Revolution: Love Story and Patriot Games Recaps

Revolution: Love Story (02×03)

Synopsis: Rachel rescues Miles and he does his best to find a way to save the town. Unfortunately that means he must sacrifice himself. Equally as unfortunate is the fact that his plans hit a major snag and he’s left to find a way to protect the people he cares about as time starts to run out. Meanwhile Charlie goes after Monroe and finds out her ally isn’t all he’s cracked up to be and Tom keeps trying to infiltrate the Americans.

Rating: ★★★★★

I have no idea why it took me so long to recap and review this particular episode of Revolution because I think it’s probably the best one to date. At the very least it’s my favorite so far. Mostly because Miles is awesome and I think by this point everyone is well aware of my love for Miles Matheson.

The last time we saw him, though, things weren’t looking too good. We find out that the sick woman in the back room is actually creepy headmaster Titus’s wife, Jessica, who has diabetes and went into renal failure a few years back. So ever since that happened they started abducting people, testing for O negative blood, then pumping them dry in order to flush out her system. I’m not entirely sure how medically sound that is but hey. It makes for one creepy ass episode. Luckily, Miles doesn’t get pumped too dry before Rachel, her father Reverend Camden, and some others come to his rescue.

Always the one to think ahead, Miles makes sure that they take the woman along with them. Otherwise Titus and his ‘kids’ would chase Miles right back to WIlloughby and destroy it to get him back and get revenge for him taking off like that. Of course, taking his wife doesn’t seem like the greatest idea but it gives Miles some leverage. Miles gets back to the town and doesn’t lose a moment. He runs to gather the guard, he makes sure Reverend Camden keeps Jessica alive, and he barely has enough time to nod to Aaron who is some how inexplicably alive still.  Later, at the gates when Titus arrives with his extremely emotional plea for his wife to be returned Miles threatens to kill her if Titus doesn’t do what he asks. Miles makes a deal to let everyone in town go free in exchange for Titus’s wife’s life and Miles’s blood. Rachel, of course, isn’t too happy about that idea.

Of course, not everything seems to be as it seems. After Titus’s emotional plea someone – the man who broke Miles’s hand, I believe? – drags him off to the side and reminds him of something. Namely that the American government has plans for this town that do not involve Titus going off the rails and killing them all. So… the plot thickens with the Americans it seems.

It thickens even more as this episode progresses, believe me.

So we’ve got Tom back trying to get all buddy, buddy with the Americans. Which is great and all. He and Jason are on the chow line basically doing menial labor and what not. Then they get themselves jumped by some of the Patriot soldiers, right? Well that seems like a bad time for all involved. They take the two of them away to some empty warehouse or something where they kind of beat them up and ask them who they are and what not. Tom tries to keep lying so when they say, “C’mon, like we don’t know you’re Tom Neville” he changes tactics. Quickly.

Hiding behind his lie he says he doesn’t really care about America or the Patriots or their cause. He just wants revenge on the man he knows killed his wife: Monroe. Of course, Tom like the rest of our heroes knows the truth about what happened. But, you know, it’s not a bad way to turn things back around. And it seems to work because they don’t kill them out right.

Charlie doesn’t intend to give Monroe that sort of benefit of the doubt, though. Now that he’s on the run from her and the bounty hunter they get to talking. The bounty hunger dude tells Charlie that the Americans have him out hunting for Monroe as payment for his father who they are holding captive. She buys that story right up to the point that Monroe jumps them. Monroe takes her to this little paddy wagon or whatever with all kinds of bounties in it – one of which is for Rachel Matheson. They get the full and true story from the bounty hunter but he has no idea why the Americans want her mom.

She decides to go home but Monroe won’t let her go alone. He’s got his own road to atonement to follow, I suppose, and that means following Charlie around. Honestly, I’m liking the two of them teaming up but I’m rethinking my shipping support here. It’s getting a bit weird.

But whatever. Let’s get back to the good part where Miles is awesome, shall we?

So back in the town things go from bad to worse. Jessica, it turns out, doesn’t want to be with Titus. When she started dying two years ago she was thrilled. But then he kept forcing her to stay alive. She was overjoyed to leave and when she realized they were going to make her go back she slits her wrists and kills herself. Rachel tells Miles and he forces her to help him keep up the facade until everyone is out of town. Aaron makes his fiance/wife/girflriend/whatever they are leave before him and hops on the last wagon himself while Miles and Rachel stay behind.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Because Titus comes bursting through the gates and he and his people start murdering anyone whose left. Aaron manages to get most of the people on his wagon into an old gas station garage while Reverend Camden starts shooting people in the street.

The barbarian kill of the week, however, goes to Miles. He was all kinds of defeatist and ready to give up his life for Rachel because he was injured. He said he needed to protect her and he couldn’t use a sword with his broken hand so this was how he protected her. Ignoring the fact, of course, that he’s a bad ass. So they get chased down and he’s going at them left and right with his sword. I mean, yeah, Rachel still gets shot with a crossbow but c’mon. How is Miles supposed to prevent that? You can’t expect a melee fighter to stop a ranged fighter like that. Anyway, Rachel passes out and the barbarians finally get one over on Miles and he goes down. It looks pretty dire for everyone but then suddenly someone starts shooting automatic rifles at all the raiders and they start going down.

Suddenly, AMERICA! Patriot soldiers start showing up rescuing people – including Miles and Rachel. Then they ominously raise an American flag in the middle of Willoughby.

Only Revolution could make me think the American flag is ominous…

Revolution: Patriot Games (02×04)

Synopsis: The magical fireflies take on a whole new level which is what drops this episode by a star. Otherwise it’s super solid watching Miles and Rachel learn just how far the Americans’ plans go. All the while Tom has his own plans to put in motion and Charlie can’t quite seem to escape Monroe.

Rating: ★★★★☆

I love the way Miles ultimately decides to deal with the Americans. He’s just… goes along with it. Which is seriously the smart thing to do because when Rachel wakes up three days later they’ve pretty much taken charge of everything. They’ve helped everyone come home to the town. They are holding a sort of Halloween holiday for the kids and integrating themselves into every part of life. Hunting down raiders, raising American flags, bringing civilization to the American West. They know who Rachel is but Miles is still “Stu” to everyone – including the Americans. Some how I think they probably know who he is too but they are letting him live his little facade.

Anyway, it’s a brand new Willoughby. They even put a cast on Miles’s hand! It’s great.

Except the Americans are shady as shit and we all know that. No matter how charismatic these troops’ leader Ed Truman may be he’s hiding something.

Tom knows that as well as Miles and Rachel. He’s doing grunt work because his commanding officer doesn’t trust him despite doing his best to prove himself. The guy hates him and isn’t going to promote him. Instead he’s waiting for the moment Tom does something wrong so he can justifiably kill him. So, we know where everyone there stands. Tom isn’t about to take that, though. His son his gone somewhere on some other detail and they won’t say where he is so… he’s going to take matters into his own hands.

When he finds out that his commanding officer is a heroine addict he decides to give him a chance to promote him, tell him where Jason is, and basically do as he says. Which he refuses. Then, when he finally does agree, Tom kills him anyway by shooting him up with an overdose and pretends not to know what’s going on the next morning when the man is missing at work. Instead, when the American representative lady stops by all she sees is Tom doing the man’s job and ask patiently when he’s coming in.

Meanwhile, back in Willougby, Aaron and Miles bring Rachel up to speed about how the Patriots claim to have proof that Monroe launched the nukes. Which, of course, is bull. Rachel is pretty much freaking out about them coming to kill them and such. But Miles talks everyone down. Miles as the voice of reason, people. He also tells her that the town is on lock down because of Titus’s guys still being out there which he believes is a lie so he goes over the wall to find out what’s going on. Meanwhile Rachel breaks into Truman’s office and finds nothing.

If anyone doubted that the Americans were evil, though, well, here’s your proof. Though Miles doesn’t see, it we do. A young man from the town who tries to leave on his own gets caught and then shot. Later he’s brought by Rachel’s place as a warning. And anwyay he gets plenty of his own proof not too long after. Miles goes back to Titus’s hide out to see if he can find him, I guess. It actually looks like he has a moment at his little cage which we only know because Aaron is having some out of body experience where he can apparently see Miles and what he’s doing. Weird. Anyway, after finding Titus hiding out and ultimately killing him, Miles follows some information he got from Titus to a train yard where he sees they have all of Titus’s raiders being held in box cars. When they need to show proof that they are still killing raiders, they shoot some of them and drag them back to town.

I swear every time I see the Patriots I want to yell, AMERICA! But… yeah. Bad guys.

Miles gets caught by someone watching what’s going on and tries to kill him but ultimately the guy gets a shot off which alerts the others. He goes running and manages to get over the fence before another pair of soldiers catches him. Except… then they spontaneously burst into flame. Yeah. Aaron apparently is controlling the magic fireflies subconsciously or he’s tapped into them some how because he sees Miles in trouble in his “dream” and suddenly these dudes are charbroiled.

All the while Rachel is off trying to get herself killed. So, she’s originally from this part of Texas and one of her best friends from growing up is in town. For whatever reason she decides to go spilling all their secrets from what happened in Season One to him only for him to turn out to be a Patriot. For like seven years. He’s been on their payroll prepping the way for this whole occupation or whatever. Well, great. He’s all, “Awww, man, I have this crush on you” to “You can’t be trusted and need to die now.” So he’s like going to kill her and bury her in his cellar? I don’t know. It was weird man. But she gets ultimately gets one over on him and kills him.

Then she goes back to the house where Miles is drinking a whisky and can’t really wrap his head around what happened in front of him. So they drink together and wonder what this message in Arabic with the unfinished pyramid and eye from the $1 bill that she found in her buddy’s place means. All while realizing that if the Patriots are going to occupy their home then, well, every occupation deserves a resistance. Though the people seem pretty happy with their newfound American overlords who keep them safe so…

And to update everyone on the other story arch that’s going on in these early episodes, Charlie is off being a dumb ass . Not her usual, Season One dumb ass self, I gues, but she’s still pretty stupid. She parted ways with Monroe – or tried – and then walked into a bar and nearly got herself date raped before he rescued her. Of course Monroe tracked her down because he’s been doing this sort of thing for a lot longer than she has. He rescues her and tells her later when she’s woken up that he wants her to take him to Miles so he can make amends.

This bromance gives me so many feels. It always has and always will. Especially because I can just see the bad ass resistance that Miles and Monroe can put together to fight back against the Americans in Willoughby.

I don’t know how this show became the show  I most look forward to watching every week but I am seriously sad that it’s not on Mondays any more because it means that after the weekend ends I still have to wait another three days to see a new episode…

Though bad-ass Aaron isn’t really something I’m that interested in. Don’t get me wrong, I love Google Guy. But the whole magical fireflies thing is just stupid. It has been since the first season and will not get any better. I’m sorry. I’m just not digging it. Rachel trying to shoot Monroe and Miles protecting him… all the feels. Anyway, see all that for yourself below.