V: Siege

The FBI track Eli Cohn to his hideout.

If you doubted it before, it is certain that the war between the Fifth Column and the Visitors has begun after this week.  “Siege” is perhaps the most emotionally engaging episode “V” has ever had and in the end nothing is as it was.

Sent by Anna, Ryan tries to kill Eli but is captured instead.  Eli calls in Erica who wants to accuse Ryan face to face about his betrayal.  As they meet, the FBI move in on Eli’s base of operations (thanks to an anonymous tip from Anna and the V’s) trapping Erica and the other members of Eli’s Fifth Column group in the building.  Erica realizes that she is under suspicion since the FBI didn’t inform her of the raid and suggests Eli take her as a hostage to buy more time.  Joe and Tyler see Erica on the news and Joe sneaks into the building just as Anna wants.  Eli frees the hostages but Kyle (who’s being blackmailed by the Visitors) sets off the bombs inside killing him and starting a firefight outside, with the hostages caught in the middle.  In an effort to save someone else, Joe takes a bullet and is killed while Erica is powerless to stop it.  With his dad gone Tyler decides to go back to the Visitor shuttle program and Erica takes over as head of Eli’s Fifth Column cells all over the world.

The Fifth Column may have claimed to have been in a war against the Visitors for a long time now but it isn’t until this week that we see the war really begin.  In war decisions are tough and not everyone survives and “Siege” is a perfect example of that.  We lose characters we’d begun to care about but, in the end, Erica and the group gain the army they’ve always needed in order to pose a real threat to Anna.

Eli and his Fifth Column team have represented an opposing viewpoint to Erica, Jack, Ryan and Kyle normally but they’ve managed to work together on more than one occasion, bonding over the knowledge that the V’s need to be stopped.  Eli and Erica may not see eye to eye but there is clearly a great deal of mutual respect between the two.  Eli understood from the beginning that he wouldn’t make it out of the building alive but he showed no hesitation in keeping Erica safe and eventually making her the one to take over for him.  I was sad to see Eli go this week but his death isn’t entirely surprising.  The show eventually needed to get Erica an army and Eli had one.

Of course Eli isn’t the only one to meet his end in “Siege”.  Joe Evans returned to his family only last week proving to be a key reason why Tyler decided against joining the V shuttle program.  The relationship between Joe and Erica has been blooming again so when Joe realizes she may be in grave danger he stops at nothing to help her.  With a little help from schematics planted by the V’s he sneaks into the building only to learn that Erica isn’t really a hostage.  Anna endeavours to take out both Erica and Joe by putting them in the building but in the end she only gets Joe.  Unfortunately that is enough to make Tyler change his mind, blaming his mother for Joe’s death and returning to the Visitors.  It seems Anna wasn’t satisfied to let him go after all.  The scenes surrounding Joe’s death are perhaps the most emotional “V” has ever done and they are played and directed to perfection.  With Joe and Tyler gone Erica will likely be a much less forgiving leader than she might have been before (perhaps she’ll be more like Eli than she originally thought).  They were often willing to wait for Anna to make the first move before planning their own attacks but now things have changed.

Also in the building during the explosion is Ryan.  He apologizes to Erica for his betrayal but it would likely be a long time before she could ever trust him again, if ever.  Even if she does understand the reasoning behind doing whatever is necessary to keep your family safe.  The set-up of the building isn’t made entirely clear in “Siege” and so it’s difficult to tell where Ryan’s room was in relation to where the bombs were.  Still, I’m not convinced that we’ve seen the last of Ryan.

The betrayals didn’t end last week either as we return to Anna’s manipulation of Kyle.  I’ll admit that I almost forgot about the scene between Kyle and Marcus at the end of last season until it was mentioned again here.  The V’s hold someone Kyle cares about and he’ll do anything to keep her alive.  For someone who should be an expert in terrorist activities he doesn’t seem to hold his ground for real proof of life though.  Kyle is allowed to hear her voice through the phone but since there is no actual conversation between the two, it’s impossible to say that the Visitors didn’t just record her and then play it back for him.  The guilt Kyle feels for being responsible for Joe’s death is obvious in the end of this episode and I wonder just how willing he’ll be to help the Visitors the next time they come around for him.

Anna’s been visiting Diana for some time now and since I’ve been eagerly awaiting the meeting between Diana and Lisa.  Now Lisa knows the truth and has someone among the Visitors on her side.  Since the loss of Joshua’s memories Lisa has been left with no one to correspond with but Erica and hopefully Diana will be a great help in her cause.

The war for the future of humanity has started now and I suspect we haven’t seen the end of the sacrifices that will be made for this cause.

Andrea

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~ by Andrea on February 16, 2011.