V "Devil in a Blue Dress" Written by Hans Tobeason Directed by Ralph Hemecker Original air date: March 8, 2011

The Fifth Column plans to sabotage one of the Concordia blue energy reactors; Diana urges Lisa to act against her mother.

Read the detailed episode recap at IMDB

Didja Know?

The episode's title probably comes from the 1990 crime novel of the same name by Walter Mosley. The devil in a blue dress after which the book is named is revealed as a black woman posing as white in order to get away with a crime. In the context of V, this could be Anna posing as human to dupe humanity and/or Lisa posing as her mother's dutiful daughter, but actually working with the human Fifth Column to stop the Visitors' plan. And, of course, the color blue references the blue energy used by the Visitors and which is a prominent point in this episode. 

Didja Notice?

Is the rain at the groundbreaking of the Concordia site at the beginning of the episode meant as a metaphor suggesting the funeral of humanity?

    During Anna's speech at the groundbreaking in New York City, we get a montage of other cities. Presumably these are other Concordia sites. We see: Beijing, China; Macau, China; Tokyo, Japan.

    In Macau, we see the Grand Lisboa hotel.

    The Tokyo scene was shot in the Shibuya ward, at the Shibuya scramble intersection. A Godzilla movie billboard is seen; Godzilla is a Japanese film franchise about a gigantic reptilian/dinosaur-like creature, however there were new releases in the series at the time V was filmed (~2010). Another billboard is seen promoting a new album by Lecca on 7/28; Lecca is a Japanese-reggae singer/songwriter. The date of 7/28 suggests the billboard is promoting her album Power Butterfly, which was released on 7/28/2010. A Starbucks coffeehouse is also seen here as well as a Tsutaya video rental and book store.

Chad reveals there are 538 Concordia sites being built around the world.

Erica mentions the Three Mile Island accident. This was a real world incident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania, 1979, which resulted in the release of radioactive gases into the environment and greatly hindered the growth of the nuclear power industry.

Anna is continuing to call the hybrid child "Amy", part of her deception in "Uneasy Lies the Head", so I guess that is now her official name!

At 10:52 in the episode, a Victoria's Secret store is visible in the background. Victoria's Secret is a women's wear store known particularly for its sexy lingerie. An H&M store is also seen.

The discussion among Joshua, Anna, and Marcus about the phosphorus given to the hybrid's mother during the pregnancy suggests that Amy may begin to develop abilities beyond the norm for either Visitors or humans (perhaps in the vein of Elizabeth's paranormal powers in the original V.)

The drops of Anna's blood on the floor at 14:39 in the episode form a vaguely V shape.

While telling the others of his discoveries regarding the Visitors' blue energy, Sid throws about the terms particle, antiparticle and coupling constant. These are all real terms in the physical sciences, relating to subatomic particles and their energy.

Note that at 17:51 in the episode, Sid is vomiting. The occurrence is passed off as being due to his nervousness about his assignment to infiltrate the Concordia site to sabotage the blue energy reactor. But might it actually be that he has radiation poisoning from messing around with blue energy sources in his recent research? Notice that at 23:37, there is a sign in the Concordia blue energy reactor warning about potential radiation hazard.

At 19:17 on the Blu-ray, a dump truck is seen on the Concordia site. It is a Volvo A 25.

The SUV Hobbes drives at 20:31 on the Blu-ray has NY license plate 8895 ERR. I haven't been able to identify the vehicle, possibly a Chevy.

The symbol to the right, seen at 20:36 in the episode, seems to be the symbol of the Concordia complexes being built by the Vs.

A Caterpillar 315C backhoe is seen at 22:23.
There is V writing on the holo-monitor at 25:03-25:33 in the episode, as Ryan deactivates the blue energy reaction. Most of the words seem to be just a jumble of letters or are too blurry to make out. The larger word-set in white seems to spell out ELECNIC LO, perhaps a reference to electricity. Other words are COMAND B, OVERRIDE, OUTPUT, DATA, EEG.

The news crawl at the bottom of the TV screen during the Prime Focus broadcast at 27:06 in the episode, reads: "...message of peace toward humankind...Armed forces of the..."

At 27:18 in the episode, we see what is probably one of Sid's laptops, with a bunch of goofy stickers on it.

Kerry's insult to Chad that he is "a shallow, self-absorbed snake" harkens to the Visitors' reptilian nature. It is also interesting to note that she says that "everyone" says that, implying to us that Chad really was that way before becoming involved with Fifth Column.