“Somebody’s got to do something, or else there gonna be nothing left.”

 
 
I’m finally getting to writing this review! Truthfully I was hoping to get to this earlier, but I was of such mixed opinion of this episode, and then the Supernatural season premiere happened and demanded I write a six page review of it…so here we are…
 
 
Revolution is doing incredibly well ratings wise and I couldn’t be happier about that!  This show–the storyline and the characters–have so much potential, I really can’t wait to see where the story goes.  Well, most of the story lines anyway.  I personally feel the writers need to be a little more choosy on how the 42 minutes is broken up…but more about that later.
 
 
“No Quarter” was the first episode not written by Kripke, and even though I saw the Miles Han Solo-esqu lines like we saw in the first two, and the pop culture references, the episode seemed to be weighed down a little with a type of Abrams style I don’t particularly care for.  The episode was writtten by Monica Owusu-Breen, who has written beaucoup episodes of Lost, Alias and Fringe.  The director was Sanford Boodstaver, who has directed episodes of Revenge, House, M.D., and Jericho…Maybe I just wanted a security blanket for a bit longer, but I felt it was a little soon to bring in non-Kripke centric writers and directors…Just my opinion.  Kripke is king of exposition (yes Bookdal, I stole that from you) and too much groundwork still needs to be done.
 
 
After obtaining the sniper rifle, Miles, Charlie and Nora are headed to the Rebel camp.  Nora feels the rebels need the rifle more than they do.  Miles is not happy about this. He gives a false name for himself and Charlie, which Nora allows. They get to the camp and find out that there was a recent altercation with the militia leaving many wounded or dead and one missing.  Miles is instantly worried that the missing rebel was captured by the militia and will be tortured for their location.  Nicholas, the Catholic Priest who appears to be the leader, doesn’t want to leave. We find out that Miles’ fears are justified and that the missing rebel is in fact in the hands of the militia and being interrogated by Jeremy, someone we find Miles knows quite well….
 
 
You may wonder why that synopsis did not include the Danny subplot.  I think at this point there is so much ground to cover, but the show has a real danger of spreading out too thin with too many side stories.  This side story is one that I think they can do without.  I understand that if we are creating the family dynamic, they want to show Danny and Charlie.  For me though, every time I see Danny, I lose some of my sympathy for either sibling.  The way Charlie talks about him and goes on about all she did for him (and it wasn’t in the past tense–it is like she was still doing it), I’d expect Danny to look like a chubby ten year old, not some twenty year old gladiator who looks like he works out a couple hours a day.  And I can almost see Miles saying as much when he finally meets Danny…
 
 
Sure, it’s Kripke, and you can say that Sam was 22 and Dean was 26 when they began their road trip and Dean was very protective…But well first of all, Dean is a guy.  Charlie is a girl–living in a time when militia take women from towns and highwaymen take women walking alone.  I don’t care if he is a couple years younger, one would think under those circumstances he would be the one working to protect her.  We don’t have all the information, and I’m sure that this is a very workable storyline, but I feel like in this there could be some pointers taken from Supernatural–why not just NOT show us Danny for a while?  He can come back later when Charlie saves him and she is forced to see the man he has become and rediscover her place accepting a more equal relationship?  Having Danny’s ability to take care of himself thrown in our face every week juxtaposed with Charlie’s whining about how she has to save Danny just…well, it isn’t working for me.  I think if they do it more like the Sam and Dean looking for Dad storyline–have Charlie find a piece of cloth here, something scrawled in a tree there (they’ve established she is a good tracker already) to show he’s trying to be found…

 
Just throwing that out there.  Because, really, that whole storyline seemed like a waste of time to me.  How long has Danny been on the road with Neville and Company that NOW that soldier decides to pick a fight with Danny?  A comment here and there, a buildup of a few episodes maybe it would have worked, but it came out of nowhere and then wouldn’t go away.  I liked seeing Danny finally stand up to him, but again, it doesn’t exactly make Charlie a believable and empathetic character, either…

 
So that was pretty much my meh with this episode.  It was like we would go from kick ass sequence to suck ass sequence to put it bluntly.  One thing I absolutely loved about the episode was the Miles and Bass flashbacks.  I love this idea that the militia was started with the absolute best of intentions. I am so excited about where this story is going.  Miles and Bass are like brothers.  What happened?  What was the final straw?  And since it seems like everything was motivated by Miles, how did Bass wind up in control?  And from what Jeremy said, it was always that way.  Did Miles feel Bass had a better head for leadership?  Or was it just a higher ranking officer bit?

 
The Jeremy (Mark Pellegrino) storyline was also amazing.  Actually, Mark did a couple things that totally reminded me of Han Solo.  At one point, he did that one sided grin that Harrison Ford does.  When Bass and Miles help him up after he is beaten up (flashback sequence), the clothes, the way they hold him up, for a second I did a double take–he looked so like Han Solo when he was dragged in to the room they were keeping Princess Leia in after he was tortured in The Empire Strikes Back.  And the scene when they were getting ready to leave the rebel base?  So reminded me of the Hoth evacuation… 
 
 
But back to Mark’s character Jeremy.  He has a history long history with Miles and Bass.  We know why Miles trusted Jeremy to keep his word.  Jeremy has been with them since the beginning of this venture.  I think we are supposed to see that Jeremy’s ruthlessness (sending his own soldiers on suicide missions to run out the rebels’ supply of bullets) is the product of Miles’ training.  I didn’t get the overwhelming feeling that Jeremy was doing much fighting back against those guys.  He must’ve seemed like an easy target to those ruffians.  It seems most likely that Miles turned him into the killer he is now.  
 
 
For some reason, Mark always makes me want to burst out in song.  In this instance it was Les Miserables: YOU AT THE BARRICADES LISTEN TO THIS!!!  NO ONE IS COMING TO HELP YOU TO FIGHT.  YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN. YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS. GIVE UP YOUR GUNS OR DIE…
 
OK, now back to the review…


 
I can’t talk about Revolution without bringing up what Aaron and Maggie found at Grace’s farmhouse.  Like Aaron said, how is anything more important?  Aaron was in geek heaven for the first time in years when he found out that Grace must have been building a computer. But what good is a computer if there is no power?  So there must be power, right?  The amulet turns on, activating Grace’s iPhone and Marvin Gaye briefly.  What powers those amulets?  Is there a power source somewhere? a charging mechanism?  Some Iron Man clean power wifi thing? If I was an engineer I might try to speculate on this…but I just didn’t go that route.  I’m more interested in finding out more about Miles and Bass and WTF happened that made everyone forget thousands of years of human evolution and revert to killing people to steal their food other than finding a book about what plants are safe to eat in the woods…

 
But speaking of character developments, something about Nora’s explanation seems off to me.  Especially the idea of saying that this Frank dude just “dumped” her.  That makes trivial what happened.  It seems to me that he found out he was dating Buffy and his masculinity couldn’t take it.  She’s better off without him.  Which she gets.  I like that she has this idea that if she has any other kids, she wants them to be raised in the United States. Nice sentiment, but I highly doubt the US is coming back.  How about instead saying you want any children you have to be able to live without fear that they will be killed in their sleep just for being alive, or sold into servitude?  All in all, I get the impression that was Miles’s and Bass’s initial idea creating the militia.
 
 
I can’t say enough how much potential this story has. I would expect the show to have some issues while they find their sea legs.  I’m very eager to find out more about how the militia came about and Miles’s and Bass’s storyline.  Let me know what you thought of the episode!
 
Screencaps from scifi.grand-caps tumblr.
 

Similar Posts

tvfortherestofus