Falling Skies Scoop: Meet 'Red-Eye,' the Most Mysterious Skitter of Them All

Falling Skies Scoop: Meet 'Red-Eye,' the Most Mysterious Skitter of Them All

Are all Skitters not created equal?

The Season 2 premiere of TNT’s Falling Skies (Sundays, 9/8c) raised that question with the introduction of a creepy-crawly whom the producers have affectionately dubbed “Red-Eye.”

Early into the season opener, Red-Eye positively owned Tom Mason when the Overlord’s argumentative captive grabbed the alien’s electro-prod and tried to make a break for it. Later, when Tom and others were dispatched from the spacecraft, the distinctive Skitter lorded over a Mech’s machine gun-style execution of the freed humans – save, conspicuously, for the 2nd Mass’ XO.

Then, at the premiere’s close, we saw the insectile doohickey that had been extracted from Tom’s peeper break free of its specimen-jar prison and ultimately slither itself into Red-Eye’s “good” eye, as he spied on – yet didn’t attack – members of the 2nd Mass.

RELATED | Is Falling Skies‘ 2nd Mass Still Making Super-Bullets? And More TV Questions!

Given all of the above – and factoring in an especially curious bit of behavior exhibited by Red-Eye this coming Sunday – you’d be well advised to keep your eye on the VIP ET.

“Red-Eye will be a very integral part of the storytelling this season,” showrunner Remi Aubuchon tells TVLine. “What his involvement is and who he is will remain a mystery for quite some time, and we’ll never be quite sure of him. But as we saw, he is following [the 2nd Mass] for some reason.”

As for this Skitter’s ocular calling card, Aubuchon explains, “One of the problems we had is that all of the Skitters look alike, so we needed to create one that we could track and understand that, when he showed up, there was something special about him.”

RELATED | Falling Skies Season 2 Premiere Recap: The Enemy Within?

So as Red-Eye continues to accost certain individuals but spare (and perhaps communicate with?) others, viewers will recall his earlier actions on the ship and during the mass execution, and “everything will hopefully start to make sense,” Aubuchon says.

And make no mistake, it will all weave together as the Falling Skies saga unspools.

“Look, I’m a science fiction nerd and proud of it,” says Aubuchon, whose past credits include Caprica, SGU and From the Earth to the Moon. “And one of the things that I always love is to be able to go back and see that somehow the writer salted in little things that are clues that end up making some sort of sense. I always hate it when they just drop something on you, so we wanted to make sure that Red-Eye is tracked right from the very start.”

Falling Skies fans, what’s your gut telling you about Red-Eye: Foe or friend?


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