“A man walks through his life. He stumbles, and he falls. At times, he thinks he cannot get up, but he does. Over, and over, until one day, when the man cannot hold up the sky falling all around him anymore. Then, he reaches his journey’s end. But there is one last fight, and nothing will be as it was.”
Alien invasions can sure take it out of a guy.
Why, five short years ago Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) was a history professor, father of three boys, wife to a woman he loved and then … well and then, the alien hordes aka the Espheni arrived, swept across the Earth like a plague, seeking to wipe all life but theirs from its now extraterrestrially-blighted surface, and Tom’s life changed beyond all recognition.
As did all of humanity’s for that matter, and it’s been a battle royale, against massively superior forces ever since, to reclaim something, anything back from the Espheni who see Earth and its inhabitants as simply resources to be used and abused.
And that kind of intense, unending, three steps forward, eight steps back fight can really sap a guy’s will to go on, no matter how fiercely he has fought the good fight up to that point.
So it’s quite understandable that in this teaser trailer for the final season of Falling Skies – it’s one of those rare shows given the time to go out on its own terms – Tom is in a wearily ruminative state of mind, walking, nay stumbling through rubble (after seemingly been covered in water in an exploding house), wondering if he has the strength and resolve for one last fight.
I would suspect he does, not simply because of the narration in the trailer (which is reproduced at the top of this piece) but because of what we know about his unwavering character, and his willingness to continually do what needs to be done, even if he doesn’t always get it right.
Of course quote how that fight will play out in season 5 is anyone’s guess with the Espheni finally on the back foot thanks to Tom and his now dearly-departed daughter Lexi (Scarlett Byrne) blowing the invaders’ lunar power station to kingdom come, the Espheni’s enemy the Volm stepping up to the fight at last, and the arrival of an alien race even the Espheni fear, a race that is, at the conclusion of season 4, holding Tom for an unspecified purpose.
Quite whether this final alien race, whose sudden arrival is making Earth a very crowded planet indeed, is as wonderful as Tom’s initial response to them would suggest – he greets them in astonishment with the words “You’re beautiful” – remains very much to be seen.
But given the track record of the existing aliens on the third rock from the sun having humanity’s interests at heart looking extremely dubious at best, you could be forgiven for thinking they will do more harm than good.
Still we may be surprised, with the show’s producers promising some kind of resolution in this eagerly-awaited final season.
Quite what resolution that is will be seen on June 28 when Falling Skies returns for one last fight, after which “nothing will be as it was.”