If "Death March" is the price Falling Skies viewers need to pay for elaborate Season 2 sets, action sequences and shocking gross-out scenes such as Tom's eye surgery and Jamil's very painful death last week... so be it.

Because this was as close to a bottle episode as a series of this nature can get.

It wouldn't really be possible to stick all characters in a single room - as Breaking Bad and Community have each done when those shows needed to step back and save some money with individual episodes over the past year - but this installment came close.

Very little actually went down outside of a lot of talking, and all of that took place inside a couple of vehicles.

Did Maggie reveal quite the personal tidbit to Hal? Oh yes. And I've enjoyed watching the evolution of this relationship over the past several weeks. But having one character just spill to another doesn't make for gripping television.

(This is especially true when we barely know that character. I don't even recall the name of the veteran with whom Weaver bonded on his car ride.)

We also learned a little more about the harnessed children via Matty's brief new pal, who eerily referred to her Skitter as a "guardian." But we've seen through Karen just what sort of grip these creatures can have, so this wasn't exactly groundbreaking information.

I don't want to pile on because I've thoroughly enjoyed Falling Skies Season 2 and, as I said at the outset, it's understandable that the show might need to conserve its resources before ramping up the action once again as we inch closer to the finale

And now that The Second Mass has arrived in Charleston - an alive and bustling Charleston, apparently - there's plenty of mystery and suspense to be mined within that city. Let's hope most of it takes place outside.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.