1x02 "The Armory" (Series Premiere Part.2)

[Raffy]

Episode 1.02 - Two-Hour Series Premiere – Part 2: “The Armory”

SPOILER: Click to show

While scouting for supplies, Tom, Hal and their squad encounter a gang of marauders determined to get their hands on the 2nd Massachusetts’ weapons. Leading the gang is an ex-con named John Pope, who decides to use his hostages as bargaining material.

Directed by Greg Beeman
Written by Graham Yost
Created by Robert Rodat

Taken from: SpoilerTV www.spoilertv.com/2011/04/falling-skies-episode-101102103-episode.html#ixzz1Kzlon8uP

[darksparrow]

Now, really, Pope is annoying. There's an example of making your typical bad guy hooligan a bit TOO typical.

The rest of the episode was quite good, IMO. It was well-paced and kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked the Anne/Weaver housing conflict, I like Hal and his 'thing' with Karen (though Lourdes I find kind of annoying just now).
And I liked the way Tom 'outsmarted' Pope, and the way he got him talking. Clever.

But yeah, sure, a few things bothered me. Mostly it was Pope's over the top 'bad guy' vibe. OK, you're a criminal, we got it.


Also, the Maggie thing felt kind of out of the blue. I understand the motivation for her to act the way she did, of course, but it would have been nice if we'd had SOME indication of it before. Like a casual remark that would have made it clear that she wasn't part of the team but rather 'aquired' for certain purposes.

And just a general something I'm still not getting: Didn't Porter say there were to be 100 fighters and 200 civilians? How is it that it's always 'our' team of guys going on missions? It was perfectly clear in the first episode, but why not send a DIFFERENT group to the armory? There are 94 other fighters, after all...

[claired80]

Very nice things about Noah that Greg Beeman says on his blogspot, about the editing of the episode, for the scene Pope/Tom

It also taught me a lot about Noah Wyle's skill level. Collin Cunningham's, Pope does, by far, most of the talking - and Noah, as Tom, just listens. But, in editing, we cut to Noah A LOT - and he keeps the "listening" alive and interesting. The old adage is "acting is reacting" - and in the editing room I really leaned what this meant as we edited Noah's performance.