REVOLUTION RECAP: This means war

Revolution 2. 17 Why We Fight

After the Patriots find their previous safe house, Miles and Monroe bicker about him letting the kid go and how to go after the Patriots. Gene thinks they can get more people from Willoughby, so Miles and Gene sneak into Willoughby to see if they can find help. They first go to Marian, the owner of the town bar, but she is reluctant to trust them. Gene tells them that the typhus was made up, the stories they told the town of Gene’s house being full of explosives and him writing a journal about betraying the town.

We find out that they used to be in a relationship and he pleas with her to believe him and tells her about the young recruit who killed her father and then herself. Their discussion is interrupted when Truman arrives for dinner. Apparently Marion and him have a thing going. Gene pleads with her not to rat them out, and he and Monroe wait in a back room for Truman to leave.

Neville appeals to Truman’s ego and tries to convince him to kill Doyle so he can take power in Willoughby and beyond. Doyle takes Neville and Jason into custody – he knows that Neville wanted to poison him. Neville tells him that it was Truman’s idea and he was going to warn Doyle. Doyle tells Neville that if he reads Jason’s eye tatoo that he’ll kill him and then starts to strangle Neville.

Charlie and Connor are arguing over whether he’s in over his head with Monroe when they see lights in the distance. Approaching them, they find a camp of men – Duncan’s men. The Patriots killed her and they want revenge. The Patriots came into New Vegas to clean up the place and killed her and half of her men. The remainder of the group came to find Monroe to be their leader against the Patriots. 

Against Rachel’s pleas, Charlie, Monroe, and Connor launch an attack on the Patriot camp. They show up just as Doyle is strangling Neville. Neville takes advantage of the distraction to gain the upper hand, kill Doyle, and escape. Monroe walks through the camp executing injured recruits and Charlie asks Connor if that’s who he wants to follow.

Marion comes back to talk to Miles and Gene. She tells Gene that she is engaged to Truman. She thinks he is a kind man and didn’t think that the Patriots could do all the stuff Gene says they have, but she isn’t ready to discount what he says, either.

Monroe finds Doyle’s body, but is suspicious that it wasn’t one of Duncan’s men that killed him. He finds a book written in Arabic in Doyle’s stuff. Duncan’s men celebrate their victory.  Rachel confronts Charlie while she washes the blood from her hands. Charlie tells her that they did what they had to do and they are going to all die soon anyway. Rachel apologizes to Charlie for making her what she’s become and tells her that she’s fighting so that Charlie doesn’t become what she and Miles has become.

Marion leads Truman outside so that Miles and Gene can escape. When they walk out in the street, the surviving Patriots are just arriving from the camp, announcing that they were attacked by Charlie and Monroe and their men, who massacred everyone, including the recruits. Seeing all the injured kids, Marion thinks she was mistaken about Gene and tells Truman about Miles and Gene. The two of them barely escape – Gene is shot in the process – but they make it back to the rest.

Neville comes back to Willoughby and tells Truman that Monroe’s men killed Doyle and he barely escaped. Truman sees through the situation and knows that Neville killed him. Neville suggests that he tell the President that Doyle was killed by terrorists that he couldn’t control, but that Truman had the situation under control.

Miles confronts Monroe about storming the camp and killing the kids. Monroe tries to get Miles to join in his crusade against the Patriots. They are interrupted by Duncan’s man with a translation of the Arabic from the Doyle’s book – the plan is that the recruits were going to be taken down to Austin to take down the Texan government and kill their president.

My Thoughts:

After a bit of a break, Revolution is back to the violence, it seems. At least in this episode, the carnage was framed as a way to let us examine the character’s motivations and to ponder what it means to do the “right” thing. It really is sad, although not surprising, what Charlie has become, and I do fear that her assertions that she doesn’t have long to live may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. While Miles and Rachel have regained much of their souls, if not his hope, Charlie has nearly lost hers and Connor’s is also in jeopardy. Monroe, well, he seems to be the only one who hasn’t changed…

It’s far-fetched that someone could manage to work things to his advantage in the way that Neville always manages to, but, likely a testament to Esposito’s acting prowess, I find myself enjoying watching him work his mojo, rather than getting disgusted by the unlikeliness of it.

Memorable Quotes:

First we lose AARP here, then we lose you – Monroe

Newsflash. It’s the apocalypse, it’s only getting worse… I set out to make it better, and it all went to hell – Miles

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