Television: Revolution, "The Stand"

You know, like the Stephen King novel.

By the way, if the pendants are "amplifiers," what are they amplifying?

I wasn't sure I'd continue to watch this show, and clearly (from my belated posting), one can tell I didn't prioritize it.

But anyway, we begin with Miles & Co. escaping Philadelphia and Miles plotting to use his newfound (and literal) power to turn all of what was once the United States into the Monroe Republic.

I can't get over the sense that Elizabeth Mitchell is really just reprising her role from Lost for this show. Exact same attitude.

Pretty stupid, I'd say, for the Miles Mob to head straight for where they know the bad people are going to be (i.e., the Rebel camps). I realize this is because they are "good" and want to help, want to stop the bad guys from killing all the good ones. But how to do that if you're dead too? No one seems to be thinking things through very well. As viewers we're supposed to root for them, heart over head, even as they follow their hearts . . . This is, I suppose, what separates these good guys from the rational, unfeeling bad ones. The good guys only kill when there is no other choice. The bad guys kills "preemptively" and often delight in it besides.

But I am not connecting with these good guy characters. And since my heart isn't in it with them, my head only continues to point out how dumb they act and react to things.

In fact, the bad guys—Bass Monroe, Major Neville—are far more engaging than any of the good crowd. It's easier to connect to them because they are more complex and more interesting. Not in a way that makes you want to side with them, but you'd rather watch them than Miles and Friends.

Neville's son Jason breaks with his father by disagreeing with the butchering of Rebels. He runs off to warn Charlie that the choppers are coming. But instead of running, hiding, the Rebels decide to (title check!) take a stand. (Again, like the Stephen King novel. Also: Randall. These writers really like Stephen King, I think.)

Speaking of Randall—remember him? from when Rachel and her husband took on a project from the government? and now he has Grace? (oh, and Colm Feore was in that Stephen King miniseries)—Rachel and Miles go to one of her ex-associates (John) for help, but he alerts Randall to their presence.  It turns out to be not much of a plot point, however, because Miles and Rachel escape without too much trouble. And they get some bazookas while they're at it.

Danny uses said bazookas to good effect against the choppers when they come against the Rebels. Alas

[SPOILER ALERT]

the choppers manage to cut Danny down, sending Rachel on a self-flagellation bender while Charlie merely redoubles her determination to fight against Monroe.

Randall drives (yes, drives) with John to offer Monroe his services . . .

And Rachel removes a blinking light from Danny's corpse (though, seriously, the effects were weak because it didn't even look like real skin she was cutting into) . . . We can, one guesses, draw some kind of line between this light and the unique operation Danny had as a child.

Previews of coming weeks suggest, too, that someone has Daniel Faraday's notebook.