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Charlie spends most of the episode tied up in a swimming pool, but unfortunately Cheekbones -- the improbably pretty bounty hunter who spoiled her attempt to kill Monroe -- neglects to gag her. He also doesn't listen to her when she quite sensibly points out that Monroe is a slippery bastard who cannot be contained, much less complacently transported into the custody of the U.S. government. So it's a bad day for Cheekbones, and a worse day for his friend from ZZ Top.
In Savannah, Tom and Jason Neville have made a friend and roped him into their He-Man Woman-Haters' Club, with the primary goal of assassinating Secretary Justine Allenford. Neville's plan includes setting up the new friend as a failed assassin and murdering him, thereby worming his way into Allenford's trust.
And in Texas, Miles and Mason have fallen into the clutches of creepy Titus Andover, who, it turns out, was the kiddie-porn-loving headmaster of a boys' school before the blackout, and now he's a sadistic cult leader whose followers are a cross between the Lord's Resistance Army and Schillinger from Oz. They kill Mason and torture Miles while Rachel tries to rally a group in Willoughby to rescue Miles. Over at his house, Aaron freaks out about how he's alive now.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Rachel broke everything. Charlie is hunting Monroe and also sleeping her way across the Plains Nation. The U.S. government is back, and they've made the critical error of pissing Tom Neville off. Spooky Matt Ross has a family of bandits terrorizing Texas. And Aaron died. But then he un-died.
We start right where we left off, with Aaron gasping back to life. Rachel flings herself on top of him, hollers for her father, and starts doing mouth-to-mouth. Dr. Gene, after a moment of "Why are you French-kissing a corpse, Rachel? Is this what you're into now? I knew I never should have allowed the teenagers in this town to dance!" puts a manual respirator on Aaron and Aaron comes back to consciousness, choking and spitting up blood. Dr. Gene is all, THE FUCK? Mrs. Aaron just stands in the doorway and freaks out. As you'd expect.
Somewhere in the Plains Nation, Monroe is unconscious and tied up in the bottom of an empty swimming pool. One of the dudes from ZZ Top flips through an old issue of Penthouse at a table to the pool. ZZ hears something and investigates—it's Charlie, of course, who clubs him into unconsciousness. Pistol drawn, she creeps around the swimming pool, intending to kill Monroe, but someone surprises her by saying, "Hey." Charlie shoots. Cheekbones Guy shoots as well and Charlie falls into the pool.
Titus Andover's Festival of Horrors. Miles and Sheriff Mason are in separate cages. Some of Titus's family members drag a screaming man out through a red door. Mason recognizes a woman in a nearby cage, calling her Sara Wilkerson. She's all, oh hey, nice to see you, everything sucks. He asks what's behind the red door, and she dully says people go in but don't come back—including her son.
Miles decides this is a fine time to play Twenty Questions, and asks Mason how he became sheriff of Willoughby. Turns out Mason idolized a Texas Ranger his dad used to tell him stories about. A Texas Ranger named…Walker. Miles is dryly amused. (Although the ages don't quite work here. Adam Beach is 40. That's certainly old enough to have seen a TV show that aired from 1993 to 2001. Ugh, show.)
Some of Titus's pals come back and forcibly withdraw blood from both Miles and Mason. I doubt they're being too careful about cleaning the needles. They drip four drops of blood onto two separate pieces of paper, then hold up the papers and compare them. "Him. Not him," one of the men says, and another one shoots Mason in the face. I hope they have Chuck Norris reruns in heaven.
Dr. Gene's house. Rachel asks Aaron how he's feeling. "For a dead guy, okay," he replies. "Little dehydrated, hungry for brains." I would love it if this show turned into The Walking Dead: Shampoo Commercial Edition. For one thing, eventually Charlie would get pregnant and a zombie would eat her. Aaron asks how long he was dead. Two and a half hours, Rachel replies. They agree that him popping back up from that is pretty much impossible, and Aaron says Cynthia (aka Mrs. Aaron) won't stop crying about how her prayers were answered and how it's a miracle! No…it's the nanites, Aaron speculates. Rachel's all, uh-huh. Yep. The nanites.
"The microscopic robots in the air magically resurrected me," Aaron says. "That sounds totally logical." Well, it's as logical as everyone's general dental hygiene and lack of susceptibility to pellagra. Aaron, like many of us, doesn't understand why the nanites popped him right back to life when others (short list: Danny, Nora, Randall, Ben, Maggie, Jeremy, Nicholas, Jim, Ramsey, the entire populations of Atlanta and Philadelphia, and Tom fucking Clancy) remain dead. Rachel, of course, only invented this ridiculous thing, but it's not like she can explain it.
Willoughby gates, middle of the night. A figure on a horse rides up, and the sentries holler at him to stop. The horse obeys. A couple of guards come out to investigate—it's Sheriff Mason, dead and tied to the saddle.
The morning, a Willoughby man (Ken) tells one of his neighbors that they're moving everyone to a central location (looks like city hall, or a school) until the Texas Rangers arrive from Austin. Aaron and Cynthia are entertaining a group of kids. Despite his post-death case of the willies, he's telling them the story of New York's brave and awesome Ghostbusters. Aaron, you are a good egg.
Rachel pleads with her father to intercede with the deputies to save Miles. Gene is suitably scared by Mason's murder and would rather hunker down in Willoughby, but Rachel wants to repay Miles for saving both her and Charlie. Gene's all, yeah, I'm happy he brought you home, too! And I don't want you to die. Rachel, of course, places basically no value on her own life. It's like she knows something about her inherent goodness as a person that her father doesn't.
Prison swimming pool. Charlie wakes up, her arms tied. Monroe's already woken up and he looks somewhat less than pleased (or surprised) to see her. Cheekbones jogs down from the shallow end and says he'll fix up Charlie's wounds, but if she tries to escape or does anything else stupid, he'll do worse than blast her with rock salt. As Cheekbones (who also has some improbably Chiclet-y teeth) dabs something that looks like honey on her wounds, he rambles about how he knows she wants to kill Monroe, but she'll have to get in line behind the whole surviving continent.
Charlie finally asks what they plan to do with Monroe, sussing out that Cheekbones and his pal ZZ are bounty hunters. Their employers: the U.S. government, which wants Monroe alive. Charlie calls Cheekbones an idiot for not just putting a bullet through Monroe's head. She says Monroe is sure to escape and kill the bounty hunters. Cheekbones just slaps a questionably clean rag on her shoulder and snarks that he liked her better when she was mute. You and me and everyone we know, buddy.
In his cage, Miles has figured out a way to jimmy the door open. He's about to make a break for it when Sara, the only other prisoner left, almost inaudibly asks him to wait. That, of course, is the mistake. Guards come back and Miles fights them. Smashy slashy face-crunchy, until one remaining guard (I'm just going to call him Ugly, since he pops up a lot) tells Miles to stop or he'll kill Sara. Poor dumb noble Miles does, of course. "Titus is going to want to have a word with you," Ugly says.
Savannah. Neville has made himself a regular-army buddy, with the help of some homemade hooch. He introduces himself as Edgar Crane, and thanks the man for his service to the United States, which he says is "the Lord's work." The man stumbles off drunkenly. Back in his tent, Tom and Jason share their info with a third member of the team, whom I shall call Patsy: Allenford worked for the DOD before the blackout. Tom suspects that she knew Randall, and Patsy asks what that means. Tom doesn't want to trust Patsy, but Jason assures him he was with the rebels.
Tom explains: the America the rebels were fighting for is not what the returning U.S. government plans to reinstate. Tom doesn't know what their end game is, but he's convinced they dropped the bombs on Philly and Atlanta so that they could be the solution to the problem they created. Patsy husks that he lost his kids in the bombing. "We all lost people," Neville whispers. Which is why he plans to assassinate Allenford.
Willoughby. The town's pastor offers Aaron his, uh, his sympathies? His congratulations? On his recent death and resurrection. I'm sure this is a bit of a mind-fuck for a man of God. Gene told him everything, he said, and Aaron's all, what happened to doctor-patient confidentiality? Aaron's not exactly a patient, the pastor reminds him. His wound is completely gone, Cynthia says. It's a miracle, the pastor agrees. Yay, Aaron snarks.
Swimming pool. Monroe solicitously asks after Miles and Rachel's welfare, and if Charlie was like five years older she'd be quoting the line about how she'd like to spit in his face, if she had any spit. She just stares blankly at him as he rambles, asking her if Randall was the one who pushed the button to drop the bombs. Charlie's dead eyes confirm it, so Monroe guiltily says that by getting Randall into the Tower, it's like he pushed the button himself. They exchange some more "witty" "banter" about how she doesn't believe he has feelings and he's all, remember when you were a toddler? I liked you better then. She sneers that he's just a drunk fighting in a whorehouse, and offers to kill him herself. He laughs and says she's an awful lot like Rachel. I predict these two are doing it within three episodes.
Rachel pleads with Ken, who is apparently the town butcher and therefore quite handy with a knife, to help her on Operation Rescue "Stan." They reminisce about their misspent drunken youth, and Ken reluctantly says the town needs everyone—and all the guns it has—to protect itself. He apologizes again.
Titus's office. Titus is sipping a drink through a straw and staring, wide-eyed, at Miles. Miles is all, look, I have a pedicure at five, so if you guys don't need anything from me…? Titus motormouths about what a fine swordsman Miles is, and how he would've gotten away if he hadn't felt a "moral obligation" to go back for "that whimpering slut." Just in case you were wondering if the murderous cult leaders of the apocalyptic future would also be classic misogynists: you'd be right. Miles asks if Titus knows just how creepy he sounds, and Ugly punches him in the face.
Titus explains that before the blackout, he was the headmaster of a boys' school. You already know before he says it that he was the molesty kind, but since nothing can be too obvious in a world without lamps, Titus says that the night of the blackout, the police were coming to arrest him for images he had on his computer. "For art," he says loftily. Miles looks like he'd happily throw up on Titus's shoes, if he'd had any food lately. Titus took the blackout as a sign from God that he was now free to do whatever he wanted. The boys from the school are free, too, Titus says, and some of them are still with him, free to do whatever they want. You know, like raping and killing and stealing. "How is that not a better world?" Titus asks.
Miles expresses how impressed he is with Titus's real-world Lord of the Flies, then says if they're going to kill him, they should please do it so he doesn't have to listen to any more Creepy Titus Tales. Ugly wants to beat the hell out of Miles again, some more, but Titus stops him. Ugly leaves, and Miles sees a dead man slumped against the wall. He asks who it is. Titus replies: that's the rider Willoughby sent to Austin to ask the Rangers to come help.
Titus says he's not going to kill Miles, but he can't risk Miles killing any more of his "family"…so Ugly pulls Miles's arms out straight on the desk, and Titus grabs a mallet from a drawer and smashes Miles's hand. So, movie Misery rather than book Misery. (If you've never heard that story, it starts on p. 386 of William Goldman's Four Screenplays With Essays.)
Savannah. Allenford exits a tent, surrounded by men, and Neville watches nefariously. Working under a wagon, Jason has blocked the way Allenford and her escort would go, so they reroute. Tom follows. Is there a reason this whole sequence is in slow motion? Was the episode running a few minutes short and they couldn't figure out a way to get Charlie down to her bra? Patsy gets a signal from Neville and draws his gun to shoot Allenford, but Neville screams, "Gun!" and shoots Patsy through the forehead. Neville quickly drops his gun and puts his hands up in surrender while Allenford's men frisk him and Jason watches disapprovingly, because Patsy was the only one in camp who could beat Jason at cribbage.
Willoughby. Aaron slugs back some liquid courage, then notices a dead mouse on the floor. He gets curious about whether he can shoot nanites out of his magical zombie hands into something else, because he pokes the mouse with his cane. Nothing happens. Ah, well. Hearing a gunshot in the room, Aaron goes to investigate. He finds Ben Matheson lying on the floor, shot in the chest. Ben gasps, "It's you, Aaron. It's you," then chokes and dies again, and then Aaron snaps out of his reverie when Cynthia calls his name. There's no one on the floor in the hall where he's kneeling, of course, because Aaron is going nanite-crazy.
Swimming pool from hell. Monroe has broken a piece of tile from the wall of the pool and is resolutely, if surreptitiously, trying to free his hands. ZZ yells something in Russian. He takes Monroe away, up the slope out of the pool. Cheekbones hikes down to talk to Charlie again, then cuts the ropes binding her hands. He doesn't like killing, he says while she gives him sex eyes. He leaves her there.
In the bounty hunters' wagon, Monroe uses his piece of broken tile to free his hands. I think. It's hard to tell because I can't see in the fucking dark. Back in the pool, Charlie frees herself as well. Monroe shimmies the back door of the wagon open with his trusty bit o' tile, leaps out the back, and runs. Cheekbones follows him. Because running into a darkened forest after someone you think is capable of genocide is a great idea.
Monroe comes to a chain-link fence. ZZ catches him and drags him off the fence. Monroe and ZZ fight. Even though they were in a wagon and had a good head start, Charlie manages to catch up. She hears the fight and runs toward it. Monroe kills ZZ. Cheekbones is off somewhere, probably applying the world's last remaining Crest Whitestrip to his gleaming incisors. Commercial.
Finished with his intricate grooming routine, Cheekbones tackles Monroe, screaming at him for killing ZZ. But since Monroe has been earning his living by beating the shit out of people for the last, oh, six months, right? He's winning when he and Cheekbones grapple. Monroe's about to choke the pretty life out of Cheekbones when Charlie clubs him with something. They fight. He whacks her hard enough in the belly to knock the wind out of her, and while she lies on the ground sucking air, he runs. She manages to recover before Cheekbones and pursues. Some bounty hunter this guy is. He must've gone to the same school as Ponyboy.
Monroe gets to the wagon and fucks right off with it. Cheekbones catches up to Charlie, who's just standing there in the moonlight, looking peevish.
Willoughby. Rachel, saddling a horse, snaps at her father, "We have nothing to say to each other." He agrees, and it turns out he's brought her some nice gentlemen of the town to help her on her suicide mission. Gene asks Rachel to forget that Miles saved Charlie (uh, like forty-seven times) and about what he did for her, and asks her to consider if Miles is worth it. Rachel doesn't answer, but Gene already knew her answer. He tosses his saddle on his horse and Rachel puts up a token struggle about her dad coming with her on Operation: Get Shot in the Face or Probably Worse, but Gene reminds her that the stubbornness runs in the family.
Elsewhere in Willoughby, Aaron is pretty close to convincing Cynthia that he's crazy by telling her about his vision of Ben. She is remarkably calm, considering. She still thinks everything that's been happening is a miracle. Aaron sneers at her faith, saying that for his trick, he'll turn water into wine! That would actually be helpful, so you know it won't happen. They argue some more and Aaron tells Cynthia he knows what resurrected him. He also knows what caused the blackout, he says. Yeah, wait till you get to the part about why the coming-back-from-the-dead thing only works on you. That'll convince her it's not an act of God.
Flashback to the Tower. Miles is counting down while Aaron slaps at the computer. "I've almost got it," he says, but just as Miles says "three," the system crashes. That'll teach the Department of Defense to buy Dells. Aaron, Rachel, Miles and Charlie watch on monitors as the bombs hit Atlanta and Philadelphia. They sit in stunned silence until the door to the bunker blows open. It's Neville, who tells Miles to drop his weapon. Miles is just sighs, like, Tom, you are the least of our problems. And then the lights and computers all switch off. Again. Just before everything electric suddenly explodes.
Titus's surely smelly jail. Miles is clutching his mangled hand. Sara reaches through the bars of the cage, rips off part of Miles's shirt, and makes a bandage, which she ties around his hand. Ugly comes back in and says it won't hurt much longer, because Miles is to go through the red door.
In another room, Ugly pulls out a packet of papers, a candle, some sealing wax. He writes something, then folds the paper up and seals it. The seal he uses is a triangle with an eye inside, similar to the pyramid on the one-dollar bill.
In Savannah, Allenford breaks an identical seal. There's a code written on the paper inside. (Possibly Arabic script, but backward?) She puts the paper in the potbelly stove in her tent just as a man brings Neville in. He introduces himself again as Edgar Crane, and Allenford expresses her gratitude for how he saved her life. Neville says he noticed Patsy earlier and his gut told him to keep an eye on the man. He tells her he used to work for Monroe, but now he wants to help her with her security. When she asks how she knows she can trust him, Neville says, "I was born an American. I would like very much to be one again."
Rachel and her gang of old men hear a crunching sound as they're riding and stop their horses in the dark. She asks for a torch. One of the men lights it, and Rachel sees that they're riding their horses through a seemingly endless field of dead rats. Which accounted for all the crunching. Aaaaagggghh.
At Titus's prison, guards drag Miles through the red door. He struggles, but there are more of them. Inside, a music box plays terrible, eerie, plinky music. There are corpses on gurneys, and a surgeon (in the medieval sense of the word) wiping a bloody tool on a rag. And Titus is there, having brought some of his American Horror Story experience with him. Miles looks like he deeply regrets not letting Monroe fillet him last year.
week: Titus's family attacks Willoughby.