Revolution- No Quarter

By Ronald Woan (flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What happened: In flashbacks, Monroe and Miles walk from South Carolina to Chicago after the blackout. Miles sees people killing and plundering, so he kills two men to save an innocent one. In the present, Nora goes to deliver the gun to her rebel faction and its leader, the ex-priest Nicholas, but the faction has already been attacked by the militia. Several are dead and wounded. The militia attack the base and the sniper rifle is put to good use.

Still, the faction ends up surrounded and the militia band's leader, Jeremy, tells everyone that Miles is the militia's founder and old leader. Nora already knew. Miles trades himself for the lives of the faction members. The militia band hauls him away, but he is rescued by Charlie and Nora. Maggie and Aaron, meanwhile, make it to Grace's house, which is totally trashed. Aaron is excited by the remains of a computer. The power briefly goes on and then shuts off again.

What we thought: Satan/Island Jesus himself! One of us isn't a Mark Pellegrino fan and thought his portrayal of Jacob on LOST was boring. He's a much better devil, so it's cool he's bad here. We liked the flashback showed that Miles used to be a lot more like Charlie, filled with compassion and good intentions. Its purpose was to explain why Miles would start a militia. A society needs cops. It makes sense.

At least one subplot leads to another on this show, rather than having characters get sidetracked for random reasons. The rebel faction battle was connected to Nora's gun battle. Nora's gun battle was caused by the initial need for Nora to rescue Danny. This helps things feel serialized and not like the procedural it is so far.
We know the show is still trying to grab viewers before it launches into its main story. Therefore, every hour has to be a mini, standalone action movie until it can move on sometime in the fifth or sixth episode.

We found out a HUGE secret about Miles though. Very nice, show. That gave us the forward-moving plot development we needed form this episode. One good thing about this show is that it doesn't have too many characters. It goes between three locations and three sets of characters. It's easy to get into the story when the camera stays on a plot for an extended period of time.

Why isn't Nathan Fillion playing the uncle? Wouldn't that be perfect? Okay, we need to get off the Firefly comparisons. We'll go back to Star Wars. The Han Solo thing works better when the actor is likable. Thinking of Charlie as Luke Skywalker helps us like her more. Because she is a girl, it would be easy for her to fall into a trap of coming across as annoying when she shows softness and butch when she shows strength. 

We feel bad for Danny. Something bad finally happened to him. Gus Fring needs to learn to restrain him better. Might we suggest hands behind the back? This is the second time Princess Leia has caused trouble as a prisoner. It's helping us like him, because he's not completely helpless or meek. 

Nora shows off her talents blowing things up, and they are significant. Maybe Miles does need her. Her story about the pregnancy didn't get to us or work logically. She joined a so-called lost cause because she wanted a miscarriage to mean something? She said it so dispassionately and bluntly to be self-aware enough to know that's a dumb reason to join a rebellion. 

We loved when the power came on. It gave us a little hope. Also, good thing the music was Marvin Gaye. You could do a lot worse. Think if you picked up headphones, desperate to hear recorded music after so many years, and it turned out to be Nickelback or something. 

Episode grade: B