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After giving the nanotech a virus, Aaron wakes up in his lovely Minneapolis home, with his lovely wife, Priscilla, in bed beside him and all his appliances functioning, because the world is full of sweet, sweet electricity. Aaron goes back to work at his fancy tech company, but when his employees present him with the broken nanotech code and ask him to fix it, a figment of Aaron's imagination -- conveniently dressed as Charlie Matheson -- pops up to kill Aaron's employees and explain that he's stuck in a Matrix-type situation where the nanotech is trying to fool him into fixing it.
The evil nanotech is personified, in Aaron's imagination, by spooky dead cryptkeeper Dr. Horn. Aaron recruits Rachel, Miles and Monroe to help protect him from Horn and figure out a way to wake him from this nightmare. He jumps off his own building and wakes up back in Lubbock. He and Priscilla hoof it back to Willoughby to help Rachel, as Aaron promised he would.
In Willoughby, they witness the nanotech's violent death throes, which mostly involve a lot of very aggressive lightning. The lightning tries to kill Rachel, so Aaron, in desperation, fixes the code in order to heal her. But it turns out that Aaron waking up in Lubbock was also part of the Matrix and he's now been tricked into fixing the nano. He and Priscilla set out on foot back to Willoughby, exactly where we were last week. So none of this meant anything, but at least the lights were on so I could see what the people were doing, for once.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Aaron gave the nanotech a virus and woke up in a completely functional world.
Morning at Aaron's. His TV, toaster, and coffeemaker are all sucking up delicious electricity and spitting out delicious liberalism, waffles, and coffee. Priscilla comes into the kitchen and greets him, asking why he's just staring catatonically out the window. He says he feels off, as if he's forgetting something. On the TV, MSNBC's sweet cherub Chris Hayes throws to a Pentagon press conference.
At the Pentagon, a lady explains, "This morning seven Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan were delivered with a coordinated series of power-outage payloads, or POPs, as part of a new Defense Department initiative. As a result, all electronics at these bases from computers to cars, lost 100 percent…" As she speaks, Aaron zeroes in on Dr. Horn, who is 1. alive, 2. standing behind her, and 3. super shifty-eyed. He flashes back to the patriot symbol and Horn's tools of torture, and tells Priscilla he recognizes Horn, but he doesn't know where he's seen him before. Priscilla hands him a plate of waffles and some coffee and tells him to get a move on for work.
(Uh, wasn't it kind of the point that the Taliban did really well living in Stone Age conditions? How is this POP weapon an improvement?)
Priscilla and Aaron, in downtown…somewhere, USA (they might still be in Texas? I don't recognize the city), walk out of a coffee shop. Aaron is spooked by all the trappings of modern life around him. Priscilla's just pissed she forgot to order almond milk. Aaron sees half a sandwich in a trash can and grabs it, still in the mind-set that he can't pass up food. He explains that he suddenly felt as if food was scarce, then apologizes for acting like a hobo. She laughs that food is literally everywhere. They continue on their way to work at Pittman Digital, which takes up a whole glass high-rise.
Aaron's one of those terrible bosses who doesn't think his employees deserve things like walls or doors or a private place to make phone calls (I fucking hate open-plan offices, you guys. They are the work of the devil) and he's still in a daze when an employee who seems to be his executive assistant tells him "the Uber folks" will be arriving at 12:30. Ah—and the assistant will be getting him Timberwolves tickets, so from this I use my awesome powers of context reading and deduce that they are in Minneapolis. Lovely city. Greener than I expected. (What? I'm too young for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I had to Google what famous show was set in Minneapolis! I would've guessed Laverne & Shirley.)
Peter's also there, and jocularly tells Aaron not to screw up their presentation. Two other employees suddenly call him into a glass-walled room that's covered in dry-erase-markered algorithms and formulas. The ginger employee asks for help, and Aaron recognizes the code for the nanotech. He flashes back to Lubbock and then manages to say he can't help right now.
On a nearby TV, Chris Hayes is now interviewing Rachel Matheson. Aaron grabs the remote and turns up the volume. Chris asks what the POP attacks in Afghanistan mean. She explains that these attacks leave no collateral damage. (Unless someone needs a ventilator to live, or a refrigerator for medicine, or…) Aaron stutters that he knows her, but he doesn't know how he knows her. He flashes back to scenes of his time with Rachel during the blackout. He nearly collapses as he gasps to Priscilla that he's not sure anything is real.
Conference room. Aaron has just explained to Priscilla what he thinks is happening. She thinks he's nuts. He says the last thing he remembers from Blackout Land is Priscilla, Rachel, Horn, and "some chick in a belly shirt." Oh, Aaron. You are so lucky not to know who Charlie is right now. Priscilla interrupts his rambling about crossbows and swords and getting the crap beaten out of him and kisses him. He says it felt real, and she thinks that proves he's not dreaming. So she wants to clear his schedule and get him to the doctor.
At home, Aaron is gorging on cooking shows, workout infomercials, and beer ads. He goes to the fridge and gets—hey, it's that very common brand of American beer the TV was advertising! And it's SO GOOD! I see what you are doing, show. Aaron climbs into bed to Priscilla and just lies there awake, whispering, "Let this be real, please." Yeah, I'd like to wake up living Aaron's life, if it's not too much trouble.
To the tune of "Mr. Blue Sky," Aaron's day begins just like the one before: waffles, coffee, TV news. Aaron switches off the TV and kisses his wife when she comes into the kitchen. She's delighted that her husband no longer seems crazy. He swears he's okay now and that the blackout was a dream—a nightmare, actually. He's thrilled to be alive in his house, with beer and Internet porn and his wife. They make out to their waffles.
Aaron gets off the elevator at work and cheerily greets all his deprived-of-privacy minions. The same assistant, Mike, can get him in the skybox for the Timberwolves. Aaron never struck me as a big basketball fan, but he's totally into Aaron's Awesome Life.
The ginger nerd from yesterday calls Aaron back to fix the code. He blithely asks if they were this incompetent when he hired them, then spots the problem the boys are having—it's that same memory leak. The one that Blackout Aaron found and used to bring down the nano. Just as Aaron is writing in the correct letters, the ginger nerd grins and starts to say that's why Aaron gets paid the big—and then a crossbow bolt through the throat kills him. It's FUCKING CHARLIE, of course, who has just befouled Aaron's pristine workspace with medieval murder techniques. The other nerd screams, but Charlie just slices open his belly with a hunting knife and drags Aaron out of the room.
In the stairwell, Aaron stops Charlie's headlong flight to ask if she's the belly shirt girl. She asks what her name is and commands him to remember everything. He flashes back to everything that's happened—the silver MacGuffins, the nano burning people alive, Charlie lying unconscious, the nano healing Rachel's leg, Cynthia—and then stutters, "Charlie." He asks if he's dreaming, and she says they need to go. Someone is coming for him.
Charlie and Aaron flee through an alley (a brick-walled alley that could not possibly be attached to that gleaming glass tower they just exited, but whatever, producers, keep believing we're all idiots. Good luck with that hostage show that's totally not at all like CBS's hostage show) and hide behind a Dumpster. She says the nanotech is in this world, too, and inside of everything. The nano is still dying and it has conjured this world to fool him into fixing it. Just as I'm about to make a joke about how original this premise is, she says it's like The Matrix, and he asks how she knows about The Matrix (because Charlie was born in, like, 2008—I have to remind myself that the not-Matrix parts of the show take place in 2027ish) and she yells in frustration that she's not actually Charlie, she's a figment of his imagination. Huh?
Aaron is also confused. Charlie says he needs to enlist Rachel and Miles and the others and get their help in killing off the nano once and for all. Charlie stands to go and is shot in the head. I would be cheering if this were actual Charlie and not, like, Cylon Charlie. (Also, these two most recent deaths were pretty gory for 8 p.m.)
Charlie lies there dead while Aaron, who still has the ginger nerd's blood on his glasses, gapes. Horn, who shot Charlie, tells Aaron they need him to fix the code. Khaki-uniformed men start coming after him. As Aaron runs out of the alley, a bus crosses the street up ahead—a bus with an ad for Tom Neville, insurance agent, plastered across the side. Aaron stares, then continues fleeing. He screams for a taxi and nearly knocks over Nora, who snaps at him to watch it. He dives into a cab (which also has a Neville ad on it) and directs the driver to go to Chicago.
See, this city I recognize. Rachel, on her phone while walking through a parking garage, asks if Ben can pick Charlie up at ballet tomorrow. (Because it's 2014 in this Matrix, so Charlie is a little kid.) Aaron calls to Rachel from behind a car after she hangs up, and she's totally not terrified that a strange man is approaching her in an empty parking garage. She asks if she knows him and Aaron sputters out an explanation about how they're inside Aaron's head, following a program, and they're totally friends!
Rachel tells him to back off, then tazes him when he doesn't. She runs to her car but can't get it unlocked. She asks him not to shoot her and he's surprised to see a revolver in his hand. He's all, okay, so I have a gun now, then points it at her, apologizes, and tells her to take him to Miles. Horn and his men are approaching as Aaron tells Rachel to get in the car and drive. She does. Could she run over Dr. Horn while she's doing it?
Aaron has not taken advantage of the car ride out of the city to explain what's going on. Rachel asks what's up with the men chasing him, and he just says vaguely that if they catch him it won't be good for anyone "in here or out there." Rachel's like, out there…in Urbana-Champaign? Aaron keeps insisting that he knows Rachel so she needs to help him. If I were Rachel I'd drive right off that bridge at this point. She just denies Aaron knows anything about her, but he replies that he knows she's having an affair with Miles. He continues explaining everything he knows about Gene, and about Danny's health troubles.
Rachel starts to cry as Aaron says she told him how relieved she is to wake up every morning and see that Danny's okay, and how being his mother is like having her heart walking around on the outside of her body. Rachel says she's never told anyone that, but there's a reason it's a cliché, dude. He pleads with her to help him—and to be the scary Rachel he knows, not the soccer mom. Where did you get "soccer mom" from "Department of Defense scientist who designs world-ending weapons," you sexist bastard? Where did you get "soccer mom" from anything Rachel has done on this show ever? The fuck.
Motel. Inside, Miles is lounging on the couch, drinking beer and watching a cheesy commercial for ambulance chaser Tom Neville. "This guy's a dick," Miles says. Rachel walks in, followed by Aaron, whom Miles calls "Beardy McGee." Rachel can't explain who Aaron is, but drunk, surly, heartbroken Miles wants to have what's surely an emotionally wrenching argument with the sister-in-law he's in love with. Aaron interrupts and offers Miles a thousand bucks for ten minutes of his time.
After Aaron explains, Miles gets another beer. He's kind of unclear on what Aaron wants him to do, so Aaron spells out that he needs Miles to protect him if Horn and the others catch up to him. And then he has to explain that the Miles he knows is basically Robin Hood, what with the sword fighting and the derring-do. Just after Miles nods and tells Rachel that Aaron is crazy, Monroe rolls in through the door with a pizza in his hand. I half expect the studio audience to scream "WOOOOOOOO!" for ten minutes because now the gang's all here!
Monroe exasperatedly says he's been trying to keep Miles from stalking Rachel, so it would be swell if she'd help him out by staying away from him! He hugs and kisses her and I have never been more delighted with him than I am right now. Can the rest of the series take place in this hotel room? It'll be like that time ER turned into The Breakfast Club. Aaron yells that it would REALLY help him if everyone would just snap out of it. He rambles about what all three of them are in the real world: Miles is a warrior and a leader of men; Monroe used to run an army entirely kitted out in silly Civil War–style uniforms. "I'm kind of into the Civil War," Monroe says. Monroe is everyone's dad! Aaron snaps his fingers and yells at everyone to just be what he wants them to be, dammit!
Rachel moves to the window and tells the others that Horn's men have them surrounded. Horn looks even more cadaverous than usual outside in the moonlight. The patriots break the door in as Aaron pleads with Miles to fight and help him. Miles apologizes wanly, but as the patriots drag a screaming Aaron off, Miles, Monroe, and Rachel all seem to remember, in their own ways. Miles finds a sword in his hand rather than a beer. Monroe has a machete. They spring into action and Rachel picks up a bottle of whiskey to use as her weapon, knocking a soldier bunnies with it. She slams the door and wedges a chair under it as Monroe coldly shoots a soldier with the gun that has just appeared in his hands.
Aaron, set free, gasps in surprise, "You're helping me." Monroe, still holding the gun, says he remembers, and calls Aaron "Stay-Puft." Aaron's never been so happy to be mocked for his weight. Rachel says he managed to conjure the weapons, so maybe if he concentrates he can control what's going on in his mind. He says he doesn't know how, but just then the soldiers outside start ventilating Miles's room with automatic-weapon fire. Our four heroes flee out the back door.
Miles hot-wires a car and our heroes hit the road. Aaron, in the backseat with Rachel, wants to know how to wake up from the dream the nano has him trapped in. Rachel suggests things that usually make people wake up: fear, embarrassment, death. Monroe mutters, "A snake chasing me, every time." That's very Freudian, Sebastian. "Falling," Aaron says. So Miles and Monroe want to throw him off a building. Just like in Inception! This episode is super original (although it makes sense if it's entirely drawn from Aaron's subconscious, I guess). Aaron objects, but Rachel says if Aaron hits the ground, at least the nano won't get the fix for the code that it needs to survive. Miles stops the car and they get out in front of Aaron's office building (back in Minneapolis? Sure. I am not great with geography, as you might have noticed, so I totally buy they could've driven there in the space of a night).
On the roof, Aaron steps close to the edge. Rachel assures him he can do it, and he promises he'll come back to Willoughby to find her if he survives (good thing, since right about "now" she has a gun pointed at her head). Aaron climbs up on the ledge. Guys, I dream about falling. Often. This is freaking me out. Just as Aaron is about to jump, Priscilla, from behind him, begs him not to. Miles, Monroe, and Rachel are gone. "We sent them away," Priscilla says. She pleads with him to fix the code and says he can stay with her, with everything he lost and all the comforts he misses, if he fixes it. No fear and deprivation, just happiness in this imaginary world. "You know you want to stay," she says.
Aaron confirms that she's right, that he hates Blackout Land. He wants more than anything to stay safe in his dream. But the woman in front of him isn't Priscilla. He leans back and falls off the building, then wakes up gasping, strapped to a dentist's chair in his glass-walled office building, with Dr. Horn polishing his instruments of torture.
Aaron screams that what's happening isn't right. Horn says he isn't in his own brain anymore, that he, Horn, is now in charge. He holds up a scalpel and tearily tells Aaron to fix the code, threatening to hurt him if he doesn't. He counts to three as Aaron struggles against his shackles. He remembers Rachel, in Miles's hotel room, telling him if he concentrates he can control The Matrix. He does, and the cuff on his right wrist disappears. Before Horn gets to three, Aaron grabs his wrist and says Horn can't hurt him in his own mind. "Your mind…belongs to us," Horn replies, but Aaron calls his bluff and Horn's scalpel disappears.
Aaron rises from the chair and says "Horn" is just a machine: "You're parts and programming and you're dying, and you're losing control every second, you reject Skynet piece of crap." Aaron, that's not a nice way to talk about your baby. He tells Horn he's not afraid anymore, and just like that, Horn and his torture toys disappear. Aaron stares at the overhead light and wills himself awake.
And just like that's he's awake on the floor of the room in Lubbock, Priscilla and Peter bunnies (or dead) to him. The computer is on fire and Aaron's head has a bloody wound on it. "Yay," he says grimly.
Aaron examines his code as Priscilla coughs herself awake. Peter, too. Aaron grabs Priscilla's hand and helps her up, holding Peter off with a knife. He tells Peter he'll kill him if he or his men come after Aaron and Priscilla.
And we're back in the dark again. Aaron has explained the dream to Priscilla and how happy he was to have that Popular American Beer. She asks if he wanted to stay, and he says it wasn't real. It wasn't her. The wind gusts and the fireflies are all falling to the ground, dying. A streetlight, on the ground, blinks to life. Aaron guesses that since the nanites were absorbing the power, if they're dying, they're releasing it. Aaron wants to go home. But he's promised Rachel he'll go to Willoughby, so that where he and Priscilla head, on foot.
Miles and Rachel nearly shoot Aaron and Priscilla, but recognize them in time. Aaron hugs Rachel desperately. Aaron introduces Priscilla to Miles, who says, "Really? She's way out of your league." As lightning flashes in the distance, Rachel and Miles take Aaron to see where the patriots are stockpiling electronics and weapons, since the power has been flickering on and off for several days.
A bolt of lightning hits a sedan sitting just a few feet from them, then hits a patriot soldier, then another, frying them to death instantly. The quite sensible horses spook and flee. Aaron, Priscilla, Rachel, and Miles take shelter inside as the storm continues to rage. Aaron guesses these are the nanites' death throes. A bolt of lightning comes through a huge glass window and hits Rachel right in the abdomen. She falls and Miles screams that she's not breathing. Miles yells at Aaron to do something, and Aaron sees a laptop. He starts fixing the code. Priscilla screams at him to stop as Miles begs Aaron to help Rachel.
Aaron hits the last key and the storm suddenly silences. And Horn's back, smiling and looking as healthy as Zeljko Ivanek ever does. He thanks Aaron for fixing them as Aaron gasps that nothing he's seen has been real, that the nano tricked him. Horn throws Aaron's words back at him, about how the nano is just a machine, and says they'll leave Aaron alone now that they got what they wanted.
Aaron wakes up on the floor in Lubbock again, to Priscilla. He helps her up and Peter's already standing, smiling at them. He says the nanites told him what Aaron did, and they're happy. "It's a miracle," he says. Priscilla would dearly like to rip Peter's face off with her fingernails, but he just says they can go, so the Pittmans do. At the city limit, Aaron looks at a nonfunctioning streetlight. He's sure the nano is up to no good, but he still wants to go home.
time: We're back to the Neville-Matheson Mexican standoff.