This week had quite a bit of REVO goodness. Really it was about time, since we hadn’t had a new full episode since November! On the day “The Stand” was to air, two hours before as a matter of fact, I found out that there was a Part 5 of the web series while I was going through tags on tumblr. Naturally, I had to watch it right away, download it, cap it and review it…and then there was a talk at Hampshire College on writing for television given by David Rambo to go to on Wednesday. I will get something up about that this weekend. Between all this, and work and trying to get my car fixed…again…I have been one busy chiquita. I also had to go hunting for REVO caps, because the site I usually use (because I download the episode on iTunes and I can’t seem to figure out how to cap it) didn’t have the episode ready. I wound up getting the few screencaps I used from Midnight_Road LJ.
Written by showrunner Eric Kripke along wtih Anne Cofell Saunders, and directed by Steve Boyum, “The Stand” was quite a busy and exciting hour of television. Picking up right where we left off four months ago, Miles has just had quite the confrontation with Monroe, ending with Miles jumping out the window. As Miles and Company makes a get away with Danny and Rachel, Monroe has powered up a helicopter using the newly finished amplifier to go after them. Just in time, Miles, Rachel, Charlie, Danny, Nora and Aaron hide in the walk-in freezer of the Smokey Oak Diner. They then come up with a plan to get out of Philadelphia before the militia goes into the diner and doesn’t find their charred remains….
I’ve been thinking about this review since I watched the episode, but found myself particularly overwhelmed while I was saving screencaps. A lot happened in the approximately 42 minutes of running time. So many points to hit. I really did have a great deal of love for the episode. I also had a lot of hate for one line in particular that I will go over later,…but I also remembered that it was pretty much becoming my “thing”, as far as Revolution reviews go, to compose a sonnet about some aspect of the episode. The first couple I wrote were about Miles, then I wrote two about my new and now permanent love for Bass…I thought this time I would do a sonnet summary of the episode for a change…so this week’s REVO sonnet:
My Sonnet on “The Stand”
And Monday night brought REVO back in turn,
We knew that Miles ripped out Bass’s heart,
And now Bass wants the rebels all to burn,
With power now, he knows just where to start.
So Neville brings his son to start the scourge,
But Jason has found pathos for their plight,
To warn them of the danger is his urge,
And save his Charlie ‘fore the choppers’ flight.
We know that Randall’s scheming things to come,
And Rachel knows much more than she has said,
But her attempts to fix what she has done,
More consequences only has it lead.
And even though Monroe seems now unseamed,
Still confident that I want him redeemed.
Yeah, so there’s a brief synopsis in Blank Verse. Now on to a more thorough ramble about what I thought of the episode…
We saw some very interesting family dynamics was a theme throughout the episode. We saw Rachel dealing with her children.. Admittedly, I didn’t get an overly motherly vibe from her during this episode. The only real place where she seemed like she was stepping into “mom” shoes was when she said she was proud of them. It felt a little out of place to me considering what Danny and Charlie had been through. I half expected one of them to say “jeez, thanks for the vote of confidence.” Do they really need her approval after all this time? Especially after how cagey she was being about the power? I guess that does happen though. For example, I see it in my own life. You’re living your life, doing your thing, but as soon as mom dad shows up, all of a sudden iyou’re twelve again…But yet not so much here. Or at least not in certain aspects. I think going forward we will see more of it with Charlie and Rachel. Especially after losing Danny and Rachel’s obvious guilt over not being the “protective mom” in the scenario. We will probably catch a bit of Rachel being over protective of Charlie and Charlie not liking it much. I can see the conversations: “I walked a thousand miles to save my brother. What have YOU done lately? Oh yeah, you gave a highly militaristic commando a veritable treasure trove full of weapons of mass destruction that NO ONE ELSE HAS any more.” Well, Charlie probably won’t use that language seeing that school didn’t seem to be a very big deal in their village, and she didn’t seem particularly erudite prior to the black out…She was only five, but you can tell by then!
It will probably be another story of too little, too late as far as “mom” Rachel mode, but I’m sure Danny’s death will serve as a wakeup call. It seems to have begun right at the end. I do have to admit I found it weird that Charlie and Rachel, who both claim a mothering role over Danny, both ran to Miles instead of looking to see what Danny was doing. I also found the parallels between the foxhole Danny and Charlie were in and the foxhole Miles and Bass were in very interesting. Charlie even says “I’m out”, a line that mirrored Bass’s line in “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” during the flashback of the Trenton Campaign ten years prior. In that flashback, Miles was hurt and Bass refused to leave his side. “If you’re dying, I’m dying with you.” But Charlie, for all her protecting of her brother, left him exposed. Not that I’m trying to blame Charlie and Rachel for what happened. Danny had to grow up sometime, albeit a little fast, but his storyline was ending and he needed a good conclusion…My point was more about the fact that Charlie and Rachel both treat Danny like a child, but they left him open, which seems an interesting contradiction, and definitely one that will play into their guilt in the future over what happened.
So far, Charlie seems to have Miles’ gift for projecting her own feelings of inadequacy and self loathing on others. Right now Charlie seems hell bent to blame Monroe for what happened to Danny…it seems like the one goal she feels can unify her and her mother–an equal desire to go after Monroe and kill him. One interesting chink in this scenario showed up pretty brightly though. When they reach the first rebel base in West Chester, Charlie is horrified with the bloodbath. She is confounded at the brutality of it. She seems to be blaming all of this horror on Monroe, but Miles simply says “This is what war looked like before the blackout.” Interesting that Miles is essentially tempering, making excuses for this slaughter. He blames Bass for a lot of things that he (as in Miles) is responsible for, but not this…
The other big family dynamic we saw involved the destruction of the Neville family with Jason going against his father and the militia for Charlie. In doing this, he is essentially going against his nuclear family, as well as his father’s extended family that he has sworn into. What was interesting was seeing how excited Neville was about finding Charlie, and how sure he was that his son would do whatever he ordered. Really Tom? Even after he threw her off the train to keep you from getting her before? I have to admit I felt for Jason a bit when Charlie accepted the intel but not him. I’m sure he will keep trying…but he really has nowhere else to go. I also have to admit, albeit begrudgingly , that I do like JD Pardo’s Jason Neville. I haven’t been a big advocate of this storyline since it is so old hat, but I am enjoying seeing the transition in Jason…The transition in Tom, however…
Well, that’s just getting a little alarming. I think we are seeing a lot going on here with him. Which really is a testament to Giancarlo Esposito’s acting. We see his fierce rationalization of why the rebels deserve to lose their families…It makes me wonder about Monroe, and how much of what Tom is doing does he really know about. Tom gives a report, of course. Does he include that he murdered unarmed women and children, if he did? Is Tom being a little literal with and “any means necessary” order? He probably does, or at the very least Monroe probably woudn’t want to know everything that has to be done so that he can continue to order it and not feel like a monster. The truly scary thing for me though was that Tom was practically giddy when he found out Charlie was at the base they were checking out. He was so excited he would get to order the air strike and take her and the rest of them out. This seemed wrong somehow. Sure they have been a thorn in the side of the militia…and sure Monroe wanted them gone, but to enjoy the prospect of killing the group that immensely…Monroe didn’t appear to be that excited about the prospect of killing people. It seems more something he feels he has to do, something that is necessary to the final goal. He doesn’t seem to enjoy it. Strausser enjoyed torturing. Neville seems to enjoy these raids. People have said they see the possibility for redemption in Neville…But he is showing a level of liking his job that we haven’t seen with Monroe. That makes me question Tom’s redemption worthiness…
A couple other points about Neville. He lied about what happened to Jason when Monroe asked what was wrong. This was an interesting play considering that Neville doesn’t seem like a very good liar…with the webisodes we have had a few opportunities to see more Monroe and Neville interactions…Neville is always very forward with Monroe. Here, he was not, nor did he particularly sound it. I’d bet you dollars to doughnuts that Monroe was NOT convinced. Between this and the soon to be Randall influence (which I’d almost put money on will try to drive a wedge between Monroe and any of his advisors so he can control Monroe) I’ll bet this is the beginning of Neville’s being cast out of the “inner circle”. I don’t know if I can say that Neville’s decision to tell Monroe that Jason was dead was wholly protecting Jason, either. We’ve seen what Monroe has done to officers who had rebel children. We also know that Neville gave Monroe his word that he would keep Jason in line. If he admits that Jason ran off with the rebels, he will be admitting that he broke his word to Monroe. Also not advisable considering Neville’s meeting with Monroe after the air strike on the diner. When Neville first went in to talk to Bass about not finding any remains at the Smokey Oak Diner (does that name make anyone else giggle snort?), he looked very oddly at Monroe when Monroe said that Miles no longer mattered. Monroe seemed almost in a trance at first when he first spoke. Monroe then snapped out of it to give Neville the order to take out all the rebel bases. For a fleeting moment, Neville seemed to question if Monroe had finally become unhinged…
I really loved that moment. I prefer lucid Bass moments, but I thought that scene was very telling. Bass is holding onto his sanity by a fine piece of thread. In this scene we really see how close he is to losing a hold on it entirely. Neville most certainly picked up on that. All this equals “Danger Will Robinson” for Bass in my book. Bass definitely needs to be careful or Neville will start eyeing the seat for takeover…
And on to the line that enraged me. The one said by the rebel about how they won’t let Monroe do to them what the Russians, Germans and Al Quaida couldn’t? Absolute flash of red. Every time I heard it. I watched this episode four times in preparation of writing this. Each of those four times I had the same flash of red. First of all, Sebastian Monroe is an American. Before the blackout, he was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps. David Lyons is an Aussie, but Bass is not…Although that would be an interesting mash up–if we brought David’s character of ET from Sea Patrol, who died at the beginning of Season 3 when David got a full time position on ER, so we’d have to bring him in as an undead version of ET leading the hot, buff, zombie seamen of Her Majesty’s Australian Navy fighting the rebels…But I digress…
Bass is American, so why would you even compare what the Monroe Militia is doing with a hostile foreign take over as they are Americans. This isn’t being discussed like a civil war, either. This is being tooted as a “revolution”, so if anything, Monroe should be compared to the British…the second thing that upset me was that in the World Wars, the Cold War and the Terrorist “Wars”, we were fighting political parties, not races. So even if one was to bring in the foreign element (which again, we shouldn’t), they should be bringing in the political parties, not being racist and talking about the whole culture…so it should have at the very least said “won’t let Monroe do to us what the Soviets, Nazis and Al Quaida couldn’t”. This mixing of metaphors makes the rebels sound ignorant and racist. Kripke, I love you, but if you want me to have any feelings for this group of rebels aside from really wanting Randall to fix Bass another amplifier so he can take out the rest of them and rid the world of their ignorance forever, please be more careful in the future. Your attempts to raise the oppressed masses against tyranny came across as blatant propaganda.
And on to Danny…I saw that coming miles away. It wasn’t just about the fact that one of the directors tweeted a month ago a picture with Daniela and Tracy that told me that Nora would survive long before David’s little slip at Paleyfest did. It wasn’t even about the answer that Aaron would later on in the season come face to face with his wife meaning there weren’t any other main characters expendable and NBC promised us a main character would die in the first episode back from hiatus. I knew Danny was going to die because there was no story left for him. I don’t think that was the original intent. I think originally the main characters were going to become Charlie and Danny, a younger version of Sam and Dean and they could use as a guide as what not to let happen the horrible mess that was the Bass and Miles storyline…But since the Bass and Miles storyline has become so vital to the show, THEY have become the Sam and Dean of Revolution, meaning that there was no longer any room for the Charlie and Danny storyline. Without it, there were just too many Mathesons…
Don’t get me wrong, Graham Rogers is adorable as all getout, but I did think that the part of Danny was miscast. He is too tall, too hot Norse God like, for me to believe that he is frail and sickly and needs a skinny gal like Charlie to take care of him. It just came off as wrong, making Charlie not look sympathetic, and in this particular episode, just bossy. I wanted Danny to look at Charlie and tell her that SHE should be inside taking care of the wounded…
I’m not sure how I feel about this Miles and Rachel thing. I’m the last one to judge, but dude, were you fooling around with your brother’s wife? Although, he betrayed his best friend, so sleeping with his sister-in-law I suppose isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. And they did say that Miles was going to be “dark”. At least they have great on screen chemistry…But I thought Elizabeth Mitchell had great on screen chemistry with David Lyons, too. I’m not a fan of the “two brothers, one woman” scenario because it’s so overdone, but because all of the actors are so good I’d be on board with that here…I just haven’t been able to warm up to Nora yet. The Nora/Miles kiss had far less chemistry than the Miles/Rachel talk in my opinion…
But back to what Miles knows about Rachel’s stay with Bass…With Danny dead, unless Rachel comes clean, Miles is probably going to believe that Bass had Rachel stuck in a dungeon for the four years, taking her out a couple times a year to beat her like the Count of Monte Cristo, or to rape her. I don’t exactly see Rachel telling Miles about her posh living arrangements. I mean yes, it was still a prison. And yes, Bass did sic Strausser on her that time for molar extraction (JJ really has something about that molar extraction torture…so Kripke has abandonment issues and Abrams has dentist issues). But this does make me wonder why did Rachel lie to everyone about what she did?
Why did she want everyone, including her friends, to believe that she was just a mild mannered housewife? I have to side with Aaron on the rage over that one…
How about Randall and Grace? What is Grace fixing? John mentioned something about Randall getting into “the tower”…is that what Grace is fixing? And what was that thing that Rachel took out of Danny? Some power supply for some type of gadget keeping Danny alive? A tracking device? Alien implant? Bueller? Revolution has so many interesting facets that the hour really flies by and before you know it you have to wait a week (or maybe four months) for a new episode to find out what is next! It seems that things will be moving faster going forward, which, when you think about it, makes sense, since we have seen helicopters, and Randall drove to see Monroe in the Cutlass Sierra…
So many possibilities! One thing is for sure for this reviewer though…the hiatus made me very pro Monroe, so TPTB may need to rethink things if they are trying to create maniacal evil. Frankly I’m not seeing it. David Lyons gives a much deeper and more nuanced performance for the studio to try to keep painting him as some mustache twirling, hand wringing no goodnick…
I am sure I could come up with a lot more to say, but this review is already getting really long. Like Tolstoy long…But sound off on what you thought of the episode and where you think the various storylines are going.
Nicole, as always, an excellent review. A few things I’d like to highlight:
[quote]I think we are seeing a lot going on here with him. Which really is a testament to Giancarlo Esposito’s acting. We see his fierce rationalization of why the rebels deserve to lose their families…It makes me wonder about Monroe, and how much of what Tom is doing does he really know about.[/quote]
First off, I think the strongest actors on this show are Esposito, Lyons, Burke, and Mitchell (I’d include Orth but his screentime has been limited and the Aaron character is still problematic to me). The Neville storyline seems like a great Brutus/Caesar set up – very old school political intrigue and betrayal. I think Monroe knows but doesn’t want to know what is happening. The show made a pivotal error in the pilot re: Monroe, in my opinion. By showing Monroe in the tents on the battlefield, the show counteracted the now seemingly insulated Philadelphia Monroe. I can buy Monroe as becoming more and more insulated and therefore less and less aware (knowingly or not) of what his lieutenants, captains, etc. are doing to “win” the war against the rebels.
As for Jason, I have to say that I’m really not interested in the Jason/Charlie storyline, not so far. I think it’s part portrayal, part storytelling. I love Kripke, as you know, but the more he distributes emotion over a range of characters, the less effective he is as a storyteller. His cache is in emotional relationships and using larger “metaphors” like war, family, conspiracy as a way to examine a character’s psychology. He has to trim the fat, and for me, the obesity of the story is the younger cast.
[quote]Kripke, I love you, but if you want me to have any feelings for this group of rebels aside from really wanting Randall to fix Bass another amplifier so he can take out the rest of them and rid the world of their ignorance forever, please be more careful in the future. Your attempts to raise the oppressed masses against tyranny came across as blatant propaganda.[/quote]
I concur with your admonishment of Kripke. First, he knows his audience and we are not dumb or stupid – in fact I’d say the man has pretty damn intelligent fans/followers, so this part of the storyline rubs me the wrong way. It’s so superficial and not well executed as a believable story that I want to just shake my head. It was also the problem I had with the books he is semi-lifting from, The Hunger Games. Any reader with a wit of sense should have a problem with these types of irresponsible political commentaries.
Again, great review…onto next week 😀
Thanks Linda!
Great point about the insulation! we see Monroe in the trenches, right at the battle fields in the tent in the first couple eppies I think, where he gets the Ben news and then where he kills the rebel who is being tortured. later we see a change. a more insulated Monroe, who is in his office in Philadelphia, separating himself from the horrors of war. I feel like this probably has to do with Kripke actually having a change of intent with Monroe. I think he loves David like we do and has seen what great storytelling he can do with David, instead of just making Monroe a flat, evil character. Monroe has become complex, his motivations and actions understandable, therefore making Monroe a potentially redeemable character…which makes me a happy girl… thanks Linda! 😀
Thanks for the excellent review Nicole. So nice to finally have “Revolution” back. I can’t stand when networks put their shows on long hiatuses. ‘Kay, rant over.
I hadn’t heard anything about a major character dying, so I was totally shocked when Danny bit the dust. 😮 But I guess, for him, it was a good way to go. He died a hero and saved a whole bunch of people, and that second helicopter falling from the sky was pretty awesome.
I love this line Linda: [quote]He has to trim the fat, and for me, the obesity of the story is the younger cast.[/quote] That made me laugh out loud, and I work in a library. Thank God, there were no patrons near me at the time. 😳 But I definitely agree with you. I haven’t warmed to Charlie yet, and as Nicole pointed out, the young actor playing Danny is a little too Viking-like, he could have ripped anyone’s head off.
This whole thing with Captain Neville telling Bass that his son was dead will either backfire on him or lead him to greater heights in the militia. I don’t for a minute believe that Bass thinks that Neville’s son is really dead, but he’s choosing to ignore that for the moment.
Can’t wait for the next episodes, I think it’s going to be pretty epic.