- The 2nd Mass. prepares to take the fight to the invaders with an assault on one of their bases.
- Colonel Porter comes to the 2nd and meets Captain Weaver and Tom to inform that the 7th Mass has been destroyed and he lost contact with the 4th and 5th Mass. He shows a plan to attack the Skitter base structure simultaneously to destroy it. Tom, Hall and Weaver go to find the most vulnerable places to blow up the structure while Pope prepares the explosives. While returning, the see a third species of alien in command of the Skitters. Meanwhile Anne performs an autopsy on the Skitter and finds a harness attached inside.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Weaver admires a drawing by his daughter Sophia on the fridge, then wanders outside. He hears a noise and thinks it might be his wife, Linda. He turns around to see a skitter lunging at him. Tom wakes him up. Colonel Porter has arrived.
Outside, Hal finds Ben doing never-ending jumping jacks. Hal checks Ben's stop watch and finds he's been doing them for two hours and 45 minutes. Ben acts like maybe he set the time wrong so he doesn't alarm Hal. He assures his older brother he's fine.
Porter commends Tom and Weaver for the job they're doing. Tom suggests they move on to get ahead of the skitters. Weaver is lost in thought. Porter asks Weaver when the last time he slept was.
Porter tells them recon says the skitters are pulling back to the structure over Boston. Tom thinks it could be clearing the field before a new attack. Porter has heard the same thing is happening over L.A. and Chicago. The resistance wants to launch a coordinated attack on the structures in four days.
Porter tells Tom to do recon on the structure. He tells them Clayton wasn't completely lying, the 7th Mass was wiped out, and they've lost contact with the 4th and 5th. The plan is for each remaining unit to attack one leg of the structure, bomb it so it'll collapse. They have the materials, but didn't have the expertise until recently.
They take Porter to Pope, who's still convalescing from his leg wound with Anne. "Isn't he the ex-con who fired on your unit?" Porter asks. "That is so three weeks ago," Pope says.
Weaver sees Ricky sitting nearby and goes to check on him. He's drawing pictures of the skitters and Weaver is particularly interested in a series of row houses Rick drew.
Weaver checks out Pope and decides he knows what he's talking about, but he doesn't want him on the mission, just prep.
Rick gives Weaver his drawing.
In the middle of the night, Weaver tries to sleep, but pops pills instead. He looks at Rick's picture.
Pope checks out Uncle Scott's demolition plans and collection of mech hardware. He mocks the bomb plans. Scott shows him a piece of a mech they salvaged, but as soon as he touches it, it blasts a hole through the wall. Matt runs off.
Tom finds him hunkered down in the hall. Tom tells him to stay away from Pope. Matt's eager to fight, but Tom says not yet.
Hal, Dai and Tom prep for their scouting mission. Tom asks them if they've noticed anything off about Weaver. He walks in as Tom's talking and announces he's going with them. He had a construction business and says knowing where to hit the structure is key.
Ben visits Anne for a follow-up. Some of the harnessed kids implants have gone away, but not his. She notices the skin around the implants looks weird. She prods at it with a scalpel, but Ben can't feel it. She really jabs, but he doesn't bleed or react at all. It's turning brown and crusty. Anne tells Ben she's worried about Rick, who doesn't seem to be reacting to his dad's death. Ben offers to talk to him.
Tom, Hal and Weaver look at the structure over Boston. It's made out of general contracting materials, steel and rebar. He says it's constructed simply.
Hal points out a group of skitters on a bridge. Something approaches them -- another alien entirely that's much taller and lankier than the skitters, almost humanoid. The skitters bow down to it.
Tom worries that it's the first time they've seen them, that maybe they were hanging back until they thought it was safe.
They see someone running nearby and follow. They start getting shot at. A woman shouts at them and they tell her they want to talk. Sonia (Blair Brown) introduces herself. She's been living in Boston and invites them to talk.
Tom wants to see what she knows, but Hal and Weaver think they have to get going. Tom points out the fact she's survived this long means she knows what she's doing.
Weaver tells them to go inside and he'll stand watch. He looks at Rick's drawing again.
Matt wanders into the bomb making classroom where Pope is. He's nervous about some of the mech parts, but Pope assures him they're dead. He tells Pope he has nightmares and is afraid all the time, but he wants to be brave. Pope tries to demystify the mechs for him, telling him they're just parts and gears. He explains that their bullets are reconstituted from our military bullets.
"I wish we could use these on them," Matt says. "From the mouths of babes," says Pope, inspired.
Ben sits down with Rick, trying to make nice. Rick is bothered by how people look at them. He says they don't understand, but they will. Rick isn't upset about his dad's death, he says that was part of his life before. He tells Ben they're the lucky ones and the skitters love them and will come back for them.
Sonia pours Hal and Tom tea from fine china in her unscathed apartment. She's scavenged everything herself, but seems a little off mentally. She tells them aliens took her to a camp for a while, but the aliens let her go because they don't care about people like her.
"After what happened to us in the camp, I know that they don't want us here, not any of us," she says.
They hear a noise and rush out to find Weaver racing off on his bike. He pulled the sparkplugs on their bikes. They fix the bikes, and discuss how to get to Weaver's old house. They assure Sonia they're coming back.
Anne gets Lourdes for a secret project. She's cutting open the dead skitter in the basement. Anne cuts deep inside and finds a harness. It's what she was afraid of. It means they were harnessed and the thing might have been something else before.
Tom and Hal pull up to Weaver's old house, which looks like the row house Rick drew. Tom tells Hal to report their recon back to Porter.
Tom goes inside and finds old dried blood on the floor. He finds Weaver drinking straight from the bottle outside. He tells Tom he and his wife split a year before the attack. He shows Tom Rick's picture. He thinks it's his house and maybe the skitters planted it to get in his head.
Tom says it looks like most of the houses on the block. Tom doesn't think they can read our minds. He asks about the blood.
Weaver came to the house after the bombs and found his wife's fiancé badly hurt. His daughter Sophia was grabbed. He went after her and found her. He brought her home and tried to take the harness off himself. She bled out. Tom wishes he'd told him.
Weaver tells Tom he's been fighting for revenge this whole time, but it's not enough. He wants to sleep in his own bed. Tom tells him he can't quit days before the attack.
They hear a mech outside. Hal runs and hides. Weaver tells Tom he'll draw it out, but Tom respectfully declines that terrible idea.
Weaver notices his wife's glasses and regroups. He draws the mech out while Tom lobs a grenade at it. Tom runs and it homes in on Weaver, drawing a bead on his forehead. It explodes.
Hal says it came straight for the house. They realize Sonia is the only one who knew where they were.
Cut to Sonia talking to someone through her key hole. The men are inside her apartment, with guns drawn. Sonia reports that she hasn't seen anyone since the men who were there earlier. Hal recognizes the voice on the other side -- it's his girlfriend Karen. She's harnessed. Tom holds him back. Sonia says Karen has been bringing her food. Tom looks through the peep hole and see one of the humanoid aliens with her.
Sonia says the aliens promised they wouldn't hurt her. They realize she's been informing to them, that's why they let her go. Tom invites her to come with them, but she's delusional and wants to wait for her family to return. Tom then tells her they're heading to Gloucester. They're going in the opposite direction.
Anne looks at Rick's picture of a skitter cradling him. Lourdes wants to tell people about their discovery, but Anne is worried how people will treat Ben and Rick. She knows she has to tell Tom. "After everything he went through to get him, he could still lose Ben," Anne says.
Back at the high school, Tom tells Weaver he sees no reason to tell Porter about their side trip. He asks what changed his mind about coming back. Weaver shows Tom his wife's glasses. They were her only pair and they weren't in the house a week after the attack. He thinks that means there's a chance his wife and oldest daughter are alive.
They hear Pope yelling in the courtyard. He's leading a demonstration. Matt comes out and hugs his dad and tells him he's been working with Pope. He knows how to kill the mechs.
Pope explains the problem is it takes an entire magazine to dent a mech. He takes an assault rifle and demonstrates. The bullets bounce off. Then he shows them the mech metal slug. He loads it into a revolver. It blasts a hole clean through it.
Ben notices Rick running off.
Pope tells Weaver with bullet making materials he can melt the mech parts down and make more mech bullets. Weaver tells him to get on it.
"We're taking this fight to them," he announces to cheers.
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