NBC’s Revolution has returned! It has been a while, but we are glad to see it back! We’re on Season 1 of Episode 11 of 20, so we’re half way through! This episode is full of action, drama, with a few surprises. Check out Violet’s recap and review of the episode with some comments by Josh thrown in! Spoilers galore after the jump!
Revolution has finally returned after a four month break! Unfortunately, this episode brought up more questions and unforeseen tragedies than answers and resolutions.
We pick up right where we left off at the end of the last episode, with the group fleeing from a Militia helicopter after rescuing Charlie’s brother, Danny and their mother, Rachel. As the helicopter fires at them, they run into an abandoned diner. The helicopter then fires a missile at the diner, which explodes into flames, and the helicopter flies away, assuming everyone inside has been killed. Obviously that is not the case, and we see that everyone in the group is safe, as they had gone into a separate storage room which protected them. Not sure how believable that is, as the whole diner blew up, but that room wasn’t affected at all and everyone came out unscathed. Anyway, so then they try to get as far away from Philly as they can get before the Militia comes looking for their bodies.
Major Tom Neville reports to Monroe that they didn’t find any remains at the diner, and they have to assume that Miles is still alive. Monroe criticizes Tom for letting Miles take advantage of him (last episode, Tom had captured Aaron and Nora, but Miles was able to get Tom to let them go by taking Tom’s wife hostage, trading her life for theirs), and says that is a troubling weakness. Tom seems genuinely afraid of what Monroe is going to do to him, but then you can see his relief when Monroe seems to let his indiscretion go because of the fact that they have light and power now. Monroe then orders him to find and wipe out every rebel camp, and plans to eventually turn the whole country “from sea to shining sea” into the Monroe Republic. Power hungry much?
I wasn’t quite clear on to the extent of Monroe’s electric power in this scene. From what I could tell, they only had the one amplifier. If this is the case, why would Monroe want to risk sending one source of power out in one or two helicopters? Even if the rebels only have basic guns, a couple lucky shots could spell the end for their power situation rather quickly. I could be wrong on this however, and they have several amplifiers, but I felt they only had the one that Rachel had made.
Meanwhile, as the group tries to escape from the city with Charlie and Nora at the reins of a horse drawn wagon, they are stopped by a guard, who insists upon checking the cargo. They are carrying coffins in the back, and when Charlie opens one up and shows the guard the dead body, he lets them pass. Lucky for them that the guard didn’t insist on checking any other coffins, because the rest of the group members were hiding in each of the other ones. For a guard insisting on doing his job and having been very thorough up to this point, I found it odd that he only checked one coffin.
I am curious to find out where they got an entire stage coach and horses and dead bodies and coffins…But I digress. Why didn’t the guard check more than one? Obviously if someone is going to try to sneak somewhere with “dead bodies”, they would have at least 1 real one to make it authentic. Also regarding Charlie’s burn, I had a feeling it would come in handy. I am glad it wasn’t so easy to use, and the guard still felt he had to check (despite being lazy about his checking).
So they get out of the city and reach a safe spot where they are finally able to have an emotional reunion between mother and children, and Nora kisses Miles. This was a nice, touching scene where they finally are able to relax and celebrate their triumph of rescuing Danny, finding out that Rachel is still alive, and that they all made it out safely. Aaron has a ton of questions for Rachel, and everyone agrees that they all deserve an explanation, but Rachel doesn’t want to talk about it right now, saying that she will explain everything later, but it’s complicated.
When Miles kisses Nora, he and Rachel seem to have a odd exchange. I sense a triangle in the future….
Their temporary peace doesn’t last long, as a chopper flies overhead and they have to hide. They realize the chopper is heading toward Westchester, where a rebel camp is located. Then we see the helicopter shoot everyone inside the rebel camp. The group runs to the camp only to discover that everyone is dead. Nora says she has to go to rebel headquarters to warn them about the choppers. Rachel says that it’s up to her to stop Monroe because she gave him the power amplifier. Apparently she knows where they can get the rebels missile launchers and power, so she and Miles set off to get that. But first there is an emotional farewell between Rachel and her children, and we get a flashback to Danny in the hospital as a little boy, with Rachel and Ben at his bedside, emotional, as Danny is taken away for a last resort surgery involving a procedure that no one has ever done before. What was wrong with Danny? What was the procedure? Apparently it worked, considering he’s still alive and well today. Rachel is in tears looking at her children as the wagon drives away and her children watch her go, in just the same way it happened all those years ago when she left them. Between Danny and Charlie, Danny seems the most concerned about his mother coming back. The group sets off to the rebel headquarters, where the rebels have lost hope, saying the resistance is over for good. But the group tells them that Miles can help.
Rachel and Miles have a heart to heart, where Miles says he saw her body, he never would have left if he thought she was alive, everything is his fault, he’ll never be able to make it up to her, and he’s sorry. Their foreheads touch, and it looks like they are about to kiss, but she quietly tells him to step back, and retreats into her tent. Whoa, what was going on there? Rachel and Miles? When did that happen? I don’t think we’ve seen any indication of a relationship between them before this. Well, other than that slap to the face she gave him last episode when they first saw each other, but that could have been for a number of other reasons. Was Rachel’s apparent death what caused Miles to leave the Militia? I’m curious to see the back story on this unfold.
We haven’t seen Miles and Rachel together much, so there may be this weird tension between the two. I knew this was coming though, when Miles and Rachel had that weird look before. I am curious about Miles seeing her dead body though. What did happen there?
Meanwhile, Tom’s son, Jason, is angry about the Militia’s attack on the rebels. Tom has captured a rebel who survived the attack, and who leads them to the closest rebel camp, which turns out to be where Charlie and the group are located. We can see that Jason is still smitten with Charlie, and Tom thinks she is the real reason behind Jason’s protests. Jason stands up to Tom, refuses to follow orders any longer, and he and Tom get into a fist fight. Tom beats him down, tells him he is a shameful disappointment, and don’t ever come home again. Jason finds Charlie and warns her that there will be an air strike in 12 hours, confesses that he is Tom Neville’s son, but that he is finished with the Militia and doesn’t have anywhere to go. Charlie thanks him for the warning, but says he can’t come with her. Wise decision on Charlie’s part not to let him join them, considering all the tricks he played on her in the past, pretending to be some random guy wandering around, rather than part of the Mitlitia, and lying about his name. However, I’m pretty sure that somewhere down the road he’ll gain the group’s trust and join them, eventually becoming a romantic interest for Charlie. Anyway, so Charlie reports to the rebels about the airstrike, and the rebel commander decides to make a stand because there’s not enough time to evacuate. When he calls for volunteers for the front line, of course Nora, Charlie, and Danny all raise their hands.
It was a matter of time before Jason defected. From first episode of the series, this was set up. He seems to be set up as the son who felt he had to follow daddy’s orders, until he is broken. I find Tom a hard character to find believable. At times he seems like an honorable man, and at other times a sadistic, evil man. It seems to change depending on the need for his character. Perhaps he is just psychotic like Monroe.
Miles and Rachel arrive at the house of Rachel’s friend, John, who is surprised to see her alive, and reports that there has been radio silence with their contacts, including Grace. Rachel explains their situation, and he leads them to the basement where there are plenty of weapons, including a missile launcher and a sonic cannon, which John explains emits a high pitched audio frequency that knocks out its target. Then John explains that he knows why Grace isn’t answering, it’s because “Randall” got to her, and he got to him too, then he uses the sonic cannon to knock out Miles and Rachel, ties them up, and reports to Randall that they are there. Meanwhile, we see that Grace is working on repairing some sort of circuit board, and we meet this Randall, who wants her to get the elevators working so he can get down to level 12. Randall makes his way to John’s house, as Rachel and Miles wake up and John explains that Randall got into “the tower” and makes the excuse that she knows what will happen to him if he doesn’t help Randall, and also what will happen to her if she doesn’t help him. Miles is able to break free and knock John out, and they escape.
I always find it odd when characters are “forced” to do something, but they take forever to do it. For example here, Jason could have sonic cannon’d Miles and Rachel right when he let them into the house, rather than showing them around and chit-chatting. Perhaps in this case, he was still wrestling with what he was going to do and finally gave in. I did enjoy the actor’s performance however. He played a nervous kind of geeky guy under a lot of pressure really well. Also, right after this is a scene with Grace, the lady with power that Randall seems to be holding prisoner. Randall mentions something about an elevator to get to level 12. It seems like maybe he is after a nuke silo or something really big.
Tom reports to Monroe that he saw Charlie, and they assume Miles is there even though they didn’t see him. He also tells Monroe that his son is dead. I’m not sure what to think about Tom. We know that he has a soft spot for his family, or at least his wife. I think he is genuinely afraid of what Monroe will do to him if he doesn’t follow orders, and maybe because of the fact that Jason was refusing to follow orders anymore, he was afraid of what Monroe would do to his son once he got wind of the insubordination. Perhaps that’s the real reason why he told his son never to come home again (and why he beat him up so much that he wouldn’t want to go home again), and that he told Monroe his son was dead so that they wouldn’t go looking for him. Or he could just be an evil man who gets pleasure out of others’ pain, and now that his son no longer shares his sentiments, he’s dead to him. But I think the former, rather than the latter, because they made it such a point at the beginning to bring up Tom’s “weakness” for his wife.
I had a thought here, that perhaps this chain of events will turn Jason into an unknowing double agent. My thinking, is maybe Tom hopes his son will be absorbed into the rebel group long enough to extract information, whereby he can “forgive” his son and then extract the information from him. This may be a bit of a stretch, but I think it is something that could be an interesting twist.
As the rebels are preparing for the imminent attack, we get another flashback to Danny as a little boy. This time, he is having an asthma attack and Charlie helps him to breathe. I must admit, the casting for young Charlie was great, she looked just like her! Back to present day, Charlie asks Danny to sit out this fight because he owes her for rescuing him. But Danny won’t have it, says it’s not her job to look after him anymore, and he has to do this for their Dad, Maggie, and himself. Two choppers show up then, and they exchange gunfire with the rebels. Just as Charlie runs out of ammo, Miles and Rachel triumphantly ride up in the wagon with the weapons they took from John’s house. Rachel tells the rebel shooters to aim for a certain chopper because that’s where “able fire” will be — how would she know?? Miles prepares to launch a missile at one of the choppers, but the other chopper beats him to the punch and shoots a missile toward him first, sending him flying backwards. While everyone is tending to Miles, Danny takes the initiative to grab the missile launcher and fires a missile at one of the choppers — direct hit! Danny saves the day! But then the other chopper, which is going down due to the blast, is able to shoot Danny several times before it goes down. Nooooooo!!! They can’t kill off Danny! Not after we spent the whole season trying to rescue him! I did not see that one coming. This slow motion scene was great though, so tragic, very emotional, and I could only sit there and stare in horror and disbelief, truly involved in the moment, lamenting the loss of Danny.
The scene where Charlie asks Danny to sit this one out sparked a moment of foreshadowing to me, but I dismissed it fairly quickly, thinking they wouldn’t want to kill a main character so soon into the show. I found Danny’s story a little underwhelming though, consistently having to deal with his asthma (aka plot device). It was just too “on the nose” for me. I was both impressed and a little disbelieving of Danny’s ability to use the launcher to take the helicopter down. After all Miles was holding it a lot longer it seemed like, and couldn’t get the shot off. Regardless it was a valiant death for Danny, and an emotional event for Rachel and Charlie. What I wonder from here: Is Monroe out of power until he makes the deal with Randall (who seems to have power through Grace)?
Later, Rachel and Charlie sit next to each other, looking devastated. Rachel blames herself, but Charlie reassures her that there was nothing she could have done to stop Danny from fighting. Danny’s death only strengthens Rachel’s resolve to go after Monroe and do whatever it takes to bring him down, for Danny.
A couple of visitors arrive to see Monroe, and Monroe allows them in because they drove there in a car. The visitors turns out to be Randall and John, offering their help to Monroe. I had assumed that Randall was one of Monroe’s men, but apparently that is not the case. It appears they are going to work together in the coming episodes to get more power, in terms of both electricity and domination.
I am curious to learn Randall’s end game here. If he can get a nuke or some sort of superior weaponry, I am not sure why he needs Monroe. We shall see I suppose.
In the last scene, Rachel is crying over Danny’s body, and cuts into his abdomen, pulling out a small flashing device. What is it? Is it a tracking device? Is she is still secretly being forced to work for Monroe? When did that get there? Was it part of the unprecedented procedure that was performed on Danny when he was a little boy? What does it do? What value is it to them now? It must have some sort of importance to the fight or else she would not have gone to the trouble of cutting it out of him. Too many questions and no answers!
I too am really curious to know what this flashing device is. It seems like maybe it was placed in him to keep hidden? Or maybe it was something that assisted keeping Danny alive. Hopefully we find out soon!
The scenes from the upcoming episodes promised to answer the questions of WHY the lights went out and HOW they’ll get them back on. It all appears to have something to do with “the tower” that Grace is trying to get Randall access to. It seems like Rachel will become a very strong character. With the death of Danny, the women now outnumber the men in the group. This show has tended to be about strong women characters from the beginning, with Charlie as the protagonist, and Nora as a tough and competent fighter, and it seems that Rachel will only add to that dynamic. In the past episodes, Miles has been the leader of the group, but in this episode, he didn’t really seem to do much. I think maybe Rachel will take over as the leader of the group, as Rachel has proven in flashbacks that she knows how to effectively take matters into her own hands (like when she shot that guy who tried to steal their stuff when her husband failed to do so). I’m ready for some answers!
This episode was a good re-introduction to the show, since it has been gone a while. A lot of emotional moments and some action thrown in for good measure. I really think Randall is after a nuclear weapon or something similar. I feel that Jason will be used for information by Tom assuming he is able to make his way into the rebel’s/Charlie’s favor, which I also believe will happen. Time will tell, and we will see next week!
