Revolution - Recap: Oh, Danny Boy
Credit: NBC
Recap video and review of Revolution - Season 1 Episode 11 - The Stand:
Revolution certainly knows how to make a dramatic return. I imagine there will be a sizable contingent of the fan community that's incensed by the shocker at the end of tonight's episode, "The Stand". Much of season one has been singularly focused on the rescue of Danny (Graham Rogers), who's been held captive by the Monroe Militia. The whole purpose of the journey at the start was to recover the boy, and even though the parameters of their mission have now changed, it doesn't alter the fact that the first half of season one is nearly unrecognizable in comparison to the show's current, Danny-less context. But I don't think that's a bad thing, first and foremost because I never felt that Danny was really a character so much as a concept, a MacGuffin to compel our heroes to action. I had the opportunity to speak with showrunner Eric Kripke and actress Elizabeth Mitchell last week, and they discussed tonight's premiere, including the spoiler about Danny's death, which they kindly asked to remain concealed until after the episode aired. When asked why the decision was made to kill off Danny, Kripke responded:
"Oh well again and please don’t report on it till after the premiere, but because we looked around and we needed a massive instigating incident to kick off the second half of the season. And every character needs an intense emotional drive to want to face down General Monroe and to not do it just for political reasons, but do it for intensely personal and tortured reasons. And as the writers discussed it at length, we realized that this move would not only, I think, blow people's hair back but really mobilize everybody - mobilize all the characters to take the fight to Monroe in the most fraught and desperate way possible."
In this sense, the decision to kill off Danny seems like a natural endpoint for the first leg of our heroes' journey to end, and the next leg to begin. Even though the group collectively shoots down Aaron's (Zak Orth) suggestion to just return home now that they've saved Danny, there was still that lingering feeling that our protagonists had no real dog in this fight. Sure, Miles (Billy Burke) has issues with Bass (David Lyons), while Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) still feels culpable in the Blackout occurring in the first place, and even Nora (Daniella Alonso) has a personal motive for revenge, as an attack by the Monroe Militia caused her to have a miscarriage several years ago. But in the face of overwhelming danger, I get the sense that Kripke felt the characters needed a more personal reason to continue the fight, beyond the fact that it was simply the right thing to do. He wanted us to have a greater feeling of connection with their journey, and with their need to bring Monroe to heel.
Credit: Brownie Harris/NBC
As "The Stand" begins, our group is already on the run from Monroe's helicopters, which are a byproduct of the amplifier Rachel constructed for Monroe under duress. He now has power, and the rebels can't really compete with that just yet. It's a hell of an opening action setpiece, as a nearby diner goes up in flames, and the group has to keep ahead of the ominous choppers and the bullet spray. Once they have a moment to calm down, things get tense. The group splits up, with Rachel and Miles heading off to meet with one of Rachel's scientist friends, a man with his own store of power, and weapons to go along with it. Meanwhile, Charlie and the others will rendezvous with the rebels at their headquarters to prepare for the inevitable Monroe assault, as Bass, disappointed with Captain Neville's (Giancarlo Esposito) failure, orders all rebel camps destroyed. Tom Neville has issues of his own, as his son Jason (JD Pardo) has grown tired of his father's savagery and quits his command. Father and son come to blows as Neville declares just how disappointed he is in his boy. Jason goes off on his own, comes across Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos), and takes the opportunity to warn her about the oncoming assault. As for Neville, he lies to Bass and tells him that Jason died, explaining his detached, frazzled demeanor.
It's a wonderful why to keep the story moving, as there's an immediacy to everything that happens tonight. These moments also allow room for character growth. For instance, Charlie's ingenuity comes into play when she uses the Militia brand, which she was forcefully given, to fool the Militiamen into letting her and the group (concealed in coffins in the back of a wagon) to pass. There's a wonderful scene beneath the moonlight between Rachel and Miles that hints at a deeper, possibly romantic back story between the two, as Miles attempts to apologize for his past, and Rachel, uncomfortable, asks him to step away. I love the intensity and ambiguity of the season, as it could easily be a romantic past that these two characters share, or it could be something just as dark, and every bit as tortured.
Credit: Brownie Harris/NBC
The episode also has the requisite danger inherent in the best of episodes, as Rachel's scientist friend is proven to be working for Randall (Colm Feore), and uses a sonic device to render Miles and Rachel unconscious, at which point he ties them up. Of course, because this is Miles we're talking about here, he and Rachel are able to escape and return the beating right back to the man, while also emptying out his weapons cache, which includes a guided missile launcher. At the rebel camp, Charlie makes Danny promise that once the fighting gets underway, he'll hang back -- she promises she'll never ask him for anything again, so long as he does this for her. He begrudgingly agrees, and the relationship between Danny and his family is punctuated via flashbacks throughout the episode, such as when a young Charlie helps an even younger Danny through an asthma attack. In a similar flashback, Rachel comforts a young Danny as he goes under the knife for an unspecified operation. Both these scenes add layers to Danny's relationship with his mother and his sister, and informs why he does what he does later. For too long, Danny has been the one being protected by the women in his life, the one being rescued. This is his chance to finally return the favor, to prove his worth. And so his actions in the climax shouldn't come as a surprise, all things considered, though the outcome of those actions are certainly unexpected.
Credit: NBC
As the helicopters bear down on the rebel positions, Danny, Charlie and the others fight fire with fire, shooting at the pilots and even taking out several of them. However, when Miles arrives with the missile launcher, he's unable to fire it before getting taken out by a missile himself. Rendered nearly unconscious on the battlefield, and being tended to by Charlie and Rachel, Danny takes it upon himself to pick up the missile launcher and finish the job. He gets off a shot that takes out one of the two helicopters, while the second loses power due to the loss of the amplifier. Unfortunately, on the way down, the helicopter gets off one last spray of bullet fire, and the resulting shots riddle Danny with bullets. He dies almost instantly.
Credit: Brownie Harris/NBC
Mitchell and Spiridakos do an admirable job communicating the weight of grief that's fallen on Rachel and Charlie, respectively, as they now have vengeance on their mind. Rachel's guilt over abandoning her children, a theme that has always been at the forefront of her character, remains present here, as she feels she should have never left Danny's side. But Charlie adopts an almost-calm, fiery resolve to bring down Monroe. For her part, Rachel has secrets of her own that she's still keeping. As she says goodbye to Danny, kissing her only son's cold forehead, she takes out a knife and tearfully cuts into the scar from his childhood operation. From the wound she produces a small device, a transmitter of sorts...and it's blinking blue. This is a wonderful cap to the episode, as Mitchell sells the pain with just her facial expressions, and the question of just what this device is and why it works in a world without power is a mystery that should drive the narrative forward in the coming weeks. Along with that mystery, the looming threat of Randall joining up with Bass and the Monroe Militia, as he does at the end of the episode (this scene is also responsible for the coolest line of the episode, as one of Monroe's men tells him there's a man here he needs to see, at which point Monroe asks why, and the man responds, "Because he drove here." Randall joining up with Bass has a high likelihood of leading to more dead bodies in the future than just Danny, and I'd argue it's the second biggest development of the episode, after the traumatic death in the climax).
I'm beyond thrilled to have Revolution back, as it seems to have a new fire and purpose. As the ranks of the cast thin out, the story becomes more focused, to where the mysteries are intriguing, but they aren't all the show has going for it. This is the best episode of Revolution so far, and I'll be interested to see if the rest of season one can maintain this high level.