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This week, two groups go searching for people they used to know. First are Miles and Nora, who go to Culpeper, Virginia, in search of Miles's old militia buddy Jim Hudson. They need him because Miles has promised to help the militia destroy Monroe. Jim was part of a group that helped Miles in his penultimate assassination attempt against Monroe, but Jim's justifiably still pissed that Miles didn't, you know, kill Monroe. (Just imagine how cheesed off he'd be if he knew Miles didn't kill him AGAIN like a week ago.)
Jim has built himself a nice new life in Culpeper, where he's the town librarian, goes by Henry, and has a pretty wife named Sophie who doesn't know he used to be a psychotic killer. Naturally, a militia kill squad tracks Miles and Nora to Culpeper, so the two of them, plus Jim, have to knock off the whole squad, which blows Jim's cover with Sophie. Having lost everything he cares about, he goes with Miles and Nora. Now all they need is their bass player.
Creepy old Randall has brought a bunch of soldiers to find Rachel, because she's such a smarty that he needs her for his further world-domination plans (or Monroe's plans, since Randall has promised to help Monroe conquer the continent). She, Aaron, and Charlie manage to escape from the abandoned hospital that was this week's rebel HQ, and they scamper off into the woods to meet up with Miles, Nora, and Jim.
In flashbacks, we learn that Randall detonated the power-sucking weapon that Ben, Rachel, John, and Grace built because he was distraught over the death of his soldier son in Afghanistan. So…good job fucking up the entire world because something bad happened to you, dude. And Ben Affleck is the governor of California, but I bet Jennifer Garner is the one everyone's really scared of.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Newly empowered Monroe massacred all the rebels he could find, but Rachel got rocket launchers from her old buddy John, so at least they could bring down two of the helicopters. And Danny died. Rest elsewhere, Danny. And Randall teamed up with Monroe, so that's troubling.
Miles and Aaron fill in Danny's grave while Charlie and Rachel -- along with the other survivors -- watch. Rachel looks catatonic, Charlie looks bored and/or sleepy. Rachel tries to grab her daughter's hand, but Charlie shakes her off.
Nighttime. Nora tells Ramsey and Nicholas that their scouts tell them they haven't seen any more choppers. The plan now is that Ramsey will take the wounded to a field hospital while Nicholas leads everyone to another base. "Business as usual," he says. Miles overhears and snarks drunkenly, "Business as usual. For you, that's... losing." He tells Ramsey that the rebels are a nuisance more than a hindrance to Monroe, and if they want to take him down, they need to hit him hard and decimate his men. Burn down Philadelphia. And Miles plans to help them. Which Nicholas can't quite believe.
Neither can Miles. He says he'll need his buddies from the good old days to do this, but Ramsey asks why they should trust militia officers. Miles says that they were the ones who backed him when he tried to assassinate Monroe (the first time). He names the first guy he wants: Jim Hudson. Nora observes that'll be a hell of a start, if he can find Jim, and if Jim doesn't try to kill Miles. Miles says he can definitely find him, but the second bit will be the hard part.
In the morning, Rachel asks if Miles has to leave so soon; she says it will be better for Charlie if he stays. He asks how he's made anything better. Well, you're the reason she's alive, champ.
Charlie, Rachel, Aaron and others follow Nicholas to what he calls Echo Base: an overgrown hospital to a downed passenger jet. Inside, there are plenty of good old-fashioned hobo trash can fires. Nicholas is arming up to go on a raid, which Rachel says Charlie can't go on because it's too dangerous. But Charlie's deep in her nihilistic nothing-matters-and-I-need-to-feel stage, and grits that she has to do something. Aside from obsessive-compulsive hair care, of course. She does plenty of that.
Somewhere else on the base, Aaron unpacks his bag, including two pendants. They switch on and start glowing. In Philadelphia, Randall is showing Monroe on a monitor where the pendants are and he says he's pretty sure he knows who has these two. Monroe asks if he can track them, and Randall says he can as long as the pendants are on. And he can switch even them on remotely -- Grace showed him how to do that. Monroe asks why he didn't track them before, and Randall says it's because he didn't have choppers and soldiers. Monroe wishes Randall had come to him sooner, but Randall says he hadn't made up his mind whether Monroe was worthy of his help or whether he had his head up his ass. Oh, this guy seems like such fun to be around.
Monroe thinks about this, and then says most people don't talk to him that way. Randall replies that most people don't have the power to conquer a continent, adding that rather than coming to Monroe he could've gone to Georgia, "or to Governor Affleck in California" -- you heard me -- but he chose Monroe. He says he'll bring more pendants, other scientists to build amplifiers, and he can have everything. I still cannot get over a world in which Ben Affleck -- it seems like it would be Ben, right? Casey has to be in charge of, like, Vancouver -- has become the David Morrissey of the West Coast, running around in a horse-drawn Prius with one eye poked out and Matt Damon's skull on a stick for his scepter. Actually, I can totally see that.
Nora and Miles have checked out a trailer; Miles tells Nora Jim's brother told him Jim is twenty miles away, in Culpeper. She asks Miles if he wants to talk about anything, but he doesn't want to talk and especially not about how he got sucked into fighting for the rebels. They get on their horses and ride out, leaving behind a man with a scar on his forehead.
That same man comes to a militia camp in northern Virginia, and tells the leader he has information... for a price. He offers to tell the man where Miles has gone looking for Jim. The leader tosses him a bag of diamonds and Scarface says they were heading to Culpeper. And then the other militia soldiers -- on the leader's orders -- drag him off to kill him. Dummy.
Rachel is looking through a microscope and making notes when the raiding party comes back. She runs over to ask Charlie what happened, and gasps at the blood on Charlie's face. Charlie coolly tells her it's not her blood and walks away. Reason #814 why you don't go to the apocalypse with surly teenagers.
Culpeper, which seems to have done nicely; they have lovely wooden signs pointing to the herbalist, the general store, the firehouse and the library. Nora snarks that it's all very Stepford (which doesn't seem like a reference she'd know to make, given that even the remake came out when she was a child and then, you know, the concept of DVDs disappeared forever), and she and Miles head to the library, which appears to do a brisk business in Stephen King. So even after the apocalypse people will want to read about the apocalypse?
A man is handing The Stand to the patron, recommending it because "it's about the end of the world," which seems a bit heavy-handed, even for this show. Miles greets him as Jim. The man tells him he must be mistaken, and Miles says he looks awfully familiar. The man introduces himself as Henry Bemis. He's the librarian (and he's also Malik Yoba), and introduces his wife, Sophie. Miles threatens to stick around forever, so Henry agrees to talk to them. He takes them into another room and points his gun at Miles, then tells him to get out. So he's not totally reformed into a mild-mannered librarian, then. More of an Indiana Jones kind of librarian.
Miles tells Jim he needs his help and Jim's like, after the last time? When I got you into Monroe's bedroom and then you didn't shoot him? Miles doesn't even look ashamed, and just says he's here to finish the job of killing Monroe.
Charlie pulls her shirt off and tries to rinse out a bloody wound on her shoulder. Her mother comes in and exclaims about the giant open wound, but Charlie says it's nothing. Sure, just give it a week and then your arm will fall off. She puts her shirt back on and says she has to go back out. But Rachel puts her foot down and says Charlie's not going off to get herself killed. Charlie throws a hissy fit more suited to a seven-year-old than whatever age she's supposed to be and starts shrieking about how Rachel was never there for her so she doesn't get to be the boss of her now. Rachel slaps her across the face and everyone cheers. She apologizes and Charlie picks up her crossbow and leaves, past Aaron.
Before Rachel can say anything, she hears the pendants switch on. Aaron says they just do that sometimes and Rachel freaks out, asking when, exactly, they do that. He tells her they did it once at Grace's house, and once in the lighthouse. Outside they hear a siren; Nicholas and the others are keeping watch and they see Humvees approaching. Which means Monroe has power again.
Jim tells Miles and Nora that he can't throw himself back into their suicidal plans, because he's building a nice life for himself here in Culpeper that doesn't include regular acts of homicide. He has a wife, whom he loves, and he needs to stay here and be a better man. Miles points out that Sophie doesn't even know his name and says Jim can't run from who he is. But Jim likes his life here and he doesn't plan to leave, no matter what Miles says.
Nicholas is evacuating the rebel base. Charlie asks Aaron where Rachel is -- she's still upstairs, making George's Marvelous Medicine with all the bottles in her lab. She says she knows Randall is coming, so she's trying to destroy the pendants because Monroe can track them. Every pendant Monroe gets means he can fly another chopper and kill other people's kids, Rachel sobs. Sure enough, Randall gets out of a Humvee with a handheld tracker for the pendants. He leads a group of soldiers into the building.
Aaron is protesting that Miles already tried to smash the pendants, but Rachel just pops one open, pulling out a flash drive, which stupefies Aaron. Aaron, I thought you were some kind of tech wizard. He asks her what's on the flash drive and she drops them in the sulfuric acid. "Nothing, now," she says.
Randall's tracking device goes dark. He tells his men to seal off the exits, and he and two others go in search of the last place the pendants were. They find the lab and the flash drives sizzling in the acid. Randall gets his thousand-yard flashback stare.
It's one year before the blackout, and Randall's having orange juice while his silent wife washes dishes. His doorbell rings; it's two uniformed officers telling Randall and his wife, Lisa, that their son, Edward, has died in Kabul, Afghanistan. Lisa crumples and Randall takes her hand, but his face doesn't move.
Nora tells Miles they'll just find someone else to do whatever they needed Jim for. But the militia leader from earlier is riding into town to find them! They hide behind a tree, and Nora asks if Miles thinks they're looking for Jim. He says, yeah... or him... or both of them.
Hospital/rebel base. Charlie, Rachel and Aaron duck around a corner, trying to find a way out. Instead, they trap themselves in radiology and watch as the shadows of militia men outside stalk them. It's a neat image for a show that hasn't been very visually interesting lately. The militia soldiers move on, and Charlie asks who Randall is. Rachel tells her Randall was the assistant secretary of the department of defense -- and her boss. Aaron can't believe she was building a weapon, while Charlie, of course, doesn't know what "DOD" stands for.
Outside, Randall has borrowed a megaphone from Councilman Jamm's aunt, and he's telling Rachel to come out, come out, wherever she is, because her giant brain is much more valuable to him than the pendants. Charlie, finally, looks like she realizes what deep shit she's in.
Back in Culpeper, Miles returns to the library and tells Jim about the militia kill squad that's coming for him. Jim's all, I've been fine here until you showed up! Miles wants to fight, and Jim hisses that he has a wife and people he cares about. But Miles yells, "Guys like us can't have that! You care about somebody, you're just going to let them down. Or worse, get them killed." Nora, over in the corner is all, soooo, no sexytimes later? Miles tells Jim to stop pretending he's not a killer like Miles, and Sophie overhears this last part and asks who Jim is.
Neville comes into Monroe's office, and Monroe asks how he and the missus are holding up since Jason "died." Neville says they're fine, and he heard about the mission to go get Rachel. He's sore about why he wasn't asked to go. Monroe says Neville needed time to grieve, which Neville says he appreciates, but he doesn't exactly trust Randall. Monroe says he doesn't either, but then he doesn't trust anyone.
Hospital. Randall and two henchmen do the Slow Walk of Evil through the halls and we flash back to one month before the blackout. Randall tells Rachel and Ben that they're going to launch the weapon against the Taliban in one month. Ben says they still need to test it, which Randall says they've been doing for a year, while more soldiers die every day that they wait. Rachel's concerned about the risks, but he says they're imaginary and the Mathesons aren't his only eggheads, so he's going forward with the weapon deployment with or without them, so they'd better have it ready. That... doesn't sound like he's able to launch the weapon without them, does it?
Charlie, Rachel and Aaron creep into the hospital kitchen. Rachel chooses this moment to gasp about how she's let Charlie down and failed her in every way. But during this tender moment, the militia comes in and yells at them to put their hands up. They crouch below the prep tables, avoiding velociraptor-style, and then Charlie pops up and shoots one with her crossbow. (A militia dude, not a velociraptor. Although that would be cool.) She runs, drawing the militia out, leaving Rachel and Aaron behind. The man pursuing her runs around the corner and Charlie strikes out with an arrow in her hands, stabbing him to death. She takes his gun.
The militia kill squad moves methodically through Culpeper while the townspeople watch from inside their houses. Jim comes out to meet them and tells them who he is. The militia soldiers surround him, and the leader asks him where Miles is. Miles steps out of the woods and says hello. He has a sword in one hand and a gigantic knife in the other, because Miles likes stabbing things. He tells the captain to surrender, that they have him surrounded. Well, as much as a triangle can surround a circle, because Nora is in the woods on the other side of the street. The captain orders his men to cuff Miles and the fight starts.
They fight. Buckles are swashed. The captain just watches from his horse and Jim catches sight of his wife, in an upstairs window. He stares at her too long and the captain notices, so Sophie might be a goner.
Charlie is still stalking through the hospital. She lunges around a corner and almost shoots Aaron. She hands him her crossbow and they go looking for Rachel, who's just jogging through the darkened hallways like this is a particularly gloomy tampon commercial. She runs directly into Randall, who smarms that it's good to see her, and his men escort her out of the building. She tells Randall she'll help him turn the power back on, but not with Monroe, and he asks what makes her think he wants to turn the power back on when everyone was so irresponsible with it before. He wants just a few people to have power and for them to be in charge.
They walk outside and Charlie starts firing from cover. Randall's men return fire and Randall -- who looks completely bewildered that anyone would dare oppose him -- hustles Rachel to the Humvee. She manages to elbow him in the face and break free. Rachel, Charlie and Aaron flee while Randall just glowers after them, with his very best Joey Tribbiani-taught angry face. Indeed, he smells the fart.
Miles, Jim and Nora are still fighting with the militia, while the captain has gotten into Jim and Sophie's house and he's looking for her. He hunts for her through the bookshelves and surely there's a Riverside Shakespeare she can bludgeon him to death with? But no, she tries to make a run for it and walks right up to him. The captain backs her into a corner and says he'll see how tough Jim is when he cuts his wife's throat.
Jim, though, has way better timing than anyone on The Following, because he pops up and kills the captain. Which horrifies Sophie. I know it's kind of a shock, seeing your mild-mannered librarian husband hack someone to death, but kill or be killed, you know?
Other Culpeper citizens pile the dead militia soldiers into a wagon while Jim watches. He pulls off his jacket and puts it around Sophie's shoulders; she's sitting on a flower box crying, and asks him if anything was the truth. He says the important stuff was, and it's nice that he didn't get bloody or anything while he and Miles and Nora were slaughtering like thirty people, because that would probably bother her even more. Jim tells Sophie he loves her, and she tells him not to say that and runs off. To... what, exactly? As we saw with Aaron's wife, in this world strength in numbers (and, reductively, big strong men who can protect you by killing people who want to take your stuff) seems to be the way to go.
And now Jim is brokenhearted and alone. He tells Miles he ruined his life again, but he's going with him. Because he has no other choice. He addresses him as General Matheson and Miles looks like he really hates being called that.
Aaron is staring glumly into a fire when Miles, Nora and Jim find him. She asks what happened with Echo Base, and he says it's a long story. Charlie has finally gotten over her childish snit and apologizes to her mother, telling her she was focused on getting Danny back for such a long time and now she never will. They hug and cry on each other and from across the clearing, Miles stares at them hauntedly. Nora watches him and puts her hand in his. Oh, honey. That's not going to end in babies and well-curated libraries for you, I don't think.
Randall, in his Humvee, flashes back to the night of the blackout. He's asking the team in Kabul (of course) what their status is and asks, "Tower, are you ready?" Landry Clarke's dad, in the Tower, asks if he's absolutely sure about this. Randall is holding his dead son's dog tags. He's sure. He tells them to execute the virus.
Rachel sits by Charlie as she sleeps near the campfire. Aaron comes out of the woods and says he can't imagine what she's been through with Monroe, but seeing as how she keeps almost getting him killed, he wants an explanation of what's going on. She tells him he doesn't want to know and Aaron pleads with her, saying they're friends; she and Ben took him in (but I thought Rachel left Ben and the kids before they settled in Illinois?), and he asks her to let him help. She relents and says she'll tell him everything. She starts by telling him about a place called the Tower.
week: Something went wrong at the Tower, which is what knocked out the power. Jason joins up with the rebels and Charlie clubs Neville in the face. And Miles and Rachel make out.
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