REVOLUTION Recap: Resurrection

Revolution 2.02 There Will Be Blood

Rachel, Aaron, and Cynthia

The episode started with Aaron’s apparent resurrection and wound healing after 2+ hours dead. He and Rachel assume it’s got to be the nanobots, but Cynthia thinks it’s a miracle. The town goes into lockdown after the bandits send the Sheriff’s body home to Willoughby. Every one shelters in the town hall and Aaron starts having hallucinations that he is seeing Ben Matheson.

Aaron tells Cynthia that he knows why the power went out, and came back on and that the bombs were all his fault.

Rachel, of course, has to go after Miles, and she convinces her father to help. They ride out to the old steel mill where the bandits live (Rachel used to sneak out there to drink when she was a teenager). As they approach, fireflies swarm around them and they notice something on the ground beneath them. They light a torch and see the ground is covered in piles of dead rats.

Miles

Creepy Titus Andover has Miles and the Sheriff in a big room full of cages. People are taken from the cages through a red door, but no one ever comes back. After some sort of blood test, they kill the Sheriff. Miles manages to escape, but he tries to rescue a townswomen who is also captive, and gets caught.

After Titus explains his deranged life philosophy to Miles, he smashes his hand with a hammer to keep him from escaping again or killing any more of his men. We later see one of Titus’ men write a note and seal it wax with the “Eye of Providence” (the top of the pyramid on a dollar bill).

Miles gets dragged towards the dreaded red door. Behind it is a woman in a stretcher who seems to have just received a blood transfusion (seemingly fatal for the donor).

Charlie

Out in the Plains Nation, Charlie has followed Monroe’s kidnappers and tries to kill him, but gets herself captured (and mildly shot). She learns that the men are bounty hunters are working for the “US Government” and are taking Monroe to face trial for setting off the missiles, which is ironic seeing as there are of course plenty of horrible things that he actually *did* do. The bounty hunters let Charlie go and take Monroe. Not long after, he manages to escape and kills one of the men. Charlie has once again followed and develops an uneasy alliance with the bounty hunter.

Jason, Neville

Neville recruits an ex-rebel that Jason knows and convinces him to help him assassinate the Defense Secretary. When the man goes to carry out their plan, Neville alerts the government officials and then shoots him, “saving” the Secretary’s life. He then uses his newfound notoriety to start earning her trust so he can bring her and everyone else down for killing his wife.

We see the Secretary in her tent alone open a note sealed with the Eye of Providence. The note inside seems to be written in arabic. She reads it and then burns it.

My Thoughts:

Geez, talk about an ominous episode title! Then again, that title could have been used for any of a number of rather violent episodes in season 1. Despite the dark subject matter, this episode had some really entertaining lines, most of them from Miles. His interaction with Titus was a great scene – glib sarcasm meets pedophile-creepy.

The whole “US Government” plot is very intriguing and the writers have done a great job of having all of the characters, despite being geographically separated, involved with it at least peripherally. In particular, Neville’s faked assassination attempt to curry favor with the Secretary was completely diabolical but also exactly the kind of deviousness we’ve come to expect from him. Neville really seems like the kind of character where while we don’t see the same “hero journey” that we see with Miles, it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up saving them all in the end.

What is the nature of the connection between the “patriots” and the bandits that are holding Miles?  The Eye of Providence symbol is commonly used by the US Government, but it’s also a freemason symbol. Are Titus and his men meant to terrorize people to make them easier for a central government to subdue? If so, what’s with the woman on the stretcher?

And then there’s the rats and fireflies, and the whole matter of Aaron coming back from the dead…

Two episodes in and we have a lot more questions than answers, but it’s been an engaging ride so far!

Memorable Quotes:

Your dad told you stories of Walker, Texas Ranger? – Miles
Why, have you heard of him?
His legend’s known far and wide – Miles

How are you feeling? – Rachel
For a dead guy, okay… little dehydrated, hungry for brains – Aaron

Microscopic robots in the air just magically resurrected me. Yeah, that sounds totally logical! – Aaron

You might be trying to run away from your Mom, but you’re a lot like her – Monroe

God wants us to be free, to do whatever we want – Titus

That whole “Lord of the Flies” thing seems to be really working for you! – Miles

Watch Revolution on Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC!