As one of the spaceships hovers over New York City, Ryan chases someone through a parking garage. Erica finds Georgie on the floor of the garage in pain. As she leans over his body to check his status, she looks up to see Ryan seemingly pointing a gun at her. Ryan shoots his gun.

Flashing back to fourteen hours earlier, Georgie grabs two cups of coffee of a table, hands one cup to Ryan, and apologizes for doing a lot of the talking. Jack is grateful because Georgie knows so much more about the V than the rest of the resistance members. Georgie has been fighting the Visitors for a long time and when he first found out about them the Visitors came after him. Georgie managed to get away but his family did not. Erica then asks Ryan how he knows so much about the Visitors, and Ryan replies that he has been fighting them even longer than Georgie has. Georgie then proposes that they hit the Visitors back for what they did to the resistance at the warehouse. Erica responds that the resistance does not have enough people to hit anyone back, but Georgie’s plan does not require many people to execute. He wants to capture a V, cut it open, and show the world what is underneath. Ryan claims that if they carry out Georgie’s plan, the Visitors will have no choice but to retaliate and that the resistance would be wiped out because that would be a war they can not win. Jack thinks that the resistance shouldn’t back down from the Visitors, but he wants to be smart about how the resistance fights. Erica asks Ryan again how he knows so much about the V because he didn’t answer her question the first time she asked. Georgie tells Erica she does not need to worry about Ryan because Ryan saved Georgie from certain death at the warehouse.

As Georgie and Ryan leave the church, Georgie asks him why he didn’t tell the resistance he is a Visitor. Georgie believes that Ryan should be able to trust a priest and an FBI agent. Ryan angrily replies that he better not ever hear Georgie talk about skinning a V again.

On the New York mothership, Marcus briefs Anna on Dale Maddox, a Visitor sleeper agent who had infiltrated the New York FBI office. Dale was murdered aboard Anna’s ship in the medical bay, but there has never been a murder on board any Visitor ship before. Joshua wonders who would have committed such a crime, and Marcus informs them of rumors of traitors aboard known as the Fifth Column. Anna instructs Joshua to assemble a team immediately and find out who murdered Dale because they cannot afford to have any kind of dissonance among their people.

At home, Erica searches for records of Ryan Nichols and finds his Birth Certificate from Hawaiian Gardens, California and his New York state driver’s license but she does not find any criminal records for him. When Tyler asks Erica if they can talk she tells him she needs two more minutes to finish her work and she continues to search for any known aliases for Ryan, however, no known aliases are found. While Tyler is waiting for her he turns on the TV to a news broadcast by Chad in which the Visitor’s high commander Anna announces a new program which will spread the miracles of the Visitor’s healing centers to countless people.

At the same time, Valerie is watching the same newscast while she is on the phone trying unsuccessfully to get an appointment with a doctor. When Ryan asks if she is allright or if she has caught a nasty cold that has been going around Valerie responds that she feels like crap because her meds make her so tired. She has been trying to get her meds changed but her doctor is out of town until next week. When Valerie wonders if she should just stop taking the meds Ryan tells her that she can’t just stop taking her medications. Valerie says she only has a few clients to see that day and that she should be fine if she takes it easy. Ryan tells her that he loves her and if she needs anything she should let him know. As the news broadcast continues Anna expalins that while Visitor doctors can treat a number of human ailments preventative medicine is also important so they have developed an injection she calls a vitamin supplement which is designed to strengthen the immune system. Chad clarifies that the injection does not just strengthen the immune system but in effect supercharges it so that it will fight off numerous forms of cancer, other diseases, and the effects of aging. When Anna states that the injection will be available around the clock at their healing centers Chad asks if they have cured the common cold but Anna says even the Visitor scientists haven’t cracked the common cold yet and that people will still need to get a flu shot.

Tyler turns off the news broadcast and reminds his mother that more than two minutes have passed. Erica leaves her computer and Tyler begins to tell her about Lisa, the girl his mother met the night before in Tyler’s room wearing nothing but her underwear. Erica’s phone rings and Tyler tells her to answer it. When she answers it and tells Ryan that she needs to call him back later Ryan says he cannot wait and Tyler leaves saying he will talk about it with his mother later. Ryan then tells Erica that they need to meet immediately.

At the church, Ryan explains to Georgie, Erica, and Jack that the V’s vitamin injection is in fact no such thing. A couple years before Ryan had taken out a cell of V scientists who were working on an injection they were going to mass produce and distribute among humans and he thinks that the visitors have reactivated that plan. Ryan believes the injections are just the first part of something much bigger and he knows the names of the V scientists who were involved in the program before and survived. He asks Erica to run them through the FBI to see who is still out there. All of the names Ryan gives Erica come up deceased in the FBI database except for the last name he remembers, Peter Combs who was a low level lab assistant. Peter is in the FBI database as a professor of chemistry and Ryan suggest they track him down and see what he is up to in the hope that by following him he will lead the resistance to a bigger part of the puzzle. Even though Georgie does not like Ryan’s plan Erica decides that is exactly what the resistance should do.

In Valerie’s office, Tyler explains to his therapist, Valerie, that he can’t talk to his mom Erica anymore because she won’t give him two seconds to even explain about the girl he met named Lisa. Tyler feels that his mom does not trust him because she is always telling him to stay away from the visitors. Tyler doesn’t think his mother wants to hear how important the visitors are to him and tells Valerie that his mother would go ballisitic if she knew he joined the peace ambassadors. Tyler does not share his mother’s belief that the visitors are evil because he thinks the world is broken and that the visitors are helping to fix it. Tyler does not feel his mother will ever know all the good the visitors are doing because she won’t even take the time to talk to one. When Tyler mentions the healing centers and the miraculous things the visitors can do like curing blindness and helping handicapped people to walk Valerie asks if he has been down to the healing center yet because she has admittedly been tempted to check out the healing centers herself. When Valerie mentions that there is a months long wait to get into a healing center Tyler offers to ask someone he knows to help her get in faster. Valerie thanks Tyler for being so kind and says she will take him up on his offer.

Lisa and her mother Anna are observing Tyler’s therapy session through the surveillance device in his peace ambassador jacket as Tyler continues on to explain that his 18th birthday is only one month away and after that he won’t have to deal with his mother anymore. Lisa tells her mother that though she originally thought it would take longer, she thinks Tyler is ready. Anna tells Lisa to bring Tyler up to the ship because she wants to meet him.

Later, Joshua and his assistant David report that they haven’t found anyone from the medical staff suspicious, but Anna is not satisfied and wants them to gather the entire staff for a meeting. Alone, David tells Joshua that he must flee the ship in order not to compromise the resistance, though Joshua insists on staying.

Chad Decker is brought in to watch the Visitor healing facilities first hand, in order to help them extol its merits. He documents the healing appliances and wants to interview the patients and visit more of the facility, but Marcus tells him that it will be another time. Chad is later detected by the staff that he has a brain aneurysm, and will die in another six months. The Visitors are able to dig up his entire medical history, and offers him treatment, though he will be on a waiting list. Marcus tells him that they may be able to work something out. Valerie visits the healing facility in order to check on her heart condition and is told it can be easily cured. However, the staff inform her that there is something else.

Erica, Jack, Ryan, and Georgie try to intercept Peter Combs from his workplace car park. Georgie finds Combs first, but recklessly shoots the scientist who fires back, injuring him. Erica finds the injured Georgie, while Ryan appears and shoots Combs who’s about to kill Erica. Jack arrives with his car and drives Georgie away, while Ryan interrogates Combs for his involvement in the supplement project. Combs refuses to divulge anything and commits suicide by biting down on a poison pill, which burns his body into ash. Erica witnesses the entire exchange, realizing Ryan is a Visitor, and holds him at gunpoint. Ryan doesn’t deny this, and Erica decides to hear him out. He explains some of the Visitors’ unwillingness to go along with the rest of their kind on their mission and tells her of the Fifth Column. They discover that Combs had connections with a shipping company and decide to check it out.

Anna tells the medical staff that Dale was an important asset who may have information on the resistance. She wants the real perpetrator to step out; otherwise she will make an example out of one of them, be they guilty or innocent. Joshua intends to confess, but David takes the rap for him. Joshua is ordered by Anna to skin David alive. Before the punishment, Joshua privately asks David why he would sacrifice his life for him. David says that Joshua is capable and one of the best hopes for the Column. Despite his reluctance, Joshua is urged on by David to skin him alive, as the rest of their kind may be watching. Tyler is led by Lisa to a private meeting with Anna. She shows him the ship’s advanced propulsion system, telling him that he’s the first human to ever see it.

Erica, Ryan, and Jack, who has tended to Georgie’s injuries, sneak into the shipping company premises. Ryan sets off an evacuation protocol to empty the facility of staff crew. Entering the building, they find a medical facility set up in the warehouse. Seeing the burnt human corpses and finding the liquid supplements, they deduce that the Visitors are experimenting on humans. The supplements are mixed in with actual flu vaccines and the bottles will be shipped the next day. Erica keeps a supplement as evidence while they intend to destroy the rest of the shipment. However, the entire shipping crew returns with armed weapons. Ryan tells the rest to escape while he finds the facility failsafes. He manages to activate the failsafe but is attacked by one of the crew. Erica returns with Jack to save Ryan. They run out of the building just in time from the ensuing explosion.

Anna is given the bad news by Marcus, who reports that the R6 compound shipments have all been destroyed in the explosion. Learning that the Fifth Column is responsible, Anna is not at all worried, as she will help ease her kind’s concerns on the resistance. She uses a special chamber to extend a positive, comforting influence, called “bliss”, to her kind all over the motherships and on the planet.

Ryan heads home that night, where Valerie reveals that she is pregnant. Ryan shares in the joy with her, but is deeply concerned. In the church, Jack looks through his private belongings, revealing that he was once a soldier. A man arrives to confess, but is revealed to be a Visitor from the shipping building, who stabs Jack. Erica returns home and discovers Tyler is up on the mothership from checking his computer. She calls her son but he ignores the call. Tyler is revealed to be with Anna and Lisa on the observation deck. Taking in the sights, Anna informs Tyler that what he’s just seen is only the beginning. The scene pans away from Earth and the solar system, to reveal a massive fleet of Visitor ships in a far away planetary system heading towards its destination: Earth.

“It’s Only the Beginning” is the fourth episode of the 2009 reimagining of the 1983 miniseries V created by Kenneth Johnson. The episode is co-written by Cameron Litvack and Angela Russo Otstot, with directing by Yves Simoneau. It originally aired November 23, 2009 on ABC.

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