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"A Thing With Feathers"
Season Four, Episode Eight
Pre-falling-skiestif-55-104293
Episode 38
Air date August 10th, 2014
Episode Guide
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Saturday Night Massacre
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Til Death Do Us Part
Cast Guide
Starring
Noah Wyle as Tom Mason
Moon Bloodgood as Anne Glass
Drew Roy as Hal Mason
Connor Jessup as Ben Mason
Maxim Knight as Matt Mason
Seychelle Gabriel as Lourdes Delgado
Mpho Koaho as Anthony
Sarah Carter as Margaret
Colin Cunningham as John Pope
Doug Jones as Cochise
Scarlett Byrne as Alexis Glass-Mason
Will Patton as Daniel F. Weaver
Also Starring
Megan Danso as Denny
Treva Etienne as Dingaan Botha
Mira Sorvino as Sara

"A Thing With Feathers" is the eighth episode of Season 4, it premiered August 10, 2014.

Plot Synopsis[]

The 2nd Mass picks up the pieces after a devastating alien attack leaves Maggie fighting for her life…and Hal fighting for Maggie. Meanwhile, Tom and Dingaan are cut off from the rest of the group, buried under tons of rubble, where they must travel into a Beamer to rescue themselves.

Plot[]

The main group leave the fallout shelter to search for survivors. Matt is frantic to find Tom, as Anne finds the scarf that Tom wore in the Ghetto In the aftermath of the Espheni assault, the survivors are searching for anyone trapped under the rubble. Pope voices his opinion that Tom is dead, and Matt tackles him, also punching him, saying his father is alive. Weaver hauls Matt of Pope, and begins to help Matt search for his father. Matt finds the long-range rifle that Tector had, and hears noises under a large pile of debris so starts to search there. Dan unsuccessfully tries to get Matt to take a break, but he refuses. After the Espheni missile goes off, they find Dingaan and Tom and are reunited.

Sara finds Pope as he is about to kill a skitter and asks if she can kill it instead. Sara and Pope are out scouting for survivors, and find Bennett’s burned body. They share their first kiss after burying the dead.

Hal is searching for Maggie, who he finds pinned under rubble. She tells him she cannot feel her legs, and he calls for help. Hal manages to get Maggie to Anne, who says Maggie is paralyzed from the neck down, probably has some internal bleeding, and is dying. Hal, crying, asks if Anne can do anything. Anne shakes her head, saying he has to let her go. He proposes they somehow use Denny's spike ability on her, as it will heal her before she can die, because Denny has faster healing. Anne says a transplant is risky, Hal argues they took spikes off kids in Charleston, to which Anne replies they had better equipment in Charleston, but maybe the Volm have something. Cochise explains that a procedure like a spinal tap can be performed but that it can be deadly if not done properly. Denny offers herself for the procedure, but Anne won’t do anything without Maggie’s permission. Later, after Maggie wakes up, Hal explains to her that she is paralyzed and that there is a possibility to save her if she wanted but she refused the procedure and asked Hal to let her go. Hal then goes to Anne and tells her Maggie agreed to the procedure, so Anne extracts fluid from Denny’s spike. With help from Hal and Denny, Anne preps Maggie to inject her with the spike fluid. Maggie momentarily wakes and realizes what Hal did. The fluid fails and Anne tells Hal that Maggie's heartbeat is weak and she won't last much longer. Later, Ben suggests removing his own spikes and injecting it into Maggie. With Cochise’s help, Anne successfully removes three of Ben’s spikes and inserts it into Maggie’s neck. However, Ben's other spikes react badly and Anne decides that they'll have to make due with the three they got. After inserting the spikes into Maggie’s neck, both Ben and Maggie’s spikes glow and then convulse 4 times before laying still.

Tom finds Dingaan pinned under a large slab and helps him out from under it. Tom and Dingaan are trying to figure out how to open the hatch and realize they are under an Espheni Beamer. Tom sticks his arm in a hole which opens the hatch but he exclaims that it felt like his arm was bitten. They enter the ship and after Tom touches the wall, a spike enters his arm, and worm-like things start crawling under his skin before he passes out. Dingaan finds a scalpel and cuts the worm-thing out of Tom’s arm. They hear a beeping, and discover a panel with blue lights flashing and beeping, realizing it is a count-down for a missile. Dingaan loses it and explains to Tom what happened to his son and wife. Dingaan and his son were watching the bulldozer break ground on their new swimming pool, and that his son died because he fell in the hole and was buried alive while Dingaan was on the phone. His wife drank herself to death because of that. The sound of the beeping is all he can remember from when he was in the ambulance with his son, until it went silent. The beeping becomes rapid and rather than blow the ship up as they feared, the missile fires. A hole appears and Dingaan and Tom are found. Dingaan sees a vision of his dead son and wife. Tom is reunited with his family.

Ben wakes up with Alexis kneeling over him. He hears people and skitters screaming and tries to escape but his spikes light up and Alexis tells him she wants to show him something. She takes him to a large warehouse where people in various stages of mutation are laid out on the floor or walking around as well as skitters monitoring them. Alexis calls it evolution, and when Ben tries to reason with her, Alexis tries to kill him. Ben, outraged, tells her she can turn him into her slave because that the Espheni already did that to him once, and she lets him go. She is seen thinking over the opposing viewpoints her human and Espheni family have expressed to her. Ben comes back to the 2nd Mass and finds Anne, telling her that Alexis has gone over to the Espheni’s side, that she showed him how they were turning humans into monsters, and that the only reason he was back was because Alexis let him go. Anne doesn't accept that Alexis is lost to them.

Having found anyone who survived, the survivors gather around a campfire and honor the dead. Maggie appears, having been healed by the spike transplant and slaps then kisses Hal for betraying and saving her. Hal gives credit to Ben and as Ben and Maggie talk, Hal and Tom climb the rubble to see part of the Beamer glowing. Suddenly the whole thing starts glowing and they both notice green flashes coming from the Moon. Wondering what the flashes mean, they realize they are also causing the reactions in the Beamer.

Other Cast[]

Co-Starring[]

Uncredited[]

Significant Events[]

  • Dingaan reveals what really happened to his family.
  • Maggie receives 3 of Ben's spikes.
  • The process of humans being transformed into skitters is finally revealed.
  • Pope and Sara kiss for the first time.
  • Hal and Tom notice green flashes coming from the Moon that the crashed Beamer reacts to.

Tom's History Lessons[]

To Be Added

Outside References[]

The title is a reference to Emily Dickinson's poem Hope Is a Thing With Feathers.

Trivia[]

  • This episode marks the last Mason, in this case Matt, to hit Pope.
  • This episode also marks the second time Tom has been trapped underground.

Photos[]

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