Revolution 1.15: "Home"

“Right. Two doctorates from MIT, but I’ll just go shopping.”
-Aaron

Right out of the gate, I’ve got to admit that this episode of “Revolution” was pretty darn cheesy. There’s a whole flashback sequence of Miles and Monroe fighting over a girl when they were young adults back in their home, and the “present day” resolution to it has an incredibly melodramatic soap opera ending. The bulk of the episode takes place in Miles’ and Monroe’s home town, although we get no geographic specificity about where that town actually is. It looks like a pretty typical north central Maryland or central Pennsylvania little town, really, but since Revolution is filmed in North Carolina, who really knows. The episode also spends some time on Rachel and Aaron’s continuing journey to the Tower and shows us the Plains Nation for the first time. The past and former family is a really pervasive theme throughout the episode, which could by why it was so melodramatic and soapy. For all of the faults of the meat of the episode, though, there was a twist at the end that kind of redeemed the whole thing for me because it was so surprising. But we’ll get to that later.

The episode starts with showing us the results of the deal Miles made with President Foster at the end of the last episode. The rebels and the Georgians are fighting some skirmishes against the Monroe Republic, and we later learn from a conversation between Monroe and Baker (Mark Pellegrino) that the rebels and Georgians have taken two Monroe Militia forts. Baker doesn’t think this is a huge deal, but Monroe knows how Miles operates, and he knows this is just the beginning of what will eventually be a more large-scale assault on the Monroe Republic. The upshot is that Monroe wants Miles dead. Immediately. And he hatches a rather dastardly plot to make this happen. Monroe finds out about this after the battle, when a Monroe Militia good arrives to deliver a message from Monroe. Monroe wants Miles to travel to their hometown alone to talk to Monroe. If Miles doesn’t do this, Monroe is going to kill everyone in the town, starting with a woman named Emma.

Flashbacks throughout the episode fill us in on just who this Emma is. She’s a rather unremarkable young woman who lives in Miles and Monroe’s hometown. She also happens to be engaged to Miles. It’s a pretty typical story taken right out of any romance. Monroe was in love with Emma too, and he constantly seethed over how badly he perceived Miles was treating her. Monroe seethed even before Miles could be seen as treating Emma at all badly, really, which we see in a scene where Miles and Emma are discussing Miles’ decision to join the military. They’re kind of making out after discussing how Miles could be in danger, and Monroe is just sitting nearby looking peeved. Later, we see Emma putting a drunk Miles to bed on the couch, and that’s when the Monroe thinks he would treat Emma better element comes into play, and he starts making romantic gestures towards her.

Before we get into the present day Miles and Monroe clash over Emma, let’s catch up on Aaron and Rachel’s journey to the Tower. At the beginning of this episode, we see them cross the Mississippi River from the Monroe Republic into the Plains Nation. The Plains Nation is rather different from both the Monroe Republic and the Georgia Federation. It has a more primitive quality about it. The big outdoor markets that Rachel and Aaron visit remind me more of the medinas I wandered in Morocco than anything else. The focus of this episode really isn’t on Plains Nation culture like the last was focused on Georgia Federation culture, though. Instead, the focus is mostly on Aaron’s character development. Rachel is pouring over Jane’s notebook, and Aaron is a little incredulous that she won’t let him help even though he has two Ph.Ds from MIT, so he goes off wandering in the market. While he’s there, he catches a glimpse of a woman he thinks is his long lost wife, Priscilla.

Aaron spends hours trying to find Priscilla, and Rachel thinks it’s a lost cause. Just as she basically tells Aaron he must be hallucinating, Aaron sees Priscilla again, sitting in a bar. Aaron tries to talk to Priscilla, but she says that the man sitting next to her is her husband. Rachel has to intervene and physically pull Aaron away. She really just wants him to leave poor Priscilla alone, and I don’t blame her for that. Aaron has already caused Priscilla enough pain. The camera pans to show that Priscilla’s “husband” has a gun, so clearly all isn’t as good as she says it is. Aaron eventually figures out that Priscilla is being held captive, and he confronts her captor. The captor (who turns out to be a bounty hunter) says that Priscilla is a fugitive, and a fight ensues. Aaron gets knocked off his feet but Priscilla finishes the job by knocking her captor out. When they’ve gotten well away from the captor, Priscilla tells Aaron that she actually has another family, and they are down in Texas. Aaron ends up having to let Priscilla go to be with her new family, but he’s not happy about it.

Back on the East Coast, Monroe arrives in his hometown. Emma is disgusted with how horribly he is treating everyone, but it doesn’t make him back down. Monroe rounds up everyone who lives in the town and forces them into the basement of the town courthouse. Then he sets the courthouse on fire. Miles arrives in town just as the fire is really engulfing the building, and all the townspeople are screaming. He manages to get everyone out of the basement, but thanks to Monroe giving orders to not let anyone out of the courthouse alive, they’re finding it difficult to get out of the building without taking gunfire. Rebel reinforcements, including Charlie, and a Georgian officer Miles doesn’t like very much, eventually solve the gunfire problem, and everyone is able to get out.

Monroe then decides to hold Emma hostage. For the second time in his life, Miles reuses to shoot Monroe when he has a chance. Emma tells Monroe that she had a son and it’s his, which makes him hesitate a moment. The Georgian officer chooses that moment to decide to try and shoot Monroe himself. Monroe is injured, but Emma is killed. Miles is furious and kills the Georgian officer right then and there. Monroe is also furious, obviously, and it makes him go even more off the deep end than he already was. He blames Miles for the whole mess, and clearly this feud is not going to end until one of them is dead. I’m left wondering what the end game will be for this season. How long can the Miles and Monroe feud continue and still be at all compelling storytelling? And if defeating Monroe is the endgame for the season, then what’s next? But the very final scene? That was even more mindboggling. Back in Georgia, President Foster talks to someone off screen and tells this person that he’s her new choice to keep an eye on Miles. That person is none other than Neville.