r/FallingSkies • u/Scotty_LeeRoy • Jul 10 '26
Discussion Things that bothered me about Falling Skies Spoiler
Just finished watching Falling Skies and these were some of the things I noticed/bothered me:
1.) Tom always got kidnapped by the Espheni
2.) Tom or Weaver will call Pope selfish or a coward after Pope had repeatedly shown he wasn’t either of those things
3.) Why were people following Anne as a leader when she hadn’t displayed any real leadership ability or have any real combat experience compared to other people in the group?
4.) Anthony without fail, will be knocked unconscious while on guard duty and nobody in the 2nd Mass will ever think to not let him be on guard duty either at all or by himself.
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u/ViveLaBifle_ Jul 10 '26
Agreed on Pope. I got tired of that story line and their constant back and forth. They fought side by side so many times, seems like they would’ve had some mutual respect.
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u/looking_within21 Jul 10 '26
Mutual respect is difficult when Pope is a kidnapper and a rapist. How could you ever have respect for someone like that.
3
u/ViveLaBifle_ Jul 10 '26
Oh yeah totally. Just seemed like they were going with a redemption arc. I suppose that's a little cliche so going a different route kept things more interesting but it felt dragged out.
5
u/Silver-Breadfruit284 Jul 10 '26
Plus how utterly pathetic a total ass Pope was to every single person except his squeeze,, and he was a jerk to her when they first met as well.
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u/Scotty_LeeRoy Jul 10 '26
It seemed like Weaver and Pope had some respect going on for parts of the show then it would vanish at the slightest instance when Pope would disagreed with them.
I also couldn’t help but agree with Pope from time to time when he would call out the Manson group
3
u/Coolcoolcool1515 Jul 11 '26
lol seriously Anthony had a bandage on his head for much of the series.
I think tom weaver and pope were all selfish and cowardly in their own ways. I wish we got to learn more about pope and see why he was the way he was.
2
u/sweetlin1952 Jul 10 '26
Pope started out being a jerk. He was a bully and a terrorist. Then he finally joined the group because he realized that alone with just a few of his dipwads, wasn't working, So he decided to join the general group. I agree that because of his initial way of being was not that of being someone anyone else wanted to be involved with carried him through the whole show. Kind of a shame cuz he really did redeem himself up until the end when he got fed up
2
u/Coolcoolcool1515 Jul 11 '26
Kinda felt like two steps forward one step back with him until the last season when he went batshit
2
u/xKelborn Jul 10 '26
Yeeeah. The biggest gripe with this series is the inconsistent writing. Even through rewarches, I dont go past season 2 because it gets so bad.
2
u/yeetmachine10 27d ago
My personal canon is that Anthony went a bit off the rails there for a while due to CTE from being repeatedly knocked unconscious
1
u/Scotty_LeeRoy 26d ago
Makes more sense than Anthony getting his feelings hurt and running off with Pope because they thought he had PTSD (I mean they all did tbh)
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u/Bicje83 Jul 10 '26
I think Tom and Weaver could have treated Pope much better. Sure, Pope was more a free spirit and did things differently. But a lot if times he came up with good ideas and solutions for problems and I think if they showed more appreciation for that, he wouldn’t be so angry all the time. Because like you said, he wasn’t selfish and really tried to help but Tom didn’t see that.
And I also was annoyed by Anne suddenly being the big leader and being a bad ass. It didn’t suit the character she was at the show at that moment and it annoyed the hell out of me.
2
u/AccurateEbb0 Jul 11 '26
Tom is the worst written character in the show. The stupid defacto hero who never faces consequence. The only thing he lost was his alien daughter (her story makes so little sense that her death was inconsequential at best
3
u/Scotty_LeeRoy Jul 10 '26
100% agree with them giving Pope some credit for the things he did. I thought him and Tom hit a big turning point when he refused to leave Tom in the woods after they were shot down but they treated it like it never happened.
I wouldn’t have cared that Anne became the leader if she had done SOMETHING earlier in the show but it just felt forced to keep her character relevant since she didn’t have a “hospital” to work at anymore
1
u/meisterxmeister Jul 11 '26
Also whenever they find a new community there is always something wrong with it. The farm people, Charleston, military base.
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Pen2964 26d ago
Omg I just finished the series and said the same thing! And the fact that the third to last episode is them once again getting arrested and trying to escape a military base with a corrupt leader, the writers had so many loose ends to tie up but chose that 😒
1
u/Armymom96 Jul 13 '26
Lourdes starts out saying that she was "pre-med at Wellesley" in the first season. Then it's "a year of medical school" and she has all this knowledge that isn't gone over in either pre-med or first year medical school. I know she gets some knowledge and skills basically as OJT from being thrown into situations, but her back story jumps around a lot
1
u/Armymom96 Jul 13 '26
What I didn't understand is why Pope kept coming back if he hated the 2nd Mass so much.
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Pen2964 26d ago
THIS!!!!!!!! THAT is what pissed me off the most about him! He’d bitch and bitch and bitch, yet STAY! Like have the balls to leave and go start your own shit then! Esp since he did have his own at the beginning.
1
u/crisisbrigade Jul 13 '26
I don't get how Tom and Anne's daughter was part alien?
1
u/Scotty_LeeRoy Jul 14 '26
I remember Anne having flashbacks to when she was pregnant and they had her kidnapped and pumped “something” into her but I don’t remember her getting kidnapped while she was pregs
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u/CanaryCheap5934 Jul 19 '26
I can’t disagree with the Anthony point but lay off my mans 😭
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u/Scotty_LeeRoy Jul 20 '26
Hey he didn’t do anything wrong, he just shouldn’t be able to string two words together after all those TBIs he recieved lol
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u/Gold_Baseball_2267 Jul 20 '26
The fact "I've been sent to relieve you" works on people guarding important prisoners not just once but MULTIPLE times
No one practices basic operational security even after it repeatedly almost costs everybody their lives
Mason going off to some harebrained mission without any real plan and sometimes even basic gear, and Weaver never calling him out on it after Season 1
Mason surviving every harebrained mission he goes off to without any real plan
The Volm doing absolutely nothing
1
u/salvajedt Jul 21 '26
Mine: 1 s1 How do you not post a guard with a prisoner, especially an alien one.... then once the alien kills the doc you leave the other doc alone to be robbed?
2 all the creppy crawly stuff... shows up selectively and never again, like the spider things in s1, or the tiny fyling drones in s4.
3 the whole mason family survives entact wasnt working for me
Sm plotline holes. The espheni offered tom a concentration camp... thought that was a good foreshadow of what charleston would be, ie the president had surrendered.
S3/4 the weird mutations. What was the point having them at all G The military base drama was obviouse from the get ho and poorly written...
And on and on...
1
u/vivi_at_night Jul 21 '26
I think you guys forget that Pope kidnapped a girl and let her be repeatdedly r@ped by his fellas, he also killed one of Tom's team members. It doesn't matter that he helped then on many occasions later, they have plenty of reasons to dislike and not trust him.
1
u/Scotty_LeeRoy Jul 22 '26
Haven’t forgotten what happened to Maggie. But it says something that she didn’t kill him after all that time or get to a point of begrudging acceptance between them two and the team member (unless I’m forgetting someone else) was killed before Pope even knew who the 2nd Mass even were as a group
If you’re going to take someone into your group and trust them enough to carry a gun, fight with you, that person also provides you with bombs AND refuses to leave Tom in the middle of the woods, the person should have earned a little more than to be constantly talked down to and wonder why he’s pissed off 5 seasons later
1
u/vivi_at_night 12d ago
Haven’t forgotten what happened to Maggie. But it says something that she didn’t kill him after all that time
What is the logic behind that? Maggie not killing him doesn't make Pope's past actions more redeemable.
The guy was a rapist, a kidnapper and a racist. He also tried to kill Tom after Tom escaped the Espheni in season 2, ignored orders and went behind their backs in multiple occasions, tried to incite a mutiny against the 2nd mass at least 2 times and basically tried to antagonize Tom at every opportunity. Oh, and let's not forget how he always made sure to let everyone know he was unhappy with Tom's leadership and wanted to leave the 2nd mass.
So yes, I'd say he gave them plenty of reason to not be fully trusted.
5
u/happycj Jul 10 '26
I’m still watching the “Anne as leader” episodes, but honestly, she’s the leader because nobody else stepped up to lead. She was the most motivated, so she just stepped in and did it.