The V Strategy Guide: Who Came Out on Top This Week?

The Visitors' scheming came to quite a head in this week's V, which saw our seemingly genial alien race leveling ultimatums and forcing hands left and right. (And some resistance members did a little double-crossing of their own.) But were all those threats and follow-throughs well-executed by our competing species? Read on and find out.

Strategy: Anna decides to drum up some Visitor sympathy by brutally beating her own daughter, blaming it on some Fifth Column folk, then parading her around for some truly warped publicity before threatening to leave Earth.

Execution: 10 of 10. On the Visitor side, this really couldn't have worked better. First, Tyler and Lisa get back together, which gets Anna closer to Erica, the newly anointed leader of the FBI's Fifth Column crackdown. But she's also able to frame and abduct the scientist who's been working on an algae-derived fuel that's really bad for lizards. And of course, once people see poor brutalized Lisa, sentiment shifts even further toward the Vs.

Strategy: Marcus and Anna manipulate Decker into giving a pro-Visitor speech on television.

Execution: 9 of 10. Chad Decker is such a dope. But I suppose we have him to thank for the most hilarious line in the episode: After Anna threatens to leave, Decker wants to help. "I wish you could," says Anna's adviser Marcus, "but you're only a journalist." Too bad that's the only thing Decker needed to hear to spring right into action with an ethos-driven plea for the world to love the Vs just a little more. And now that he's gone and done that, Anna starts pressing him even further to reveal his Fifth Column source.

Strategy: Hobbes, our obligatory British double crosser, is apparently tired of resisting. He takes the algae fuel specs and arranges to sell them to Marcus for a "clean slate" and a wad of cash.

Execution: 3 of 10. Hobbes has got one thing right: Resistance seems pretty much futile. And at least he didn't take the plans when he went to meet with Marcus. But seriously? How far does he expect to get once this deal goes down? He (and Valerie) really needs to remember who the smarter more capable species is here, and that once he turns over the algae, he's got no leverage to keep the Vs from killing him. Perhaps the worry is premature, but I'll bet the future is bleak for Hobbes.

So, how about that Hobbes? Do you think he'll do it?