Falling Skies Season 4 Episode 1: Ghost In The Machine Recap With Spoilers

The episode begins with the 2nd Mass on the 22nd day of a march. Charleston comes into view. Alexis says they don't all have to die there just as alien ships show up in the sky. The aliens set up an energy fence to cut the militia off from their vehicles, then attack from the air and with a mech. Anne become separated from Tom and Alexis. Matt becomes separated by an energy fence that kills Lyle and Tom tells him to run.

The episode jumps ahead four months, with Tom scratching the Gettysburg Address onto a wall in his makeshift cell. Dan gets thrown into the cell next to him. Dan wants to know why the Volm haven't come to save them yet, but Tom says they don't' know everything yet.

In the rubble, a man and woman are fighting over food. A flying Skitter, one of the Black Hornets, picks the man up and flies him to the ship, the Eye in the Sky, hovering above. Hal and Tector are hiding outside the ghetto fence. They throw something full of energy at the fence, but it has no effect.

Anne and Arthur have men on the march. Arthur thinks they should rest and try to reconnect with the Volm, but Anne mentions that the Volm left three weeks after they got there. They receive word of a transport caravan moving nearby.

Ben wakes up in someone's bed in a home. Maggie finds him. They go outside into Chinatown, which is untouched by the war, and find Lourdes. She offers to bring him to Lexi and explains that Chinatown is committed to peace. They've been there for months and the Espheni have wiped out everything around them, but haven't touched Chinatown itself.

Ben finds Lexi, but she's grown to adolescent age and has bright blonde hair. He's wearing a pendent of three interlocking circles that she says means unity. Lexi says that she's going to protect Ben, that they will all protect each other and live without war. Ben says he's going to take her out of Chinatown, but comes over ill. He walks away.

The Espheni drop food into the ghetto and people scramble for it. John is trying to horde food and arguing with Tector and Hal until Tom, with his head covered, rides in on a motorbike with a flamethrower. He's chased by Skitters and rides off.

Tom has a map hidden behind a mirror in his room. He's trying to determine where the Skitters are coming from. Dan isn't doing well. Tom tells him he's working on a plan. Tom notes that the Espheni don't seem to wan't humanity dead any longer. They're feeding him and keeping him alive even though he's a known threat, and they aren't using eyeworms anymore. Tom determines that the Espheni must need them for something.

Matt is at school the Espheni have started for a coalition with humanity, feeding, feeding youth propaganda about peaceful coexistence and building a world with the Espheni. The youth all wear identical uniforms and have whistles hanging around their necks. One young girl breaks rank and tells the Team Leader that his messages is a lie and her peers blow whistles at her. The Team Leader blames her outburst on Matt.

Tector and Hal find John, who seem to have accrued several nice items while in the ghetto. Tector and Hal try to convince John to lend them his generator, but he refuses. They take it anyway. Hal and John fight and John takes the generator back.

Anne's group is setting a bomb to blow a bridge before the caravan trucks get on it. The radio signal is jammed. Anne throws a Molotov cocktail at the truck to stop it. The driver is dead, but the caravan that was supposed to be carrying ammo has children inside.

Back at the school, Matt tells the girl that she can't act out or she'll be shipped out on a truck. Matt explains what the reeducation camp is. He tells her that several of them are meeting in his room later.

Dan unscrews the leg of his bed and starts screaming about wanting to make a deal. He wants to get out and find Jeanie. Tom talks him down at the last minute before he gets himself killed.

Anne is showing a picture of Alexis to the kids, but none have seen her. Anthony notes that they don't have a harness.  Anne says they're going to follow the road to see where they were bringing the kids.

Tom is finally contacted by Cochise. Cochise says the Volm abandoned Earth because the Espheni targeted their mates and children. A handful of Volm remain on Earth. They believe the Espheni are constructing a power source that would neutralize any attempt to save humanity. Tom asks Cochise to find Ben and Matt. Cochise says there are ghettos all over the planet, but he doesn't know what the Espheni's plans are for humanity.

Tector and Hal are discussing plans to escape. They're approached by a man who saw Hal fight earlier. He says he's escaped from the ghettos before, but the Black Hornets always catch him and bring him to another one.

Dan notices Tom sneaking back into his cell. He says he's gathering information without them noticing.

Ben asks Maggie about his guns. Maggie says they put their guns down, that they've found no sign of encroachment. She says a mech found Chinatown a while ago. She shows it to him, no longer moving. It was struck by a bolt of lightning.

At the meeting in Matt's dorm room, he explains that the Espheni's are brainwashing kids instead of harnessing them. They plan to fake that they're going along with it until they have an opportunity to fight back.

Anne wakes up screaming. She said she remembered being on the Espheni ship and them touching her inside.

Tom explains to Dan that they're going to build a distraction and come up with an escape plan. Then they'll rebuild the 2nd Mass. Someone stencils an image of Tom's masked face on a wall with the name "Ghost." The Espheni notice and order that the "vigilante" be found.