What Hides Beneath
| "What Hides Beneath" | |
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| Falling Skies episode | |
While scouting the Skitter command tower in downtown Boston, Tom, Hal and Weaver spy a tall, humanoid alien species directing Skitters.
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 8 |
| Directed by | Anthony Hemingway |
| Written by | Mark Verheiden |
| Production code | 108 |
| Original air date | July 31, 2011 |
"What Hides Beneath" is the eighth episode of the first season of the TNT science fiction drama Falling Skies, which originally aired July 31, 2011. The episode was written by Mark Verheiden and directed by Anthony Hemingway.
Colonel Porter returns to the 2nd Mass and informs them that not only has the 7th Mass been destroyed, there has also been no contact with the 4th and 5th Mass. Weaver orders Tom to scout out the massive Skitter structure and determine how best to destroy it.
While scouting the Skitter command tower in downtown Boston, Tom, Hal and Weaver spy a tall, humanoid alien species directing Skitters. They appear to be the "officers" or master-race commanding or controlling the Skitters. Tom theorizes that the reason they haven't seen them before is because in a normal military occupation, high-ranking officers don't expose themselves in open territory until they feel confident that they've secured a region.
Weaver, who used to run a construction business, observes the alien tower and notes that both the aliens construction techniques and building materials are fairly imitative of those found on Earth. They seem to be using fairly basic construction techniques, and while they do have access to some exotic materials in their ships and Mechs, their large-scale structures seem to be made out of basic construction materials found on Earth like concrete and steel rebar. Hal points out that this explains what they were doing with all of the scrap metal they were making the harnessed children collect.
Back in the high school base camp, Pope has been assisting Uncle Scott in examining the wreckage of some of the Mechs they have managed to destroy, and Matt pokes around as he works. Pope explains that from what they can discern from the wreckage, even the Mechs are imitative of Earth technology, or as he puts it, "they're really big into recycling". Mech bodies are made using an exotic alien alloy - which they dub simply "Mech-metal" - which is tough enough to stop small arms fire while remaining compact and lightweight. However, their built-in autocannons use standard munitions. The Mechs are not simply using cartridges of similar size to Earth rounds; instead when Pope opened up the magazine in a Mech gun, he found Earth-built cartridges with human manufacturer markings on them. Pope's theory is that after the opening wave of the invasion, the initial EMP detonation and mass air strikes, the aliens began raiding every major armory and ammunition depot they could gain access to, then took the cartridges to use in their Mechs. The only difference is that they changed the tips on each of the cartridges so they fire bullets made out of exotic Mech-metal, making each shot armor-piercing (which Pope compares to using depleted uranium tipped rounds, but much more powerful). The human resistance does not know why the aliens are using Earth building materials and ammunition, only vaguely speculating that the aliens planned for the invasion to rely on local resources to support itself. Matt remarks that it's not fair that the Mech-metal used in the Skitters' robots gives them such an edge in combat that the humans don't have, which inspires Pope to start experimenting around with the recovered Mech-metal they have.
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