Episode Studies by Clayton Barr enik1138 at popapostle dot com |
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"Reflections in Terror" Written by Chris Manheim Directed by Kevin Hooks
Diana creates a clone of the
Starchild; the Resistance smuggles children from occupied
territory into the open city; Bates prepares to wipe out the
Resistance members at the Club Creole and sets a trap for Julie. Didja Notice? On the Freedom Network report we learn that on the Philippine island of Mindanao, resistance guerillas have been surprised and annihilated a Visitor regiment moving to occupy the island; in Brazil several resistance leaders of the Mato Grosso battalion were executed by the Visitors; U.S. resistance guerillas were successful in overrunning and destroying several Visitor outposts along the Santa Fe trail in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico. The Freedom Network medal of honor goes to Biloxi, MS housewife Marilyn McGeorge who spotted the Visitor patrol boat, Vargan, off the Gulf Coast and rammed it with her husband's fishing boat, sinking both vessels (she was found clinging to debris in the water and rescued). The "Mato Grosso" mentioned in the Freedom Network report is a state in Brazil.
There is Visitor writing on the image device held by the old
woman at 3:00 on the DVD. How did the old woman know that Elizabeth would stop by her sidewalk Christmas donation pot? Luckily for the old woman, Elizabeth did, so the blood sample from the girl's pricked finger could be collected. Though Diana's conspirator does say later, "I knew one of them would find her," so I suppose we could argue that he and Diana had a number of conspirators searching for the Star Child and it would just be a matter of time until one found her or she them. The chemical compound dioxin used to preserve and thin Elizabeth's blood is a real compound, C4H4O2.
At 4:20 on the DVD, we see a Jeep-mounted laser
gun that harkens back to the style seen in
"Visitors' Choice" and not the
smaller mounted gun seen in "The
Overlord". Also, why are the Visitors in the Jeep wearing
motorcycle helmets? From the dialog during Chris Faber's reintroduction, apparently after spending some time with our regular resistance group in the novels Prisoners and Pawns and Death Tide and V comic books 1-6, he spent some time with a resistance group in the desert until they were obliterated. Kyle apparently buys a new house in this episode. But then, what was the house seen in "The Dissident"? Was it just a friend's house he and his two Maxwell women were staying in? Willie has slightly learned how to play "Deck the Halls" on the piano at Club Creole...but not how to sing or even the correct lyrics! Listen: "Deck the Halls" And a Visitor soldier has apparently also learned to play the piano, as he plays what Willie refers to as the Visitors' national anthem. The scene beginning at 13:01 on the DVD, in which Julie leads the Club Creole patrons in singing "America the Beautiful" to drown out the Visitor music, is an homage to a similar scene in the classic film Casablanca, in which Nazi Major Strasser leads his men in a rendition of the patriotic German song "Die Wacht am Rhein," but resistance leader Laszlo begins to sing "La Marseillaise", the national anthem of France. Here are the first 43 seconds of the Visitor anthem: Visitor anthem At 13:56 on the DVD, Chris jabs Tyler in the ribs with his elbow to get him to sing "America the Beautiful" along with the rest of them.
At 17:09 on the DVD, a Visitor guard screams and we see he
apparently has a human tongue and human teeth...with fillings no
less! Diana's manipulation of the Star Child clone's DNA has made it grow even faster than Elizabeth herself did, physically maturing to the point of a teenager's body in less than a day. At 24:27 on the DVD, the young actress Jenny Beck, who played young Elizabeth in V: The Final Battle and "Liberation Day", returns for a cameo as the Star Child's clone. But where did the clone get the clothes she's wearing? When Elizabeth was going through her metamorphosis in "Dreadnought", there was a green glow emanating from the cave she was in. Here, as the clone goes through the metamorphosis, a red glow is emanating, perhaps indicating her darker nature.
The flip-down lens on Laird's sunglasses seem to give him
"Predator vision"!
It's a little hard to identify in the moving image, but at 27:14
on the DVD, we can see that the clone's feet are cut up from
running around in the scrub barefoot. At 27:52 on the DVD, Julie is watching The Valley of Gwangi on TV. This same movie is seen playing in "Visitors, Victims and Victory" in the director's booth as the news crew prepares to break into the broadcast for Donovan's video of a Visitor unmasked. At 28:21 on the DVD, a special news bulletin breaks into the airing of The Valley of Gwangi and is presented by Tawny Schneider who was a real L.A. anchorwoman around the time of V. At the time, she was married to actor John Schneider. Chris reveals in this episode that Tyler had married and had a daughter with a local woman in Vietnam. But they were never seen again after the fall of Saigon (in 1975), despite Tyler's repeated attempts to slip into the communist country and search for them. From Chris' comments, they are presumed dead. At 33:36 on the DVD, Donovan and Chris realize something's up when they see a telephone repairman, water and power men, and window washers all working the street at the same time across from Club Creole. But the street view that is shown doesn't reveal any of those, it's just a normal street view! At 34:50 on the DVD, it appears that Chaing says something to Bates, but it has been dubbed out. Julie makes her escape unaided from Science Frontiers after blowing her cover, but it seems unlikely that she would be able to do so when Chaing and Bates had already set her up to take a fall. Sitting in his car outside the Club Creole when it blows up, Chaing seems pleased that his attack has worked so well and ended the resistance in the city. But all he did was send in some gunmen to shoot the place up and, presumably, kill the people inside. The bombs were set by Chris to catch the attackers unaware and kill them. Instead of instantly celebrating, Chaing should be wondering what caused the explosion and was it a trap set by the resistance to cover their escape.
At 41:42 on the DVD, there is a quick glimpse of the stand-in
for the clone when Elizabeth whirls around to confront Laird.
You can tell the clone's face (to the right) is not Jennifer
Cooke's.
Now that the Club Creole itself has been destroyed, Kyle comments that the only way to reach the speakeasy is through the alley or the sewers. His comment about sewer access may be what is meant by "a maze of passageways under the streets" leading to the location in the novel Prisoners and Pawns. Back to Episode Studies
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