Television: Revolution, "The Plague Dogs"

More Charlie flashbacks. Turns out she was just as annoying as a pre-teen as she is as a teenager. Also Maggie flashbacks, which seems strange given what happens later in the episode (spoiler alert!).

When I take a step back and look at Revolution as a whole, I have to admit it's flawed. The characters are more like positions than actual players, by which I mean you almost see the show as one of those locker room graphs. This is the hazard of plotting too much, of trying to prove you have a story and a mythology and are going somewhere with all this. Everyone plays a part, steadfast and direct, and in shorthand so that character development does not factor. That is the point of stereotypes, after all—to give the brain a shortcut so you can get on with things.

So while I like Revolution, I wish the characters would be a little more fleshed out. More three-dimensional. Lost did this well with both the flashbacks and the incidents on the island. Revolution appears to be attempting something similar but it's not quite working.

Okay, on to the spoiler. It seems strange to me to devote so many flashbacks to Maggie only to have her die. I suppose seeing her Skyping with her kids the night of the blackout, when paired with previous talks of the pictures on her phone, and then piling on her futile attempts to get back to England was all meant to build sympathy so that her death became more sad to an audience that hardly knew her. Or maybe it was just misdirection. Maybe we were supposed to think, "Well, with this much backstory, she's safe." But really, there wasn't room on the team for two strong women and a teenaged girl. Nora won out because she had more dramatic heft (that is, a history with Miles). Maggie had to go.

Interesting juxtaposition of The Wizard of Oz and tornado weather. Good use of the "no place like home" bit in Maggie's death scene. The writers of the show clearly have a love of literature. I just hope they don't start laying the metaphors on too thickly. Then the show becomes a kind of university lecture in disguise.

I'll continue to watch. I'm hungry for more Miles and Bass stuff, which continues to be the most interesting part of the show. And I'm still waiting for Google guy (seriously, does he have a name? I can't remember it) to have some flashbacks, too. We've heard a lot of his story from his own mouth but . . . I'm starting to wonder if any of it is true. Flashbacks as confirmation?