REVOLUTION

When the lights went out

Born In The USA

Miles is sheltering in a small town with the shell-shocked Rachel. Charlie is out on her own, hunting Munroe. Tom Neville meets the forces of the new United States of America.

Season 1 of REVOLUTION didn't exactly rock the world, though it was competent enough. Now it's back and there has been a bit of a reset button since the power that came on at the end of the last season has gone again. The family is scattered once more and there is a new military enemy on the horizon, not to mention one closer to home for Miles.

What this opening episode seems to want to do is to set a new and harder edge to the show. One moment late on shows that agenda up starkly, but nobody here is having a good time. The small town under attack is reminiscent of the Governor storyline from THE WALKING DEAD and the re-emergent USA is straight out of FALLING SKIES.

Still, there are some good moments, some wonder to be had in the fireflies and the harder edge just might give the show what it's been needing.

There Will Be Blood

Miles is captured and learns about the threat facing the town. Charlie fails to kill Monroe and finds herself captured. Aaron is confused as to why he is still alive. Tom Neville tries to infiltrate the new USA forces.

A little too much about this episode is predictable, but there is the underlying mystery of Aaron's resurrection to provide some interest for the future. The new enemy facing Miles is even more like the Governor out of THE WALKING DEAD and Neville's plan to get on the inside is a bit too transparent.

That said, it all trips along well enough and there is a move that is surprising and brutal and confirms the hard edge that has been brought to the show this season.

Love Story

Charlie finds herself an unlikely ally, Miles tries to save the town without everyone getting killed and Tom Neville finds himself unmasked.

Another absurdly plotted escape, a stand off that is too easily overruled and a deus ex machina get out of jail free ending makes this the least effective episode of the second season, but there is some good action and the pace is kept high so that you don't have time to think about the plot holes.

Nobody, it seems, is immune to injury this season. In fact, it seems that everyone has to be hurt to give the show's credibility a boost. Tighter storylines would help, especially with the new tougher tone.

Patriot Games

Rachel learns more about the Patriots, Charlie and Monroe continue their march back to Miles, Aaron learns that his control of the nanobots goes beyond healing himself and Tom Neville deals with a troublesome superior officer.

There is a lot of activity in this episode, but not very much adds up and the episode fails to stand up in its own right and serves only to move the plot arcs along a little. Since most of these aren't all that interesting and some (Yes, Tom Neville, we're looking at you) seem downright irrelevant, that makes it a much less interesting episode.

The focus gained by keeping Miles and Rachel in one place has been lost by splitting off the other stories. True, Monroe and Charlie are on the way back, but the Nevilles seem to have no place here at all.

One Riot, One Ranger

The arrival of some Texas Rangers gives Miles a plan to start a war between the Patriots and Texas. Monroe's arrival adds a few unwelcome wrinkles to that.

This is a twisty turny mystery storyline that works for some of the time, but then gets a bit silly as the twists turn back on themselves and you just stop believing anything that anyone says to anyone else. The scene in which everyone storms into Miles' supposed one-on-one meeting is dangerously close to farce, but does at least come up with one of the better twists.

Twists also take place in the wholly pointless and unattached second storyline about Neville and his son. This might be more interesting if we had any sort of interest in what was happening to them. Which we don't.

Dead Man Walking

Monroe is taken prisoner and put on trial for his life. Miles and Charlie look for a way to free him, but Rachel has other plans.

This episode is all about three scenes. The first is the revelation that Miles has known where Monroe's son is all this time. The second is the long drawn out execution scene that is supposed to make you believe that Monroe's end has truly come, when it is obvious all along what is really going to happen. The last is the big twist in the tail with the revelation the traitor.

That said, this does give some of the best character development in recent times. Highly watchable even if it makes little sense.

The Patriot Act

The arrival of a creepy Patriot science advisor places Aaron in danger. Plans are made to get him out of town, but will Rachel's father continue to betray them?

This is Stephen Collins' episode. The struggle between his better nature and his need to do anything to keep his family safe is the epicentre of the story and he gives it his angsty all. Sadly, the rest of the plot is so utterly predictable that it undermines all his good work. Zeljko Ivanek gives it some good slimy creep as the new arrival, though his performance does edge toward the pantomime.

As for the travails of the Nevilles, this strand continues to have no connection to anything going on in the main plot and is just an annoying distraction.

Come Blow Your Horn

The gang come up with a plan to kill science overlord Horn, even if it kills Rachel's traitorous father. Then Aaron is taken and things go seriously downhill.

Things are surprisingly, and inexplicably, static in this episode. Despite being on the run for their lives, Miles, Rachel and Charlie hang around town looking to exact vengeance rather than make a quick getaway. This gives us a great scene in which Rachel struggles with the idea of killing her father to get everyone else, but doesn't seem in any way likely.

Monroe is demoted to hanging around on the edge of town acting as wet nurse to Aaron, and failing miserably at it as well. Things pick up only when Aaron is taken and Horn sets about his experiments in finding out what Aaron can do. A good torture scene never hurt a show and Zeljko Ivanek is an expert in giving creepy villain. The flashback to his rather unimaginative past is unnecessary and undermines his character.

The character moments are good (grandpa refusing to beg for his life or for forgiveness to enemy and friend alike, Aaron's torture, Rachel's rooftop indecision) are great, but the rest of the plotting is all over the place.

Everyone Says I Love You

Tom Neville unexpectedly finds his wife. Miles has an infection that will kill him. Aaron is talking to a child who isn't there. And the Patriots are closing in.

The nanotechnology is alive and it's talking to Aaron. There's a reason why it has chosen to take on the image of a child in his mind as it is an AI system newly born and struggling to understand the world around it and its creator in particular. This at least explains this strand of the show and is going pretty well until it comes off the rails towards the end in order to serve the plot. After all, an omnipotent Aaron would seriously unbalance the plotting. The 'get out of jail free' card that he represents is displayed here in all its glory and then summarily dispensed with. It also makes a nonsense of the efforts made to save his wife.

Speaking of wives, how convenient is is that Tom Neville just happens to bump into his during a train ride to the capital? She excuses herself for a moment from her new husband and finds that she has time for a quick bunk up with Tom, a strategy chat and a meeting with her son. Not bad for just 'a moment'.

Time is also out of kilter as the resistance walk the length of a secret passage, but the Patriots use that same length of time to recover from consciousness, formulate a plan, round everyone up and get out to the exact same point. How slow were the people in the tunnel walking.

Throw in a truly pointless flashback and embarrassing scenes of people telling each other their true feelings and it's amazing that it manages to pass the time as well as it does.

Three Amigos

Miles take Monroe to find his son with Rachel in tow. The trip takes them to Mexico and some surprises. Charlie and her grandfather discover the Patriots' new plans.

The nonsense around Aaron and the nanites takes a back seat to the kind of usual nonsense with the heroes breaking into fortified camps and stuff with ridiculous ease. It is hard to tell whether this is an improvement or not.

Tom Neville find himself on the fringes of the new Presidency with plans to murder his way higher in a plot strand that is barely less ridiculous.

Mis Dos Padres

Monroe fights for his son's loyalty with the gangster who adopted him, with Miles and Rachel stuck in the middle. Charlie discovers what the Patriots are hiding.

To say that the plot of this episode is predictable is to sully the good name of predictability. Every step can be mapped out well in advance. Even much of the dialogue can be predicted.

Aaron learns a bit more about why the nanites are coming to him and there is a surprise waiting for him. Tom Neville's Washington adventure continues, but it's really hard to care at all.

The show is struggling as much as it ever did and the signs are not good that it is going to improve.

Captain Trips

Returning from Mexico, Rachel enters the plague camp to help her father and makes some unsettling discoveries about the sickness and its source.

The plotting of this show just gets sillier and sillier, but rarely is it as uninteresting as this episode. Very little happens for a very long time and half the cast are left watching the others thorugh binoculars and wondering why they are as bored as the audience.

Worse than that, though, is ther return of the flashbacks. This time around it's how Tom and his wife became such schemers, but it is time-filling at its most obvious and least interesting. We've seen enough of them in the present without needing to have it all handed to us on a spoon.

When you consider what the Patriot leader knows about the outbreak, it makes no sense that he doesn't deal with Rachel straight away and Tom's comeuppance is pretty predictable as well.

Happy Endings

In order to fight the Patriots, Miles needs men. Monroe knows where he can get some, but it means going to New Vegas, a place where he has no friends and more than a few enemies.

After last week's tedious episode, things perk up a little bit with this one. The visit to New Vegas and Monroe's past is at least fun, even if it is pretty predictable. The heist section is breezy and even comes up with an unexpected outcome.

Tom suddenly finds himself offered a job. Considering the trouble that he has caused the leaders of the Patriots, it makes no sense that they wouldn't just kill him, his wife and his son out of hand, but then that wouldn't do much for the plotting. At least it means that the Neville storyline at last intersects with the main one.

Aaron's story at least moves a little bit forward, even if it is just finding another person who he knew in the past in a new town, but there's a sense that this strand of the story is finally getting somewhere.

Fear And Loathing

Monroe must fight his son to the death, Miles works out that something is not right with the Nevilles and Aaron finds out why the nanobots have brought their programmers together.

It's suddenly all action in New Vegas with the death match and Charlie ending up as an unwilling sex toy. The interplay betwen Monroe and his son is their best yet, though the plot around it suffers from being horribly unoriginal.

Worse, however, is the Willoughby storyline in which an action sequence is set up to morph suddenly into a dull betrayal moment and stand-off. Not interesting at all.

What saves it all, however, is Aaron's storyline, which comes as a surprise. The nanobots want fixing and there is some soulsearching about whether to help them or not. What happens is intriguing to say the least.

Dreamcatcher

Aaron wakes up after having a dream about life after all electricity is cut off. He gets back to work on the computer code he is working on, but people from his dream keep wandering into his life.

Ah, the old 'it was all a dream' storyline, the one where forces unknown try to make a major character believe that everything he has experienced is not real in order to trick them out of the information that they are guarding. Still, it wouldn't be such an old and hackneyed storyline if there wasn't something good in it.

Placing Zak Orth's Aaron at the heart of the action actually works wonders and whilst we know early on that it's the nanobots that are doing all this inside his mind, there is still a lot of fun to be had watching it play out. It all turns out to be a bit predictable, not least the obvious twist in the tail, but that doesn't matter so much because the journey is worth the taking.

It's an episode that is well out of the ordinary for this show and that makes it very welcome.

Exposition Boulevard

The truth about the re-education is learned in violent fashion, leaving the group with a moral decision over which they cannot agree.

After the surprising change of pace that was Dreamcatcher, we get the accurately named Exposition Boulevard, in which the Patriot plot is outlined and everyone argues over whether it is right to kill the brainwashed kids of the townsfolk in order to win the war.

There's only so many times that the same argument can be had in a single episode without becoming tedious and this episode goes over that number by at least two. It's a quandary, all right, but nobody seems likely to change their minds on it, so it just becomes repetition.

The battle scene is at least pretty good.

Why We Fight

Whilst Miles and Gene are trapped in the basement of the old man's ex-lover's house, Monroe inherits a small army and decides to destroy the re-education camp once and for all.

After all the pontificating over the rights and wrongs in the last episode, Monroe reverts to type and destroys the re-education centre in the biggest set piece of the season so far. It certainly makes up for the subplot with two men hiding in a basement and sniping at each other. True, some of the banter is fun, but it's hardly exciting stuff.

Austin City Limits

Miles, Monroe and Charlie get some surprising help in derailing the Patriots' latest scheme and Aaron learns what the nanobots are up to now.

There is a lot of this episode that doesn't make a lot of sense, such as why a suspicious commanding officer ignores the threat to her mission until very late on in the plot or how kids who were in Willoughby only days before are now in General's households and graduating from the Texas Rangers. Once again, think too hard about it and the whole plot unravels before you very eyes.

That said, there is one development that is so significant that you don't believe it's happening until it happens. It's a great moment in the show, but it doesn't save what is otherwise a pretty silly storyline.

S#!& Happens

Miles ends up injured in a ruined cellar whilst Charlie faces the man whose son she killed.

The fight at the beginning of this episode turns out to be the high point, though Billy Burke's suffering and the flashbacks to the time when the nanobots visited his mind are watchable enough.

Seeing Neville and Charlie face off as she tells him the news about Jason is pretty good, too, but these are only moments in a slow-moving and tension-free storyline.

Tomorrowland

Following a mustard gas attack on the rebels' hideout, Miles sides with Monroe for once and decide to get a canister for themselves to use on the Patriots.

The battle between Monroe and Rachel for Miles' soul continues and seems to have take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, but there are so many twists and cheats that you can never tell which way it's really going to go.

Aaron sees the nanobot-controlled Priscilla's experiments and is appalled by what she is doing. From being an annoyance, this has become the core of the REVOLUTION story.

Memorial Day

Rachel and Aaron plan to free Priscilla from the nanobot control whilst the rest of the gang try to hijack a trainload of mustard gas planned for the heart of the Texas Republic capital.

The penultimate episode goes for action over common sense as the rebels carry out a train heist. As is the way in this show, the good guys kill a dozen crack troops without a single one of them getting anywhere close. It's OK entertainment, but it's not going to strain any brains.

Rachel and Aaron finally learn about the nanotechnology's future plans and come up with a halfway decent plan to save Priscilla, but this could have been, and perhaps should have been, more chilling.

That, though, is left to the Patriot head, declaring his love for a woman even as he kills her and a nicely twisty plan that outfoxes all of the rebels, (even if it was borrowed directly from MAD MAX 2).

Declaration of Independence

In order to prevent all out war, Miles takes the Patriots' President prisoner, but can he trust Monroe to help him get the man to the Texas authorities?

The double-crossing continues as the twists and turns tangle everyone up in knots and come up with a conclusion that is almost satisfactory. The early action is OK, but utterly unbelievable as a quartet of fighters take out the entire Patriot plot, the President is protected by a ridiculously low number of men and Monroe's son turns to Neville as a father figure. Really?

The show has been cancelled and so it is likely that this is the last we will see of it. The characters were fine, and the actors were pretty good as well, but the writers never really knew what they were doing with the show, or even what kind of a show they were trying to make. The saddest part is that the peek into the planned future story for the nanotechnology was looking quite promising.

REVOLUTION was given two seasons to prove itself and it never really managed it.