By my count, this is the penultimate episode of Alien Force, both the season and the series. The show was conceived of as a two-season arc-driven series about fighting an alien invasion, and that story concluded in a three-part series finale that, alas, ended up *not* being a series finale because it got super-high ratings.

It’s the penultimate episode of “Alien Force,” the second to last episode of a season that was never supposed to happen anyway, a fact made clear by the rolicking, and not-at-all cohesive nature of the season. There's just no story arc here, you know?

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Vilgax attacks a police space cruiser, destroying it, and bursting in to a prison space station, where he meets Ghostfreak, one of the original ten Omnitrix aliens from the original show. Vilgax offers to free him in exchange for the secrets of the Omnitrix, and information on how to defeat Ben Tennyson.

We’re now past the middle of the entirely-unexpected third season of Ben 10, and though the show continues to struggle to figure out exactly what it wants to be, it seems to have finally fallen in to a nice groove of storytelling. It may not be as ambitious as the previous two seasons, and it may be laboring under the heavy and obvious hand of ‘redefining’ the characters, but it remains a good show, with a solid core.

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A couple space hillbilly repo-men come to earth to reclaim “Ship” for his parent. They attempt to take him from Julie, Ben’s girlfriend, but she calls Ben and he shows up in time to save the day and chase the aliens off. Kevin confirms that the repo order is legit, and so Ben wants to take Ship to the local alien district court to explain the situation, but Julie refuses, saying that’s just playing in to their hands. Not having “Ship” to use for a ship, they need another ship, which, fortunately, Kevin scored a few episodes back, and has yet to return to its rightful owner.