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On the great plains of Charlie and Monroe's bogus journey, she no sooner walks away from the two hot dirty guys in the woods than she finds herself drugged and surrounded by rapey assholes. Monroe saves her, and then uses the I-just-saved-your-life card to get her to take him to Miles and Rachel.
Rachel has survived her crossbow to the chest, but her crazy is intact. As soon as she learns that Willoughby's saviors are wearing the uniforms of the U.S. government, she starts ranting to Ken about her certainty that Randall was working for the government, and he blew up Philadelphia and Atlanta on their orders. Ken, it turns out, is a U.S. government–affiliated patriot, so he tries to kill Rachel in his basement. But not before creepily stroking her face. Rather than going quietly into the nice hole in the floor, Rachel kills Ken and scampers back to Miles, promising to be quieter about her crazy theories.
Miles -- out on recon beyond Willoughby's walls -- discovers that the U.S. government is indeed up to no good: they're killing people and blaming it on Titus Andover's reavers. Miles gets caught and almost killed, but it turns out that Aaron's near-death experience has given him the power of seeing through the fireflies to what's going on elsewhere. Specifically, he saves Miles's bacon by setting a couple of government soldiers on fire with his mind. Yeah, I know. It's bananas.
And in Georgia, Tom Neville is doing what he does best: finding a weak man, exploiting his weakness, then walking over his face with spiked boots to further his own ends.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Turns out Cheekbones once played a super hot douche bag on 30 Rock, as I learned from a rerun last week. It's one of the Salma Hayek episodes. Anyway, on this show, Aaron died and then the nanites un-dead'ed him. Charlie found out there's a government bounty on her mother's head as well as on Monroe's, and Titus Andover and his family attacked Grandpa Doctor Gene's hometown of Willoughby. But then the U.S. government showed up and saved the civilians. And in Georgia, the family Neville infiltrated the feds.
Pottsboro, North Texas. Oh, I hope the memory of Lionel Barrymore was somehow involved in the naming of this squalid place. Charlie is stuffing her face with something that's possibly a stew, and slugging back brown liquor while a sweaty guy hits on her. He offers to buy her uno mas, and she politely declines. Sweaty is not impressed with Charlie's manners. When she tries to leave, the door is locked. When Sweaty and five gross friends who seem to have less than gentlemanly impulses surround her, she makes her best Linda Hamilton I'm-Gonna-Shove-a-Hypodermic-in-Your-Eye,-Sucka face, and then beats the shit out of them with a pool cue. But then she starts to get wobbly from something that was in the booze. Ruh-roh.
Just in time, Monroe breaks through the locked door, draws his sword, and comes swashbuckling to Charlie's rescue. Charlie watches him stab some bum to death right before slumping into unconsciousness. And I type the words "into unconsciousness" so many times with this show that I'm thinking of replacing the word "unconsciousness" with "bunnies." So Charlie falls over, bunny-ed.
Rachel wakes up in a lovely bed in a sunny room, windows open, and curtains blowing in the breeze. It's basically a Cialis ad, except for the twin bathtubs. She pulls up her shirt to look at the slightly bloody bandage from her crossbow wound, and hollers for Miles and Gene. She wanders outside and is first spooked by a kid dressed as a skeleton, then sees several other children in Halloween costumes. She continues wandering through Willoughby, still pretty drugged up if that slack-jawed look is any indication. Khaki-uniformed soldiers with the American flag on their arms are patrolling the town, armed with semiautomatic weapons. One of them rides into town with a bunch of dead reaper bodies slung over a pack horse. The Stars and Stripes flies over the town square, and Rachel spots Ken, then Miles.
Rachel and Miles hug and she asks him how long she was unconscious. A couple of days, he replies. She asks what happened, how Miles's hurt hand got fixed, why all the townspeople are back and Miles understates, "You missed a lot." He introduces Ed Truman of the U.S. government (who looks familiar, like he was someone's husband on Desperate Housewives, maybe), and she's all, "Who in the what now?" Ed explains the government has come back to the continent from Cuba and they've been working their way west. They're trying to restore order wherever they can, including cracking down on Titus's reapers. Rachel is super skeptical even though they, you know, saved her life. Miles -- who's still going by Stu as far as Ed is concerned -- escorts Rachel back to Gene's house.
Georgia. Tom Neville now has him a fresh khaki uniform. He interrupts an impromptu fight club going on in a tent and quickly subdues a great big bald guy. He loses a tooth for his trouble and his commanding officer, it seems, chastises him for not being at his assigned duty at the dock. Neville asks if he hasn't done everything asked of him, but the CO, who was the guy interrogating him last week -- his name is Cooke -- and says smugly that he doesn't trust Neville and is looking forward to killing him if and when he steps out of line. Neville's face clearly says Cooke is first up against the wall when I'm in charge. Why doesn't everyone else see how deeply, scarily evil Giancarlo Esposito is?
Texas. Aaron and Miles explain to Rachel how the feds are saying Monroe and Foster launched the nukes. "They're calling themselves patriots," Miles says grimly. Rachel recognizes that "patriot" from Randall's dying words and lunges for a drawer, pulling out her crazy journal and rambling about how close Randall was with the fellows at Gitmo back in the day. Miles points out that if the feds wanted to kill the three of them, they'd hardly have bothered patching Rachel and Miles up. (I guess they can try their best to bump off Aaron? Maybe guns would work better than knives. Or fire. Hell, just go full Rasputin on him). He reassures her that she's not crazy and tells her to chill while he goes outside the wire to do some recon.
The closed captioning describes what's happening in the town square as "indistinct merriment." That does seem to be the case. Children are running around shrieking, as children tend to do. Rachel wanders some more and flashes back to Randall's death. Ken, catching up with her, points out the kids in their masks and says the town is just trying to give them a little taste of normalcy. He asks what she's thinking about, and she's all, "La la la, definitely not how our government blew up two American cities!"
She lets herself into a nearby building and by the light of a trusty Zippo that somehow still has butane digs through some filing cabinets until she finds that eye-in-a-triangle-in-a-circle symbol on some papers. I'm just going to call the Patriot Symbol from now on, for simplicity. She also finds a map marked "Willoughby train yard." And then Ed catches her in his office.
Ed is interrogating Rachel (quite politely, actually, and without the use of even a single thumbscrew) and Gene asks what's going on. Rachel stomps off in a snit, because while she might be a genius, she's also an asshole, let's not forget. Gene assures Ed this kind of monkey business won't happen again. Back in his office, Ed asks if she took anything. His subordinate doesn't think so, but asks if Rachel will be a problem. Ed doesn't know just yet. The subordinate says a rider found someone outside the walls. "Good. We can use him," Ed says after ascertaining the man was alone, the lighting flickering off his massive forehead in the most evil way.
Some creepy moonlit field. Poor Alone Guy is on his knees, hands behind his head, while two U.S. government fellows talk about how dangerous it is to be out alone, what with the Andover reapers roving about. "I'm not afraid of them," Alone Guy says. "You should be," the government guy replies. "They just killed you." And he stabs Alone Guy to death.
Gene's house. He reads Rachel the riot act for breaking into Ed's office (but not for being so fucking obvious about it). Rachel insists that the government guys are dangerous and rambles about Randall. "I'm not crazy," she insists, which is what crazy people say. Rachel insists she's the one true savior of America, that she's the only one who can fix things, and Gene yells at her about how he keeps on having to watch her almost die because of her single-minded arrogance. "You can't fix everything. And a lot of people died," he says. "You almost died." That last one wouldn't have been a tragedy to me. But Gene seems like he'd be pretty sad about it. It's a good thing he never found out what Ruthie's gotten up to.
Gene goes outside when a man hollers for him; it's the soldiers bringing in Alone Guy, telling Gene the Andover got him, so this is why they're keeping everyone in town inside the walls. Miles, of course, is outside, creeping about, like the creeping kid.
Charlie wakes up because it's raining. Monroe chucks a canteen at her and tells her to drink some water to help get the drugs out of her system. She asks how he found her, and he reminds her she's terrible at being stealthy. When she asks why he's helping her, he says it's to prove he's trustworthy so she'll take him to Miles and Rachel and he can try to make amends. For…torturing Rachel? For killing Danny? For trying to kill Miles like fourteen times? You should make a list, Bass. I bet they're not going to be so receptive. Charlie brats that Monroe's a sociopath and she knows he's just saying what he thinks will get her to do what he wants. Takes one to know one, kid.
She lunges for a weapon, and Monroe keeps it out of her hands as he tells her they're on the same team right now, because the new government is trouble for all of them.
Aaron reads at home, then gets up and looks out the window when he's distracted by some kids yelling, "Trick or treat." And then he collapses on the floor. While he's bunnies, Aaron takes a little dream walkabout. He sees what Miles is doing: returning to the place with the cages where Titus held him. Aaron wakes up with Cynthia leaning over him, freaking out. He assures her he's all right, he's just clairvoyant now.
Miles looks up at the neon fireflies, which are above him at pretty much the same angle from which Aaron was seeing him. He walks into Titus's office and finds the creepy jerk himself. Titus grabs a gun and holds it on Miles, who drops his sword. Miles wants to talk, but Titus has gone crazy over Deadssica. He rants about how Ugly betrayed him, packing Titus and his "children" into the trains. Miles wants to know more about the trains. "I was a loving father, but those patriots, they're inhuman," Titus crazies. "I lost the only person I ever loved because of you." He fires the gun, but it wasn't loaded, so he grabs a knife and he and Miles fight over it until the knife finds its way into Titus's belly. Titus dies. (I hope).
Rachel has decided the best antidote to her crazy is getting drunk at Willoughby's only street café. Ken joins her. Be careful, Ken! Handsome black men don't live long on this show. He asks what's going on, and she says she's fine and doesn't want him involved. Ken points out that they've been friends since they used to watch Spaceballs together and tells her to let him help. Yeah, Ken is not long for this grubby world.
Neville approaches a house, from which "A Whiter Shade of Pale" emits. He enters, and this appears to be Savannah's finest cat house/hash dispensary. A lady in her underpants solicits the appropriate number of diamonds, and then escorts Neville to a back room. She assures him of his two hours of privacy and leaves him at the door. Inside the room: Cooke, passed out on a bed. Neville secures the door, and then takes a gun from under Cooke's pillow.
Ken and Rachel chat inside his butcher shop. He's floored by her whole batshit story, especially the part about how Willoughby's saviors nuked Philly and Atlanta. She swears it's true, and Ken decides to believe her, but not without some more wine. They go down to the cellar with a torch. (After sixteen years of blackout -- and a whole bunch of Mrs. O'Leary's cow incidents, probably -- you'd think they'd have lanterns). Ken unlocks his special wine closet. Rachel spots the Patriot Symbol on a scrap of paper and stammers something about going home because it's late. She backs toward the stairs, with the torch, swearing she'll come back first thing in the morning when she's not so tired and drunk. She drops the torch and tries to run, but Ken knocks her bunnies before she can get up the stairs.
Ken has secured Rachel in the chained-by-the-hands, hanging-from-the-ceiling position so popular with perv-y serial killers. He's digging a grave in the cellar. She wakes up and asks what's going on. "I'm a patriot, Rachel," he murmurs. "I'm a patriot." He says the government has been working on their plan a long time. A man recruited him to help create a better America, and the government has plans for dozens of towns, not just Willoughby. He explains that they didn't want her hurt, they want her to help with the cause. But since Ken has a knife in his hand, that doesn't seem too likely. "They'll understand. Can't have you strolling around, telling everyone our secrets," he says. "Telling everyone about the nukes."
Rachel swears that she's crazy and that she'll disappear. Yeah, Ken is smarter than that. He knows her very well, after all. He wishes he didn't have to kill her, and tells her he's always had a secret crush on her. "Too many secrets," he says, and draws the knife back. Rachel head-butts him -- not bunnies, just stunned. She stretches to reach the knife with her feet, just about dislocating her wrists, it sounds like. Her hands painfully pop free of the cuffs, she grabs the knife, and stabs Ken as he's getting up. Rest in peace, Ken, with Jim, Nicholas, Franklin, and Alec.
Cooke wakes up tied to his bed frame. Neville greets him sinisterly. Cooke tries to bluster about how he'll forget all about this if Neville just goes away, but Neville's smarter than that. He asks what will happen when Ms. Justine finds out Cooke's a junkie, and explains that this is how it will work: Cooke will get Neville off the shitty detail he's been on, he'll promote Neville, and he'll tell him where Jason is. Cooke swears he doesn't know the last bit, but they definitely have a deal for the other two things. Two out of three works on Wait…Wait Don't Tell Me, but not with Tom Neville, who grabs a couple of needles and overdoses Cooke. Cooke drifts off. About the nicest death we've seen on this show.
Rachel buries Ken. She takes the papers with the Patriot Symbols on them and wipes her prints from the butcher shop. Similarly, Neville wipes his prints off Cooke's gun and the other things in the room. (I guess fingerprint analysis still exists? But it would be so cumbersome.) They both leave the scenes of their crimes.
Aaron's house. Cynthia is watching him sleep, which she denies when he asks. She's concerned about how he collapsed—and turned himself into a nanite conduit—and insists he see Gene first thing in the morning. He says he can't fall asleep with her staring at him. Dude, have sex with your hot wife. Is there anything else worth living for?
Miles flings himself over a fence and finds a bunch of…oil drums? On their sides? It's so dark I can't tell. He's at the Willoughby train yard, watching as Titus's reavers are unloaded from a boxcar. The imagery here is, uh, not subtle. A soldier—oh look, it's Ugly! He's shaved—shoots a couple of the reavers dead. Another soldier tells a subordinate he gets to be the hero who brings those dead reavers into town.
A soldier has discovered Miles. He cocks his gun and aims it at Miles's head; Miles manages to deflect the shot, but it alerts all the others. Miles stabs the guy, and then makes a break for that fence. He's not quite fast enough. Two soldiers hold him at gunpoint.
Aaron, dreaming, sees Miles and the soldiers, because a cloud of fireflies has massed over them. And then the two soldiers burst into flames. Miles's WTF face is excellent. The CG on the flames is not. I mean, it's okay. It's no A Time to Kill burning Klansman. Aaron wakes up panting.
Savannah. Neville is in charge of assignments now. He puts a man on food distribution, another on shutting down an opium den…possibly the one where he killed Cooke?. Ms. Justine comes in and asks what's going on; Neville innocents that Cooke didn't show up, so someone had to be in charge. She lies that Cooke was transferred. More innocent Neville: he's happy to step aside, but she's impressed with his initiative. Butter wouldn't melt in Neville's mouth.
Willoughby. Miles, who's having some breakfast whiskey, has filled Rachel in on the burning men. She holds up the note Ugly wrote a few episodes ago (must be a copy of the one he sent to Ms. Justine?) and asks what it might be. Miles has no idea. I'm not sure Miles can read. They resolve to be more careful who they trust now. "The guy was wearing a hell of a mask," Miles says about Ken, and I'll just overlook that clunker at the end of a Halloween-themed episode. Rachel's arrogance has flagged, and all of a sudden she's afraid of making a mistake and hurting people? Ugh. Rachel is the worst.
Miles has an idea for how to proceed: "Well, this is an occupation. Every good occupation deserves a resistance." Oh, I hope the mole from South Park is involved. Although it seems more likely we're just going to end up exactly where we were in the third episode of the first season, when they went to find Nora and the rebels.
Monroe drives the bounty hunters' wagon through a perfectly Malick-ian landscape, Charlie beside him. They pass a sign: 10 miles to Willoughby.
week: Aaron tells Miles about his visions. He thinks he's the one who set the fires. And Charlie's back.