In this one, our main guy David Vincent learns how he can’t trust anyone during this alien invasion. I mean, he already knew that, but this one really drives it in.

He comes along for his latest investigation. He read reports of a plane that crashed and when it was investigated, there was nobody on board. He figures, the aliens disintegrate when they die, so they were probably flying. The military or science types who investigated the crash found a cylinder made of alien technology in there and bring it back to their base, and ol’ David Vincent assumes they’re gonna want to get it back so he shows up to stop them, once again not even hiding his name. He’s able to convince the organization to help him set up a trap for the Invaders, but they don’t show up and Vincent looks a bit of a fool.

That’s not the worst of it, though, because after that he gets captured by one of that company’s security guards, a guy named Swain. Swain tells his story, about how his daughter thought she saw a spaceship and his wife went with the kid to see and Swain saw them both get killed. And now he wants to kill Vincent, saying he thinks that he’s an alien. Vincent is able convince Swain that he’s human and they agree to work together. Vincent has had plenty of allies on the show so far, but this is the first time he’s had a guy who is going about it like he is, proactively hunting the Invaders for as long as Vincent has, if not longer. These guys, working together, could be the beginning of a true resistance to the Invaders.

Of course, instead, it turns out that Swain is one of them. It was all a plot to trick Vincent into helping them steal the cylinder, which has alien war plans on it, from the company for them. Vincent figures it out, but way too late. There’s a big foot chase and Swain dies, but he’s touching the cylinder when he does, which apparently means that it disintegrates with him. The aliens don’t get their plans, but neither does Vincent or the science people who wanted to study it.

Vincent already knew that looking for the bent pinky fingers wasn’t a reliable way to spot the aliens (and Swain even checks Vincent for it when he’s pretending he thinks Vincent is an alien), but in this one he looks in Swain’s eyes while he tells the story of his doomed family and he sees the tears. With the exception of the woman from The Mutation, Vincent knows that the aliens don’t have emotions as we understand them, so he was certain Swain was human. And it failed him. We don’t know if Swain had a mutation similar to that woman, or if he was just good at pretending for the sake of deception, but Vincent got a real kick in the teeth there. This is the kind of thing I want in a show like this, an atmosphere of paranoia. Anyone can be your enemy during this invasion. I bet he doesn’t just show up at his next investigation using his real name. I bet…

But perhaps most importantly, there’s a bit where Vincent is going to a bar to meet with Swain and he catches the eye of a woman, who hungrily stares at him until a man, presumably her boyfriend or something, pulls her away. It plays out entirely in the background never getting any attention drawn to it. Funny that way.

Another human in a position of power has sold out the human race to work with the Invaders. And like the last time, it’s someone who has been through war and been injured and lost loved ones. But this guy, General Beaumont, is more genuinely torn up about allying with the Invaders than Vikor was. You see, Beaumont hates war, and thinks that with the help of the Invaders, he can put an end to the nuclear bomb.

The setup is one we can officially say we’ve gotten used to: someone is suspicious of stories of alien activity and they reach out to famous anti-alien crusader David Vincent, so he shows up and uses his real name while opposing the alien conspiracy. It’s interesting that, in spite of having no tangible proof of the aliens and having apparently abandoned his job as an architect, Vincent still manages to live a life just wandering from case to case. Such was life in the 60s, I guess.

Anyway, this time the guy who calls for help (and it is a man, I don’t think there was a single woman in this episode. I guess they used them all up last episode) is a Major on a military base where they are testing a nuclear weapon. Vincent investigates with his usual methods, so obviously he gets captured and is handed over to some aliens posing as Department of Justice guys. He has to escape and dodge a car while handcuff so that if falls off a cliff. It’s all good stuff. He’s very good at that part of the job, which is probably why he has never bothered to learn how to NOT get into that kind of predicament.

Anyway, eventually Vincent discovers that General Beaumont has sold out to the aliens because Beaumont, as I said, wants to stop the nuclear bomb. The aliens are going to mix some anti-matter into the next nuclear bomb test so that the explosion will be so bad that it will cause earthquakes countrywide. The plan is that everyone will think that the explosion was a normal nuclear blast and immediately ban nuclear weapons, saving the world. The millions who will die because of the blast will be worth it for the end to nukes, Beaumont reckons. I mean, the Invaders are just trying to do the damage, but Beaumont’s goal is noble. Anyway, in the end Beaumont comes to join Vincent against the Invaders and gives his life to prevent the disaster. Really shows what a loser that Vikor guy was. The Major survives and tries to help Vincent convince the authorities about the Invaders, but it doesn’t work.

The Invaders posing as Department of Justice guys who intend to kill Vincent give a real Men In Black vibe, though it’s implied that they are not actually working within the real government. Still, it seems to me like there must be some infiltration of the Invaders in the government if they can keep finding ways to deny their existence even though Vincent keeps gaining more and more allies and is gaining such a reputation as an authority on the topic.

Also worth noting: when Vincent first meets with the Major they are at the scene of a crater caused by a crashed spaceship. To my untrained eye, it absolutely looks like a naturally-formed canyon or something, but it is a very impressive location to see on a television show. It’d be impressive now, let alone in the ’60s.

It’s Cain! From the Bible! The show Supernatural kinda plays fast and loose with the stories it takes from the Bible, but the basics of the story of Cain and Abel are there. Cain killed his brother. The reasons may be different and the results may be different, but the core is still that. And, in the world of Supernatural, after Cain killed his brother, he was marked with his eponymous Mark and it kept him alive (even when he tried to kill himself) and drove him to kill more. He went from being a human to being a demon, and even served as the most powerful of the Knights of Hell. He didn’t like it, but he spent thousands of years. But he eventually got out. He fell in love with a human woman and, though it didn’t end well, he swore he’d never pick up his blade again. He retired and went off the grid. And what did he do next? He kept bees!

With the Mark of Cain functioning in a way not unlike Beekeeper Rage, it makes sense he’d find the occupation to his liking. He refers to keeping bees as “very relaxing” and expresses admiration for the animals themselves. It keeps him on the right path for more than a century, he seems to be good at it.Sadly, when he does, because of the plot of the show, take up killing again (specifically going after killers), we don’t see him keeping bees again.

In most ways Cain is as powerful as, say, Beorn was, and maybe moreso. He’s got all kinds of magic abilities. We’re told Cain is one of the most powerful demons in this show’s mythology. He could have rated very high, if he’d just not given up on the beekeeping so easily.

Four Honeycomb out of Five.

I have to note that, like Friar Tuck, Cain exists in the space of legend. Could the popular image of Cain grew so that him being a beekeeper became a well known facet of the tale? Well, it seems less likely to stick than it could for Tuck.