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Pound of Flesh - Wikipedia
"Pound of Flesh" is the sixth episode of the 2009 reimagining of the 1983 miniseries V created by Kenneth Johnson. The episode is written by Charles Murray and Natalie Chaidez, with directing by Dean White.
Plot
Anna is informed by Marcus of several isolated incidents occurring on other motherships of their own kind committing suicide when they are unable to take any of the Bliss Chamber's influence. Anna suspects the Fifth Column have begun to be immune to Bliss and feel human emotions such as empathy and love. She believes it's time to eliminate them before they become a real threat and summons Joshua. Meanwhile, Erica has to remain careful about what she says and does in front of Tyler's uniform, which has a surveillance device. Marcus makes an important announcement of a new program called Live Aboard, allowing a select group of humans to live with Visitors. Father Jack and Georgie watch the announcement at the embassy and plan to know more about it by approaching Chad Decker, as he may have information to glean from.
Erica tells Ryan that she still intends to tell Tyler the truth about the Visitors, but Ryan advises her not to; if her son believes what she says and severs ties with the Visitors, it would in turn prompt the aliens to investigate his sudden behavior, compromising him as well as Erica. In the resistance meeting, Hobbes is disappointed by the lack of manpower in the group. Georgie and Ryan tell him the Fifth Columnists are with them as well. Hobbes thinks with the way the Fifth Columnists are scattered around the world, they can do a call-to-arms by hijacking Anna's signal aboard the mothership and replace it with their own. Using their own signal, they will show both the Columnists and Anna they are ready to fight. With Hobbes still under pursuit by FBI and the Visitors, Ryan is the only one eligible to infiltrate the mothership, but he refuses, stating that there's too much heat on everyone. Eventually, the group tells Hobbes to come up with a better plan.
Ryan takes Valerie to see Dr. Leah Pearlman, who fakes Valerie's ultrasound image of her pregnancy and tells her everything's fine. Later, Leah tells Ryan that he can't prevent Valerie from going for her OBF treatments as she will know. Ryan believes Valerie would leave him if he tells her the truth, and he is still not sure whether to keep the baby. Leah tells him to make a decision soon, as the baby's accelerated growth is draining Valerie's phosphorus in her body. Visitors naturally have high amounts of phosphorus, whereas Valerie is a human and has a high chance of not surviving the pregnancy. The only way to prevent this is to obtain a concentrated amount of phosphorus, which is only available on the mothership.
Hobbes masquerades as a federal agent to sneak into the FBI headquarters, where he tells Erica of his plan to enter the mothership himself under disguise to embed the resistance signal. However, Ryan objects to Hobbes' plan as the mercenary has no prior knowledge of the Visitor's language and what he may encounter aboard the ship. He volunteers to go alone although he knows it will be a suicide mission. Meanwhile, Anna undergoes a neural scan while witnessing images of mankind's ills. Joshua confirms to Anna that she has no human emotions in her scans, and Anna orders him to use her scans as baseline to root out the Fifth Columnists.
The resistance puts their plan into action. Erica goes to check on the FBI database and find the Visitors' diplomat list and match one under Ryan's old Visitor rank and credentials, and won't be returning to the New York mothership anytime soon. Hobbes forges papers and credentials for Ryan, including laying out fake fingerprints. Ryan will head up to the mothership and hack Anna's signal and replace it with their own. Before leaving, Ryan tells Georgie to look for Valerie and tell her the truth about him being a Visitor if he never comes back. Hobbes is revealed to be investigating his other resistance members' profiles, hoping to get an upper hand on them.
Erica bring Tyler to see Joe Evans, her husband and Tyler's father, who works in construction. Meanwhile, Ryan goes aboard the mothership and almost fails the checkpoint inspection. As he leaves, a Visitor guard spots him looking at a crying infant and follows him. Joshua informs Marcus that one of his trusted aides has a 2% increase from Anna's neural scan baseline, and is about to recheck again but Anna stops him, telling him she will personally deal with the ones who failed the test.
During a conversation, Tyler apologizes to his father about possibly him causing his parents' divorce, but Joe tells his son the reasons he left Erica weren't simple, but most importantly it isn't Tyler's fault. Meanwhile, Ryan enters a lab to retrieve a vial of phosphorus but encounters the Visitor guard. He gives an excuse of his supervisor having sent him to take the vial, but the guard brings him to Joshua, who tests his neurological profile for human emotions. He is told by the guard that he will die if he fails the test.
Father Jack approaches Chad Decker, who has just reported on the Live Aboard program's opening ceremony. He asks Chad to check if the healing centers are safe, as his parishioners believe that the Visitors may have something going on they are not telling anyone. Erica fails to get Ryan to respond to her call, while Joe asks her reason for looking up him and bringing Tyler. Erica wants her ex-husband to keep Tyler and take care of him, as she is very busy dealing with the extra workload from increased Visitor activity. Joe tells her he will accept Tyler but says it's time for their son to know who he really is. Meanwhile, Georgie looks up Valerie and discovers she is with Ryan's child.
Chad goes to the church and asks Jack for the reason the priest chose him to look for answers. Jack tells Chad that he can find out the truth as he has exclusive access to the ship and Anna. Chad is not about to risk his entire career on a hunch Jack made, but the priest tells him he wouldn't be here asking if he did, which means he also believes there is something wrong with the Visitors. Meanwhile, Georgie calls Erica to tell her that he's going to the mothership to look for Ryan, who hasn't reported back. Not knowing that Georgie is already heading for the mothership, Erica decides to head back to the church and leave Tyler with his father.
Ryan fails the test when he sees images of a crying infant. Joshua and the guard, Samuel, look as though they were about to execute him as they confront him, but reveal themselves to be Fifth Columnists as he is. Ryan asks Joshua of the number of Fifth Columnists on aboard the mothership, and the doctor replies that there's not many, but their numbers will get even lesser as they will fail Anna's test. Ryan tells Joshua they are making a call-to-arms while Joshua reveals to him that Anna is giving birth to her own army soon. Joshua offers to embed the resistance signal for him, telling Ryan to get off the ship safely as he can and warn the other Columnists underground. He also tells Ryan there's a way to contact him, by using a communications device John May possessed. Joshua guesses that with the phosphorus, Ryan is trying to help his human wife give birth to a hybrid and warns him that accepting the pregnancy means there's no turning back.
Anna is concerned that Tyler is more calmer and stable with mother's acceptance of his ambassador status and his visit with his father. She hints to Lisa to get rid of her obstacles to Tyler soon. Meanwhile, Erica learns from Jack that he has not seen Georgie. Hobbes reveals that he gave a weapon to Georgie and allow him to go onboard the the mothership himself. Both Erica and Jack are furious with Hobbes for not preventing Georgie from heading up to the ship despite knowing the dangers, but the mercenary reasons it's an acceptable thing for Georgie to do as Ryan is the most important member in the resistance; without him, they won't be able to do much.
As Ryan makes his escape from the mothership, Georgie approaches the checkpoint. While Anna makes her speech on the benefits of the Live Aboard program worldwide, Joshua hacks her signal and puts up the call-to-arms message, "John May Lives" for a brief moment. Ryan is followed by a Visitor guard as he attempts to leave by shuttle, but Georgie intercepts and kills the guard. He tells Ryan that his wife and child need him and cries out for the Fifth Column, allowing the rest of security to apprehend him while Ryan escapes in the shuttle.
Marcus and Anna discuss the hijacked signal during her speech, believing that Georgie was the one who did it, although they suspect one of their own was involved as well when they found Ryan's discarded uniform. However, Anna is not at all worried about the Fifth Column movement rising from the shadows, as the Visitors will be waiting for them once they reveal themselves. The Live Aboard program will win the hearts of the humans while they will crush the Fifth Column.
Ryans learns from Valerie that Georgie had stopped by at his house to check in on her. Later, he secretly adds the phosphorus into Valerie's tea. Meanwhile, Anna gives each of her suspected crew a suicide pill and gives them a chance to redeem themselves. All willingly kill themselves except for a few who refuse, revealing themselves to be Fifth Columnists. Anna thinks that her test worked out very well, but Marcus believes this will cause more deaths of their loyal crew. Anna ignores Marcus and orders Joshua to skin the traitors alive. Ryan confronts Hobbes about not stopping Georgie. Erica stops their argument and tells them they have to come up with a plan to rescue Georgie. Later, Erica confides to Jack about leaving her son with his father, but Jack believes Tyler will be safe. However, Lisa arrives at Joe's house to visit Tyler. Valerie sleeps unaware to her baby making movements in her womb, revealing the child to have a tail. On board the mothership, Georgie is strapped down by Visitors who proceed to torture him.
