Last night's episode of V had it all: multi-generational cleavage baring, rat eating, and Israeli-backed terrorists who operate out of a clothing factory in New York. Plus, everybody prays! Spoilers ahead.
Before we discuss really important things, like the terrorist plot and where human emotions come from, I would like to point out that Anna also had a really great dress that looked sort of like a straight jacket without sleeves. It really set off her face nicely when she extended her lizard jaws out to monstrous proportions to eat that cute, wiggly rat and then barf it back into Ryan's baby's mouth. But I get ahead of myself!
You call it a soul, but I call it boobies
Because the plot arc of the entire show has disintegrated like a V on immolation pills, the episode tried vainly to hold itself together by pronouncing early and often that there was a THEME. And that theme was "the soul." Anna has pulled her mom out of the slimy dungeon to interrogate her about where humans get their pesky emotions so she can crush them. And mom demands that Anna give her an iPod necklace so that she can broadcast music in the slime dungeon and "feel things." According to mom, human emotions can't be discovered scientifically - they exist in the soul, which is apparently located in mom's abundant cleavage (which the camera helpfully shows us several times).
From this exchange, Anna determines that the way she'll control Fifth Column leader Ryan is by spray-painting human skin on his hybrid baby and then giving it some kind of painful condition that only her bliss can cure. Huh? So, Ryan will come back into her bliss because his baby does? Also, somehow her plan also includes barfing rat into the baby's mouth to create a maternal bond with it. I'm really unclear on how this plan works - so, first she bonds with the baby to manipulate Ryan, then she creates pain for the baby for bliss-related purposes? OK, let's focus on her mom's cleavage instead - because at least that makes sense.
Meanwhile, Anna somehow is unable to use her mega-technology to determine what neuroscientists have known for decades, which is that emotions are not actually located in mom's cleavage but instead in the brain's neurochemical processes. So Anna's got the mind-wiped medical officer Joshua (former Fifth Column honcho) poking around looking for a human "soul" instead of just dosing humans with drugs to screw up our precious emotions.
V's critique of Christianity
Which gives Father Jack a chance to lecture Ryan about how everybody has a soul, including your average V. He and Ryan get down on their knees to pray together and be all soul-oriented, but the moment that Ryan opens his heart to God or whatever, Anna is right there trying to fill him with bliss! Does that mean Anna is actually God? And that prayer is just a way of getting bliss? Wow, V is suddenly launching a sneaky critique of Christianity.
. . . And terrorism is awesome
Plus, there's also a giant endorsement of terrorism! Inspired by Father Jack's anti-V sermonizing and funded by an Israeli guy named Eli Cohen (who is a businessman in the clothing business, of course), an international ring of terrorists are strapping C4 to their chests and blowing up the V health centers. And also trying to target Chad, the evil news guy who is secretly Fifth Column!
There's this great moment where the 4 remaining members of the Fifth Column decide that they should recruit the terrorists to help them - though only if they agree to stop killing humans. Erica is a little worried about the whole thing, but Hobbes and the rest of the gang want to hook up with Cohen's gang.
In the process of investigating the terrorists - and trying to become their besties - Erica also finally figures out that Tori the cylon is Malik the V. And then they have a fight! Erica vs. Malik! Not only does Malik lose a giant lizard tooth, but she gets captured by the Fifth Column gang. Get ready for a torture endorsement next week. I mean, now that terrorism is cool, of course torture is on the program. Especially because V don't have souls anyway.
Lisa and Erica are now in league to impregnate Tyler
OK, I'm just kidding about that. Tyler isn't pregnant yet. But as we learned last week, Anna is making sure that Lisa has sex with Tyler so that she can poot out a bunch of eggs. And this week, cleavage mom confirmed why: Anna is no longer fertile! I guess she expended all her fertility making the sky rain red. Plus - dum dum dum! - mom reveals that Earth is Anna's last hope for the future of V civilization. The V have to settle here and start breeding with us or they're going to die out.
And they may have been prepping humans for their breeding project for decades. Erica thinks that the V may have experimented on her while she was pregnant, or maybe even impregnated her. So she sneakily gets a blood sample from Tyler while Lisa distracts him. Is there really anything creepier than the mother/daughter relationships in this show? I mean, the Anna thing was ground zero of incest mom creepiness, but now Erica's little understanding with Lisa about Tyler is way inside creeptastic territory too.
She delivers the blood sample to the scientist who is now handily working with the Fifth Column. Can we have more sexy scientist action, please? Just, you know, to counterbalance this show's obsession with Tyler's pregnancy and Anna's homoerotic relationship with her entire family?
Though Anna thinks "the soul is the single greatest threat to our species," I think we all know what the real threat is. That this show will become so campy that it will be unstuck in time and journey back in time to merge with Joan Crawford's brain where it belongs. Or maybe the set of Rocky Horror. You choose.