“The mustard is coming! The mustard is coming! THE MUSTARD, CARL!”
On tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Tomorrowland”, the desperate Patriots change up their tactics a bit. Guns weren’t getting results, poison oranges only stay fresh for so long, and brainwashed cadets were expensive to feed. Thus they unleash their newest secret weapon: mustard gas! Bright yellow cloudy death is a-comin’ to Willoughby!
Miles Matheson, Agent of R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N.
Four weeks after it latest Major Character Death, Revolution returned at last with tonight’s new episode, “$#!& Happens”. That’s the actual title, character-for-character. I think it’s pronounced “Dollarsharptokand Happens” and may be a reference to an old Sigur Ros album.
In this grim installment: Miles falls from grace; Charlie breaks some bad news to the last person in the world she needs to see; Bass and Rachel finally find common ground; and Aaron introduces the nanobots to ’80s Top-40 rock. It’s anyone’s guess as to who tonight’s biggest loser was.
Once again the day is saved thanks to Bass the tyrant king!
Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Why We Fight”, is the first time in series history in which the episode title makes perfect sense and occurred to me before I looked up the episode title after the episode ended. The theme pops up in the dialogue more than once as characters take turns questioning their motives for hanging around the town of Willoughby and shortening their life expectancies in the War on Patriots. Why not go hide in a seedy bar and wait for death to come? Besides the fact that it would make for dull TV?
The lead photo from an upcoming True Romance article titled “Will Our Love Be Ruined by Underage Enemy Soldiers?”
Tonight’s new Revolution episode, “Exposition Boulevard” (a common street name in California? I guess?), picks up where we left off two weeks ago, with a Mexican standoff between the Mathesons and the Nevilles. Once that threat fades into nothingness, the road beyond it runs afoul of Patriot Youth, a belligerent Chief of Staff, a love triangle, a new alliance, and more screen time than usual for Steven Culp as Ed Truman, Patriot at a crossroads.
After an opening montage of moments from the first nineteen episodes set to the tune of “Can’t Find My Way Home”, at long last begins the Revolution season-one finale, “The Dark Tower” (not the first time they’ve referenced Stephen King). When last we left, Monroe Republic President Sebastian “Bass” Monroe and former best friend Miles Matheson were facing off inside the tower with coilguns at twenty paces. Will this be the duel to end all duels? Here in the first minute of the episode?
There’s this place. It’s called…The TOWER.
Thus does tonight’s new episode of Revolution, “Children of Men”, begin with a promise of explosions. We ended last week’s episode with Rachel Matheson triggering the grenade she carried with her into President Monroe’s field tent in hopes of avenging the death of her son Danny. Instead of opening this week with Rachel and Monroe both dead — which, let’s face it, would be a true game-changer — the grenade gets kicked out of the tent, exploding outside and destroying some tanks full of movie combustion fluid or whatever. Everyone in the tent is safe, and Rachel is easily captured and embarrassed.
Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) and Jason (JD Pardo) share a moment of true love while a disenchanted Atlanta evacuates in panic.
Former Google executive Aaron Pittman (Zak Orth), possibly the only sci-fi character in history that I can convincingly cosplay at conventions.
Meet Miles Matheson’s new partner! Can these two dangerous men share a post-apocalypse without driving each other crazy?
If something compels General Monroe to stop sulking in Independence Hall and walk around in open daylight, you know things just got real.
As of tonight, now we know for certain why NBC tastefully postponed the new Revolution episode “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” from last week. At first I wondered if the reason would be more scenes of Nora carrying out heroic bombing on behalf of the Rebel Alliance, but no. Even more unnerving, given the events of last week in real life: this week, Sebastian “Bass” Monroe, President of the Monroe Republic, mad with electrical power and incensed paranoia, sends a few henchmen to Atlanta, the capital of the neighboring Georgia Federation, to threaten it with an old-fashioned suitcase nuke. Presumably Monroe and his loyal scientists have been sitting on this portable, stylish WMD through all fifteen years of the blackout, waiting for the opportunity to fire it up and stop postponing WWIII. Luckily for them, most fissile materials have a half-life with a distant expiration date.
“No one’s a good guy.”
Thus does our hero Miles Matheson (Billy Burke) sum up the current state of mankind in the final minutes of tonight’s new Revolution episode, “The Song Remains the Same” (another Led Zeppelin song title, for annotation fans). If the power is restored for one and all, to oppressors and oppressed alike, who’s to say the warring factions of the country formerly known as America would set aside their differences and reunite for the good of mankind? If adversity wasn’t enough to inspire peaceful cooperation, why should we expect the restoration of power access to be any less divisive?
It’s a question worth asking, in light of the surprise revelation about the true nature of Ben and Rachel Matheson’s secret invention responsible for the worldwide blackout. Bets were won and high-fives were exchanged for any viewers who guessed that the correct answer is…
…insert drumroll here….
…redundant pause for tension effect…
…one last pause for no good reason…
Tonight’s new episode of Revolution, “Ghosts”, divides its time between two primary threads, each about former partnerships torn asunder but looking for common ground to reunite, and finding it in the form of evil armed henchmen. Nothing mends fences like common foes.
Of the episode’s two halves, more interesting and personal is the tension between Charlie and Rachel, as mother and daughter grieve the loss of son/brother Danny in last week’s mismatched showdown between a pair of working helicopters and one thermal-guided surface-to-air missile launcher. As the Rebel Alliance relocates its Annapolis base from its now-missile-ridden digs to a nearby former hospital, Rachel wallows in guilt and blame (when she’s not busy drawing electrical diagrams of the mysterious blue-light device she retrieved from her dead son’s innards last week), while Charlie rebuffs her and instead looks for opportunities for action, doing whatever she can for the resistance so that Danny’s death won’t be as much in vain as his hard-fought rescue from Independence Hall ultimately was. She storms off without Mom’s permission to assist in an overnight militia raid and returns the next day with an ugly shoulder wound, rebuking any attempts at assistance and talking back in hardcore Wolverine tough-guy whispers. Their argument ends with Rachel slapping Charlie. That doesn’t help, and seems unnecessary now that Tracy Spiridakos’ performance is showing signs of improvement.
Tonight on Revolution: EXPLOSIONS! GUNFIRE! MAJOR DEATH! BAZOOKAS! PUNCHING! Behold the end results of a three-month retooling hiatus.
We rejoin Our Heroes for the new episode, “The Stand” (I don’t have to explain the reference, right?), quickly resolving last winter’s cliffhanger that saw them facing the world’s first working helicopter in fifteen years, its cannons fully loaded, its pendant-powered generator in working order, its pilot ordered to kill. Fortunately everyone outruns the flying death machine, scampers into the abandoned (fictional) restaurant pictured above, and escapes death by hiding in the freezer until the chopper stops firing missiles into the joint. If a refrigerator can save Indiana Jones from atomic warfare, it stands to reason than an entire walk-in freezer would be just as impervious a bunker.
“It’s been a long trip.”
Charlie summarizes the series to date with five simple words during the long-awaited family reunion that comprises this week’s fall-finale episode of Revolution, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” (title taken from another Led Zeppelin track, because last week’s tribute episode demanded an encore). After a 760-mile walk from Wrigley Field in Chicago to Independence Hall in Philadelphia for the sake of her brother Danny, she’s calm and resolute all throughout, even when everyone but Miles is naturally taken captive in the first ten minutes. Blame Miles for putting his trust in an ineffective friend named Kip (special guest Glynn Turman — ex-Mayor Royce from The Wire!) who’s useless against the brute competence of Major Neville’s henchmen. Everyone is spirited away so they can be bait in Neville’s obvious trap for Miles.
As this week’s new Revolution episode “Kashmir” opens, Our Heroes have commuted a full 280 miles from last week’s endpoint in Ford City, PA (or wherever the Allegheny rapids dumped them south of that), all the way east to West Chester, twenty miles west of destination Philly, and home of a Rebel Alliance faction led by special guest star Reed Diamond. The costar of TV’s Dollhouse and Homicide: Life on the Street was a welcome change of pace from the long line of guests I haven’t been recognizing. I presume this means the show’s mighty ratings have finally earned it a higher casting allowance.
In this week’s new Revolution episode, “Ties That Bind”, it’s finally Nora’s turn in the flashback spotlight. Intense situations evince memories of her post-blackout childhood in Texas. Her mother was murdered by home invaders in San Antonio; her father was last known to be in Galveston; and her younger sister Mia was close by her side. Throughout the ensuing years of chaos after the blackout, the two orphans would learn to rely on each other and no one else, not unlike last week’s gaggle of gun-toting independent orphans.
(Incidentally, said orphans are nowhere in sight this week. Presumably Our Heroes inspected the abandoned half-building where they were dwelling, deemed it safe enough for them to raise each other, and bade them a hearty farewell with no fear whatsoever that the Monroe Militia would come mow the rascals down.)
The moral of this week’s new episode of Revolution, “The Children’s Crusade”: nothing weighs more heavily on a conscience than watching others suffer for our sins. Nowhere is this more radically demonstrated than when our man Miles finally finds himself moved by something other than Charlie’s harping about Doing the Right Thing. He realizes that his duties as former evil assistant overlord of the Monroe Republic included unwitting orphan-making. When Our Heroes encounter ragtag Lord of the Flies refugees, something inside Miles’ head asks: won’t someone think of the children?
I had assumed that this week’s new episode of Revolution, “Sex and Drugs”, would begin with Nora perfectly fine and her stab wound from episode five healed over nicely. Instead, last week’s fake episode recap turned out to be 10% prescient, as her wound became infected and demanded serious medical attention. Rubbing dirt in it just wasn’t working. Maybe she was doing it wrong.
Barely recovered from last week’s Shocking Character Death, the heroes of the Revolution are allowed to dawdle in mourning for all of half an hour before action hero Miles Matheson decides that grief is over and it’s time for everyone to move on. As soon as they cross the next set of bushes without benefit of jump-cut or montage, presto! They’re in Noblesville. Keeping in mind that Indiana Beach is 85 miles northwest of Noblesville, I infer from this instant arrival that our intrepid remainders — Miles, Charlie, Aaron, and “willing” “prisoner” “Nate” — graciously carried their fallen comrade’s body all eighty-five of those miles before deciding that the time and place were right for a proper funeral service, right next door to our villains’ current location. If you ask me, the Indiana Beach area is much prettier and farther away from evil. On the other hand, Noblesville has a large concert venue, the Deer Creek Verizon Wireless Klipsch now presumably sponsorless Music Center. Maybe music fans of the future would love a final resting place near that.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 