‘Falling Skies’ Season Premiere Review: “Worlds Apart”

Welcome back, Tom Mason!  ‘Falling Skies’ season 2 returns to Earth with its out its first episode of the year, as Tom Mason returns, remembering the three month interim he spent finding his way back from a Skitter ship, the 2nd Massachusetts realizes a deadly new threat to their survival, and Ben Mason displays some increasingly dark behavior.

Last season’s ‘Falling Skies’ finale “Eight Hours” left a big cliffhanger to be resolved, as Tom was whisked away by the Skitters, leaving the rest of the 2nd Mass. to fend for itself, so how does “Worlds Apart"  get us started?  What will season 2 of ‘Falling Skies’ bring?

Read on for your in-depth recap of everything you need to know about ‘Falling Skies’ Season Premiere part 1, “Worlds Apart!”

As once again we see Tom boarding the mysterious Skitter spacecraft, three months pass!  We pick up with Pope and his riders luring a bunch of Mechs to an ambush point in a bombed-out street, where the rest of the 2^nd Massachusetts attacks!  When the battle is over, Weaver orders a ceasefire, though Ben disobeys and keeps pumping rounds.  Hal chides him for disobeying orders, when Ben sees a still living Skitter, and uses his impressive strength to leap down, overpower it, and finish the job up close.

Suddenly, a noise draws their attention, and Ben sees a skitter emerge from a nearby alley.  He pumps rounds into it, but when it falls, a figure stand behind it: Tom!  Tom collapses from the wound in his abdomen, still happy to see his sons alive.

As a an alien "Beamer" ship arrives to drop bombs on the area ahead of schedule, the boys bring the wounded Tom to the convoy, who race back to camp.  Anne too is surprised to see Tom, but focuses on cleaning the wound, while everyone assures Ben what happened wasn’t his fault.  As she prepares to operate, Tom hazily flashes back his time aboard the ship, first being dragged out of a small chamber by a mysterious Skitter with a damaged face and red eye.  The harnessed Karen also greets him, assuring him she’s still happy under their thrall, but reminding him their resistance poses little threat.  She leads him to the chamber of the Skitter overlord, when…

Weaver and Hal commiserate over their increasingly failing efforts to fight the Skitters, while Tom once more flashes back to his time away.  The overlord offers the resistance a chance to surrender, and be granted a sanctuary to live out their lives, though Tom knows it would be more of a prison camp as in past historical examples.  Back at camp, Ben offers to teach a dejected Matt how to fight when he returns from a planned ambush, as Hal chides Ben for not obeying his orders.

The next night on the raid, Pope and the convoy prepare to stage the ambush, when out of nowhere a Beamer flies in and obliterates their truck before they even get the chance!  Even poor Pope lost his favorite Harley!  They take the news back to camp, theorizing that the Beamers might have started targeting trucks for their heat signature.  Weaver tasks new mechanic Jamil Dexter (‘The Killing’s Brandon Jay McLaren) with finding a way to mask the engine’s heat signatures, as the survivors will be immobile otherwise.

As Lourdes prays over him, Tom remembers yet more of his conversation.  The alien insists that Tom and the rebels can be prisoners or die, citing countless examples of similar violence throughout human history, though Tom believes a sufficiently advanced race such as their could have found a peaceful way.  Though he tries to attack the overlord, the Red-Eye Skitter knocks him out.  Shortly after, the ship lands and deposits Tom, and a number of other survivors into a field.  It takes off again, revealing the Red-Eye and a Mech!  The survivors attempt to flee, but each and every one are gunned down, save for Tom, whom the Red-Eye decides not to pursue.  Hmm…

Back at camp, Ben shows Matt how to shoot, until Hal interrupts and argues that Tom wouldn’t have wanted that for them.  The conflict between the two brothers boils over when Ben mentions Karen, but Ben easily overpowers his brother and reminds him he’s not the same boy to be pushed around.  Tom remembers even further, walking through Michigan alone on foot, and saving a young girl whose mother had been killed by a marauding man.  The girl reluctantly agrees to travel with him after they bury her mother, and the two take off on the girl’s motorcycle together.

Anne shares a drink with Weaver toasting to Tom’s return, noting that they could be in trouble if they have to move the camp before he stabilizes, when all of a sudden Jamil interrupts to explain that fiberglass insulation would mask the truck’s heat signatures.  Ben too rushes in looking for Anne, as Tom seems to be going into shock, with a bullet fragment still inside!  The outside camp prepares to mobilize, but an approaching convoy of Skitters means they won’t have time to stabilize Tom before clearing out.  Electing to stay behind in darkness ensure Tom’s successful surgery, Maggie, Dai, Hal and Ben remain while the rest of the group flees.

The surgery is successful, though not without a close call from a passing Mech, and Anne triumphantly follows Weaver to the site of the new camp.  The next day, Tom has one final flashback before he wakes, of his travel companion electing to find her own way toward the mountains, while he hears the battle from the episode's beginning nearby.  He wrestles with a Skitter hiding in an alley, before the struggle puts him in Ben’s line of fire!  So…we’re back.

Now firmly in the present, Tom wakes, embraces his children, shares a tender moment with Anne, and warmly greets the rest of the camp.  Only Pope and Weaver remain suspicious, wondering how he escaped from the Skitter imprisonment.

As we've said before, 'Falling Skies' is an increasingly solid show that definitely deserves to be watched.  There are still plenty of questions to be answered from Tom's time with the Skitters, and plenty of deeper mysteries to be explored, but "World Apart" was certainly intriguing enough to get us back into the spirit of things.  Plus, that opening battle on its own was enough to remind us how impressive the show can be, especially now with an increased budget!

Did you get your fill of Skitter-y ‘Falling Skies’ action?  What did you think about the episode? Join us  for another all-new episode recap of ‘Falling’ season 2 premiere “Shall We Gather at the River” on TNT!