Revolution - Recap: Parents Just Don't Understand

Recap video and review of Revolution - Season 1 Episode 13 - The Song Remains The Same:

I don't think I recognized it until this week, but Revolution has kind of been on fire since coming back. Don't get me wrong, I definitely thought the show has been good since its midseason premiere, which raised the stakes by killing off the kid who'd served as the catalyst for the first half of the season. From that moment onward, the show has just been dripping with momentum and purpose. "The Song Remains The Same" does three things spectacularly well: 1) it keeps the story moving at a comfortable pace, 2) it teases out significant plot elements to come by setting up compelling stories for the rest of the season, going forward, and 3) it takes the opportunity to give us some long-awaited answers, while teasing other puzzles of greater complexity. Those are three very vague statements, but I'll get into how the show nails each of those elements in the recap, since this is an episode that had a lot going on, focused though it was.

Credit: NBC

Monroe (David Lyons) already has some in-fighting in his camp, as Captain Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) gets into a verbal sparring session with Randall Flynn (Colm Feore), resulting in such salty banter as Flynn telling Neville, "If you worked for me, I’d fire you,” and Neville telling Flynn, "You’re just a civilian with a smug smile and a cheap suit." Yet beneath all that bravado, Captain Neville still has something to prove to his Commander-in-Chief, and so he goes on an important mission at Monroe's request. We don't know where he's headed, only that he's enjoying the smooth sounds of Lionel Richie on the iPod deck in the truck along the way. Unfortunately for him, the ride to his destination doesn't prove to be as smooth as Lionel Richie's dulcet tones, as the truck comes under attack by the rebels, led by a party including Miles (Ben Burke), Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) and the rest of our heroes.

Credit: NBC

Neville's prolonged captivity forms the crux of the episode, as Miles wants to beat him until he reveals the nature of his mission, while Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) wants to kill him in retaliation for Danny. This latter point briefly pits mother against daughter, with Charlie placing the greater good above her personal animosity, in a rare show of maturity. The group's attempts to get Neville to talk fail, and so they turn to their ace-in-the-hole, new recruit Jason (JD Pardo). Jason pulls a long con on his father that's beautifully plotted, in which he confronts the captive Neville and plays the role of the son desperately seeking his father's approval. “What did I do wrong?” asks Jason. “I did everything you asked me to. I hurt people. Killed people. For you. And you just look right through me. What more did you want from me?” Neville, on the verge of tears, swears that he was only hard on Jason to toughen him up enough to face the world they now live in. "I was hard on you," Nevill tells his son. "Maybe too hard. But I was always proud of you, Jason."

Credit: NBC

Of course, Jason sees through this and basically tells his father to go rot, yet as he turns to leave, Neville plays his last card, invoking the name of Jason's mother. Neville says that Monroe will kill her if he doesn't return from his mission, and so Jason lets his father loose under the pretext of helping him to get to his mission destination. Neville reveals their destination is a nearby cement factory in the town of Findlay...and Jason reveals that Miles and the other rebels have been listening the whole time. Awesome con job there by Jason, and it's a con that works despite coming awfully close to straining credulity, regarding what Jason could have reasonably known beforehand (for instance, what would Jason have done if Neville hadn't brought up his mother?). It's a wonderful bit of business, that scene, and it leads into my first point above about the plot moving at a comfortable pace, as we follow the Rebels on their mission to that factory, intercepting Randall Flynn as he covertly meets with a man who hands him a mysterious briefcase. A firefight ensues, and though Randall escapes, the Rebels discover that Randall was after radioactive materials. It appears that Monroe is building a nuke, and all the Dannys in the world won't be able to stop that bomb from reducing the world to ashes. This knowledge compels Rachel to action, which brings me to my next two points about giving the audience answers while also teasing out new storyline possibilities.

We learn, specifically, that The Blackout was caused by nanomachines. As she explains to Aaron (Zak Orth), the microscopic computers are everywhere, even in the air they're breathing. They were designed with only two functions: to absorb electricity and to replicate. However, something went wrong, and the nanomachines began reproducing at an unstoppable rate, until they ultimately absorbed all the electricity everywhere. It's a far more complicated explanation than I was expecting, actually, yet I kind of loved it. The Blackout takes on the stature of an airborne virus that is as persistent as it is pernicious. It's a technological plague, and I love that choice by the writers. I also love the choice to make Rachel even more proactive than she already is, by having her resolve to travel across the Plains Nation with Aaron to reach The Tower, the base where this all started, and turn the power back on.

Miles, however, isn't exactly thrilled about it, and this gives us another tease. In the midseason premiere, there was a hint of a romantic past between Miles and Rachel. Here, the romance is made overt. Miles tries to talk Rachel out of venturing off, and Rachel makes reference to a shared past in which Miles was her protector. She asks him to do a better job taking care of Charlie than he did taking care of her. In a fit of frustrated passion, Miles kisses Rachel. She kisses back, and the two engage in a full-on makeout session that only hints at the depth of the backstory underneath it all. It's intriguing since Miles has been strangely protective of the memory of his brother. Is it respect, or guilt over having an affair with his brother's wife? There's a complexity at play that goes beyond the salaciousness of a love triangle in which one of the parties is already dead. Then again, if we're being realistic, the long triangle simply swapped out Ben Matheson and subbed in Nora Clayton (Daniella Alonso), as I now imagine that Miles will be torn between the only two women we've seen him kiss on this show. And hey, I don't really mind a little romance (it's better than the prospective Charlie-Jason romance I keep expecting to start any day now). Miles ultimately proves incapable of stopping Rachel from leaving, as she and Aaron trudge off into the wilderness after an emotional goodbye that sees Rachel refusing to promise Charlie that they'll meet again, since Charlie isn't a child anymore. "I won't lie to you," Rachel tells Charlie, and it's one of the most honest, affective moments of the episode.

Credit: NBC

Unfortunately, during these developments, Neville has freed himself from his handcuffs using a nail he stole during Jason's con. In the resulting escape, Neville kills Father Nicholas (Derek Webster), one of Nora's closest friends. Neville knows he can't return to Monroe after having failed, so he gathers his wife, packs a few bags, and gets the hell out while the gettin' is still good. But he's still not at a deficiency when it comes to people who want him dead, as Nora now wants revenge against Neville for killing Nicholas. "We should have killed Neville when we had the chance," Nora grouses, while Charlie, who prevented her mother from sneaking into Neville's holding cell and doing the deed, hangs her head in guilt (as The Price Is Right fail-horn sounded in the distance, no doubt). Now, the conflict within Monroe's camp is reflected in the conflict among the Rebels -- or, at the very least, the future conflict among the Rebels. Because there's no way this war goes on without a healthy dose of in-fighting.

"The Song Remains The Same" is one of the best episodes of the entire season, owing to a narrower focus on the story, allowing us to explore the meat-and-potatoes of The Blackout, Neville's relationship with his son, and Rachel's relationship with her daughter (and her past relationship with Miles). This is a rich, complex episode that absolutely delivers.