After a three-week vacation to allow for Sochi Winter Olympics fever, Revolution returned tonight with a new episode, “Fear and Loathing”, in which tenuous alliances are formed, leftover cliffhanger threads are sewn up, Grandpa Gene has the night off, and what happens in New Vegas slays in New Vegas.

So how did our cast fare this week? Follow along:

Bass and Connor, stuck in one serious trust exercise: Captured last episode by goons from the fight club they tried to rip off, our antiheroic former dictator and his estranged son are forced by shanty-town casino boss Gould (Timm Sharp) to face off in a swordfight to the death for the amusement of the local rabble. If they show any sign of taking it easy on each other, they’ll both be gunned down. Bass sees no way for both of them to escape and assumes Charlie won’t or can’t save them, so he gives Connor swordfighting lessons in hopes that he’ll be strong enough to murder his old man and go live a long and fruitful life, hopefully less aggravating and lonely than his own.

When simple survival fails as a motivational tool, Bass confesses that Connor’s real mom was gunned down because of Bass’ own evil actions. That’s enraging enough to spark a few extra-hard swings. When fight night arrives, they fight and fight and fight. There’s a lingering moment when Connor wears down dear old Dad, gets him right where he wants him, looks deeply into his eyes, and has to think really hard about whether or not to go all the way. Has the long walk from Mexico to Texas to New Vegas, plus the few fight scenes they’ve shared, been enough shared experiences to form a true familial bond and make up for decades of deadbeat-Dad neglect?

Cheesecake Charlie in chains: She entreaties Bass’ old flame Duncan Page (Katie Aselton) to have her goons save the day because of the relationship Duncan and Bass once shared. Charlie hopes they did, anyway. Apparently whatever they had was a short letdown — Duncan immediately turns her over to Gould to avoid any bad blood between the two camps. Gould, typical villain boss that he is, has Charlie carted back to his empire of tents, orders her into lingerie, and plans to conscript her into lady-of-the-evening service.

Alas, Gould makes the same mistake that Jabba the Hutt did: he has Charlie shackled in thick chains. Charlie gains the upper hand on her first and last customer and chokes him to death. If only there were still movies, Gould’s men could learn from Slave Leia’s example.

Also luckily for Charlie, some master planner left the keys to her chains hanging on the wall. I expected a lengthy sequence of her trying to reach the faraway key in an homage to that episode of The Brady Bunch where the entire family was locked in a jail cell of the Old West and everyone had to string their belts together so Dad could fetch the key from afar and save the day. But no, Charlie’s key is just right there within reach. Oh, the drama.

Duncan Page, crime lord with a heart of gold: She and her men attend the Bass/Connor main event at Gould’s invitation, little realizing that Gould plans to have her assassinated because he can’t believe she had nothing to do with the attempted heist. Charlie overhears their scheming and, once she’s freed herself, heads over to the ring and stabs the would-be assassin with his own knife. Duncan takes three seconds to realize It’s a Trap and orders her men to begin shooting up the place. In the ensuing chaos, Duncan takes out Gould with a single bullet, leaving Charlie to free her guys mere split-seconds before Connor can whip out a finishing move on Dad.

Later back at their own HQ, Duncan approves Our Heroes’ original request: she’ll send some of her men with them to go fight the Patriots and free Willoughby. Two conditions: (1) she’s only sending five guys, not an army; and (2) since Charlie is the one to whom Duncan owes her gratitude, the Five Guys will take orders only from Charlie. Bass isn’t thrilled to be knocked down yet another pay grade.

Miles and Rachel Matheson, plus Tom and Jason Neville. Meet your new Fantastic Four! Tom and Jason totally swear they’re in town to help Our Heroes defeat the Patriots and not for secret evil reasons or anything, honest and pinky-swear. Miles and Rachel know better than to trust them 100%, but they dream of how cool it would be if they really were on the level.

The timing is too good to be true when President Doyle just so happens to arrive in Willoughby to oversee the ongoing development of the new evil-cadet brainwashing center. Everyone gets ready and set to ambush Doyle on his way out of town, but Miles realizes It’s a Trap, calls it off, and calls out Tom and Jason on their subterfuge. The fabulous foursome turn their guns on each other in a Tarantino-esque Mexican standoff. Miles quips without a prompt, “In Mexico they just call this a standoff.”

Tom finally reveals their true motive — i.e., they have to drag Bass back to D.C. in exchange for the life of his wife/hostage Julia. This conflicts with the Save Willoughby initiative and is rejected by two of the four voters, leaving them deadlocked. Much like viewers who’ve dropped the show, Tom can’t begin to fathom why Miles or Rachel would ally themselves with such a monster, especially given his part in the death of Rachel’s son Danny. Maybe Tom would understand if he’d go back and watch the first thirteen episodes of this season again, but this time pay attention to everyone else’s scenes besides his own.

Can they work out these enormous differences? Or will this be the Fantastic Four’s last stand?

Aaron and Priscilla Pittman, prisoners of Nanotech Ministries: With the reunited couple held under guard by their old MIT colleague Peter (Daniel Henney) over in Lubbock, the nanobots reveal unto them their true motivation for their weird machinations this season: the nanobots are suffering from faulty coding somewhere within their programming that might replicate throughout all several quadrillion of them and someday deactivate them all like an evil Star Trek computer, unless their three parents can rewrite the code and save them. Peter’s totally okay with this plot because, in his words, the nanotech “is better than God.” This begs the question of why he and his flock incorporate the Bible into their services if they call the nanotech their saviors. Peter is instead confirmed as the head of the world’s first nano-cult.

Aaron and Cynthia aren’t okay with this plan, but since the nanobots can disintegrate anyone with lightning anytime they choose, they submit to the higher, tinier authority. The nanobots fire up Peter’s old PC with CRT monitor, display their several zillion lines of code, and wait patiently for results. The three humans proceed to cover several whiteboards and all the walls with hundreds of square feet worth of computer science math. Miraculously for them, in the fifteen years since the blackout, not all the world’s markers have dried up yet. I’d love to know the manufacturer, because I’m lucky if I can find a brand that’ll last longer than six months.

Aaron eventually locates the literally fatal error — something involving a memory leak caused by segmentation fault, or possibly vice versa — and begins editing the corresponding lines on the computer. A casual glance at Aaron’s output reveals that the new lines include the word “WORM”. Within seconds, the nanobots realize Aaron is hastily coding a virus into their architecture, because he can remember how to write something that absurdly complicated after spending fifteen years away from keyboards.

Still using Aaron’s dead girlfriend Cynthia as their avatar, the nanobots scream. The PC explodes. All is silence.

Aaron wakes up next to Priscilla in a high-rise apartment wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt. It’s 6:30 a.m. on his L.E.D. clock radio, on which morning DJ Chris Hayes kicks off their sunny morning with Styx’s “Mr Roboto” while traffic zooms along on the streets below.

…wait, what?

To be continued!

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If you missed all of last season and would rather read about Revolution than spend hours playing TV catchup, the MCC recap of the season 1 finale has links to MCC recaps of all first-season episodes, in all their uneven glory. MCC recaps for the current season of Revolution are listed below as handy reference for whatever reason. Thanks for reading!

9/25/2013: “Born in the U.S.A.”
10/2/2013: “There Will Be Blood”
10/9/2013: “Love Story”
10/16/2013: “Patriot Games”
10/23/2013: “One Riot, One Ranger”
10/30/2013: “Dead Man Walking”
11/6/2013: “The Patriot Act”
11/13/2013: “Come Blow Your Horn”
11/20/2013: “Everyone Says I Love You”
1/8/2014: “The Three Amigos”
1/15/2014: “Mis Dos Padres”
1/22/2014: “Captain Trips”
1/29/2014: “Happy Endings“