Hello V fans! Our wonderful Carla is buried under a midwestern blizzard, so I’m filling in for her this week. Getting a few plot points out of the way, we now know that Ryan did not rat out his Fifth Column friends instead giving Anna the names of another group of Fifth Column members under the leadership of Eli Cohn (guest Oded Fehr). Anna is still searching for the human soul and Malik’s killers, Tyler believes Father Jack is responsible for the murder of some of his friends who were part of his emissary group, and Erica is assigned a new partner who happens to be an old friend of hers from the Academy (although by the end of the episode, said friend is in cahoots with A.D. Kendrick and revealed that Erica has had more contact with Jack than she admitted to).
A lot of good science fiction uses the genre to address topical issues in society today. V seems to be going down that route now by showing how easily the people of earth can be swayed by the words and actions of one person. It’s no secret that the media, and those who use the media, have come under fire recently for influencing the people who are tuned in to every word and believe everything they hear and see without question. Anna is the ultimate media manipulator. She controls her own people by giving them bliss, and she has very easily swayed a large portion of earth’s population her way by delivering such benefits as blue energy and red rain. She also uses Chad as her human mouthpiece. It certainly doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to connect the dots between the fictional media on the show and our own cable news networks that are always being accused of working for one political group or the other, and how easily viewers adhere to the messages coming from their network of choice.
This week, with a growing resistance to the Visitors in the religious community (after setting up Father Jack as the poster boy for V resistance), Anna traveled to Rome to meet with the college of cardinals. Anna turned on her charm when asking questions about the human soul and asking the church to accept her people into their ranks. Of course, there was one condition — reprimand any priest who spoke negatively against the Visitors. I found this part relevant to recent events when the national hate crimes bill was passed and a lot of religious leaders felt that their right to free speech would be stifled if they dared speak out against anyone who didn’t fall under their moral code.
The cardinals turned Anna’s offer down but she went into blackmail mode and threatened to perform more “miracles” that would draw the faithful to her and away from the church, basically setting herself up as God. Anna also discovered one of the cardinals, Father Moreau, was actually a Visitor spy, sent to earth fifteen years ago by Diana. After “convincing” the cardinals to do what she wanted, she also set up a cover story that Moreau would be the first missionary to the Visitors. Of course, she really brought him back to extract from him what he had learned about the human soul but his time in the human skin allowed him to withstand her treatment, and he told her that he would only reveal what he had learned to “his queen.” Anna took Moreau to Diana’s “Hell” where he revealed the human soul is a gift to be treasured, not destroyed and that rather than be subjected to more of Anna’s torture he offered himself up as a sacrifice to Diana, who agreed with his assessment and happily ripped his throat out. Anna is not happy to lose this valuable source of information, to say the least.
I’m really digging V, especially as it begins to develop and deepen its storytelling. Sure, an alien invasion of earth to begin a human/alien breeding process is pure, over-the-top science fiction but I really enjoy how these kinds of shows have the ability to mirror and comment on our own society in a way that a lot of people don’t even realize. V started out as just a fun show with lizard-like aliens and a lot of special effects eye candy, but I think the writers are gaining confidence in the ability to do some real storytelling now. I’m looking forward to see how future episodes unfold … I just wish more people were tuning in.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Feb 02, 2011 @ 16:03 EST5EDT
Thank you for covering the show for me Chuck. ABC decided to pre-empt the beginning for blizzard coverage.
This week definitely continued to show how manipulative Anna can be to get what she wants.
I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out over the remaining 6 episodes this season.
*POST AUTHOR*
My pleasure. I hope I was up to your standards.
The moment Anne threatened to lure the religious faithful away from the church with her “miracles” was a pretty awesome, jaw-dropping moment. I just think Morena Baccarin does such a great job. I just hope we’re not left with a massive cliffhanger that’s never resolved.
Absolutely love this show – it keeps getting better.
I just want to mention that Tyler has gone from annoying to idiotic. How could he think that vandalizing a church is a good idea, when he knows his mom is in the middle of an investigation that probably involves that very church? Whatever the Vs did during Erica’s pregnancy, it must have stunted this kid’s mental development.
*POST AUTHOR*
I would say Tyler’s reasoning for vandalizing the church was that he’s been led to believe that Father Jack is responsible for the attacks on the Visitors and his friends (thanks to Anna), and that he’s been trying to convince his mother that Jack is a terrorist but she’s refused to listen to him so he and his friends took matters into their own hands. Certainly not the best move on his part, but the question now is will Erica confront him about it or will she have to let it go for fear of risking exposure to Anna?