Revolution - Season 1 Episode 4 - Recap and Review - The Plague Dogs
In the three episodes preceding tonight's "The Plague Dogs," Revolution dealt with the business of its emotions only in the broadest strokes. This is a necessity of the medium of television, where it takes a while for the viewer to become invested in the characters to the point where we fear for their safety and hope for their success. Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) served as our window into the emotional side of the show's narrative, her face always communicating that wounded puppy look that offsets the harder facade she puts forth. With Aaron (Zak Orth), we know that the Blackout has thrown him into despair, since the world now belongs to the same types who bullied him in grade school. But of all the backstories, it's the tale of Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips) whose resonated the most. An ocean separates her from her children back home in England, since she'd been away on business in the United States at the time of the Blackout. Flashback Maggie is so consumed with her own concerns that she's too busy to read her son a bedtime story over webcam (her last words to her children are "I said 'no'"), and the Blackout catalyzes the desperation with which we've come to regard Maggie. It throws her arc in the series thus far into stark relief, and represents the show's first successful foray into emotionally resonant territory.
Maggie's flashbacks portray her cross-country trek to find a ship to take her across the Atlantic to get back to her children. She's unable to find even one ship that will make the journey, and so, in desperation, she pours herself "a cup of poison," sits by a quiet lake, and prepares to take her own life, having surmised that her children are probably dead anyway. Enter Ben Matheson (Tim Guinee), who comes across the scene and talks her out of killing herself, offering her a spot at their camp. She eventually settled with Ben and his family and grew to love his children, though she continued to think of her children back home (even if she struggled to remember their faces). Her flashbacks are shot so beautifully, and it's such a remarkably simple, yet resonant story of the lengths a person will go to in order to be reunited with her children, and the despair that's settled into a powerless world. It's no surprise, then, that Maggie dies at the end of the episode, after a stab wound from a wandering vagrant severs an artery. Maggie has resolved her arc after seeing the faces of her children in last week's episode, and having made amends with Charlie. It might not necessarily be a happy ending (particularly since we don't even know if her children are alive or not), but it's at least a fitting end for a character with as human a journey as Maggie, even if it is a bit unbelievable that any mother would give up trying to be reunited with her children.
The episode follows off of last week's revelation of the involvement of Miles (Billy Burke) in the formation of the Monroe Republic. Charlie's argumentative line of questioning irritates Miles to no end (frankly, it irritates me too, not because she's not right to question his loyalty to their cause, but because no answer seems to be good enough for her). In a fit, he barks at her to shut up, that he doesn't owe her an explanation for his past. His lingering guilt, coupled with his inability, as Nora (Daniella Alonso) states, to allow people to get close to him, and vice-versa, cements his decision to leave. Charlie, upon hearing that Miles is abandoning her, flashes back to the day her mother left their family behind, under the guise of journeying to get "supplies." Everyone leaves Charlie, eventually. Her father, her mother, Danny, and now Miles. She loses everyone she cares about. It's a sentiment she voices to a dying Maggie, while pleading with her not to die. Charlie is hardly a great character, at least not yet, but her characterization is very realistic, relative to her experiences. Charlie reacts like a child because she has a child's sense of attachment, owing to losing her mother, in addition to being raised in a chaotic world with threat looming around every corner. It stands to reason that she'd be as desperate to keep her makeshift family together as Maggie was to get back home to her children.
Speak of the mother, we return to Rachel Matheson (Elizabeth Mitchell), still imprisoned by General Sebastian "Bass" Monroe (David Lyons), who continues to question her on the nature of the Blackout: what Ben knew about it, how Ben knew about it, and how to turn the power back on (a strange request, since it seems Monroe's tenuous authority relies upon the complete, and quite literal, power vacuum in society). In addition, Bass wants to know why, if Ben was simply an algebra teacher, he was working with the Department of Defense. They don't just give full SAP (Special Access Program) clearance to civilians for no reason. This line of expository questioning is done completely for the audience's benefit, since the scene itself is pretty much the opposite of organic, feeling equal parts clumsy and contrived, as Bass admits that he's asked Rachel these same questions countless times and received the same answers every time. But he's asking again. You know, just in case her tune changes on the 60th asking.
But Rachel persists in her claim that she knows nothing. That might not actually be the case, however, as the episode-ending flashback reveals that Rachel deserted her family to surrender herself to Miles (back in his time with the Militia), asking him to promise she'll see her children again. What this means is a complete mystery, and if Rachel knows anything about the real reason behind the Blackout, she's not telling. And that's fine with Bass. He'll just torture her son when Captain Neville delivers the boy to him. Maybe then she'll talk.
Danny (Graham Rogers), for his part, continues to display his resourcefulness and determination. Sensing a storm, he suggests that Captain Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) and his men find shelter. They follow his advice when signs of a storm become more intense, and once there, Danny picks his handcuffs, frees a horse, and makes a run for it. But Neville is on him, giving him a few stiff hits before getting him into a nearby cellar to avoid the twister that's coming their way. While hunkered down, Danny and Neville discuss Ben Matheson, with Neville admitting that Ben was a better man than he ever could hope to be in this world, since he was able to maintain his morality in a world that had gone increasingly immoral. Neville also admits that he likes Danny, since he reminds him of his son. It's not exactly a friendship Neville is building with Danny, something more like an understanding, but it's compelling nonetheless. The chaos of the storm leaves Neville pinned under debris, with a sink hovering tenuously overhead, and the beleaguered Captain appeals to Danny's morality, arguing that Ben Matheson would be ashamed of any son who left a man to die in cold blood. Danny, being as moral as he is naive, saves Neville...who immediately grabs Danny and handcuffs him, apologizing for having to do so, but arguing that Danny is far more important than he knows. It's the strongest installment in the Danny storyline thus far, and it looks like the entire conflict is about to explode.
Credit: NBC/Brownie Harris
"The Plague Dogs" is Revolution's strongest episode thus far, even if it does have some of the weaker action setpieces of the series so far, with Miles and temporary ally "Nate" (J.D. Pardo), who's still been stalking Miles, having to rescue Charlie from the clutches of a crazed vagrant who lost his wife and daughter to marauders. When Charlie rebukes the man's offer to stay with him, he sets her in a Saw-like trap in the abandoned amusement park where he lives, and if this sounds really exciting, I'm sorry, because it wasn't. But the episode didn't really need action this week, nor did it need those crazed dogs who loom as a threat throughout the episode. The considerable emotional resonance of Charlie coming to grips with loss, Maggie finding resolution through death, and Aaron's raw grief at the loss is a jarring and very moving sight. It's only fitting, then, that Miles resolves not to leave. Uncle embraces niece, and comforts her, saying "I'm not going anywhere." If Revolution keeps up like this, I imagine audiences won't be either.
