“There are no good guys”
We are three episodes into the “course correct” and I have to admit, the new course as it appears to have been plotted out actually scares me. I definitely have some serious reservations about certain aspects of this show, although I will admit I really am enjoying it…just sometimes in an Aaron Spelling, “night time soap” kind of way…
Monday’s episode was written by Monica Breen and Matt Pitts and directed by John Showalter. Showalter has directed many shows. I’ve seen him a couple times in Supernatural credits. The other name that jumps out (besides Kripke’s) during the credits as being a Supernatural person is Phil Sgriccia…and I bring up Supernatural for a reason. I feel there are a few things that I thought that Kripke had learned, or wanted us to learn anyway, with Supernatural, that he seems to have forgotten here on Revolution…
After getting a “middle management” reprimand of which he is all too familiar from his pre-black out days, Tom Neville is sent on a mission…which goes horribly wrong due to a rebel attack. Neville is captured and interrogated for information regarding this mission which involved the transportation of what the Militia is using as currency–raw diamonds. After using deception worthy of what they claim the “bad guys” are capable of, they are able to locate the final destination for the diamonds…meanwhile, we finally learn what is was that shut off the power…
While this episode did not inspire my poetic voice, it did inspire another letter to Kripke. You should all know by now how much I love Kripke…but the reasoning we are given behind how the power went out feels off to me…especially considering the first scene of the pilot episode where everything came to a grinding halt, and it appeared that way more than just Edison’s “electricity” would be effected…so without further ado:
Dear Eric,
So you finally decided to drop the bomb on us (almost literally, with that stupid “nuke” scenario you want us to believe) and tell us how the lights went out. Wonderful. One minor critique… When you were talking about the only two programmed commands, you said one was “replicate”–and I’m on board with that one. And the other is “absorb electricity”. So why is it EVERYTHING stopped working? Why did batteries all of a sudden stop? Why did cars stop? Why wouldn’t solar power or gaslight work? I ask this because not everything runs on electricity. Let me explain.
Hi, I live in Western Massachusetts. 2011 was our most bizarre weather year. Just about ever. We got a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake all by the end of the summer…we were essentially waiting for a volcano, but Nature trumped our asses with a flash snow storm that dumped a couple feet of really wet heavy snow on us. In time for Halloween. All that heavy snow took down trees and took out power lines with reckless abandon…and left us without electricity for a week.
No electricity meant no hot showers. It meant no refrigeration, but we had TWO FEET OF SNOW so I put my food from my refrigerator and my freezer on the porch. It meant that my stupid ass apartment complex that has OIL heat still didn’t have heat because the switches were ELECTRIC. But you know what? I was expected to go to work every day because most places had GENERATORS. Believe me, there were freaking political committees with the Governor’s office making WMECO explain why virtually ALL OF WESTERN MASS WAS WITHOUT POWER FOR ESSENTIALLY A FULL WEEK.
My point? We lived and nobody got homicidal because there were options. The government wouldn’t just fall apart because there is no electricity. It would be hard, but we aren’t quite that horribly reliant on it…
Now, if you changed one word (i.e. you paid a little more attention to detail), and gave the command “absorb electrical impulses” then we would get somewhere because that is essentially all types of power. Potentially fire/steam power would survive, but nothing else would…and possibly not even us, because our bodies run on electrical impulses from/to the brain, blah blah blah…
In closing, I love you, but I call this theory B.S.
Forever your devoted servant (who would more than happily take a job as your assistant to pay that close level of attention to detail you so desperately need),
Nicole
So, enough on that point. Moving along. I understood why the Danny character was the one to be killed in “The Stand”. Sadly, it marked a potential completion for his story line. His death, although not particularly effecting the storyline as he wasn’t a central character of this group, impacted the group greatly. We hear in this episode how his death moved many to decide to join the rebels in their fight against the Monroe Militia’s rule. It provided that “revenge scenario” that Kripke seems to love to work with, even though they all arguably already had that with the death of Ben. There was one very striking thing about this though. When Supernatural started, it was very clearly Sam’s story, but here, even though the Sam character was the catalyst, it is very much a Dean story. That is to say that Charlie is more like the character Dean in Supernatural. For the older generation, Miles is the Dean character as I argue that Bass is the Sam character…
The reason why I bring this up is that with Danny dead, Kripke killed off the Sam character for that generation leaving the Dean character with…another Dean character. The more I think about this, the more I realize this is one of the big problems I have with Charlie being left with Miles.
Sam and Dean have been out there on the CW kicking monster, ghost and demon ass for eight seasons now. Even though I have not been impressed with this season, there is one thing that shines like it always has–how these two men who are so different keep each other human. They have each other’s back, even when one of them screws up (to quote Bass). Sure they’ve had their ups and downs, but it is their differences in the end that prove invaluable strengths. In the episode “Plague Dogs”, Maggie tries to explain to Miles how Charlie can save him. But my problem with this now is that she has become just like him…what can he learn from that? This problem proves twofold:
*** I don’t see how they can be each other’s humanizing influence when neither is acting very human. Rachel’s reaction to Charlie stopping her from killing Neville because they are going to torture him for information and then Charlie will kill him herself seemed completely off. The innocent Charlie we were supposed to fall in love with in the beginning, the one that could have saved Miles, would have said that stooping to Neville’s level with murder would be the wrong thing to do. Sacrificing our integrity for revenge wasn’t something Danny would want. But Rachel is proud of Charlie and how she sounds like Miles. I don’t get this. I can’t help but feel like if I was in Rachel’s shoes I would want to get my daughter as far away from Miles’ corrupting, backstabbing, betraying ass as I could…
*** I think that this multiple generational Dean scenario is just not a good idea. Charlie looks up to Miles like he’s the cute brother of her dad…the uncle she can never have but she has a crush on and that crush manifests itself as wanting to be just like him. It’s a little creepy…and Miles doesn’t seem to be acting any better in light of that. He’s killing, and torturing…and why is Jim helping him? Jim was fine with Miles torturing his brother for information on where he was?
This whole “Jason” thing doesn’t feel star crossed or even remotely cute to me. I can’t help but see a guy who ran off from his parents, knowing that his defection would surely impact them very badly at home since he knows why he lived after asking the wrong questions before, for a piece of tail. He then outright betrays his father and puts his mother in mortal danger.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Julia fan. Here she is talking about how much she has sacrificed for Tom and his job while she walks down the huge staircase of her MANSION. Yes, it sucks to have to tell people that your son is dead. But he isn’t, and your very poor acting in front of women who are no doubt as catty as you are and as willing to use techniques to save their own butts that you have previously, will most likely come back to bite you…
While I loved Giancarlo in this episode, and felt that for possibly the first time on this show he really got a meaty part he could sink his teeth into, I do fear what this means now for Bass. I don’t like this Neville on the run thing that seems to be happening. He killed a priest, I don’t see this as making his character redeemable, but I did see people on twitter justifying that murder because he had to get home to protect his wife… I don’t like that now we essentially have Monroe and Randall as the front of the “evil” Monroe Republic.
Speaking of Monroe, he wasn’t in much of this one, but we got some fun expressions to analyze and over analyze! First off, love the slight smirk when Neville stands up to Randall saying that he doesn’t work for Randall. I liked that Bass let the bickering go back and forth enough that Tom could give Randall the sass that I’m sure Bass has wanted to give him since he arrived but hasn’t because he needs the pendants and the amplifiers. I also did a little research on hand in front of mouth, to side of face, gestures and what they mean, because he did a lot of that when he was sitting down and clearly not comfortable about the lack of information on Tom’s meeting. Here is one of the websites I used! www.indiabix.com/body-language/hand-to-face-gestures/ It pretty much went with what we all probably know or suspect intuitively that Bass doesn’t trust Randall and knows he’s doing something skeezy if not down right deceitful. Bass also doesn’t seem comfortable with his own actions.
In the beginning couple episodes of the show, we saw Bass out in the tent, closer to the action, and even getting involved in torture. Now, Bass seems holed up in his office, away from the action, distancing himself. He wouldn’t leave to go to Boston like Neville suggested in “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”, so I really don’t think it is because he is afraid of anything. I’m thinking it goes more along the idea of him really wanting out and so distancing himself. With everything they have done (and by “they”, I mean Miles and Bass), it isn’t like he can walk away. He’s stuck there. David Lyons talked about Bass having a bit of a death wish, and I think that with Miles leaving, and now Neville apparently leaving, he doesn’t see much of a way out but though death. Hopefully Jeremy can talk some sense into him.
One more comment I have to make on Bass though. I see what you’re trying to do, show. I really do. You’re trying to tell me who I’m supposed to like, and not like. Bass is even planning to use nukes on these other republics? Really? You used the racist line comparative on Bass before and now this? I just don’t think nukes are a good idea here. Monroe wants all North America (well, not Texas. I think Bass would agree with Miles on that) from “sea to shining sea”…But he wants all the citizens of these other areas glowing? That doesn’t quite make sense. I feel like they’re just throwing in nukes to try to make Monroe look “worse” or “more bad” than Miles. Miles is torturing people left and right, so clearly Monroe has to one up him…At least Miles admitted that there are no good guys…
But that is the basis of the trouble I see going on here, and I’m sure it is intentional, although I feel a bit overdone…and that is the idea that this modern post apocalyptic future is very grey. The problem is, like I mentioned earlier with Charlie, I feel like the world has become so grey that the pull that the NBC and Revolution marketing teams seem to be doing on the rebels’ cause seems entirely synthetic. I can’t see why I should root for them. Everyone is so “not good” that their characters almost seem more like caricatures, and more importantly, not very sympathetic. Who am I supposed to root for in this world? Miles seems hell bent to blame his best friend, although giving lip service to saying it is his (Miles’) own fault. Saying it isn’t the same as taking responsibility for it. I really haven’t seen this responsibility. He isn’t really fighting for the rebels. He doesn’t really believe their quest…most of the time it just sounds like he wants to hurt Monroe. And I haven’t even mentioned the moments between Rachel and Miles yet. While it was very hot, I was still a bit weirded out, especially with the potential implications of their conversation…because it really sounded like Miles may be Charlie’s father…I’m hoping they create some kind of back story that doesn’t look like Rachel was cheating on her husband with his brother and had a baby with said brother…I’m no one to throw stones, but it just seems like yet another thing that just doesn’t really help with the whole “heroes” concept…
A lot of horrible things have happened to Charlie, but she isn’t rising above them, she is sinking to everyone else’s level. Jason hasn’t found a cause, he’s found a female interest. I feel like the only person who does things because they have to be done and not out of vengeance or some other personal motivation is Aaron. In that whole group, he is he only one of them who I can actually see as a hero.
This is all in my opinion of course. The camera work was amazing–I particularly loved the part showing Tom out of it when the bomb exploded. Giancarlo Esposito was amazing in the episode, and I truly enjoy every minute I get of David Lyons and Colm Feore on the show! The show really gets me to think–figure out what it is about it I like, what it is about it that I dislike, how my feelings on humanity differ, etc…and really, isn’t that something every artist should want? To create a story that gets people talking? Thinking?
Let me know what you thought about the episodes and what insights you had!
Screencaps from grande caps tumblr.
