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V
"Welcome to the War"
Written by Scott Rosenbaum
Directed by Yves Simoneau
Original air date: March 30, 2010 |
Erica struggles to
get her son back from the mothership without blowing her resistor
cover; Father Jack gets healed by V's; a mercenary finds himself
in the sights of both the resistance and the Visitors.
Read the detailed episode recap at
the V Wiki
Didja Know?
Starting with this episode, the producers reduced the frequency
of news crawls at the bottom of the TV screens when Prime Focus
or other news programs are shown. I guess they got tired of
having to write all those headlines!
Didja Notice?
The assassin who attacks Erica reveals a primitive sort of V
weapon...a switchblade!
During Erica's battle with the assassin we learn that the
Visitors' hearts are on the right-hand side of their chests.
At 12:17 in the episode, can you spot the sponsor?
When Georgie learns that Father Jack has been attacked and
injured, he asks to which hospital he's been taken. Father
Travis replies, "Not a hospital. The V healing center. I took
him where I know he would be saved." It's an ironic way of
stating it considering the word "saved" is also used to denote
having found God in religion, at a church. Is it a clue of what
Jack will be going through? If the R6 formula begins to turn
Jack into an alien as hinted at later in the episode, is that
what Father Travis really means by "saved"? The hints continue
to build that Father Travis is either a Visitor or a convert.
The Visitors plant false evidence to implicate a mercenary named
Kyle Hobbes. Is the name "Kyle" an homage to the character of
Kyle Bates in the original V
series?
From Anna's dialog, the V's seem afraid that Hobbes could become a
leader of the resistance and teach them how to fight
effectively. Why? What is so special about him? Is he a rogue V?
The FBI does say that Hobbes is at the head of pretty much every
law enforcement agency's "most wanted" list and that he is former
British SAS (Special Air Service, a special forces regiment),
the guy countries would send in to train rebels when they needed
a convenient uprising.
At 19:01 in the episode, are the jellyfish in the cylindrical
aquarium alien jellyfish? Or just the Earth variety? They seem
to have some glowing rings in the middle which may suggest alien
origination.
During the distance shot at 19:11 in the episode, as Anna
approaches the table for her meal with Chad, a bird appears to
be flying up from the "park" area of the ship. Again the
question is asked: is this an alien bird? Did the Visitors bring
a zoo of extraterrestrial animals to Earth?
The table at which Anna and Chad are dining has no legs!
Apparently it is suspended by a force field or antigravity
technology.
When Erica looks up Hobbes in Maddox's old database, it shows
his last known address as 1402 Ellridge Ave., New York, NY
10028. But when she goes to pay him a visit, she goes to a
building at 40 Ellridge. After arriving, she even describes the
address as 40 Ellridge when she calls in her FBI cohorts to
bring him in.
There is no such address as Ellridge Avenue in New York City.
10028 is, however, one of the zip codes of New York City.
At 22:22 in the episode, Father Jack has a nightmare of
transforming into a reptilian.
Tyler is placed inside a "memory chamber" on the mothership
while Anna and Lisa search for...something...in his mind. Tyler
lies flat on a platform while dozens of his childhood memories
float around him. It seems that both he and Anna and Lisa,
observing through a window outside, can see these images of his
memories. It reminds me of the "memory machine" that appeared in
several issues of Marvel's Battlestar Galactica comic
book in the 1970s (see
"The Memory Machine" for the start of the storyline).
At 29:49 in the episode, Erica remarks that, when fighting Anna, they can't bring knives to a gun fight. Ironically, the Visitors seem to prefer fighting with blades during hand-to-hand combat!
At 30:39 in the episode, Erica says, "Welcome to the war." Take
a drink.
At 33:17 in the episode, there is Visitor writing on the
holographic readout screen, seen in reverse. Inverting the
screen and translating the characters, the top line reads
"SEATTLE WA". The line below it doesn't seem to spell anything
real. The red bar in
about the middle of the screen doesn't seem to spell anything
either: RESVWS (possibly a joke reference to "reverse views"?). From the top line, it seems
Seattle, Washington is part of the R6
plan, but it may not necessarily be an integral clue, as we
see hundreds of such screens; perhaps each screen represents another
city in which the R6 plan is being rolled out.
At 33:28 in the episode, we see one last holoscreen with an
image of Father Jack on it. The top line translates as "JACK
LANDRY". The other characters are too blurred to make an
accurate translation.
Is it just coincidence that the camera shot at 34:36 in the
episode shows lights that look a bit like some kind of crouching
beast waiting to make a kill? Crouching Lizard, Hidden Dragon?
As Joshua debriefs Anna's potential mates on the importance of
their task, he says, "The very survival of our species will
depend on one of you. The queen commands it." Then Anna walks in
among the recruits. This seems to imply that Anna is more than
the commander of the Earth fleet, but the queen of the species.
Anna seems to use her olfactory sense to make the final choice
of who is to be her mate for the creation of an army.
At the beginning of the episode, Erica uses the framed photo of
herself and Tyler as a weapon to smash into the head of the
assassin. At 35:31 in the episode, we see her taping the corner back onto the photo
and placing it in a new frame.
When Tyler returns home for an emotional reunion with his mom,
he informs her he has joined the V peace ambassadors and pulls
out his uniform from his backpack. Erica realizes it
is now monitoring them (from her discovery in
"A Bright New Day"). So she
can't say anything negative to her son about the Visitors while
the uniform coat is nearby.
Visitor writing appears on the holoscreen showing Tyler's coat
transmission aboard the mothership. But the words at the top of
the image translate as "COREY RYAN", not Tyler Evans! WTF? Did
early V scripts have this
as the character's name and it was later changed to Tyler Evans?
The scene of the pregnant Valerie holding up the dead mouse is
an amusing homage to scenes from the original
V series.
When Anna performs the physical act of mating with her chosen
soldier, why does she turn his head away from her? Does she not
want him to see the act as it happens? Why? Especially since
she's going to kill him anyway!
When Anna goes all black widow on her mate, we see a huge
mouthful of sharp, spiny teeth. Do all of the Visitors have the
same set of dentures? Or is she unique in that she is the queen
of the species? In the insect world, the queen of the colony or
hive (such as ants or bees) have more pronounced morphologic
differences from the other castes. It also looks like she may have
a double row of these teeth; in several of the novels based on
the original V, the
Visitors are described as possessing a double row of teeth. (In
later episodes, it is implied that all Visitors have these
wicked fangs hidden under their human disguises.)
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