V Recap and Review S2:E3 – ‘Laid Bare’

Written by OBS Staff Member Rose

The Laid Bare episode begins with the over turned car that holds Erica and Agent Malick inside. As you all remember, Agent Malick pulled a gun on Erica, so she swerved and the car flipped over. A fight ensues when Malick tries to give her some whoop ass. Erica finally gets the upper hand and knocks her out. Just in time, Kyle and Father Jack come to her rescue. Kyle takes Malick back to ‘base’, but not before he blows the car up to make it looks like a real accident.

When Paul Kendrick and the firefighting team arrive at the scene, Erica’s story is that Fifth Column radicals shot out the car’s tires and kidnapped Malick.

Meanwhile back on the mother ship, Lisa’s skin is turning green, and Anna tells her that her body is preparing her for breeding. Anna promises to guide Lisa to be the next Queen by molding her from her own image. You can tell Lisa is not too thrilled.

Anna pays a visit to her banished mother, Diana, and is given a warning by her mother that Lisa will in fact betray her.

When Anna gets winds that Malick has been abducted she enlists the help of Ryan using his daughter’s well being as bait, once again.

Erica learns that her son’s DNA is not like normal humans, it has been stripped of major components in the strand. The young scientist tells Erica it was stripped to put something else in its place.

Malick is strung up back at the base. Erica tells the others the V’s corrupted Tyler’s DNA. Erica wants to skin Malick in order to find out what she’s been doing down on earth this whole time if it wasn’t to spy on her and Tyler.

On board the mother ship, Tyler is voicing his concerns about his mother’s safety to Lisa and Anna. He mentions Father Jack as a person he is most concerned about. This peaks Anna’s interest. Tyler mentions that Jack’s anti-V sermons are all over the Internet and the bomber went to his church. Anna fluffs it off and turns the conversation back to Erica.

At the base, Father Jack rounds the crew around the computer screen to watch a video of a camera that was planted on a tree near Erica’s crash site. They see Marcus with a few trackers inspecting the site. One tracker runs up to the tree and breaks off the camera.

Erica believes Malick was working on something very important for Anna. Ryan gets an idea and proceed’s to cut off one of Malick’s finger’s with a cigar cutter. The intent is to search Malick’s apartment. If you’ve watched enough spy films, you know the need of a fingerprint will be involved.

At Malick’s apartment, Erica and Ryan find Malick’s secret hiding place; her stove. Inside is a device with a database of files on some unknown human citizens. She then notices on the surveillance system that they have visitors. Yes, she actually says this too. (The writers of V were in a punny mood when writing this episode.)

Ryan quickly starts putting together an ammonia/bleach concoction, throws it in the microwave and they quickly slips out the patio screen door. The moment the trackers enter the apartment, the microwave blows up.

Chad Decker pays a visit to Anna at her request. She questions if he knows much about Father Landry. He reveals only the fact that the bomber attended his church and Jack is a mere local with a small voice. Anna wants Chad to interview him. This is perplexing to Chad. Anna thinks all voices no matter how small should be heard, but we all know she’s always up to something.

After Decker tells Jack of Anna’s wish, and agrees, Chad thinks he is making a huge mistake. Jack disagrees. This interview will place him front and center, which will make him a harder target to take down.

The crew is still skimming through the files found at Malick’s apartment. There are no matches of these people in any database.

Joshua, Anna and Lisa are staying beside a futuristic looking operating table with an apparatus attached akin to metallic human ribs. Anna announces her desire to rid humans of their souls. Joshua explains the soul leaves the body after death. The operating table is actually a machine that captures souls after humans have died. Joshua intends to do trial runs with the machine. He tells Anna the test subjects will not survive and he will need hundreds of thousands more. He then states “even thought Malick has disappeared, the test subjects will arrive on schedule.”

In a back alleyway, a young girl is walking along when a van pulls up and parks. She is snatched after being given an injection, and is thrown in the back of the van, along with a slue of other passed out victims.

At the base, the crew figures out that a girl by the name of Sophie is in the database and she turned up missing today. They have the mothers address so Kyle and Erica head out to check this lead.

At the church, Chad tells Father Jack his interview will be televised on the evening news. Chad stays for Father Jack’s service. A fight breaks out when one of the attendees blames Father Jack and his speaking out against the V’s.  The attendee who started it all is pushed and falls to the ground. He looks up briefly his eyes turn yellow for just a split moment. He is actually one of the V’s. Jack intervenes and tells the man to fight him not the others. The man just looks at him and then leaves. Someone we cannot see is filming this on a cell phone camera.

Erica and Ryan visit Sophie at work. They learn Sophie ran away a few months back and the mother is desperately trying to find her as well. She gives Ryan a picture of Sophie and begs for their help in locating her. When they arrive back at the base, they are hell bent on skinning Malick to get some answers. The young scientist needs Malick alive for test samples on his DNA work. Kyle leaves the choice up to Erica. After deliberating, she decides Malick should be skinned.

Anna shows Chad a skewed edition, splicing the interview with Jack Landry and the cell phone footage of him stating the man at the church should fight him. Anna’s twisted plan to highlight Father Jack as a duplicitous man will not fair well for him.

The skinning of Malick begins. Erica demands answers. Malick remains mum. Ryan then he cuts off her tail…and this breaks her and she tells them how the abducted are taken. Unfortunately she has no answers as to what Anna wants with Tyler. Erica instructs Kyle to give her a sedative to make her fall asleep and die.

Ryan, Kyle and Erica go to the spot that Malick informed them the van would be, but the van is empty. They hear a distant scream. They see the driver with a woman in the foliage and he takes off running when he sees them. When they close in on him, he takes the magic disintegrating V pill and poof he’s gone. Ryan takes Sophie to safety and Kyle and Erica search for other abductees. They see bodies being lifted onto a V shuttle and transported up to the mother ship.

Aboard the mother ship, a specimen (human) is on the futuristic operating table. Joshua explains the procedure; each organ will be removed (via the metal feelers) until the human is on the verge of death with the only lasting substance being the human soul.

As the metal prongs are about to enter the victim, Anna tells Joshua to stop the procedure. Anna questions Lisa’s frowned expression. She insists the Lisa continue on and perform the experiment, not Joshua. She does. All the while you can tell she is not happy with having to play along with her mother’s wishes.

Walking along in New York to bring Sophie back to her mother, Sophie questions Erica what happened to her, for she cannot remember a thing. Erica explains she was abducted. They enter her mother’s workplace and Sophie and her mom embrace.

Chad is showing the video to Father Jack that Anna manipulated and edited for the world to see and it has gone viral. Jack praised Chad’s efforts to fight along Fifth Column against the V’s and decides it’s time for him to meet the others; Erica, Kyle, and Ryan.

After meeting Erica and the rest of the crew, Erica shows Chad the body of Malick (who is sprawled face down on a bed) so he can see what the V’s really look like. You can see the shock and surprise on Chad’s face. Chad questions why the V’s haven’t just killed everyone already. Erica explains the V’s want the humans alive for a reason.

Back on board the mother ship, Anna commends the videographer of the footage of Father Jack at the church, which allows her manipulation for the public. The camera pans and we find out it was Tyler who was videoing the fight break out in the church. Anna thanks Tyler and takes his hand and proclaims he is like a son to her. This garners a wide smile from Tyler.

Anna pays a visit to her mother again and her mother once again warns Anna to watch her daughter very closely. Anna them meets with Ryan. Anna isholding Ryan’s daughter, and Anna asks what did he found out today. He tells her he found the Fifth Column and knows who took Malick.

Review

A nice play on role changing takes place in this episode, which was shown by Tyler warming up to Anna as a second mother, and with Lisa confiding to Erica about her fears, with Erica turning into an alter mother figure for her. Who else noticed this?

Do you think Ryan will spill the beans about his partners in the Fifth Column, or will he choose the fight for survival over his daughter?

I forget how long it took for the V’s to be fully revealed in the original series in the 80’s, but I hope a full reveal will come soon. Would pulling back the curtain in Oz deflate interest in the show? What do you think?

As much as this show is good, it’s not fantastic. It doesn’t blow my socks off. The storylines in each episode are easy to figure out (for the most part). Just like I cannot remember when the full V reveal takes place, I can’t recall past the first few episodes of the original, so it’s hard to say whether or not this updated version is following that story line closely, if at all.

There is no witty dialogue, or real surprises. I continue to watch to see what happens next, but my patience is waning.  I imagine this is what happened with the 80’s series. The writers need to change up something, anything, if they want to hold the audience attention.

What did you think of this episode? Let’s discuss.