WRITER: Gregg Hurwitz[SPOILERS] Act One was especially bad and the script lacked courage throughout, turning "Hearts And Minds" into a tedious and cowardly hour. There are only a few episodes left this season, so I hope the writers have something big planned for the finale, but my expectations remain very low...
DIRECTOR: Bobby Roth
GUEST CAST: Charles Mesure, Mark Hildreth, Roark Critchlow, Christopher Shyer & Rekha Sharma
In media res openings are very common in sci-fi, but often a sign that a script doesn't have much narrative strength. They're used to hook an audience with a glimpse of an inciting moment yet to come, before rewinding to explain how things arrived at that point. There are good examples of this technique being used (see: Mission Impossible III), but it's usually an unnecessary and dull way to grab attention."Hearts And Minds" began with Ryan (Morris Chestnut), Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) and Hobbes (Charles Mesure) shooting down a V transport shuttle with a "bazooka", before discovering the passengers inside were innocent humans. Unfortunately, the story then spent its entire first Act explaining how we arrived at that moment, which wasn't enlightening (er, they decided to shoot down a shuttle) and certainly wasn't interesting.
Still, it became clear that Chad's (Scott Wolf) on the side of the V's, as he's using Father Jack as his contact with the Fifth Column movement and reporting back to Anna (Morena Baccarin). I'm stll not convinced by the reporter's reasons (worldwide fame), but it's otherwise a good way to link the two fronts of this series. Chad's role as an informant tipped Anna off about the Fifth Column's intentions to destroy a V shuttle, prompting her to ensure the shuttle was loaded with people. Unfortunately, the script lost its nerve when it was later revealed these human "fatalities" were corpses already, with Anna having framed the rebels as a way to turn public opinion against V dissention. Photo evidence of Anna's plan from the crime scene was also erased at the FBI, alerting Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) to the fact a V is working undercover at the Bureau, with her boss Kendrick (Roark Critchlow) the prime suspect.
It would have been more interesting if the rebellion had really killed innocent people, let's face it, but V's unfortunately not willing to walk into that heart of darkness. So who were the dead people Anna loaded aboard the shuttle? Surely the public will want names of the deceased to grieve over, so did Anna kill innocent people aboard her mothership and put their bodies on the shuttle? If so, why bother if they were going to be killed? Letting them die as a result of the terrorist attack wouldn't have ruined her plan, and would have been the better option (i.e. it would have destabilized the Fifth Column's resolve and wouldn't have required erasure of evidence.) And surely the FBI's forensics will wonder why human bones from the wreckage are that of dead bodies, if even Erica could spot that with a cursory glance at a photo. The story's desire to go soft on its audience worked directly against any logic, basically.
"Hearts And Minds" did have a few things to recommend. Anna's plan may have been illogical in some respects, but its desired effect was nice to see play out -- as she announced the V's may leave Earth over the shuttle disaster and this prompted an outpouring of sympathy for her people. Seeing Erica have to interrogate Father Jack at the FBI was weirdly enjoyable because it was so poorly acted, and a reveal that Agent Malik (Rekha Sharma) is an undercover V with a girl-crush on Anna amused me. What is it about Sharma that lands her roles where she has a secret identity, post-Battlestar Galactica? Heck, what is it about Sharma that lands her roles?And there was decent development with Lisa (Laura Vandervoort), when she realized humans participating in the Live Aboard program are being experimented on and have their memories erased. Her empathy growing as a result of prolonged contact with humans, she therefore decided to end her relationship with Tyler (Logan Huffman) to spare him that same fate. In the final scene, Anna sensed her daughter's emotional qualities, and ordered that Lisa's legs be broken as punishment for her failure and as a way to lure Tyler back.
Asides
- A gutless episode in many ways, but at least the V's secret experimentation on humans was gruesome (people's bodies are surrounded by metal rings that sprout hundreds of needless that pierce them from all angles). V should be more unsettling like that, to live up to the feeling of dread you get from its brief opening title.
- Erica's now lead investigator into the Fifth Column terrorists (shame she's never looked competent as an agent), and Anna believes she has the might of the FBI working towards crushing her enemy because Malik has a key role there, too.
- Father Jack's a dumb liability. His heart's in the right place, but he's unwittingly leaking information to the V's and always the one getting caught. Priests don't make good terrorists!
- Terrible greenscreen again. Hey, remember 15 years ago when you had real sets and things didn’t look like a video-game? I keep thinking I can control events using my Playstation controller during every mothership scene. Which would probably make for a more entertaining episode. Or failing that just make Laura Vandervoort takes her top off and walk around... ahem.
- So now there are "sniffers" to add to the "soldiers". These V's are fast-becoming Pokémon! "Gotta kill 'em all!"
- Kyle Hobbes. Body of Johnny Bravo, face of Peter Sutcliffe.
