Like Dumbass Mother, Like Dumbass Daughter - Revolution, Season 2, Episode 4

The characters are really trying to mind their own business:  Aaron is trying to ignore his now-recurring visions, Rachel tries to mind her own business, Charlie tries to go home, Miles tries to enjoy trick-or-treating.  Tom tries cafeteria work.  And Monroe has been left behind.  This episode was very clear about the theme of Revolution:  that trouble will follow the Mathesons and the Nevilles no matter what they do, so they may as well kill their enemies and leave the crime scenes clean.

Rachel awakes in her breezy room in her dad’s house, the arrow shot is now bandaged, and is more of a bad dream than anything else.  Outside, a kid hiding behind a tree right in front of her, dressed as a scary skeleton is soon joined by his friends.  It’s Halloween, and Willoughby, TX is trick-or-treating and having a fair.  After stumbling through the town, she is met by Miles and Captain Ed Truman, who is now in charge.  He says all the right things, but to the wrong person.  Rachel and Miles know enough about “Patriots” to know Willoughby is being occupied for some reason.   They have an interesting pow wow that sends Miles off looking for more info on these guys.  Miles tells Rachel to lay low, and of course she doesn’t listen.  Getting caught while rifling through the Patriots’ stuff, finding letters with the eye-in-the-pyramid from our dollar bills.   Dad smooths Truman’s ruffled feathers and takes Rachel home.  He tells her in no uncertain terms that she sucks at solving problems, and should just sit there and look pretty.  Halleluhah.  Rachel, you destroyed the East Coast last time you got involved.  Just help your dad.  And to her credit, she actually listens to him.

Let’s face it, though:  Ed Truman must know he can’t kill her.  He addresses her as Mrs. Matheson, which means he knows who she is.  And since the Patriots want her alive, well, he can yell at her, or throw her in prison.  But he ain’t killing her.  Not unless he wants to explain this to Allenford, which he doesn’t.  The Patriots will keep her alive, at least until they can frame her and Monroe in a show trial for nuking the East Coast.  After all, wasn’t Rachel seen in Philly, working with Monroe?  Doesn’t she know where the Tower is(was?), and how to turn the power back on?  And wasn’t she in the Tower with Monroe on the night the East was nuked?  Case closed.  Coincidentally, I’m sure he knows “Stu” is a totally fake name, and that he has both Miles and Rachel Matheson in his hand.

Charlie is drinking in a bar in Northern Texas, on her way back home to Mom.  Charlie has some idea that she can actually defend her mother from the US Government, but who am I to judge?  She falls for one of the oldest rapist tricks in the book- she drinks a drink made outside of her presence, from a stranger in an unfamiliar place.  She gets a few of them good, but there are too many and the drug in her drink kicks in, so cue Monroe to save her.  Last time I checked, homicidal lunatics don’t have ethical quibbles with rape, but Monroe does need her, undamaged, in order to get back to Willoughby and convince the Mathesons he just wants to help.  He viciously kills anyone stupid enough to fight him, as Charlie passes out.  He later informs her that he will take her back to Willoughby himself.  We’re still on for them to be boning by Xmas.

Aaron is hanging out, worrying, like he always does.  He has some sort of vision that puts him out for the count, until his wife finds him.  He gets put to bed.  Aaron, the unlikely prophet/paranormal subject.  So far, his part in last season has been totally unknown to the US Government.  Which means all the heat will be on Miles, Monroe, and Rachel.  But Aaron was the only one who could actually turn the power on and off, and now his life is getting weirder by the minute.  Won’t be long until Ed Truman takes an interest in him.  No wonder he’s in constant panic mode. 

In Georgia, Tom spits his teeth into a bowl while his new boss tells him to get back to work.  Tom is dirty after working whatever shitty job he has, and fed up with his boss.  Turns out that Allenford has taken his son somewhere, which is exactly what Allenford should have done.  She doesn’t know Tom, and doesn’t trust him.  So she holds on to Boy Band as a hostage.  This has Tom understandably pissy.

Ed Truman spends the days working on his unit’s act – they find a lone man outside town after escaping Willoughby, and they shoot him so they can claim later the war clan that “fled” Willoughby killed him.  Miles spends some quality time with Titus, who tells Miles that he was working with someone from the Patriots and that now the Patriots have killed/captured his “family” and are keeping the war clan in a train car somewhere.  Then he blames Miles for everything he himself caused and tries to kill Miles.  So Miles actually kills him, unlike the guy from the end of last night’s episode, who probably just knocked him out.  Let’s hope Titus stays dead after tonight.  Miles proceeds to find this train with the remaining war clan members.

Rachel meets up later with Ken, the town butcher.  He is chummy, happy to be alive, happy to have the troops in Willoughby after almost having to give up the town completely or face death. And he really wants to be Rachel’s friend.  That should have been a clue- who would be stupid enough to want to be friends with someone with such a Messiah complex?  And he so wants to hear about whatever is bothering her, no matter how crazy it is.  So, of course, they go off for a confab.

Tom finds the refugee camp’s whorehouse, playing an old record on a windup record player (Procul Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale”).  He finds a pretty and barely dressed blond.  She appears to have absolutely no emotions whatsoever and gives the camera a long view of her ass in skimpy panties and a butterfly tattoo on her lower back as she takes Tom back to another room.  He tells her he wants two hours in there, no one finding them or finding out.  Does it matter? The drugs will make her forget the whole thing in the morning, anyway.  Inside is Tom’s boss.  Turns out he’s a heroine addict, and completely blitzed on smack.  Tom steals the gun under the pillow, and ties Bossman to the bed.  Bossman wakes up to find himself defenseless, with Tom standing over him.  Tom wants a better job, his son back, and a better pension plan.  Plus a vending machine in the break area for all the employees.  Bossman can’t help him find Jason.  Which means he’s useless, since Tom already has a plan to get Bossman’s job and run the cafeteria better than Bossman’s half-assed attempt.  So Tom goes ahead and injects enough heroine for Bossman to OD.

Miles makes it to the trainyard, where a shitload of barrels containing who knows what but probably explosives gives Miles a great place to hide and watch Ed Truman and Titus’ old henchman pull two war clan members out of a freight car and shoot them both, so their dead bodies can be paraded in front of Willoughby residents tomorrow as “evidence” that the Patriots are good, War Clan outside the gates bad.  If the Patriots want to actually protect the town, why not just take the whole War Clan back and hang them for the residents to see?  It’s Texas, no one will object to a public hanging of people who attacked the town and killed the Sheriff and its residents.  So why not just vanquish the foe and get down to governance?  Because that is not their plan, and then Willoughby residents would feel safe leaving, which is also not part of the plan.  Miles sees his full just as he’s caught.

Aaron wakes up next to wifey and decides to go back to sleep.  Wifey very cutely pretends not to stare at him as he nods off.  As Miles fights off the first soldier who catches him, runs away and is caught again by two Patriots with rifles, Aaron sees the whole thing.  The Patriots slowly realize something’s going on in the sky, so Miles turns around to see the fireflies have turned into those fish from Finding Nemo who can make faces and shit.  The ground under the Patriots starts to buckle, and the Patriots spontaneously combust, so Miles can run off, without the Patriots knowing it was him snooping.  But, come on.  Eventually Ed Truman will figure out no one saw “Stu” all day or that evening.

Ken and Rachel have one of those talks that last a long time.  Ken acts like it’s a crazy story and he needs more wine, which is downstairs in his heavily insulated basement only accessible from his store.  Lucky for Rachel that she spots the papers with the US Government’s pyramid-eye symbol.  If she was smart, she would have just used the torch Ken handed her so he could open his special metal door and burned him, disabling him long enough to actually get away.  But Rachel plays the good girl, not realizing there’s no way Ken is letting her leave anyway.  She wakes up handcuffed to a ceiling in Ken’s little cubbyhole underground, while he’s digging her grave.  He explains to her that he’s not really supposed to kill her, but he’ll figure he’ll explain it to the boss somehow.  He goes on about how the Patriots want a “cleaner” America, and he’s a part of that.  Blah blah blah.  As he approaches Rachel with a big knife, she manages to kick him hard enough to send him to the floor.  She tries to pull her hand from one of the cuffs, but instead just pulls hard enough that the cuffs slip off the hook they’re hanging from, so she can grab the knife from the floor and stab Ken, killing him.

Rachel and Tom clean up their killings separate but together.  Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean these events are actually occurring at the same time.  Rachel buries the body, Tom puts Bossman’s gun back under the pillow.  Both erase prints that could put them on the scene.  Rachel walks off in the darkness.  Tom plays the faithful employee who just had to take over when Bossman didn’t show up, and does Allenford know where he is, anyway?  So after walking into the cafeteria and asking what’s going on, Allenford tells Tom his boss was transferred.  Well, if he was transferred, wouldn’t you have named a replacement for him before then, and not need to wonder what’s going on?  Score one for Tom.  Allenford definitely suspects Tom, but has nothing.

Rachel and Miles confab later, with Miles deciding there will be serious shit unless he goes all guerrilla warrior.  Aaron wonders about his scary dream.  We end with Charlie and Monroe riding in a wagon, 10 miles from Willoughby.  Charlie looks like a teenager being driven home early from the party.  How humiliating will it be, that she couldn’t get home on her own, and had to be brought home by the guy everyone hates?