Revolution: There Will be Blood Recap

Revolution: There Will Be Blood (02×02)

Synopsis: Surprisingly, I’m still digging this season of Revolution. Charlie shows her stripes and Monroe desperately tries to get back to his meaningless life. Meanwhile Rachel tries to get people together to rescue Miles who is having a super rough time with his creepy new captors. Also: we get a fantastic Walker, Texas Ranger reference. Before sadness. There’s just a lot of sadness. And some pretty creepy shit. Just saying.

Rating: ★★★★☆

All right, so, as much as I hated the first season of this show – I really just thought it ruined a lot of its potential – the second season is finally starting to really get things right. One of the issues I think I had with the original series was that things were just a bit too clean and organized. There really wasn’t a whole lot of danger. The Monroe Republic – while extremely oppressive – kept people safe and managed to establish a decent measure of, you know, stability. There’s no safety any more. Certainly not in Texas and I assume not in the remnants of the Monroe Republic or the Georgia Federation, either. I appreciate that. I appreciate the darker story that they are starting to spin.

I also appreciate that we get to have Miles without Rachel because Rachel really bothers me as a character. I mean she always has but Charlie has gotten decidedly less whiny and more likable with her new bad ass persona and her sort of back and for with Monroe. (I’m just saying, he may be as old as her dad but I should ship it.) So now my wrath is focused mostly on Rachel. Which is sad because she’s a character with a lot of potential development, I guess. We just haven’t seen much to make her worth our while yet.

I will say, though, that I appreciate that she wants to save Miles. Because I’d want to save him, too. Mostly because I also would tap that. But even most of this episode is just her trying to get people to help her and no one agreeing to do it. The town is just hunkering down to wait for the Texas Rangers to come out and save them. For whatever reason they all retreated to one location which seems like a terrible idea. It just makes me think of the Patriot when they burn everyone alive in the church. That’s what’s going to happen here at this rate.

Of course that might be preferable to what Miles is going through. He and his sheriff buddy are caged together in the lair of this really weird raider camp. They have a really cute moment where Miles asks him if he regrets his career choice and he tells him that he doesn’t. When he was a boy, the sheriff’s father would tell him stories of a great warrior: Walker, Texas Ranger. Miles could have been a dick but instead when he sort of laughs and the sheriff asks if Miles knows of him Miles tells him: “His legend is known far and wide.” Then they come in and shoo the sheriff in the head. After which, sometime later, Miles tries to escape and take this poor imprisoned woman with him. He fails, sadly. But in true super villain fashion the leader of this ragtag group takes him into his office to monologue at him. We find out that a.) the rider sent to get the Texas Rangers is dead and never made it to Austin (which – like California – was apparently not targeted by the bombs) and that b.) this group is more screwed up than we thought. Most of the men are actually children who were a reform school for boys run by the dandy, dapper gentleman who leads them. Except it turns out he was actually a pedophile who was about to be arrested for having child pornography on his computer when the lights went out.

Yeah.

But don’t worry. It gets creepier. He breaks Miles’s hand and when he’s sent back to his cage the woman tries to help him bandage it but he gets taken away again. There is this room where people are taken and they never come back. This woman’s son was recently one of them. Anyway, so, when Miles and the sheriff first showed up they had their blood drawn. Turns out there was a reason. The pedophile school master is apparently transfusing some creepy ass doll looking woman to keep her alive in some random utility closet or something. It’s super weird. Super creepy. Bravo, Revolution. You’re starting to get it now. That’s actually how the end the episode. No explanation. Just creepy ass serial killer-esque stuff.

Because this cast is so massive and everyone is spread out, we have to move around a bit, too, though the episode. But basically I love Miles so… I care about him more than anyone else. Besides, other than Charlie and Monroe’s banter their stories are kind of boring. Important – but not as interesting.

Aaron is struggling with his sudden resurrection which his girlfriend and the local priest chalk up to God while he remains staunchly atheist. He’s also apparently hallucinating Ben dying for some reason. Oh, hey, Charlie’s dad! He also decides to be a dick to his girlfriend is like, “I know why the power went off” which leads us into a flashback of everyone watching Aaron try and fail to stop the nukes that destroyed Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Moving on to Charlie, she’s off trying to get to Monroe. I guess to kill him. I don’t know. They’ve got this weird sort of thing going on. But she fails to get to him, gets blasted with rock salt, and sort of gets hit on by the guys who nabbed Monroe. They know who he is – by the way – and they are under orders from the United States government to bring him back alive. Way to go, Monroe! You’ve got enemies everywhere. Charlie sort of comes to an agreement with the guys who are holding her captive and when Monroe escapes she goes after him. He, however, doesn’t want to hurt her the way she does him. I’m telling you. This show totally wants you to ship them.

And, lastly, let’s go back to Tom Neville who is trying to weasel his way into favor with the new American government that’s popped up. Basically so he can get revenge on them for killing his wife. Seriously, he was so sad in the flashback when he bursts into the room and is like “Hands up- wait. What just happened?” He does set up and kill one of his friends, though, to do it. Classic Tom, people.

Basically, I’m happy to see that Revolution is really getting back on track. It had some really good moments even in the first season – most of them related to Miles – but it jumped the shark a lot. I think maybe they realized, though, that they needed to explore more of a broken down, rugged post-apocalyptic America as opposed to what they had with the Monroe Republic and Georgia Federation. We needed something more along the lines of the Plains Nation where things are dangerous and people have to look after themselves.

If you ask me the new direction is working.

And next episode looks pretty freakin’ awesome.