V season 2 episode 9 review: Devil In A Blue Dress

This review contains spoilers.

2.9 Devil In A Blue Dress

All this while, Anna’s been trying her damnedest to learn to control humans. She’s tried PR, she’s tried a media campaign, and she’s tried bringing them onto the ship to serve as Live Aboards and experiment subjects. Now she’s trying a much more direct approach, Bliss.

The Bliss that Anna uses to control the Visitors causes violent pain to the humans. However, thanks to Ryan’s baby, Anna knows that there’s a certain frequency of Bliss that doesn’t cause humans to thrash around and shriek, even though it’s nearly fatal for her to use it. Of course, that’s not going to stop her from expanding her plans, but she’s got someone she needs to Bliss up first before she takes on the rest of the world, and that’s Tyler.

Meanwhile, the Concordia Project is steaming along nicely. Anna gets to even do a big launch for the project, and everyone claps and cheers, except for the Fifth Column. They realize that 530-something new blue energy reactors is probably a bad sign. But they don’t know what Anna’s up to until Science Sid has the brilliant idea of actually examining blue energy and what it does.

As it turns out, a little goes a long way. So, Anna’s massive reactors? They’re definitely a little much for a simple training center, but they’re prefect for powering, say, invasion ships.

That’s where Erica and company get the great idea. Remember Three Mile Island? Well, why not create a Three Mile Island featuring blue energy reactors! It’s actually the first really good idea the Fifth Column have had since their idea to assassinate Anna. (Seemingly, they’ve dropped all those ideas lately, since Anna does a public presser and nobody’s there to plug her.)

However, the issue is that nobody really understands how blue energy works except for the Visitors. So, their plan to destroy the blue energy reactor and cause a leak is more like, ahem, constructing a massive atomic bomb in the middle of New York. Or possibly, anyway.

Ryan is able to run in and save the day, but Anna is always able to turn her frown upside down and get the most out of a bad situation. The blue energy flare that fired up and burned out big chunks of New York’s power grid? Why, Anna is able to step in and make everything better, using Condordia’s reactors! Yay, Anna, and major failage on the part of Erica, who also is having some tension with her grief hook-up, Hobbes, from episode 8, which features Elizabeth Mitchell’s Internet inflaming cleavage and some sexy mercenary six-pack action.

Amazingly, the only things that have spiked the interest in the show have been Elizabeth Mitchell’s two hidden talents and the slap heard round ABC. (Everyone still loves the slapping of Tyler even weeks afterward.)

Anna’s able to Bliss humans, which gives her a serious weapon against humanity. Meanwhile, the Fifth Column are getting more bold and more splintered by the need for big action versus the desire not to leave wide swaths of innocent victims in their wake.

Meanwhile, Diana and Lisa have been having family bonding moments, as Diana is using her knowledge of humans and Anna to give Lisa tips to give to the Fifth Column. She knows that Anna is getting more dangerous as time is getting shorter.

Speaking of time getting shorter, it looks as though the time of the show is getting shorter and shorter as well. Everything seems to be coming to a head for a good season finale, but not a series finale. Given that pretty much all the metrics seem to indicate that V won’t be coming back for a third season (no matter what might happen with this season or ABC’s other hour-long dramas), I’m not sure how they can wrap things up easily.

They’ve done a great job of establishing the invasion fleet and just how insidious the visitors are, but all that stuff about the soul and humanity seems to have distracted the show from doing something like, I don’t know, getting to the war between aliens and humans this season, rather than next season.

Given the season finale looks like it might be the craziest episode of the show (Ryan’s baby choking Ryan! Diana returns as queen! Lisa gets kidnapped! Anna and Erica have a face-off! Marc Singer returns!), it may be enough to create some buzz and perhaps keep the show around next season.

ABC’s lack of successful new shows this year is also working in V‘s favor, but even with a reduced budget and streamlined special effects, it seems like V is a show that costs too much to keep making.

I really want there to be more episodes of the show, but the fact that everyone seems to have decided that it’s going to be gone by this time next year has really taken the wind out of my sails when it comes to actually reviewing or getting around to watching the episodes. When there’s no real future, it’s tough to stay motivated.

I guess the last week of V will be the true test. Will the show have a future? Will we get that last season to wrap things up and get the war really started, or will war foreplay be the extent of it?

US Correspondent Ron Hogan would like another season of V, but he knows that’s unlikely. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.

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