Invasion – Recap – Episode 1-8

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I was going to open with a bit of a tribute to Eddie Guerrero but there’s not really much I can say at this point that hasn’t already been said by far better columnists than I. So let’s just get started with the recap.

This week’s episode opens with the always riveting laundry. Jesse says the water is still out at Russ’ place so he is using his mother’s washing machine. The two debate dinner briefly before Jesse asks Mariel about her face. It seems she has begun bleeding from the side of her head. Within seconds she is bleeding from a number of seeming puncture wounds on her face and neck. She cries for help but Jesse runs off in fear. We then get a close-up of the washing machine to see that Jesse was washing… his blood! Ask the appliance technician to repeat back to you what you have asked them to do, in their own words, to ensure you’re both on the same page. Make sure that there is a very firm timeline for the project, which means that there are fewer opportunities for the appliance service technician to fall behind. The home appliance service provider should offer you a list of those expectations, along with their specific timeframe for the job when they present the legal agreement. You can look at this website for the Pittsburgh’s Washing Machine Repair Experts.

Mariel wakes up at this point and, of course, it was all a dream. Tom asks if she wants to talk about it but she tells him no.

Russ and Dave, now knowing about the supposed squid link to the swamp, perform some testing on the sample from the creature they obtained several episodes okay (apparently they had better things to do until now). Some of the data does back up the squid claim but not all of it. Russ suggests that it could be from a squid species they had not yet encountered but the data is inconclusive.

Before any further testing can be done, Russ and Dave hear something outside. When they go outside they find a cooler with a baby in it. This obviously takes priority over the microscope fun.

They find the baby’s mother, Christina and grandmother rather quickly. The only problem is that the mother denies that the baby is hers. When her mother in law insists that it is, Christina slaps her.

Meanwhile Larkin is laid up after her ordeal from last week. She is supposed to be resting but she is getting rather antsy so she’s watching a video on child-rearing and looking through some texts. Larkin smells burnt toast but before she can call for a Doctor Pennfield, we find that is actually burnt toast as the kids have made her some breakfast.

After delivering the food, Rose asks about babies. She suggests that Larkin talk to Mariel if she is so interested but Larkin doesn’t think that is a good idea. Rose then asks why they need another baby so Larkin calls Russ so that he can explain it.

Larkin reaches Russ at the hospital and he tells Larkin about the baby. When Larkin relays Rose’s question Russ asks if they can talk about it later.

Russ then discusses talks with Christina’s mother-in-law. Apparently her son, Justin, went out in the hurricane for supplies and when he did not return Christina went out looking for him. They found Justin’s body a few hours later and he had been electrocuted. They did not find Christina until a few days later. She was found and taken to a shelter after she had gone missing. After her ordeal, Christina seemed like a different person and she refused to have anything to do with the baby.

Mariel comes back after having examined Christina. Christina’s mother-in-law wants to take the baby home but according to the hospital records and Mariel’s examination of the baby, it couldn’t be Christina’s as she’s never even been pregnant.

After Christina’s mother-in-law heads home to find Christina, Russ and Mariel talk. Apparently Christina claimed that her mother-in-law made the whole thing up as a way of dealing with the death of her son, Justin. Russ accuses Mariel of not caring enough and then uses her own kids to guilt her into taking a more active interest in the problem.

While this is going on Larkin is meeting with Tom. She called him to come visit and makes it clear that she does not want Russ to know. Larkin lets us know that the plates of the car that had been following her were registered to the Air Force and that the owner of the car had supposedly died a couple of years ago. Tom tells her not to worry about the Air Force as they won’t be bothering her anymore. He says they were following her around because she had snooped around at the Air Force base and, after confirming she didn’t really see anything, Tom tells her she has no reason to worry but cautions her to let the issue go.

Mariel, having been successfully guilt-tripped, goes to see Christina. Mariel asks Christina about what happened to her the night of the hurricane but Christina is too busy watching TV to answer. At this point Mariel notices Christina’s mother-in-law’s purse spilled on the ground. A quick look around the area, reveals the spilled body of Christina’s mother-in-law as well.

Mariel calls Tom and soon everyone is there and Christina is carted away by the police. Mariel and Russ talk about what happened before Tom spots them. Russ seems concerned that Mariel and Christina underwent similar experiences the night of the hurricane. Tom tells Russ there’s no need for him to be there but Russ does not want to leave. Tom then tells Mariel that she doesn’t need to be there and that she should go home.

Larkin has put the kids to work painting the house while she plays around on her laptop. Russ is concerned about the paint fumes bothering Larkin but she seems to enjoy them. Larkin asks why Russ spent the whole morning with Mariel and clearly has some jealousy going on. Russ explains why he was gone and says the he is trying to protect Larkin.

Larkin ends up letting it slip that she called Tom and the two argue. In the course of the argument, Russ accidentally calls Larkin, ‘Mariel’. Shockingly enough, it turns out that calls your wife by your ex-wife’s name does NOT endear you to her.

Russ tries to cover for his mistake by saying that he is really worried about Mariel and that ever since hurricane she has been acting oddly. Russ says that he does not like leaving the kids with Mariel as he does not trust her any longer. Larkin says that he should stop worrying about Mariel so much as he’s not married to her.

After settling in to her cozy new room, Christina gets a visit from Mariel. Mariel wants to know why Christina killed her mother-in-law (I really wish I’d caught this woman’s name as typing ‘mother-in-law’ over and over sure is slightly more effortful). Christina says that her mother-in law wanted her to go to the hospital for a DNA test and that was not something she wanted to do. She says she would have happily allowed her mother-in-law to have the baby but that she wanted nothing to do with it.

When prodded about her hurricane experience, Christina says that she’s not the same person she was. She talked with the sheriff on the way to the hospital earlier that day and he told her some things that really helped her figure it out. She also suggests that Tom is scared of change and what he really is. She then asks Mariel if she perhaps felt differently since the hurricane, particularly about her kids. Christina concludes by saying that she knows what and who she is now.

A short while later, Tom and Mariel talk about what happened. Tom says that he mainly talked with Christina about the baby but that the two did talk about his past briefly. Mariel seems worried that she underwent the same experience as Christina did but Tom assures her that they may have went through a similar ordeal but that they are nothing alike.

Tom segues there discussion into talk of babies. When they got married, Tom had said that he did not want a kid but now he says that he does. He feels that the time is right for them to have a child. Mariel feels odd when Tom tells her he wants a child and says she needs some time to be alone. Tom lets Mariel know that he loves her and leaves.

Next stop for the sheriff is Christina’s cell. He wants to know what Christina told Mariel that has gotten her acting strangely. Christina says she just told the truth. Christina then wonders what will happen if they do a DNA test on her. She says that the test will show her that the baby is indeed hers but that will confuse everyone since ‘this body’ has never been pregnant. Christina also says that she knows that the sheriff is terrified of losing Mariel and Tom does not disagree.

The painting is still going on but Russ notices that Rose is upset about something. Jesse lets him know that they overheard what he told Larkin about Mariel. Russ sits down with Rose and tries to re-assure her. Rose thinks that Mariel is getting better and Russ hopes she is right. Rose then mentions she has been worried about the new baby because she’s afraid that it will get more love than she does. Russ tells her that won’t happen and lets Rose know how much he loves her.

Apparently feeling like he’s on a roll, Russ goes to talk to Larkin. She is still mad at him but he picks her up and carries her in a romantic gesture which quickly gets him out of the proverbial doghouse. He takes Larkin to the edge of a lake, apparently the place where he forced proposed to her and lets Larkin know that he loves her.

In a less romantic part of the swamp, Mariel goes for a swim in a cove. She finds something in the water which first appears to be a reflection but it turns out is actually a body under the water. And to make the experience more memorable, it is Mariel’s body.

Mariel goes home where Tom is waiting for her. He asks where she was and she says that she went to the cove where Tom found her in the aftermath of the hurricane. She then speculates what to make for dinner, suggesting that she will make chicken because Jesse would prefer that to pot-roast (in a callback to the roast v. chicken discussion she had with Jesse in her dream to open the episode).

Tom keeps questioning her and Mariel reveals that she saw her own body in the swamp. Or what used to be her body anyway. When Tom attempts to comfort her, she asks if he knew about it and he says that he did not.

Tom then goes to the same cove Mariel went to. After a bit of searching, he finds her body. Oddly enough he seems quite shocked about this.

Mariel, meanwhile, is spending some quality time with her kids. They are all cooking a chicken (let’s just hope that real Jesse is a big a fan as dream Jesse was) and generally acting very family-ish in a musical montage.

While Mariel is looking through a photo album with some photos from her wedding, Tom gets home. Mariel asks if he went to the cove and when he says that he did, she asks if he saw anything. Tom hesitates for a few moments and then, for some reason, says he did not see anything.

Some interesting revelations to be had on this week’s episode. Up till this point Tom has come off as having all the answers as to whatever is going on in Florida City. This week however he not only seemed to feel threatened by Christina (which tells us that whatever is going on with the swamp, the survivors aren’t all on the same page) but he seems to be quite shocked by whole Mariel’s body thing.

One could make the case that he was only feigning shock (and that his reaction in the swamp was only caused by the suddenness of the bodies appearance) and that he was fully aware of the body replacements (he did take Christina’s file from the hospital after all) but if that were the case, wouldn’t he have disposed of the original bodies? Granted the bodies aren’t in easy to find places but with all the people who went missing during the hurricane there would be a lot of bodies, and if just one of those was discovered and reported there’d be an awful lot of complications.

Tom’s denial of Mariel’s body being in the swamp is interesting. Is he hoping that if he just pretends it wasn’t there that Mariel will think she is hallucinating and that he can ignore the issue? Or does he have some other purpose?

One thing that is almost certainly inevitable is that Mariel will take someone else (probably Russ) to see the body in the near future only to find that it is no longer there (as Tom will have no doubt got rid of it now).

Some of the events are unfolding as expected but others are going in interesting new directions and makes for a compelling hour of TV.

There really was not much in the way of negatives this week. I was wondering where Kira disappeared to however. She is usually included in any family togetherness stuff but this week she was nowhere to be seen (or if she did appear it was only very briefly while my head was turned to jot something down). I understand that the main focus this week was Russ and Mariel’s relationships with the her kids but it still seemed a little odd.

Still, if the closest thing to a complaint I can muster up is a saying something was ‘a little odd’ then you know it’s a good episode.