Abhiroop Das
Created by Robert Rodat, ‘Falling Skies’ charts a post-apocalyptic world where an alien invasion has wiped out more than 90% of the human population. Faced with a bleak reality, many everyday people turn into resistance fighters, determined to save Earth from extraterrestrial calamity. The protagonist, Tom Mason, joins a militia group known as the 2nd Mass, and undertakes one perilous odyssey after another to chip away at the alien forces. In the previous season, Tom and company are split apart by the Espheni innovations, but a shot at success emerges when they find the Espheni’s lunar power source. With only one beamer ship at hand, Tom chooses to head to space by himself, only for his part-alien daughter, Lexi, to tag along. While the mission is a success, Lexi dies in the process, and Tom is thrust into deep space. Season 5 adds layers to this growing mystery, steering the events to a grand and final showdown between humans and aliens. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Falling Skies Season 5 Plot Recap
The fifth and final season of ‘Falling Skies’ picks up right where the previous season left off, with Tom in space with a new alien. This entity appears to have mind-warping powers, as Tom sees her as his deceased wife, Rebecca. The alien, as Rebecca, urges him to be a warrior, explaining that he must attack the enemy’s source in order to wipe them out for good. With this, he is sent back to Earth, carrying only vague memories of the bizarre events that just transpired. Back home, the 2nd Mass is working together with militias all around the world to cull the now weakened Espheni forces. However, they are faced with a new problem now, as the disconnected Skitters have grown into a rogue species and are attacking and consuming humans without any thought.
Shortly after Tom’s return to the 2nd Mass, the crew encounters a lone Espheni who appears to be talking through Ben. While the alien tries to hold the latter hostage, Tom shows his brutal side by killing the Espheni regardless of what it does to his son. This ruthless streak continues when Tom locates an Espheni hatchery and launches an attack, ignoring John Pope’s pleas to rescue Sara from the quicksand. Things quickly go out of hand, and she is partially consumed and killed by a swarm of muted Skitter insects, known as Waspers. A furious Pope breaks off from the 2nd Mass and creates his own team, planning revenge on Tom. His first step is to capture and torture Hal, and while Tom eventually frees his son, he is himself captured by another mutated Skitter, this time resembling a hornet.
When Tom wakes up, he finds himself at a well-lit home that appears to be completely untouched by the invasion. This family tends to him while he is reminded that the ultimate goal is not to become resistance soldiers, but to return to a normal state of life. However, reality appears to have other plans, as upon reuniting with the 2nd Mass and reaching the Naval Station Norfolk, he meets people from the 14th Virginia Division. Their leader, Katie Marshall, is a ruthless authoritarian and puts the entire Mason family on death row for their history of working with aliens. However, Tom escapes and helps Weaver kill her, only to find that Marshall was an Espheni clone, planted in the 14th Virginia camp to weaken humanity’s forces.
The 2nd Mass’s struggles with a combination of Skitters, Espheni, and clones continue, and are made even more complicated when Lexi returns, seemingly alive and healthy. Around the same time, Tom finally makes real contact with the new alien species, who is revealed to belong to a nearly extinct species known as the Dornia. They are the Espheni’s natural enemies, but due to a thinned population, they have to rely on raising a “warrior” from other invaded species, in this case, Tom, representing humanity. The Dornia grants Tom a bioweapon to kill the Espheni, just as the Espheni Queen descends on Earth. As an all-out war breaks out, Pope and Anne are the two biggest casualties. However, Tom refuses to back down and ventures right into the Queen’s territory, determined to end things for good.
Falling Skies Season 5 Ending: Does Humanity Defeat the Espheni? Is the Alien Queen Dead?
At the end of ‘Falling Skies’ season 5, Tom uses the Dornia bioweapon to kill the Espheni Queen, causing all the Espheni to wither away. As the Overlords go down all at once, the 2nd Mass declares victory, ensuring that their message is heard loud and clear across the globe. While the alien force’s hive-like structure has so far been their greatest asset, Tom’s final attack turns strength into their weakness, leading to their defeat. Given that the Queen rules over the entire Espheni empire, it is likely that the 2nd Mass’s actions here ripple out on a universal level, wiping out all Espheni forces across galaxies. This means that all invaded planets, as well as all Volm battle frontiers, are now freed and safe at last, paving the way for a celebration of their triumph alongside humanity.
While the Dornia bioweapon’s primary use is to kill the Espheni, initial examinations by Anne revealed it to be harmful to humans as well. However, that hurdle was quickly overcome with her medical prowess, resulting in a new, modified bioweapon that could only harm the Espheni. As such, the alien bioweapon is technically not without human finishing touches, and that detail is key to the final turn of events. After quickly gaining the upper hand over Tom, the Queen proceeds to drink his blood. Seeing that there is no other way to counterattack, Tom decides to gamble on his life by injecting himself with the bioweapon. As planned, the poison leaves him completely unharmed, only activating when it reaches inside the Queen. Fittingly, she is defeated by a combination of her two biggest enemies: The Dornia and humanity.
Notably, the Espheni’s actual reason to arrive on Earth is not invasion, but revenge, as explained by the Espheni Queen prior to her death. Roughly 1500 years ago, she sent her daughter to lead an invasion campaign on Earth, only for the latter to be defeated and consumed by humans. Her description of primitive humans fighting with sticks doesn’t quite sync up with our historical timeline, indicating that humanity’s exposure to the Espheni might have altered the course of human evolution. Nonetheless, the confirmation that the war is personal on both sides adds more weight to the overall conflict, in turn highlighting the Espheni’s history of cruelty against humanity. Tom’s final charge, as such, brings the cycle to a close, not just across space but also time.
Does Anne Live or Die? Is She Pregnant?
While humans emerge victorious in their fight against the Espheni, it is not without valiant sacrifices, particularly from the 2nd Mass. This includes Anne, who seemingly died after sustaining injuries in an explosion. However, her story isn’t over just yet, as Tom, upon finding Anne’s body, carries her back to the Dornia, begging for a resurrection. This calls back to an earlier mystery about how he survived at the end of season 4, given that the beamer’s power loss was bound to freeze him to death sooner or later. The fact that he was in perfect health when he woke up at the Dornia vessel indicates that they possess resurrecting abilities, which can also explain the lone Dornia’s survival over so many years. Back in the present, the Dornia agrees to Tom’s request and takes Anne’s body underwater.
Although the resurrection is never shown on-screen, in the final sequence of the show, Anne is confirmed to be alive and perfectly healthy. Another major detail shown in this moment is that Anne is pregnant, and it appears that her child is alive as well. Earlier, Tom was the only one who knew about Anne’s pregnancy, and his pleading with the Dornia also involved saving the unborn child. Their coming back to life, as such, adds more meaning to the episode title, ‘Reborn.’ Metaphorically, water is a known symbol for rebirth and transformation, making it likely that whatever the Dornia did underwater was indeed a resurrection, rather than cloning. The latter process was employed by the Espheni earlier in the season, leading to Lexi’s brief return in the story. In contrast, Anne and her unborn baby make a genuine comeback, poetically concluding this thematic thread.
What Happens to the Dornia?
Among the biggest mysteries that are left unanswered in the series finale is the fate of the Dornia. While we last see her go underwater to bring Anne and her baby back to life, the extraterrestrial lifeform is never shown again, or even mentioned by any of the characters. There are a number of possibilities as to what might have happened, but the most likely explanation is that the Dornia left Earth after fulfilling Tom’s wish. The alien has supposedly been living for centuries by herself, and now that the Espheni are dead, she has no reason to stay and continue the fight. On the other hand, the fact that she is the last of her kind makes her decision to leave humanity more puzzling, as there is a good chance that she can find genuine companionship here, both with humanity and the Volm, her two natural allies.
Another, more grim interpretation is that the Dornia used up her lifeforce to bring Anne and her child back from the dead. This not only explains her complete absence from the rest of the episode, but also her decision to conduct the resurrection in secret, underwater. However, given that the episode’s primary motif is that of rebirth, it is vaguely possible that the Dornia may have reincarnated either in the form of Anne or her unborn child. Given the alien’s ability to channel human memories and don the garb of a person, such a scenario isn’t all that far-fetched. Lexi was a similar existence, somewhere between humanity and aliens, and in this scenario, Tom and Anne have a chance to be better parents to a child belonging to the new world.
Does Tom Become Humanity’s New Leader? What Happens to the 2nd Mass?
By all means, season 5 of ‘Falling Skies’ is a happy ending not just for Tom and Anne, but for the rest of humanity, as the Espheni’s complete vanquishing allows all hidden settlements to come out into the open. We see the full scale of human survivors in the final sequence of the show, as thousands upon thousands of people gather together at the Lincoln Memorial. With the dissolution of older national borders, there are proposals for a new, world government, one that will not repeat the mistakes of its predecessors. Naturally, Tom is asked to become the new world leader, as everyone recognizes him as the man who saved the world, not just by his actions, but also in spirit. Given that he has previously served as the President of the New United States, all threads point to Tom assuming leadership, but, surprisingly, he turns down the offer.
While Tom has been fighting for the greater good this entire time, his primary goal has always been to return to normalcy, not to become a powerful figure. This is evident in how his roots as a history professor never quite go away, and it is likely that after all these years, studying and teaching history is still his truest passion. As such, with his speech, Tom opens the floor to newer talents, opinions, and perspectives to come together and shape a new reality. Going a step further, he points out that the Espheni invasion has, in fact, united humanity across the globe, and now is their chance to preserve that idea and make good use of it.
In many ways, Tom and the 2nd Mass serve as a microcosm of humanity at large, and to that end, their individual conclusions reiterate how the world is on a slow but steady course to recovery. Hal and Maggie now have wedding rings, indicating that they got married not long after Hal proposed. Matt appears to be writing a book about humanity’s resistance against the Espheni, titled ‘The Last World War,’ which fittingly ties him to his father’s legacy as a historian. Weaver and his team stand side by side with Cochise and Shaq, as all of humanity clubs together to welcome their new, brighter future.
Read More: Falling Skies Season 6: Why Was it Canceled?
