Television: Revolution, "Born in the U.S.A."

Finally getting around to watching the season premiere.

When we last left Revolution, missiles had been launched at Atlanta and Philadelphia and the U.S. President was being moved back to the mainland from his hideout in Cuba. Six months later, we learn there was a "surge" of electricity that lasted about four minutes before everything going dark again. Atlanta and Philly are gone. Hey, those missiles had to land somewhere.

Our heroes have split up. Rachel is working with her father, a doctor, and Miles is still around. So is Aaron (with a girlfriend?). But Charlie is out tracking Monroe, and Neville and Jason are in the Savannah refugee camp.

I'm still wondering how things work in this world. Everyone has jeans. Who is making these jeans? They're in good shape, you know, these jeans—not patched or full of holes or anything. And shaving. Sure, raiding old supermarkets for blades probably worked for a while, but it's been 15+ years, right? And there weren't that many straight razors in the world, were there? You can sharpen a straight razor, but eventually it'll give out.

Anyway, turns out that after the bombs fell, Rachel went kind of crazy, blaming herself. "I broke the world, Dad," or some such crap. I feel like the writers are desperate to give this character an arc, but none of the ones they've given her have been very good. And now that six months have passed (this episode jumps around a bit), she's getting over it.

Also: lots of random live music in this episode, and a shout-out to David Schwimmer as "the last surviving Friend" (though we don't ever see him).

Charlie locates Monroe is a carnival tent where some boxing is going on. Aaron locates a random swarm of [really bad CGI] fireflies. And Miles locates a bandito that has come down from the Plains Nations, and he's pretty sure where there's one there will be more. Time to fortify the town!

Neville, meanwhile, is giving up hope of ever finding his wife, but when he tries to commit suicide, Jason calls him a "little bitch" and shames him into living. (Huh?) But hey! By not dying, he gets to see the Patriot boat!

("Keep your stupid to a minimum," Miles tells Charlie as she departs via flashback. One might say the same to the writers of the show.)

Charlie instigates a meeting between herself and Monroe. Tries to kill him with a crossbow but gets trounced from behind. Aaron gets slashed by a bandit who breaks into his house. More baddies follow, forcing their way into the town and attempting to carry off women. Between Miles and the town sheriff (Mason) they manage to fight them off long enough to free the women. But Miles and Mason are taken captive and brought to some weirdo named Titus, and Aaron doesn't make it. (Except, actually, he does. Sigh. One more entry for the Big Book of Crazy.)

Oh, but they just answered my shaving question. Kind of. And Neville is re-energized by the arrival of the Patriots. By which I mean, he's even more batshit crazy than ever. Hooray!