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In Savannah, Ms. Justine chooses trusty Neville to join her security detail as she travels to Washington. But they're intercepted by a hostile faction of patriots, who try to assassinate Ms. Justine. Gasping with a bullet in her gut, Ms. Justine explains to Neville that she wrote a letter objecting to the patriots' practice of sending young, healthy people to reprogramming centers for brainwashing and forcible use of recreational hallucinogenic drugs. She convinces him to stay and help her by telling him Jason was sent to the center.
Miles's plan this week is to convince Texas Ranger John Fry to join him in war against the patriots. John isn't so keen on dragging his republic into a(nother) war (they already have one with Mexico, apparently), but he agrees to meet Miles and see what proof he has that the patriots are up to no good.
Meantime, Charlie and Monroe have come to Willoughby. (I'm not precisely sure how they get in, since my DVR belched away the first seven minutes of the episode. Let's just say they knock some guards bunnies and sneak in.) Charlie waylays Miles and reintroduces him to his precious boyfriend. Miles is even crankier than usual, because Bass didn't even bring him an I'm-sorry-I-tried-to-kill-you-again bottle of whiskey. And then the three of them almost get their heads blown off by a squad of patriots. Miles and Monroe go all Butch and Sundance while Charlie just flails about confusedly (because she lives in a world without Paul Newman, and this is the first thing that's made me sad for her) and kill all the patriot would-be assassins except for one: our old buddy Ugly.
M&M drag Ugly off to use him as proof to John Fry. But when Ugly bites down on his cyanide tooth and John, in the absence of concrete Patriots Are Bad, Mm'kay details, doesn't immediately accede to Miles's war idea, Monroe shoots him in the back. And here we go, Bass says proudly, a murder to pin on the patriots! He is our own Archduke Ferdinand!
While all this is happening, Aaron is freaking out about how he discovered he can set people on fire with his mind. Those two soldiers who were about to kill Miles last week weren't the first: after Aaron runs away from the home he shares with Cynthia, he confesses to Rachel that he accidentally murdered Cynthia's abusive husband, Carl (and Carl's unfortunate side piece), by setting him on fire. This seems like it could be useful, if only in brightening up some of the show's illegibly dark scenes. Aaron! Set that gaffer over there on fire so we can see Charlie sulking!
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Monroe saved Charlie's bacon from a pack of rapists in exchange for her taking him to Willoughby. In Willoughby, the U.S. government showed up to save Rachel and Miles from getting slaughtered by Titus's reavers, but when Rachel got suspicious of the government's convenient arrival, her old buddy Ken tried to kill her in a basement. But she stabbed him to death instead. Neville is climbing higher in the government hierarchy in his mission to get revenge for Julia's death. And Zombie Aaron is a pyro-kinetic freak of nature now.
Charlie and Monroe, just outside the Willoughby gates, look through binoculars at the soldiers manning the walls. The American flag is flying prominently, almost ostentatiously, over the barricades. Monroe just looks queasy, since, you know, he ran a decade-long military dictatorship with a secondary goal of stamping out that particular symbol. Charlie is worried that the patriots have already picked up Rachel, but Monroe counsels her to be smart and wait. They see a group approaching on the horizon.
Inside Willoughby, Ed examines the two burned bodies from the train yard. Ugly tells him there was no accelerator, they just combusted. Ed tells them to send the bodies for analysis.
Miles, watching the soldiers mill around outside from an upstairs window, asks Rachel how well she covered up Ken's murder. She's pretty confident in her body-hidin', print-wipin' skills, and he's freaked out by that competence. Maybe a little turned on. There's a knock at the door; it's Aaron. He asks Miles if he was at the rail yard last night, and then continues, confessing what happened to him—that he's pretty sure the nanites let him set those men on fire. Rachel can't believe her technology would do that, and she and Aaron techno-babble at each other for a minute until Miles is all, "ANALOG, OH MY GOD, ANALOG". He's interrupted by a bell ringing outside.
The Texas Rangers have arrived! They ride into town, suspicious as hell, since they were expecting a dead town, apparently. The lead Ranger asks for Truman, and introduces himself as John Franklin Fry, secretary of the interior of Texas. And as such, he informs them they're an armed incursion into sovereign territory. Gosh, that sounds familiar. John asks why he shouldn't just shoot Ed right now. Well, because all Ed's pals have semiautomatics aimed at you and you have a revolver? Ed tells his men to stand down and tells John he and his men saved Willoughby from the Andovers.
Miles explains to Rachel and Aaron that he might have tried to kill John back during a fracas between Texas and the Monroe Republic. And hopefully John's forgiven him, since they'll need him to start a war with the patriots.
In Savannah, refugees fight to get into a wagon while a soldier tells them they can only board if they have a voucher. The wagon is full, he insists, but there will be more spaces soon. Neville asks Ms. Justine where the people are trying to go and she says there's a camp in Perrysburg with new fangled sewers. But more importantly, she wants him to come with her to D.C. as part of her security detail. Which doesn't mean she trusts him, she emphasizes. But at least he's close.
Ed Truman invites John, who's sitting in front of him and sipping a glass of liquor, to stay in Willoughby a few days and see how he likes it. He would not like it. John says he's heading to Austin, but he'll talk to the General (I guess that would be the fellow in charge of Texas?) on Ed's behalf. He and his companion leave, and Ed's subordinate calls John a dick. Ed evilly orders his subordinate to have the gates left open while John is in town, and to stop patrolling for bad guys. He also wants Subordinate to find the person (Miles) who broke into the train yard last night.
Out on the porch, a teenager hands John a silver sheriff's star. This seems to be the signal for John to meet Miles and point a gun at his head. He'd like to have Miles executed for trying to kill him, but Miles wants to talk about their problem with the feds.
They discuss what the government has told them; their official line is that they'll move out as soon as they've taken care of the Andover clan. Which Miles says is crap, since he's seen the government's soldiers executing civilians. He tries to convince John how dangerous the feds are, telling him they dropped the bombs and they're invading all of the territories. But Texas -- and the General -- can stop them. John needs proof, saying Texas has 70 percent of its troops on the southern border, and they lack the manpower to defend the northern part of the state. Yeah, that seems about right.
John is aware of what the patriots are doing in the east, but he says the General wants a treaty with them. John has to follow orders unless he can convince the General with hard proof, not just the word of a war criminal. Miles tells John to meet him alone at midnight at a mill on the river so he can show him proof.
As Miles is leaving his rendezvous with John, someone kicks a tin can onto the sidewalk in front of him. It's Charlie. They hug. And that is quite a daring V-neck Miles is rocking these days.
Charlie shows Miles the wanted poster with Rachel's name on it. He doesn't understand why the patriots haven't just picked Rachel up, then jokes that Charlie picked quite a time to come back when they're up to their eyeballs in trouble. She says she came back to save them. Shut up, Charlie. Miles wants to go show the poster to Rachel, but Charlie needs to show him something (::cough:: Monroe ::cough::) first.
At Aaron's house, he picks up a toy, a pair of wind-up teeth, and flashes back to six months ago, when he arrived in Willoughby and interviewed with Cynthia for a teaching job. He explains how he used to teach back in Mathesonville, and she asks his qualifications. "Four degrees. Two doctorates from MIT," he deadpans. She's impressed. He seems catatonic; he's either still stunned by the events at the Tower or overpowered by Cynthia's hotness. She rejects his application, though, and he asks why, when they're clearly desperate for a teacher. She points out that he smells like booze, and just as important, he seems scary and depressive. Aaron quietly pleads that if he doesn't do something with his life, he's going to go crazy. A-plus teaching material right there. He swears not to drink before or at school and she relents, but makes him promise to learn to smile.
Back at his house, Aaron chucks the wind-up teeth in a travel bag with some other stuff, including his trusty flask. He slings the bag over his shoulder and leaves. Man, Cynthia does not deserve this prince, all right.
to the river, Miles tells Charlie to be nice when she sees her mother. In exchange, she tells him to promise not to explode or go crazy, and he's all, wha? That's— And then they come around a corner and Miles sees Monroe standing there. He immediately asks what Monroe did to Charlie. He says he didn't do anything, and Charlie protests that she wouldn't let Monroe touch her (because you had a whole lot of choice in the matter while drugged in that bar, didn't you, Charlie? Your bravado is equaled only by your incompetence). Miles realizes that Charlie brought Monroe to Willoughby on purpose. As Miles is walking away, Monroe hollers that he came halfway across the continent to help Miles with his patriot problem.
Miles still remembers pretty vividly how Monroe tried to kill him…all those many times. They make sad boyfriend eyes at each other while Charlie smirks in the background. (The Revolution makeup team is going with a very specific palette for both Rachel and Charlie that sees to consist of a quart of liquid bronzer, clashing with a pinkish nude lipstick. It makes both of them look simultaneously pasty and filthy, yet made-up. Paired with the beach-y hair (it's terrible) Miles storms off, but Monroe hollers about how the patriots nuked Philadelphia, and he wants revenge. He needs Miles to do that. Miles looks like he just wants to go back to his cozy bar in Chicago already. Monroe asks for a truce.
Charlie's bright idea: the three of them and Rachel just run. (To Affleckistan!). Miles says there really isn't anywhere to run (except Texas) so they'll need to make a stand. Monroe likes the idea of war, as always. He's keen to get the Texans to do their fighting for them, and brings up something that happened in Ann Arbor. Charlie inquires and Miles snaps at her to drop it. It's probably genocide, Charlie. With Miles, it's usually genocide.
Miles says they need to get proof of the patriots' badness to John before he leaves in the morning. Monroe thinks he can help with that.
Cynthia finds Rachel on the street and they ask if either has seen the other's fella. Cynthia's much more panicky, though, because Aaron packed and left after telling her about the nanites. She tells Rachel that Aaron is scared and seeing things, and she's clearly terrified. Rachel soothes her, and says they'll split up and look.
Cynthia flashes back to Aaron in his classroom. She brings him a present: it's the teeth. She's clearly delighted with herself and crushing hard on him. He laughs as he says it's the stupidest thing he's seen in a long time. They grin at each other stupidly, and then Cynthia's husband, Carl, comes in. He asks what the joke is and she brushes it off as nothing. Carl menacingly asks if it's a private joke, and then laughs because he's clearly an abusive asshole. Like, even if Cynthia hadn't mentioned it a few episodes back, there's basically a blinking dickhead symbol on his face. He and Cynthia leave together.
At the train yard, Miles bitterly tells Monroe and Charlie that there were a bunch of prisoners here yesterday. Monroe tells him to cheer up, and Miles asks why Monroe seems so delighted. "Do you think I want to be here? With you?" Monroe asks. Uh, frankly, yes. Yes I do think that's what you want. Miles growls that he and Monroe are not Butch and Sundance, he's just a sociopath Miles tried to leave in his past. (Hey, I wonder how things are going in Bolivia?) Charlie interrupts, saying she found some wagon tracks. Meanwhile, Ugly is watching them from the woods through binoculars, and recognizes Miles.
Neville walks alongside the wagon Ms. Justine rides in. I find it a bit odd that if they're going from Savannah to D.C. they're going through dense woods rather than taking the giant interstate highway that runs up the East Coast. Unless every road in America is blocked by stopped cars, the pavement would be in crummy shape, but it would still be easier to walk on. They meet another wagon and everybody fingers their guns in a most paranoid fashion. The other wagon is also U.S. government. The man asks if they're from Savannah, and Ms. Justine says they are. She introduces herself, but the guy already knows who she is, and says he was sent to meet her. He draws his gun, but before he can kill Ms. Justine, Neville shoots him dead. A firefight between the two sides erupts, and Neville gets Ms. Justine out of the wagon and to a position of some safety while the rest of the soldiers shoot each other.
Aaron sits in the middle of a field of abandoned small boats. Rachel finds him and says he told her once that he liked to come here to think. He mutters that it reminds him of the old days, when he was rich and owned boats. She tells him how worried Cynthia is, and he apologizes but says he can't come home. He explains how he tele-pyro killed those soldiers, clearly crushed by the grief. Rachel thinks it's a net good since he saved Miles and she's pro anything that furthers her interests, but Aaron says this isn't the first time something like that happened to him.
Flashback to five months earlier, in the same location. Aaron stumbles across a couple making out in one of the abandoned cars. It's Carl and a woman who's not Cynthia. He gets out and accuses Aaron of being a perverted Peeping Tom, then knocks Aaron's glasses off and threatens to kill him if he says anything to Cynthia.
Aaron fumbles for his glasses as Carl goes back to the car and his lady friend. Aaron walks away, but as he does, the interior of the car bursts into flames. Aaron runs toward the car. A few fireflies are circling over the trunk. All he can do is watch as the car goes up like an inferno.
In the present, Aaron tells Rachel that the whole town, Cynthia included, thinks the lantern started that fire. But Aaron knows he did it, and he's worried he can't control it and he'll hurt someone who doesn't have a huge blinking "asshole" sign over his head. Rachel assures him he won't, and that he shouldn't leave. "Cynthia needs you. I need you," she says, because Rachel's needs are always the most important thing.
Neville helps Ms. Justine, who's taken a bullet to the abdomen, sit down against a tree. He says the bullet needs to come out, and this would be a good time for her to start trusting him. She seems resigned to her choices -- a). Trust Neville, or b). Septic shock and slow, painful death -- and shrugs out of her jacket and blouse. Neville asks what happened back there. She explained that the wagons in Savannah were only taking young, healthy people, and not to a new camp—they were bound for a reprogramming center. Neville is sure she doesn't mean those bright young minds will be learning Visual Basic. Ms. Justine grits that he can't imagine anything worse: behavioral conditioning, hallucinogenic drugs. She wrote a letter to high command, and apparently this was their answer to her request not to drug and indoctrinate people.
Neville splashes some booze on Ms. Justine's wound, and wryly says it looks like he backed the wrong horse. He wishes her luck and gets up to leave. Ms. Justine -- still bleeding! -- is surprised, to say the least. Neville explains that he wanted to be a patriot, not a fugitive. Dude, at least pop that bullet out first. Desperately, she tells him Jason's in the reprogramming center. That stops him. They strike a bargain: if he helps her, she takes him to the center.
Miles, Monroe, and Charlie shlep fruitlessly through the dark. A patriot soldier, concealed in the brush, aims his gun at them but then steps on a rock, alerting them just before he opens fire. They take cover and Monroe cracks that this seems awfully familiar to Butch and Sundance. Monroe's plan: South Bend. Charlie whines that they're just saying cities all the time! Shut up, Charlie. Monroe tosses her a gun and tells her to cover them as they run out from behind the pile of broken concrete they were using as a shield. Charlie takes a few shots.
Miles stabs one of the patriot gunmen right through the chest. Monroe practically decapitates another by slamming him into the edge of a sheet-metal shack. Monroe takes out another, then Miles finishes a fourth. The boys kill the last of the patriots, save for Ugly. Miles catches him in the woods and punches him in the face -- bunnies! -- with his unbroken hand. Monroe would like to kill Ugly, but Miles explains how useful he'll be. They drag him off.
Rachel and Aaron are walking along when he suddenly falls bunnies. He sees Charlie, Miles, and Monroe at the mill by the river. He wakes up and tells Rachel he saw something. Man, he's the closest thing they have to a smartphone. He could finally come in useful.
Charlie, Miles, and Monroe have dragged Ugly to that mill. He's conscious, but gagged. Monroe snickers, and when Miles grouches, he asks him to admit that their little life-and-death fight was kind of fun. Miles does not concede as much.
Just then, Rachel walks in. She grabs a gun and holds it on Monroe. Miles jumps in front of her and tells her they don't have time for her fucking temper tantrum right now. She demands to know why Miles is protecting Monroe, and Charlie pops right out and says he's helping, and that she brought him. Rachel doesn't lower the gun when she asks why Charlie would do that. Let's remember that Rachel was ready to let Charlie die along with everyone else in order to get her revenge on Monroe for Danny's death. Miles wrestles the gun away from Rachel. Aaron, in the back, looks distinctly unimpressed with everyone's theatrics.
Miles, completely exasperated, sends Charlie and Rachel upstairs. They go, and Aaron follows them, but not before observing, "So…Monroe. Well, that's quite a twist." Miles has his FUCK EVERYTHING YOU ARE ALL SUCH PAINS IN MY ASS face on. Upstairs, Aaron hugs Charlie. Rachel greets her daughter icily, wanting to know why Charlie let Monroe live: "Because…he wants to help. Because he's a saint. And you believed him. Are you really that stupid?" Well, she didn't DELIBERATELY DESTROY THE WORLD OR ANYTHING, RACHEL.
John Fry finally arrives. Miles brings him back to where Ugly is tied up, but when he pulls off the gag, blood flows from Ugly's mouth. Nope, he didn't pull an Otto Delaney, he had a cyanide tooth. John is not impressed. Miles is just pissed and tired, as usual.
John says he can go back to Carver (the General?) and try to convince him of his own dislike for the patriots, but he'll still want to sign the treaty. Mid-sentence, someone shoots John in the back with a shotgun. Oh, it's Monroe. Miles hangs his head for a minute, like, AND NOW THIS.
So, here's Monroe's great idea: they frame the patriots for John Fry's murder, and -- voilà! -- war with Texas. Rachel, Charlie, and Aaron run down the stairs as Miles just blinks, stunned. But secretly kind of resigned to what a good idea it is.
week: Monroe is arrested and sentenced to death.