Revolution Ramble On…Episode 1.15 – “Home”

You may or may have not gleaned that I am from Western Massachusetts. Here, as far as sports are concerned, it’s the Bruins, the Pats, the Celtics and the Red Sox…Unless you are a Yankees fan, but we don’t generally talk about them. After thinking long and hard over the issue, I have decided that I am going to go against local custom and stop rooting for the Sox. I have instead decided to become a Cubs fan. It seems the only reasonable thing to do, since I hear Cubs fans are hearty and used to rejection, managing to maintain what appears to be an endless supply of hope that their loyalty will eventually be rewarded. I have this kind of love for Sebastian Monroe.

Time and time again I write about my love for Bass, and am confronted with people making comments like “Why? He is evil.” But really? Is he evil? To me I feel like Kripke and the gang have thrown certain instances at us (i.e. the nuke to Georgia, holding his hometown hostage, shooting the messanger) that are supposed to make us feel that he is evil. They are supposed to make us feel that he is irredeemable. We are supposed to feel that guano crazy Bass is just some nutbag, a few fries short of a happy meal, not dealing with a full sack Nero who in the final act will strum that fiddle while his proclaimed capital of Philly burns to the ground, and then Miles will slit his throat like he is wont to do with everyone he meets who reminds him of his Monroe Militia past…And wait, why is Jim helping him again? Didn’t Miles torture his brother to find him? Maybe the rebels don’t think much of torture–after all, they had no trouble torturing the Militia soldier who came into the camp with the message from Monroe…but I digress…

I actually started writing one of my “Letters to Kripke” like I usually do when I am very hurt/scared/wondering WTAF just happened, and believe me, in this episode, I had a great many of those, which I will go into in more detail…but my creative streak decided to show it’s gloriously coiffed blonde head in a different way–I suppose not entirely unlike the time I wrote that limerick to Mark Pellegrino in the review I wrote for an episode of Supernatural that time…And since Mark was in the episode, maybe Mark brings out the dazzling snark of my personality…So without further ado, I wrote a song about this week’s episode of Revolution, and the remainder of the season in general…to the theme music of Gilligan’s Island…

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale

a tale of a fateful trip

that started in their quaint home town

and ended with the slip

A hot dictator named Monroe

went to kill his friend

but found out he’s a baby daddy,

it sent him round the bend

it sent him round the bend.

The plan started to unravel

though Miles took the bait

Because the stupid Georgia guy

was just too full of hate

was just too full of hate…

And so we have now set our scene of that brave hot pair,

Bass Monroe,

and Miles, too,

that billionaire google guy, and estranged wife,

that star from LOST,

the rebel chick and Charlotte, too

Here in Monroe’s Lair…

So this is the tale of the survivors,

Fifteen years after power went out

They’ll have to learn to get along

Cuz it sucks to watch them pout

Monroe and his ex best friend

will need to work this out

But sadly Miles blames Monroe

for all, there is no doubt.

No cellies, cars or many lights

the pendants kind of suck

They live more Spartan than Gilligan

and with even less luck.

So join us every week in May

Krip is sure to make you tear

for bromance long dead now it seems

at least Rev’s got another year…

It seems that Miles has in fact taken the Georgia Federation President up on the offer of soldiers to attack Monroe. Miles and the gang have won and taken back a few forts on the southern border. One thing about Monroe, he does not underestimate Miles. He knows how Miles works, and this new alliance Miles has formed with Georgia has him worried. He knows that he has to get Miles out of the picture, but as Jeremy points out, finding Miles won’t be easy. Instead, Monroe has a plan to get Miles to come to them. Aaron and Rachel make it to the Plains Nation. Interestingly enough, both Monroe and Aaron have to face their past and find out how different things truly are than they thought…

This episode raised many questions for me regarding various characters and what we may find out in the future. Since my tv boyfriend is the misunderstood dictator with one serious case of PTSD, abandonment issues and a need for some psychotherapy, I was very happy that we had such a Bass-centric episode. I was a bit surprised since everyone was going on about the “young Miles” actor Casey Jon Deidrick. Turns out he didn’t have much to do. There was a little more to be done by “young Bass” Patrick Johnson and “young Emma” Hailey Wist. Really, the story went to Bass and Emma, with the bulk of the scenes with David Lyons and Annie Wersching (Emma). I really loved the amount of emotion that was brought to this episode from these two actors. I would also say that the script was there to back up that what happened in the past was more than just two kids who felt like having sex. We see that Emma had been putting flowers by the graves of Bass’s family. Remember, they died two years before the blackout, so this is seventeen years later and she is putting flowers there. You don’t do that for someone who is just a friend.

Also showing that Bass really meant something to her was the fact that she sought him out. I suppose she could have been asked by others because she knew him, but my guess is probably not. If he hadn’t been back since his family died, it means he hadn’t been there in 17 years. It sounded like from what the messenger told Miles that Bass planned on finding her there, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t know she would be there and he was just using the whole thing as a bluff to get Miles out in the open. I kind of feel that is probably most likely the case because he seemed surprised when she came and found him. I loved David’s portrayal of the scene. It was as if Bass lost himself for a second and was almost his teen self again, and then remembered he couldn’t be. At that point, he tried not to look at her. I loved Annie’s angry Emma face when she was appalled at the way Bass was being. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not in the least. She was angry that he was allowing this to happen. This wasn’t her Bass, but she believed strongly enough that he still had to be in there that she sought him out again. You can really see Bass struggle. You know he means it when he tells her he wants to be the Bass that she remembers, the Bass that loved her. That kiss was pretty amazing too. When the pull apart, even the breathing sounds, you know that Emma really just wants him to kiss her again. Bass with his burning down the building with everyone in it seems like a desperate attempt on his part to destroy who he was. He told her that the Bass she remembered was dead, but it seems more likely that he was trying to find a way to kill that Bass because he had been so devastated by everything that he just wanted the pain to go away.

In that sense, Bass’s descent into destruction complete with death wish that has been going on since Miles’ rejection in “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” reminds me of Angel after he tried to take out the “Home Office” of Wolfram and Hart. He found out that really Earth was the Home Office, that humanity’s propensity toward destruction, toward hatred, anger, etc, was the reason they were able to flourish in the first place. Angel was destroyed by this revelation–how can one fight something that is part of human nature? He is crushed under the weight of the impossibility of ever prevailing. At that point Angel decided it would be better to be angry and evil again than deal with this emptiness, so he purposely set out to lose his soul. However, instead of losing his soul, he has an epiphany and realizes that “if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do”. I’m hoping that Bass will eventually be able to come to that conclusion and start down that long difficult road toward redemption. He hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, I don’t think, but he’s getting very close…

This episode proffered a possible way for Bass to be redeemed, in the form of a son. The very youngest this kid could be is 17, and I actually think he’s got to be older than that considering when his family died, Bass had already done two tours, been through Basic, all since he and Emma made love that night. Possibly, Bass could be driven to be a better person because of the existence of his son. There is also the possibility that the relationship could be more like Angel’s with Connor when Connor came back from that other dimension. Bass’s child would be older than Connor was even then, but the idea could hold. Connor was raised to hate his father, and his animosity for Angel is fierce. I don’t think it would be a stretch considering the way the Monroe Republic has been painted that Bass’s son could have grown up hating his father. The rejection could be devastating, but it also could be purging for Bass in that he could want to make himself a better person to be worthy of his son’s love.

And let me just get it out there, I don’t think that Emma said that just to try to save herself. I don’t think she told him earlier because she knew Bass and Miles were having some kind of fight. I doubt she would want to throw something else onto the fire. What I found very interesting about the flashbacks was that we don’t see any real conflict with Emma. She seems like a genuinely nice person, yet we see that she tucks in Miles on the couch and then has sex with Bass right on the counter in the kitchen. There wasn’t any–”but what about Miles” moments, the way she looks at both of them both in flash backs and in regular time it seemed she genuinely cared about both of them…

The one thing that really intrigued me was how Bass got her at the end. Miles told her to go with the others to the playground behind the school, then she is there with Bass. I wonder if she was collected, or if she sought out Bass a third time to try to talk some sense into him…

I also wonder what happened to end things in the first place. I imagine that having a child that wasn’t Miles’ would have ended the relationship, so I would assume that she probably broke it off with Miles while he was at Basic Training–we know she didn’t tell either one of them about the pregnancy. But this hometown was Miles’s and Bass’s, which makes me wonder how it didn’t get back to Miles that Emma was pregnant–It looks like a small town. People talk. No way Emma would have a baby that people wouldn’t know who the father was–or the assumption might have been Miles anyway. Maybe she went away for a while? Maybe she didn’t even raise her son. She might have given him up for adoption, or left him with a relative that didn’t live in town…

That thing about the girl having a baby in a small town , by the way, was my main issue with the whole Dead Zone thing, too. There was no way that in a small town in Maine everyone in town wouldn’t have been up in her business and knowing that her baby’s father was the coma patient. Just no way…

…and we know what happened to Bass’s family, what happened to Miles’ family? We know about a brother, but what about their parents? What about other siblings? Bass’s message to Miles made it sound like there may be other people in town Miles cared about–who were they?

I have to admit the whole fight montages that looked like Miles fighting atop mount doom with his glorious hair flowing and blood spatter dotting the landscapes in patterns that would make Dexter envious did nothing for me. It just seemed like more glorification of Miles. Show, I don’t need you to tell me who to root for, and btw, the person who you’re shining the etherial light on like we’re in a Monty Python movie will most likely NOT be the character I decide to back…

I felt it was pretty strange that Miles went from handing over the closest thing to a son he had to the Texans to this whole “it took 22 men to do it [take out the militia]” thing. It just didn’t sit well with me. He has no trouble killing people–clearly–he was slitting throats and picking off militia soldiers with his gun like they were candy dots on a sheet. Yet he was upset about losing guys. I understand the whole his men versus enemy men thing. But the good guys should value human life in general–not just the lives of the people who they agree with (or at least happen to be siding with at the time). I guess what I’m saying is I’m still not seeing where I should be rooting for these rebels. I don’t see where they are the morally better people to have in power.

Along those lines, I really can’t think of anything I liked about Charlie this episode. Miles is a terrible influence on her and she is so blinded by her need to kill Monroe that she isn’t seeing anything else. I can’t even say that I saw the one thing I’m hoping that I saw. To clarify, I am hoping that Charlie’s comment about how she would have killed Emma to get to Monroe was actually a moment of internal reflection for Charlie. Does she see how wrong it is to feel that it is ok to just take out an innocent? And let me ask this–who’s to say that if she killed Monroe, the militia would fall? If Kripke thinks that the war ended after Vader tossed the Emperor down the energy shaft, he would be wrong. The war continued for years afterward. The saga is memorialized in books spanning the next 30 years in the star wars universe. The fact is, she wants Monroe’s head for revenge. But where does revenge ever get us really? And once it is over, what then? I just hope that Charlie does take a good look at herself and realize that who she has become isn’t who she wants to be. It is entirely possible to be a strong woman and not be this she-Miles. And please, PULL BACK HER HAIR. It is really aggravating me. Yes, she’s pretty. I’m sure that Tracy will be pretty with her hair back too. Buffy could pull it off…and it will make Charlie look like she actually came to fight, instead of just to pose and look hot while she pretends to fight. Nora has her hair back; clearly pony tail holders and hairbands are available accessories in the Revolution-verse.

Oh, and guys? Whatever Miles did to Rachel had better be good. And in his own right, not because Monroe told him to do it. With all this build up I’m going to be really mad if it is just 1) more Bass vilification or 2) just didn’t pay for her lunch that time they went to that place.

I found Rachel mildly annoying this episode–it was cool the way she handled the Aaron and Priscilla thing in the bar, but just that she doesn’t think Aaron is smart enough to help. It’s like she faked being a housewife for so long she now has the drive to show she is brilliant and doesn’t need anyone’s help. I’d have been aggravated at how dismissive she was, too if I was Aaron.

Aaron seeing Priscilla was interesting to compare and contrast with Bass’s situation with Emma. Bass finds out he has a son, whereas Aaron finds out that Priscilla has a daughter with another man. Both men have to face the impact their previous decisions had. Both men also lose the women again. Priscilla doesn’t get shot like Emma does, but she is gone just the same. We find out that Aaron was right–something was wrong and Priscilla was being taken against her will. She was a fugitive to be brought back to the Monroe Republic for killing a Sergeant while protecting her daughter.

OK SHOW, JUST STOP. YOU HAVE MADE EVERY SINGLE PLACE WE’VE SEEN BETTER THAN THE MONROE REPUBLIC AND YOU HAVE FOUND EVERY POSSIBLE WAY OF SHOWING HOW NEFARIOUS THE MILITIA IS. WE GET IT. YOU CAN STOP NOW.

Sorry. I just had to get that out…Priscilla has a family that is now in Texas, so she is heading down there. Aaron helps to save her, only to lose her again. With Bass, Emma admits that she loved him, although he does question her timing for saying it. Really though, I do think the proof is in the pudding so to speak. The flowers say a lot in my opinion. Bass also finds out that he has a son, but Emma is killed before he can find out where his son is. He has lost her. I imagine he will do everything he possibly can to find his son.

The final WTF moment was Neville showing up in the last scene all suited up and apparently saving himself by ratting out people. You know how Neville sound kind of like snivel? Neville just seems to want to ingratiate himself to whoever is going to keep him alive. I don’t like this. It’s like him getting to work with the rebels is like a thumbs up to the possibility of redemption for Neville, but the running, the obvious tactics regarding not finding a side but just wanting to win, he doesn’t seem like a good person. I’m not ready for a redemption arc for him. Not by a long shot.