V "Red Sky" Written by Scott Rosenbaum and Gregg Hurwitz Directed by Robert Duncan McNeill

As the Visitor armada arrives at Earth, Anna's soldiers are about to be born and Erica and the Fifth Column stage a daring assault; Val gives birth to the hybrid.

Read the detailed episode recap at the V Wiki.

Didja Notice?

In my study of "Welcome to the War", I asked if all V's have the same hideous set of dentures Anna does. Well, at least the soldiers do, as seen in the opening of this episode!

At 6:23 in the episode, V writing is on the back of the uniform of the guard in front of the healing center. It says the same thing all the uniforms of the type seem to say, "OVER CENTER". The same words appear on a uniform at 19:10.

After Ryan's capture, Anna says that if they can turn him back to their side, they can turn anyone. Could this be a nod by the writers to the conversion process of V80?

At 12:36 in the episode, Hobbes refers to a Visitor as a gecko.

The intersection of New York thoroughfares at 14:07 in the episode looks like a "V".

There appears to be a giant potted plant in the entryway to Anna's executive suite on the mothership. It must be vegetation from another world, probably the V's own homeworld.

Marcus seems to show Hobbes a photo and refers to having "found her", though we don't get to see the picture. Who is it? It would seem to be someone close to Hobbes whom Marcus can use to blackmail him into infiltrating the Fifth Column. It could be a relative or lover. Or could it be Erica herself, suggesting that

Marcus, at least, knows Erica's true allegiance?

Would Anna really allow Chad to return to the medical bay to question Joshua after his capture? It seems to me she would be extra careful about making sure Chad was kept out of there after the setup. As it is, Joshua tells Chad how to witness for himself the truth of Anna's deceit.

When Val's baby is born, we don't get to see the little tyke. We do see Val's reaction when she sees it and, although she looks as though the sight is unexpected, she does not appear horrified as you might expect. When Ryan later holds the swaddled bundle of joy, a small, green appendage, presumably the baby's tail, snakes out of the cloth and wraps tenderly around his thumb, seemingly indicating a mostly reptilian form. We also do not learn the infant's gender.

As the daughter of Queen Anna, Lisa is a princess. While scheming against Anna's design, Joshua refers to Lisa as "my Queen". This may suggest a coming battle between two queens for the right to rule the Visitors.

At 27:40 in the episode, a Visitor appears to be looking at a schematic of the mothership on a holoscreen, similar to the giant mothership schematic seen in the command center of the motherships on V80. The Visitorese word appearing below the schematic appears to be ALERT.

We finally get our first look at a V gun in this episode.

Anna seems to recognize some hesitancy in Chad's demeanor, almost mocking him when she says, "...thank you for your loyalty. You've trusted us with your career. And your health. Without us, you'd lose everything."

Erica tells Hobbes she didn't think he'd come through and continues, "I guess I was wrong," to which Hobbes replies, "You wouldn't be the first." Could this be a reference to the "her" in Marcus' photo?

Mourning Valerie, Ryan seems to be falling back into the spell of Anna's Bliss. Or is it an act? Surely he knows she's lying about the cause of Val's death?

Does Lisa have the same power of Bliss that her mother does?

In his sermon, Father Jack says, "Let 'V' no longer stand for Visitor. Let 'V' stand for victory!" This statement harkens back to V80 and Abraham's statement of "V for victory" in "Visitors, Victims and Victory".

As Father Jack leaves his church with the few parishioners who stayed through his anti-Visitor sermon, Chad steps out from the shadows and nods to him. Does this mean that Chad has finally seen the light and will aid in the fight against Anna?

The hybrid baby has a reverberating vocal quality that is similar to the original Visitor voices in the two original V miniseries, V and V: The Final Battle. Listen: hybrid baby

I love that slight smile Lisa gives while her mother is experiencing her first human emotion, grief and rage over the death of her about-to-be-born soldier eggs. 

As Anna initiates her "retaliation" against Earth at 38:27 in the episode, the Visitor symbols at the bottom center of the holoscreen appear to spell GO. The dots on the globe appear to indicate a pattern into which the ships are to fall due to Anna's command; notice that some of the dots stay still and some move slightly to new positions. Some ships are even presented as being over unoccupied portions of ocean.

The scene of the Visitor armada entering Earth's atmosphere appears to be recycled footage of the same ships from the end of "It's Only the Beginning" but with a new background of the Earth and moon.

Why do the skies turn red as the newly arriving motherships enter Earth's atmosphere? In an opposite manner of the red dust as seen dispersed in the V80 episode "The Final Battle", are the Visitors releasing a red pathogen that is harmful to humans? The redness of the sky and clouds seems more pervasive and instantaneous than that, like the entire atmosphere is being effected virtually simultaneously. ("Red Rain" reveals that the temporary redness is the Visitors "injecting" the atmosphere with phosphorus in order to "infect" all life with it for their purposes.)

At 39:27 in the episode, it might at first appear that Hobbes is playing a solo game of darts. But notice that it is actually knives he is throwing at the target!

At the end of the episode, we see Visitor doctors bringing Joshua back to life after he was shot multiple times by Erica at his own urging to protect her cover. Marcus welcomes him back to the land of the living with a smile. Is Marcus Fifth Column? At 3:43 in the episode, a Visitor Fifth Columnist warns Joshua that Marcus has released another wave of guards throughout the ship, searching everyone and that he needs to get rid of the comm device with which he has been communicating with the resistance on Earth; perhaps this is an example of Marcus deliberately sending a warning to Joshua and other Fifth Columnists. Or was Joshua a double agent against the Fifth Column, working for the Visitors? Or could Joshua and Marcus be something in between? Perhaps there is a third faction that is not necessarily pro-human, but is anti-Anna?

Might Joshua's resurrection also presage Valerie's return next season?