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In the aftermath of the failed patriot attack on Matheson-Monroe HQ, Miles and Gene return to Willoughby to try and recruit the townspeople to their side, even though all the children of Willoughby have been conscripted into the patriot army. They run into the owner of Willoughby's Only Bar, Marion, who also happens to be Gene's ex-girlfriend… and now Ed Truman's fiancée. Marion believes the patriot propaganda that Miles is a terrorist and Gene was working with him, but her old flame tries to convince her that Ed was behind the typhus epidemic and did all those other bad things.
While Miles and Gene are trapped in Marion's basement, listening to Ed eat his dinner with exquisite slowness, Monroe, Charlie and Connor meet up with the surviving half of Duncan's mercenary army. Turns out Duncan (and the dead half) fell victim to the patriots' attempts to cleanse the Plains Nation of its war clans, and now the survivors want revenge. Over Rachel's objections, Monroe leads a raid on the reeducation camp, and they kill, like, all of the children of Willoughby.
Just as Marion is starting to come around to Gene's way of thinking, the survivors of the reeducation camp massacre make it back to Willoughby. Marion blows Gene and Miles's hiding place, but they manage to escape with just a little flesh wound for Gene. Miles and Rachel flail about ineffectively because they're so very disappointed that their beloved Monroe and Charlie are nihilistic murderers (and this is somehow news to them).
And before the massacre, Victor Doyle tried to kill Neville, but apparently no one told him that there is no killing Neville. Instead, Neville strangled Victor with his own belt and now he's even more pissed off that his son has been turned into an eyelid-tattooed murder zombie.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Revolution: Charlie won herself some mercenaries, which Team Matheson is going to need, since Willoughby is now home to a patriot reeducation camp. Neville teamed up with Ed Truman to try to take out Monroe, but they fucked up utterly and now are in Victor's crosshairs. And it turns out the kids the patriots have conscripted all have numbers tattooed inside their eyelids that can be used to turn them into murder zombies.
Victor and a squad of patriot soldiers approach the (now empty) Team Matheson safe house, as Miles, Monroe, and Connor watch from a good distance away. Back at the water treatment plant, or whatever the place is where they had the shootout last week, Monroe wails about how Miles failing to kill Dillon means the patriots now know where they live. Miles insincerely apologizes for making "it harder for you and your kid to get your discount empire back." Now both Monroes are acting like peevish little babies rather than just the senior one.
Gene interrupts the bitching by declaring he's going back to Willoughby to get them some help. He swears the people of Willoughby are good people who will fight for their side. No one really believes him, since Gene will have to turn these people against their own children (and Gene used to be pretty fond of the "patriot Kool-Aid," as Miles calls it, himself). Miles agrees to take Gene to Willoughby, over Monroe's petulant objections.
Miles kills a couple of patriot soldiers in order to get himself and Gene through the gate at Willoughby. Inside the town, there's some distinctly Soviet-looking iconography decorating the sides of buildings, in case we were under the impression that the patriots weren't totalitarian bad-news machines.
In Ed's office, Neville is giving a monologue about how people don't bother to look beneath Ed's bland, inoffensive mask to see the conniving, ambitious bastard he really is. But Neville likes that about him! He wonders why Ed was willing to give the whole town typhus but holds back on going along with Neville's plan to kill just one dude -- namely, Victor Doyle. Ed's all…because if we fail he will totally stuff my balls down my throat? After Neville leaves Ed's office, two patriot soldiers pummel him bunnies and drag him off to see Victor.
Miles and Gene skulk about in the shadows, watching as a lady cleans up the outside tables at Willoughby's Only Bar. They let themselves in and surprise Marion, the owner, who's none too pleased to see Stu…er, Famous Mass Murderer Miles Matheson. Gene convinces Miles to put down his six dozen guns so Marion won't feel threatened, and then asks her to help him talk to the townspeople. But before Gene can get the whole sentence out, Marion runs for it. Miles catches her and they drag her down to the cellar (where Marion has the still for her homemade booze. How are we only just now meeting Marion? She seems like a good lady to have around).
Marion has bought all of the patriot propaganda about Miles and Gene (apparently Ed's lumped him in with the terrorist Matheson). When Gene tries to explain, Marion says they're both crazy and paranoid. Well, it does all sound pretty bananas: fake typhus epidemic, brainwashing, eyeball tattoos. Gene tells Marion about Kim killing her dad and then pleads with her to understand -- inadvertently revealing to Miles that Gene and Marion used to sleep together. Miles is impressed.
There's a knock upstairs and then Ed just walks right in and makes himself at home. Marion explains that she's in a relationship with Ed now, and Miles calls her a slut (as if Miles "I Knocked Up My Sister-in-Law" Matheson has room to talk). Gene pleads with her before she goes upstairs not to tell Ed about their presence. She doesn't, just tells Ed she was getting a bottle of whiskey from downstairs and then makes out with him.
Back at Camp Matheson, Charlie needles Connor about Monroe's plans for the empire while they dig. (Graves? Holes for fence posts? It's so dark.) They notice a light in the distance and go to investigate, along with Monroe and Rachel.
They find a group of Duncan's mercenaries, cut loose by Duncan's death at the hands of the patriots. The mercenaries have killed a couple of patriot soldiers, and they're prying out the dead soldiers' fillings for the gold, which horrifies Rachel. (Really? This is where she draws the line? Has Rachel been eating moldy rye or something?) The pointy-faced mercenary leader explains that the patriots have begun exterminating the roving independent bands, "trying to bring some civilization to the plains." Duncan's remaining troops want revenge, which Monroe is all too happy to help them find.
Back in Willoughby, Miles rather stupidly interrogates Gene about his relationship with Marion. This is stupid because they're like two feet beneath the kitchen floor, and they can see Ed and Marion through the gaps between the floorboards. There's no way Ed can't hear them chattering down there. Miles is convinced Marion will betray them, and scrabbles about looking for a weapon (because he left his arsenal upstairs). Gene asks why Miles bothers to fight if he thinks people are so inherently lousy that they'll always betray each other. Miles says he just wants to keep Rachel and Charlie safe, which Gene appreciates, but he wants a better reason. (I guess Gene has finally realized that Rachel and Charlie are garbage people.)
Miles confesses that once, he tried to make things better by helping Monroe govern, but that turned into a psychotic carnival of murder, "because people will always do the stupid, selfish thing…me most of all." So now he's trying to make up for his past bad actions. Gene isn't reassured to learn that Miles is fighting against his own demons: "No wonder you keep losing," he says grumpily.
While Ed continues to eat the slowest dinner ever, Marion notices Miles's guns piled up on the sideboard. To distract Ed, she asks him if he knows Grant Carson (that would be Kim's dad; I misheard his name last week), and if he knows why Grant hasn't come to the bar recently. Ed just smiles guilelessly and agrees to ask Kim about her father time he sees her, and Marion goes back to get him a second helping, then cries silently over the stove, because everyone she knows is a sociopath. She manages to throw a dish towel over the guns.
Monroe has decided to take Duncan's mercenaries and raid the reeducation camp immediately, without regrouping with Miles. Rachel thinks it's a bad idea, but Monroe ignores her (as should we all). I mean, I hate to be on the side of child murder, but if we've learned anything it's that whatever Rachel is for is going to be the worst idea.
Neville wakes up tied to a chair in Victor's office, to Jason. Jason's been beat up and doesn't remember what happened. Victor, of course, knows all about Neville's assassination plot, since Jason spilled everything while in a murder-zombie fugue state. Neville tries to push everything onto Ed, but Victor just chuckles and fondles his gun, then tells Neville he might as well be truthful. Neville abandons the playing dumb strategy in favor of baiting Victor about how Julia loves him and not Victor and his tiny penis.
Victor's minion holds Jason's head still so Victor can show Tom the number tattooed inside Jason's eyelid. Victor monologues some more about how he's going to kill Tom and have Julia executed and then use Jason as a weapon. He takes off his belt to strangle Tom and whispers that he wants Neville's last thought to be the knowledge that Victor destroyed his family.
Before Neville can quite finish Neville off, machine-gun fire from outside interrupts. It's the cavalry! Er, Monroe and the mercenaries! Neville frees himself and knocks Victor bunnies, then uses the same belt to kill Victor. So that's over.
The mercenary assault is swift and efficient. Charlie impresses Connor once again by killing someone, because Connor is both easily impressed and stupidly bloodthirsty. Monroe finishes off a few last wounded patriots, and Charlie wryly asks Connor if he's still so eager to follow a man who kills the wounded. I guess it's more merciful than letting them fester.
Marion's cellar. Miles bitches about how slowly Ed eats, then Gene trips over something and bashes into the still, making a clanging sound so loud Ed can hear it upstairs. Miles and Gene hide as Ed's men come downstairs. Before the two soldiers can check the last room in the cellar (the storage cabinet full of hooch) Marion interrupts them and says it was just the distiller rattling about on its own that they heard. She scolds them and sends them upstairs, then sticks her head in the storage room where Gene and Miles hid.
Marion doesn't know what to do with the news Gene has brought her, since she and Ed are engaged. She wanted to believe in the patriots fixing the world and says she's just going to help Gene escape, that's all. Miles grudgingly thanks her for not turning them in.
Monroe finds Victor's body. He asks the pointy-faced mercenary leader for a status update on the cadets: there are four missing and Monroe wonders if they managed to get away alive. He finds a journal full of Arabic writing and the mercenary leader says one of his men, who served in the Gulf, might be able to read it.
Back at Marion's house of awkward conversations, she suggests she and Ed go for a walk, but he'd rather get frisky. She insists, but when they go outside, there's chaos in the street. A few survivors managed to bring news of the attack on the training camp, and they recognized Charlie, so they know it was the Mathesons. Parents are screaming and crying over their lost children. Ed commands an underling to mobilize six squads of soldiers.
Marion, distraught, confesses to Ed that she was harboring Gene and Miles. She says they lied to her and apologizes. The soldiers come into the cellar guns blazing. Gene is hit in the shoulder, but Miles manages to disarm one and return fire. When they get upstairs, they run directly into Marion, who just stares at them with big accusing eyes, and then yells, "They're here!" Miles and Gene escape out the back door.
At the mercenaries' camp, Monroe gets drunk, his face still covered in dried blood. He silently offers Connor the bottle, and then genially claps his son on the shoulder. Rachel condemns Charlie for participating in the slaughter, but Charlie won't be shamed for murdering children (and it's not as if Rachel has a high horse to get on there). Really, Rachel and Miles should stay away of accusing other people of doing bad things, ever. Charlie says she doesn't expect to live long, but she plans to fight as long as she has left.
Rachel, saddened, apologizes for the example she's set for her daughter, and almost rhetorically asks how Charlie could be any different. She retcons a little, telling us Charlie is 22 (even though she seemed three or four at the most at the time of the blackout), and says Charlie can still have a future, if she has hope of things getting better, but Charlie recognizes this as rubbish. "You're the scariest person I know and now you're preaching sharing and caring?" she asks her mother scornfully. Rachel insists that she's fighting so that Charlie won't turn into her and then stalks off. Charlie. Wash your face, you filthy pig child.
Ed finds Victor's body. Neville strolls in and comments on how sad it is that the Mathesons killed Victor. Ed's able to read the situation a little better; based on the disarray in the office, he guesses Victor had two men tied up and after they broke loose he was strangled with his own belt. Neville doesn't even twitch with pride and says Ed's welcome to tell DC all about that, or he could tell the feds that Victor couldn't handle a little terrorist attack, but Ed sure can. Ed likes this idea.
Miles and Gene come limping back into camp. Rachel helps her father sit as Gene gasps that the bullet went straight through. Miles asks what happened, then punches Monroe right in the face. They bicker some more about Monroe slaughtering the children of Willoughby and Monroe grimly repeats Miles's line about people always doing the stupid, selfish thing. At least he has some self-awareness. He's thrilled to have his two-dozen-strong army and invites Miles to join him in yet another guerrilla war.
The mercenary leader interrupts the boyfriends' squabble with a translation of Victor's journal. Monroe announces that the patriots are taking the cadets to Austin to attack the Texas government.
time: Jason joins Team Matheson, Priscilla gets body snatched, and someone dies.