Revolution Ramble On…Episode 2.19: “$#!& Happens”

Last week’s episode of Revolution was a truly phenomenal episode. Everyone’s acting was spot on. I loved how the amount of characters was winnowed down as well—we had just what we needed to move the story. The pace was very good, if not a little rushed—especially with the storyline regarding Charlie and Neville.  I feel that particular confrontation was forced to its conclusion to the sake of moving along the story—most likely to help bring this leg of the story to a close by the end of the season…All in all, it was a very strong episode, answering as well as asking many questions.  I was also very impressed with the usage of canon.  We see a lot of symmetry with this episode and previous episodes, particularly “Kashmir” and “Children of Men” from Season One…but more on that later…



The gang was successful in Austin—well, sort of…President Carver was saved, but he apparently thinks our heroes were the ones behind the attempt.  The Patriots had activated Jason, and now Charlie is dealing with the pain that she had to kill someone she cared a great deal for.  On their way out, a group of Rangers find them and Miles takes the wagon to turn the Rangers around, allowing the rest to escape…Miles has hopes that he will be able to talk the Rangers down without an altercation, but unfortunately it just wasn’t his day…Turns out that it wasn’t Neville’s day either…

Picking up where we left off, we saw more of Charlie’s devastation about killing Jason.  Miles gives her the pep talk about how she can’t beat herself up about it.  They need to do whatever they have to to win.  Interesting that this is exactly the pep talk Bass has been giving him for quite a few weeks now.  Bass takes this pep talk as a sign that Miles finally has his head in the game.  He also points out that Neville is going to have it in for Charlie now and agrees with Miles in that they need to get rid of him.  When Miles takes the wagon to try to steer away the Rangers, everyone else is able to safely get back to the others.  Miles is not so lucky.  He takes out all the Rangers, but one of them gives him a slash in the gut.

The scenes with Miles fighting himself were great.  We see him battle his own cynicism, move from that into his own self doubt, then into self loathing where we see that Miles has finally come to the end of his rope.  Billy Burke’s acting was wonderful in this.  Being alone in a room you seriously only have what you take with you—no one’s acting can help bring up the scene—you are totally working on your own. Billy did a great job with it. And showing how bad ass Miles was in the process—which was great…

We saw Miles go into the eventual stage of acceptance of the situation.  Miles has that moment where he chooses to die, but then he sees the guitar pick and he remembers seeing Rachel—that first glance…it makes him change his mind about dying.  This scene was very interesting for a couple of different reasons: First of all, it was interesting in that it again makes us wonder more about Rachel and Miles and when exactly they met.  Was Rachel already with Ben?  Was this a chance meeting and then he finds out she is dating his brother?  Was she there with Ben and Ben brought her to see Miles play?  Or did she meet Miles first and started seeing Ben later?  Part of me wonders if they are retconning to make this relationship of their seem a little less sketchy.  I am inclined to believe that Miles probably had that initial glimpse of her not knowing she was with his brother, and that Rachel was there with Ben…but I guess we will have to wait to see what the situation was.  What we do learn is more about how Miles hates himself because of this—that he sought to destroy this part of him—this memory of how he has essentially stolen his brother’s life…Apparently he got a full on in the face version of this scenario when the nanites decided to use him as a test subject.  I was glad that we saw some of this finally—it is something that has felt weird all season…the unwillingness to talk about Ben, the fact that Miles was with his brother’s family.  Miles needs to come to terms with his feelings about this in order to be able to move on—unless he wants to continually hurt himself…which seems to be what he has been doing for a very long time.  It is pretty clear that Miles feels that he needs to be punished for the decisions he has made in life.  He needs to learn to move on…

It makes sense that he would tell Charlie that she can’t beat herself up over Jason…which leads to reason number two why the scene with Miles and going through the stages of acceptance of a situation and then changing his mind was very interesting.  This happens with Charlie in the episode as well.  Charlie tells Connor about what happened in her mind when she asked Neville to kill her. She had a moment when  it was too late, but she realized she didn’t want to die.  She got a second chance.  She isn’t sure if she deserves it, but it is in fact there.  With Miles, he found his own second chance…This all reminds me of something Bass said in “Children of Men” last season when he and Rachel were in the Tower and Bass was talking about how anyone who tries to kill themselves and fails is always happy they failed.  They realize they didn’t really want to die.  Although Rachel doesn’t talk about it, that does seem to be  what happened with Rachel’s failed attempt as well. We know Bass also had his own moment when he almost ended his life—but he was saved by Miles. Really, I think that the important thing is what the person learned and who they become afterward.  We don’t know much about what Bass’s brush with death changed or didn’t change about his life.  Rachel seemed more effected by the loss of Danny…but Charlie really seems to have learned what is important—or anyway she was able to voice it…we have to wait to see how this actually changes Charlie, if it does…

Connor is just the hottest thing ever.  He is absolutely adorable and I am hoping that we see him used more going forward.  Right now, they are using him to help explore Monroe and Charlie.  He was only a sounding board for Charlie in this episode, for Bass there was an interesting exchange.  Connor moves for those he finds important—he will bust the world for them, but he doesn’t just risk his neck for anyone—he has that real Monroe (Han Solo) vibe that way. It reminds me of Han and Luke in the Stormtrooper uniforms—Han didn’t want to stick his neck out for the Princess, until he found out there was something in it for him.  We see that kind of thing with Connor.  He doesn’t want to go after Miles…I also wonder a little bit about his comment.  Connor seemed almost jealous of Miles.  As much as it seemed that Connor left with them because Bass promised him the Monroe Republic, he really seems to want his father’s approval.  We don’t know much about what life was like for him with Emma—if there was a father figure there for him.  We don’t even know when he was taken away and sent to Mexico.  We know he latched on to Nunez as a father of sorts.  Even though he said that he wanted to be treated as an adult, in retrospect that seems like a total child reaction to their parent…but even as we don’t want our parents to treat us like children any more, we still want their approval.  I felt that here Connor’s comment about Bass going to find “his boyfriend” showed Connor’s insecurity over where he is in the hierarchy of Bass’s affection.  Does Miles mean more to Bass than Connor does?

Another interesting exchange for Bass was the one he had with Rachel.  After Bass, Charlie and Rachel split up, Bass runs into a dead end (one that we never find out what it is) and comes back to where Rachel is.  Incidentally, Bass does find where Miles has gone, it is just that he fell through the burned out floor, then a wall falls down and closes off the hole so they don’t know he is down there. Besides bickering at each other, we see more of the deep seeded sexual frustration with these two. And apparently there was something that happened in Philadelphia.  Now we don’t know the nature of the situation, but I’m not particularly happy about the insinuation that he may have raped her.  Bass has always seemed interested in women, generally younger women, but he has never seemed violent toward women…well, wait, there was that time with Nora…  Rachel implied that as his prisoner, she didn’t feel she had a choice…which would make it rape.  I think we need to know more about this situation…

Aside from that, there was a lot of mouth gazing on Rachel’s part, which really showed some of the tension before that crazy kiss, which was more of an aggressive thing than an actual kiss…But strange how their relationship could again change once they saw Miles’s coat and the blood. I watched this scene a few times because I found myself wondering who was really consoling who.  At first, I saw Bass trying to console Rachel, but @bookdal saw something different in this, and after watching a few more times, I do think that I see more ambiguity than just Bass trying to give Rachel a pep talk. He does seem to be giving himself the pep talk more, and Rachel’s expression is very interesting here—where she seems to almost find a little bit more respect for Bass in his devotion to Miles.  Maybe she finds a sense that as much as she hates Bass now, as much as she thinks he is a bad influence on Miles, that maybe he really does care about Miles.  Maybe he really does need Miles, and for more reasons than just so he won’t be alone.

Again, so much in this episode was not spoken but seen in facial expressions.  Giancarlo Esposito and Tracy Spiridakos were wonderful in their scenes displaying the pain and loss of Jason…

In interesting performances, I also feel I need to comment on Maureen Sebastian’s scary almost Drusilla way of playing Possessed!Priscilla.  The nanites now appear to be almost like children pulling the legs off bugs to “experiment” on what will happen.  In this way, it reminds me of that childish diabolical crazy of Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Possessed!Priscilla keeps Aaron hopping—putting him in his place about what his role really is.  We see that little bit that is Kripke, making fun of Starship, having Priscilla read Neil Gaiman…I believe it was “American Gods” although I couldn’t see the name on the cover….Most likely it was “American Gods” as it was one of his inspirations for Supernatural.

I’m interested to see what is going to happen next with Texas since Miles killing all those Rangers is only going to strengthen Carver’s belief that they were the ones behind the attack.  I am interested to see how Charlie and Miles change going forward since their “epiphanies”.  I wonder if anything more will come of Rachel and Bass’s conversation and where Bass and Connor’s relationship is heading.  I am not pleased that Connor is on the chopping block next episode!  We know that Bass would lay down his life to save Connor.  I really hope that it doesn’t come to that, and that Bass doesn’t get yet another angsty thing happen to start him all dark side again.

Let me know what you thought of the episode!  Screencap from grandecaps.tumblr.com.