With only 4 episodes airing in November, it would be hard for most viewers to remember what was going on, so "Welcome to the War" reintroduced everything and set a few concrete storylines in motion. Looking back on my old scores, I may have rated the first four episodes higher than I should have. The show still feels aimless and without a clear purpose. We know what everyone wants, but there isn't much narrative drive--a necessary component if V is to survive.
Right off the bat, the episode begins with Erica being attacked in her home. From there, the episode branches out into several stories. Tyler is in the Visitor's spaceship while Anna and Lisa do something to him, because it involves Lisa's destiny. Erica frantically looks for her son only to find reassurances at every level. Erica is overjoyed when he comes back, but Tyler show her his camera-uniform with pride.
Now that the R6 in the flu vaccines are destroyed, the only distribution for the R6 is at the healing centers. Anna basically forces Chad to give a report on the healing center and has him undergo treatment for his brain aneurysm.
Valerie is only 6 weeks pregnant, but she is more hungry than she should be and the baby is already kicking. I'm guessing the alien-human hybrid will be much like the babies in the second V miniseries. At the end of the episode, she finds a mouse in a trap, and almost takes a bite before throwing it away. It seems like the lizard part is asserting power over her. Ryan goes to Dr. Leah Pearlman (Lexa Doig), a Visitor doctor who is also doing her own thing, for information about the R6. Human technology won't find anything different, but Visitor technology finds that it tags humans.
After being stabbed, Jack is taken to the V's healing center and is promptly saved. However, he dreams he has become a lizard which shows his worries and calls into question what really happened to him. We know he's been tagged, but what else was done to him?
Anna gets a boytoy to mate with, so she can create her own army. What's wrong with the aliens on the other ships?
The worst new development was the Visitor's pinning the warehouse bombing on a mercenary named Kyle Hobbes. The idea is that Anna is so afraid of him because he can create an armed force that she must remove him. What? That dingy apartment he has sure makes him seem dangerous. Erica and Ryan recruit him into their "army" using threats and telling him he can get revenge on the Visitor's for planting evidence against him. Okay...like he cares what the Visitor's think of him.
I hope the following episodes have more focus, because each concurring storyline was given a cursory brush over without going in-depth. I'm guessing the episode was done in this manner to ease viewers back into the show by reminding them of all the characters.
Score: 9.0/10
