Last night’s episode of Revolution was pretty action packed, and as far as I could tell, there were two major themes: 1) Kids are a liability. They will screw you up every damn time, and if left to their own devices will do a half-assed reenactment of the Star Trek episode “Miri.” 2) Power corrupts, including the power to control actual, you know, power. And everybody is complicit. Etc. etc.
The “A” plot and “B” plot last night were both about saving the children — in the “A” plot, Miles, Charlie, Norah and Google come across a kid in a Militia wagon, whom they leave to his fate. Until they meet his brother and a bunch of other scrappy kids, who accuse them of being “Grups” and say things like “Grups don’t help.”
Then Miles decides that since these kids are orphans thanks to him, it’s his responsibility to help get the leader’s brother back — a task that is complicated by the fact that the brother is captive on board a Militia training ship, and the other kids keep refusing to stay put or do what they’re told. Those darn kids! Charlie gets herself caught on purpose and branded as a Militia soldier, and then Miles mounts a rescue, which only succeeds because Aaron accidentally turns on the lighthouse using his magic pendant. And now everybody knows about the pendants.
In the “B” plot, Rachel and Danny are still reunited and Danny is still as dumb as a pile of rocks, wanting to discuss their escape plan loudly at the breakfast table. Thanks to Rachel’s collaboration, “Bass” has taken prisoner another scientist from the project that turned the lights out, and Bass enlists Rachel’s help to find out where the pendant is. Rachel tries to trick the other scientist, but when that fails, they take the other scientist’s daughter prisoner too.
And in flashbacks, we see that the project that turned the lights out was originally designed as a clean, self-sustaining energy project — but it did the opposite. (How exactly does that happen? Just run with it, for now.) Rachel had qualms about turning this energy-dampening field over to the Department of Defense, for fear they might turn it into a weapon. (I love when she thinks her husband hasn’t considered the possibility that the DoD might turn something into a weapon.) But after Rachel has a complication in her pregnancy, she accepts a bribe from the DoD snake, Randall — he’ll get Rachel into an experimental fetal health program, in exchange for her help weaponizing the energy dampening field. So even before he was born, Danny was a liability.
And then, to almost nobody’s surprise, we learn at the end of the episode that the DoD snake is also the guy holding Rachel’s ex-colleague, Grace, prisoner.
All in all, actually one of the more entertaining episodes of the show — and it’s good that they’ve climbed off the fence as to how much of a collaborator Rachel is going to be. The scenes where she’s trying to coax or trick her former colleague into helping Bass take over the world are actually quite cringe-inducing. I can’t wait to see her try and explain that one to Danny, given that A) he’s insufferably self-righteous and B) he needs everything explained to him five times, including why rain comes out of the sky, and what’s that ball of orangey glowy stuff overhead.
Also, I did like the brief glimpse inside Militia indoctrination, and how they use a mixture of propaganda and terror tactics to break people and turn them into stormtroopers. The notion that Miles created this incredibly dehumanizing system — based on his own Army training, but more evil, what with the killing anybody who wants to go home — is pretty interesting. Of course, all of this would be better if they brought back Mark Pellegrino to act it out. How expensive is Pellegrino, anyway? Why can’t they have him in every episode, again? They could fire all the other actors besides Burke, Esposito and Pellegrino, if salaries are an issue.
And of course, Miles is probably right — they should destroy Google’s pendant, since otherwise it will surely fall into the hands of Bass. Probably within a few episodes, in fact.
