REVOLUTION Recap: And then it got weird…

Revolution 2.04: Patriot Games

Charlie

Somewhere in Texas (how does she move so fast?) Charlie gets slipped a roofie at a sleezy tavern and nearly meets a horrible fate, but luckily for her, Monroe wasn’t far behind and he shows up like her knight-in-mostly-tarnished-armor right in time to take out a bunch of thugs with some fancy two fisted swordwork and save her.

She repays his heroism by trying to kill him and telling him off. He seems like he is actually trying for redemption and makes it clear to her that he’s going back with her to Willoughby. The two set off as unhappy traveling companions and miraculously get within 10 miles of Willoughby by the end of the episode.

Miles, Rachel, Aaron

Rachel wakes up in her bed in her father’s house with her wounds tended to and goes outside to find a new world – dozens of soldiers wearing the American flag, the entire town back together, and the kids celebrating Halloween. Apparently all of this happened during the course of the “few days” that she was unconscious.

Miles and Aaron fill her in on the Patriots and they all appreciate that Randal was probably working for them. The soldiers have been spending their time rounding up Titus Andover’s men and also making sure the townspeople remain afraid and remain locked within the city walls, even if it means killing people. Rachel breaks into the commanding officer’s office and gets caught, but they don’t punish her. She fights with her dad later and he wants her to stop trying to fix everything because she tends to make things worse.

Miles sneaks out of town and goes to Andover’s warehouse. Meanwhile, Aaron has some sort of supernature seizure-like episode that allows him to see Miles walking through the old warehouse. Miles gets the feeling someone is watching, and just sees fireflies.

He hears a noise and finds Andover searching through stuff in his ransacked office. He’s totally gone off the deep end and tells Miles that the Patriots are killers and that they packed his entire “family” up into train cars. He tries to kill Miles, but loses that battle and his life.

One of Rachel’s childhood friends convinces her to open up to him and she tells him about the Tower and the bombs. She realizes too late that he’s aligned with the patriots. She tries to flee, but he overpowers her.

They have a very creepy conversation while he digs her grave in the basement of his shop. He was recruited by the patriots seven years prior and there’s nothing special about Willoughby, the patriots want to be in all the small towns. Rachel being her typical badass self, breaks her thumb to get out of her handcuffs and manages to kill him before he can kill her. She then buries him in the hole that he dug for her and eliminates all the evidence of their meeting.

Miles goes to the train station and sees the patriot soldiers kill two of Andover’s men and send them back to Willoughby to show to the townspeople. He gets caught and has two automatic weapons trained on him and no escape. Then things get really weird as Aaron is watching while he sleeps and with the help of the fireflies makes the two men spontaneously combust (um…okay…).

Rachel and Miles later decide that they are going to have to provide some grassroots resistance.

Neville/Jason

Even though Neville’s working for the patriots, their commanding officer is not willing to trust him. He soon has the man in a compromising position in a brothel and takes advantage of the situation to determine that he does not know where Jason is and get him sent away. With him gone, Neville easily slips into the role of command and gets Secretary Allenford to support him.

My Thoughts:

And just like that, it got weird. Very weird. I really like the patriot plot, I was even okay with Aaron’s resurrection, but I’m not sure I’m a fan of the “Aaron sees via the fireflies” and spontaneous combustion twist. Revolution is at its heart a dramatic, serious show and the new mystical elements this season threaten to lesson the impact of the drama and drag it down into cheesy. For now, I’ll just have to be open minded and see how it all plays out, hoping that things don’t get too hokey.

Other than bizarre supernatural stuff, this week’s theme seemed to be Rachel starting to realize how downright ruthless and single minded she was throughout season 1 and how her actions have in part led to the current status quo. How convenient that she starts to come to this realization just when Charlie is nearly back in her life.

On the subject of Charlie, it seems like she’s traveled about 1500 miles in a week. Perhaps the fireflies can do teleportation as well? Despite the travel implausibilities, I am intrigued to see what happens when her and Monroe arrive in Willoughby. I’m betting that one of them gets a far warmer welcome than the other.

What did you think? Tell us in the comments!

Memorable Quotes:

Last time I tried to fix something, I broke everything – Rachel

Watch REVOLUTION on Wednesday at 8/7c on NBC!