V "Uneasy Lies the Head" Written by Cameron Litvack and Gregg Hurwitz Directed by Jeff Woolnough Original air date: March 1, 2011

Erica makes some bold decisions against Anna in her leadership of Fifth Column; Anna's human paternal candidates begin to get sick; Ryan becomes a fugitive aboard the mothership.

Read the detailed episode recap at IMDB

Didja Notice?

The arches of red light in the mothership corridor at 1:38 in the episode look like upside-down "V's".


There is V writing on the data screen in the DNA storage room at 2:07 in the episode. The characters do not appear to be spelling out anything in English translation. A few seconds later, the screen flashes the English words "DNA Sample Acquired".


When Erica asks if the data connection he's established is secure, Sidney sarcastcially retorts, "No, I thought I'd run the pow-wow through Facebook."

Thomas brings up an image of young Jennifer Hartswel at 6:06 in the episode. Although it's blurry, the V writing in the upper right corner appears to spell out her name. Oddly, we are shown the front-side image even though we are seeing the screen from behind...so it should be a mirror-image instead!

At 6:41 in the episode, we once again get the same shot of the Pulaski Bridge intersection we've seen several times in previous episodes. It would seem to indicate that Hobbes' home/Fifth Column HQ is near this intersection.

When Erica and Hobbes say they're going to hit Jameson Labs hard and fast, "cowboy style", Jack refers to Hobbes as Wild Bill. This is a reference to Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876), a renowned, and now legendary, gunfighter of the American Old West.

Attempting to get Melissa to agree to join the Live Aboard program with her young daughter, Jennifer, Anna tells her she also has a daughter of Jennifer's age, named Amy, referring to the hybrid child. Anna seems to have used the name "Amy" because that was Melissa's mother's name, but will that now become the hybrid's actual name? I have to admit, I was kind of hoping she'd become Elizabeth, in homage to the hybrid Star Child of the original V.

The scene at 10:14 in the episode is about the best shot we've had of a V gun. Notice that Ryan seems to load a Visitor immolation pill into the gun in order to fire it! Lisa refers to the Visitor gun as an immolation gun in "Mothers Day".

The Fifth Column raids Jameson Labs to get the flu virus sample they need for their plan to infect and ruin the Visitors' DNA samples. Jameson Labs is, of course, a fictitious company; the address at which it is described, "450 Reade Street", is a real address in New York City, but there is no building similar to the Jameson Labs building there.

At 12:34 in the episode, Erica and her crew run past a door sign during their raid of Jameson Labs. It reads "You are now entering a BSL graded facility". BSL stands for Biohazard Safety Level. In the lab from which they actually steal the virus, there are signs stating "BSL 2 Safety Precautions Strictly Enforced". There are four levels of BSL safety, 4 being the level of precautions used for the most dangerous biohazard agents, such as the Ebola virus. BSL 2 is for agents that cause only mild disease in humans, such as influenza.

After the third security guard shows up and shoots Hobbes, Erica rather stupidly shouts Hobbes' name and later Sid's as well while the guard is present. As an FBI agent, shouldn't she know better than to use their real names in the middle of an illegal activity?

I had previously wondered in earlier studies of the series about the privacy levels available in Lisa's bedroom considering she has a large bank of windows looking over the atrium area of the ship. At 17:51 in the episode, some partially lowered shutters can be seen on a few of the windows, indicating all the windows must have shutters that can be lowered in place.

The ubiquitous USA Today newspaper machine is seen at 21:00 in the episode, alongside a Daily News machine.

The V writing on Raphael's medical screen at 22:18 in the episode translates as his name, Raphael Mendoza. The other characters on the screen are seem to be random letters and numbers. At least this time the rearview of the screen does show the mirror-image as it should!

There is V writing on Will Lerner's medical screen at 23:59 on the Blu-ray, showing his name. The rest of the lettering appear to be random characters.

The monitor screen Ryan opens at 32:02 in the episode to summon the escape pod, has buttons labeled CLOCK, PAUSE, and SECURE. Again, the rear view of the screen is not the mirror-image it should be. A few seconds later, the screen has several Visitor words translating into TERMINAL, USER, MAP, DEL, and LOCK. Other characters convert into the English letters CCSTM-JBA and CC-IEE; these may be in-jokes of computer terminology as CCSTM is a type of library software, JBA may stand for Java Based Application, and IEE may be an abbreviation of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), a professional organization dedicated to advancing electrical technology. Other bits of V writing appear on the screen, but they are either too blurry to make out or are just nonsense jumbles of letters.

We get our first look at a Visitor escape pod on the mothership in this episode. Diana tells Ryan and Lisa that she has several hidden and cloaked escape pods built into the mothership that no one else knows about.

At 32:32 in the episode, the screen of the escape pod has V writing that spells out DEL and LAUN. DEL probably means "Delete" and LAUN probably "Launch". It is one of the LAUN buttons which Ryan hits that expels his pod out of the mothership to freedom.
 

When Hobbes pays a visit to Erica's house to offer some (ahem) moral support, he brings a bottle of liquor with a label on it we never get a good look at. The label may read "Finnarraugh single malt scotch"; as far as I can tell, Finnarraugh is a fictitious brand.

At 36:39 on the Blu-ray, books and DVDs are seen on a shelf in Erica's house. Of the books visible are, The Between (1995) by Tananarive Due, Monstruary (1999) by Julián Ríos, and Winter Solstice (2000) by Rosamunde Pilcher. Of the DVDs visible: The River Niger (1976), Death of a Prophet (1981), Pilates Principles (a workout video), The Road to Zanzibar (1941),

Hobbes tells Erica that a woman who was close to him died. Presumably he is speaking of the woman, Sarah, whom he believed was dead, but whom the Visitors allege they have found alive and have in custody (as revealed in "Siege"). Notice that he doesn't tell Erica the Visitor part of the story.

In this episode, we see that Hobbes has a tattoo on his right arm, possibly of Asian writing. Anyone know what the symbols represent?