ear here: in that miniseries, the red dust was an anti-Visitor chemical which the resistance – not the aliens – deployed into the air and into Earth’s water supply by hot air balloon (since powered aircraft would have been detected and shot down). Director Robert Duncan McNeill is no stranger to alien intrigue, having starred as Tom Paris for seven seasons on Star Trek: Voyager prior to becoming an in-demand director.