Revolution S2: “Born in the USA” Review

By: Erin Conrad
nbc Revolution

Where do you go after the nukes fall? Revolution’s Season 2 promises to take us on a journey – or several – emotional and physical. Our main characters have split up to follow their own paths, which actually made for a fragmented and difficult-to-follow season premiere. If you have a chance to watch it again, I highly recommend doing that – the episode made much more sense to me on a second watch.  In order to keep everything straight, this review won’t strictly follow the episode chronologically.

The episode starts six months after nuclear bombs hit Atlanta and Philadelphia –yes, they are launched, which was the S1 ending cliffhanger. However, in order to help the audience understand what has happened, there are quite a few time jumps during the hour. Try and keep it straight!

Revolution - Season 2

New Starts for Old Friends

After the Tower, Aaron, Miles, Charlie and Rachel make their way to Willoughby, TX, where Miles is relieved to find Rachel’s father, a doctor, still living. Rachel is nearly catatonic. Six months later, Miles emerges from a small shack, looking bloody and beaten up, and as he walks away from it, it starts burning. What happened in there? Just one of the things we never learn. He walks into a walled camp, where he has been living with Rachel, her father, Aaron, and Aaron’s new girlfriend, Cynthia. Rachel and her dad tend to a soldier who had been close enough to the Atlanta blast to have his clothes melt onto his body.

In a flashback, we see Charlie leaving Willoughby. “You’re not going to stop me?” she asks Miles. “I can’t stop you from doing anything. Just try and keep your stupid to a minimum,” he says. We don’t know where she goes, or how long it takes her to get there. I think that the lack of interaction between Charlie and Miles was, and will be, a problem for the beginning of this season – Charlie brought out the human side of Miles, and while she lost much of her moral compass last season because the actions she was compelled to take, her growing relationship with her uncle was one of the more important story lines.

Revolution - Season 2

New Vegas Fight Club

Charlie talks with a bartender about the brief return of electricity six months ago. She says, “No offense, Jeff, but the power’s the last thing I want to talk about,” and then hooks up with him. He says that he has seen Bass Monroe, looking like “cold hell warmed over,” in New Vegas. Charlie makes her way to New Vegas and finds Monroe, fighting all comers for money under the name “Jimmy King.” A woman asks him how he does it, night after night, getting beaten half to death. “It beats the last job,” he answers. Charlie bribes one of the fight organizers to introduce her to Monroe; however, when he comes out of his trailer to meet her (not knowing who it is who asks for him), we see Charlie preparing to shoot him – but two other men jump Monroe, hit him over the head,  and drag him off.

Dad tells Miles that Rachel had been a wild child growing up, but he had approved of her marrying Ben. However, he saw how she looked at Miles during the wedding, and worries that she still feels something for him. “The last thing Rachel needs is the wrong guy,” he tells Miles. “She always had a thing for the wrong guy – pot dealers, drummers.” Miles decides it’s time to leave Willoughby. Rachel asks why he’s leaving now, and he says, “This town’s just not my speed.” Miles witnesses settlers being attacked, and runs after the attackers, following them through a cornfield and killing two of them. When he returns, he tells Mason, the town sheriff, that the marauders are probably from the Plains Nation, and that they can expect to be hit hard. Miles hasn’t revealed who he truly is (he goes by Stu in the camp), and the sheriff doesn’t take him seriously.

In a Savannah, GA, refugee camp, Tom Neville, a broken man, and Jason search for Tom’s wife, even though he believes she died in the Atlanta bombing. He wants to kill himself, but Jason won’t let him. They hear a commotion outside and see a large ship coming into the Savannah harbor, flying the US flag. “Those aren’t rebels,” Jason says. “In a boat like that?” Neville answers. “I doubt it.”

Revolution - Season 2

There’s a quick scene of cages being set up in what we believe is the White House.

Aaron has once again become a teacher in the camp, but is depressed and drinks. He still has one of the pendants, but hasn’t told his girlfriend what he knows about the power, or his role in events. Outside his house, Aaron sees a huge swarm of green-glowing fireflies, acting oddly. He tells Rachel about it, but she dismisses it. He thinks it’s part of the disturbances they’ve seen over the past six months, though. “What about the starling flocks? What about the cicadas?” he asks (and, heck, what about them?). “Insane things have happened,” he says.

Patriots? I Doubt It

Neville and Jason listen to a speech by a woman who says she is Secretary Justine Allenford of the U.S. government. She says they were forced to take refuge in Cuba, and that they have proof that Monroe and Foster (head of the Georgia Federation) turned the power on just to launch the nukes. She says the president is on his way to the White House – they’re patriots, and want the country “to be great.” (Remember, Randall Flynn referenced “patriots” when he launched the nukes in the Tower, before he killed himself.) Neville doesn’t trust these “patriots.” “The timing of their arrival alone – just when people need them” is suspicious. “I am going to rip them apart from the inside,” he says.

Revolution - Season 2

Aaron’s girlfriend is attacked in their home. While defending her, Aaron is fatally cut with a sword and dies, surrounded by Rachel and her father. Attackers are seen dragging women out past the wall. Miles chases the attackers, followed by the sheriff. They think they’ve chased the attackers off, but the sheriff is shot and they are taken prisoner. They’re greeted by a man calling himself Titus Andover, who is extremely creepy. Cynthia sees the fireflies outside their home, and (Torchwood fans! Shades of Captain Jack) Aaron gasps and opens his eyes.

Tease and Confusion

There was a lot I liked about this episode – Monroe is a man who knows he’s broken, but doesn’t know what to do to make himself whole. He’s world-weary, knows he’ll be killed if he reveals who he really is, and you can tell that part of him just doesn’t care. But I loved the “fight club” scenes. And a shout out to the “last surviving Friend, David Schwimmer!” The references, and the music, to life before the blackout, are interesting.

The hints of something between Miles and Rachel – and we know they have a checkered and troubled past – are leading, I hope, to some interesting and exciting story lines. The new power grabbers – Titus Andover and the “Patriots” – promise some long-lasting creepiness. And Neville, always a hated but fascinating character, is resurrected, angrier and more hate-filled than ever. We know he’ll never win father of the year, but his relationship with Jason is complicated.

There are some distinct problems with this episode – both too much information and too little. I felt that the problems detracted from my interest in the episode, and left me more confused than excited for the upcoming season. What are these “insane things” Aaron talks about? How did Neville and Jason get to Georgia from Colorado (the why – to look for Neville’s wife – makes sense, but wouldn’t there be radiation sickness in Savannah?)? Why is Charlie still hunting Monroe? And we still have no answers from some of the Season 1 questions – no explanation is even started about the people who had been in the Tower when Rachel arrived – who were they and why were they really there? Had the blackout been planned and not a technology accident? And if so, by whom?

Watching the Twitter feed (#RevolutionReturns, if you want to look), fans seemed about as confused as I was. “Huh? What?” were the words of the day.

With all the jumping around – from character to character, place to place, and forward and back in time – I found the episode hard to follow, and like I said at the beginning, it wasn’t until I had seen it twice that some things started to make any sense. I have seen Episode  — sorry, no spoilers – and found that one filled in some of the gaps and helped answer some questions, so if you’re put off by this episode, hold on until next week!

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