Season 2, Episode 8:
Night Moves
Food shortages are beginning to affect residents throughout the city and surrounding areas. In the Morthren base, Malzor and Mana are shocked to see a soldier who tried to eat "Earth food", thus causing serious allergies and pus-filled lesions that explode at the slightest provocation. Malzor tells her that they will need to secure additional food sources, while soldiers begin to fight over access to protein-rich foodstores.
Elsewhere in the city, Harrison, Suzanne, Debi, Kincaid and other residents are busy bartering with a supply truck that is trading for fruits and vegetables. After swapping some much-needed food for their own supplies, one of the bystanders steals a handful of items from Debi, causing her to give chase and mercilessly beat the thief until Suzanne drags her away. Upon arriving back at the underground base, Kincaid tells them that they'll need to be better prepared next time. Suzanne declares that she's fed up with the current situation and is leaving with Debi to go to her mother's house in the country. Suzanne calls her mother, Rebecca, and after some awkward re-introductions, Rebecca allows the duo to stay at their farm for the time being.
Rebecca's husband, John Owen, is driving back to their house after a trip to pick up supplies when he spots a strange light emanating from a nearby cornfield. Upon going to investigate, he is stunned and the couple's dog is shot to death. Some time later, Owen appears back at the house, having been cloned by the Morthren. He reassures Rebecca that everything is alright, then mentions that he's made a deal with some local developers to use their land for a farming project...
Kincaid drives Suzanne and Debi to the co-operative farm owned by John and Rebecca, and are surprised to find armed guards patrolling the area and an armed checkpoint. A friendly security guard, Paul Fox, ushers them in before Kincaid and Harrison warmly wish them goodbye. Inside the house, Suzanne has a stilted but warm conversation with her mother, with them referencing something that happened to Rebecca's husband (Suzanne's father), Danny, in the past. John arrives and tells the trio that the government is looking to perform some agricultural work on the land, and diffuses the tension between Suzanne and Rebecca after the former finds Debi's gun she wields for protection. Afterwards, Rebecca calls out John's behaviour regarding the project and his secrecy, but he tells her stop worrying about things.
That night, Harrison and Kincaid are hanging out watching the show at a strip club. They begin to argue about why Harrison is bothering to stick around after Suzanne and Debi left, and he says he still has work to do combatting the alien threat, while Kincaid claims that he doesn't have any emotional attachment to the rest of the team. Their argument escalates, prompting a patron to tell them to shut up. The situation escalates into a Bar Brawl, and both men beat up several patrons before affirming that they work better together. At the same time, the Morthren conduct an initial soil test on the farm by using light and chemicals to grow their first batch of nutrients, which renders the air poisonous to humans...
Suzanne goes to her mother and tries to help sort some jars of sauces, only to be rebuffed by Rebecca, who accuses her of only asking for help when she's desperate and never wanting to have a proper conversation. Suzanne accuses Rebecca of not being able to take to her because she was always in an affair, causing Rebecca to slap her. Suzanne slaps her right back and storms out in tears, going to the nearby barn to think. She finds Paul there, who tells her to give her mother the benefit of the doubt and claims that things will get better.
At the Morthren base, Ardix brings the first batch of mutated plants to Mana, who prepares a solution and drinks it before reacting in agreement. She orders Ardix to set up additional farming sites and for the soldiers' rations to be increased. Malzor also tries the plant solution and expresses satisfaction at the results...
Suzanne goes back to her mother and apologizes for her behavior, while Rebecca says that she sent Suzanne away from her as a child because something happened to her second husband, Danny. The night ends with the two still unsure of one another, with Suzanne going outside afterwards and being accosted by Paul, who flirts with her before kissing her. In the middle of the night, the John clone wakes up and goes outside to meet with Ardix and some of the soldiers, who are beginning construction on additional greenhouses to support the mutated plants. Rebecca wakes soon after and follows him, listening in from a distance as John pledges to "take care" of his wife before leaving...
Rebecca wakes up the next morning and reports the meeting to Suzanne, who subsequently calls Harrison from a videophone in the house and asks him to research all agricultural projects currently being conducted by the government. Before she can explain further, the connection fails on them. Kincaid takes Harrison back to the strip club afterwards to put him in touch with a hacker who can give him the information he needs on the agricultural projects. When Harrison asks when they'll be meeting "him", Kincaid points to the stage, where a stripper is finishing her set. Kincaid introduces her as Scoggs, who is "the best hacker I know". Scoggs reveals that the project Harrison is looking for doesn't exist, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture only has research projects in Maryland and Nevada. Kincaid and Harrison thank her for the information, and decide to head back to the farm to bring back Suzanne and Debi.
As the duo head out of the city towards the farm, Suzanne goes to Paul and once again asks for information as to why the agricultural project is classified. Paul doesn't answer her directly, but promises to look into the matter. As night falls, Rebecca sees John talking with other members of the co-op (now cloned as well) and Ardix, and angrily demands to see what's happening in the greenhouse. Ardix tries to dissuade her, but she pushes past him and goes inside... where she immediately begins to choke and sputter due to the poisoned air. Ardix enters and sees what's happening before pushing her onto the ground, and she screams before falling unconscious.
Suzanne hears the scream and runs outside. She runs face-first into John and the other cloned co-op members, who tell her to ignore what's happening and join them. Suzanne shoves John down and runs away, while the latter orders the rest of the soldiers to find and kill her. Suzanne runs to the barn and finds John's remaining guard dog, who barks to signal that the Morthren are coming. Upon cutting him loose, John reveals himself to Suzanne, using Debi as a hostage and wielding the same handgun Debi had from before. Suzanne sics the dog on John, who drops the gun and flees. Debi throws the gun to Suzanne before taking off to hide, and Suzanne races to a nearby pickup truck. Paul appears and aims a shotgun at her as she gets in, but she slams the door into his face, revealing that he is a Morthren soldier as well.
Suzanne throws the truck into gear and runs down the clone John before smashing the vehicle into the greenhouse, which vents the poisonous gas and causes Rebecca to awaken. Suzanne drags her to the nearby barn and hides her before gunning down the other members of the commune from a hiding spot, while Debi flees through a nearby cornfield. Rebecca orders Suzanne to run and stays behind with a shotgun.
Harrison and Kincaid arrive and begin to engage the Morthren, gunning down several soldiers and destroying the newly-built greenhouses with a packet of grenades. In the cornfield, Paul drives up in a truck and sees Rebecca. She fires at a shot at him and misses, and he returns fire and kills her, causing Suzanne to scream in anguish. Debi hears the sound and runs towards it, finding Suzanne, who tells her to hide. Suzanne reveals herself to Paul, who stalks towards her, and she calls him a bastard before gunning him down. She breaks down crying, while Harrison arrives and tells her that the fight is over.
In the aftermath, Malzor laments the destruction of the greenhouse, but Mana tells him that ten more are operational. Back at the underground base, Harrison comforts Suzanne, who tells him that he was right — there is no place else to go...
Tropes:
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Broken Aesop: The plot implies that Rebecca's actions towards her daughter (which aren't fully explained, but are hinted to have been because either she or her second husband abused Suzanne, and because of her string of affairs) were caused she "meant well" towards her and didn't want to see her hurt. However, the episode doesn't adequately explain why Suzanne should forgive her, especially given that they hadn't spoken for years prior to the events of the episode, and the audience is expected to side with Rebecca despite her dismissive attitude towards her own daughter. - The Call Knows Where You Live: The Morthren just happen to kill and clone Suzanne's stepfather just before she leaves the city, and both she and Debi are forced into fighting for their lives after the Morthren take over part of the farm owned by John and Rebecca. By the end of the episode, Harrison reinforces that there's no escaping the problems Suzanne was facing in the city.
- The Cavalry: Harrison and Kincaid show up to destroy the poisonous greenhouse and kill the Morthren soldiers just as they turn on Suzanne, Rebecca and Debi.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- Despite Malzor claiming at the end of the episode that the Morthren have access to numerous farms to replenish their foodstocks, the first site they pick for their operation just happens to be partly-owned by Suzanne's mother, Rebecca, a day or so before Suzanne and Debi elect to leave the city after getting fed up with the living conditions.
- The videophone Suzanne uses to contact Harrison (from Rebecca's house) fails just before she can tell him exactly what's going on at the farm, necessitating that he and Kincaid head out themselves to rescue them.
- Deadly Euphemism: Rebecca overhears John telling the other Morthren that he's going to "take care" of her, but doesn't know what it means.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Owen's dogs are able to pick out the Morthren and bark so others will draw attention to them, seen notably in the opening. This turns into a Chekhov's Gun when the remaining dog is able to help Suzanne during the third act.
- Family Friendly Strip Club: The club Scoggs works at, where Harrison and Kincaid visit midway through the episode, is prone to this.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Rebecca justifies her treatment of Suzanne as a child (sending her away after something happened to her second husband, Danny) via this trope.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Ardix proves to the cloned John that the greenhouse gases are deadly to non-Morthren by taking a dove inside, solely to demonstrate how quickly the poison kills animals.
- I'll Kill You!: Said verbatim by Debi as she beats up the thief in the opening sequence.
- Illness Blanket: One of the Morthren soldiers is wrapped up on one to keep them alive after they ate food that was poisonous to the Morthren.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever caused the original dissolution of Suzanne's connection with her mother is only vaguely referenced, with something that happened to Rebecca's second husband, Rebecca's promiscuous behavior and Suzanne being sent off after the incident (possibly due to child abuse) being the only mentions in the episode.
- Offscreen Teleportation; Ardix seemingly bounces between the Morthren base and the farm from scene to scene, relaying information to Malzor and Mana while still overseeing operations on the farm. He even dons different outfits throughout the episode in the span of minutes, to boot.
- Playful Hacker: Scoggs, a stripper who moonlights as a hacker, who's able to get information on the farm for Harrison and Kincaid.
- Poor Communication Kills: Rebecca doesn't understand that John is planning to kill her (after eavesdropping on him saying he's going to "take care" of her because she's become a problem) and Suzanne doesn't think enough to ask her more about it until it's too late and the farm is besieged by the Morthren.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The only thing the heroes accomplish is destroying the Owen farm after it was taken over by the aliens... only for it to be revealed that they have several sites set up at other farms throughout the region, and are barely hindered. Even worse, Suzanne has lost her mother and Debi is once again traumatized, to boot.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- The plot is motivated by Suzanne getting so fed up of the supply shortages and in-fighting in the city that she elects to take herself and Debi out to the country to live with her mother.
- One of the employees at the co-op farm quits in anger after John reveals that he's made an agreement with the "government" to conduct soil experiments on their land. However, this is subverted later when it's revealed she was captured and cloned by the Morthren.
- Spotting the Thread: Rebecca figures out that something's wrong with John when she realizes the ailments caused by years of smoking have mysteriously disappeared for the last two days.
- Slut-Shaming: Suzanne accuses her own mother of this, claiming Rebecca slept with a number of different men before electing to stay with John.
- Trauma Conga Line: In the span of only a couple days, Suzanne discovers that her stepfather has been killed and replaced with a clone, learns that the man who was romancing her is one of the Morthren, is forced to run over her stepfather in order to save her mother, then sees her mother killed before she is forced to kill the man responsible.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The remaining Evil-Detecting Dog is nowhere to be seen after it mauls John near the end of the episode, running away before Suzanne runs John down with the pickup truck.
- You Bastard!: Invoked by Suzanne verbatim, when she kills Fox after he killed her mother.
