‘Revolution’ 1.17 Episode Recap and Review: The Longest Day

This week’s episode of Revolution was fast and furious, with some interesting insights into some of our characters. We begin the episode in one of Monroe’s out posts. A man exits a tent, and upon entering an old, 70’s-style RV, reveals a room full of computer monitors and gadgets, showing flight modules and other military data beeping and flashing across the screens. As he goes to sit down in a chair before a computer, he asks another man, “Did you ever think you’d be doing this again?” to which the man responds that he never wanted to.

In the Rebel-Georgian Coalition in Ashland, Kentucky, Nora awakens after spending the night with Miles. As she leaves the bed and starts to get dressed, Miles wakes up, and jokes that Nora should leave a twenty on the nightstand. Nora states that the night was a mistake, especially if their enemies catch wind of their involvement. She leaves before Miles can respond.

Outside, Jason is working on fixing some weaponry when his father approaches. As Charlie watches from around a corner, Neville demands that Jason apologize to him, and, barring that, at least finish with his apparent decision to let Neville die. Neville loads a weapon and presses it into Jason’s hand, and then grabs the teen and forces him to point it into Neville’s chest. He goads Jason to pull the trigger, eventually backing up with arms raised mockingly. When Jason refuses to shoot him, Neville grabs the gun and tosses it aside, angrily telling Jason that no matter how hard he tries, Jason – and by extension, Miles – will never get rid of him. He then storms away, and as he does, Jason catches sight of Charlie. Jason walks away, but Charlie catches up to him in an alley. They discuss the craziness of the relationships with their parents, and how much easier it is without them.

Out somewhere on the path to Colorado, Rachel is propped up on a log, watching as Aaron obsesses over Dr. Warren’s journal and why an article about him is within its pages. She tells him that, while she has no idea what role he might have played in the blackout, she suspects that Ben knew something, and that that is why he befriended Aaron and made sure the man stayed with her family no matter where they went. She also believes that is why he gave Aaron the pendant before he was killed. Aaron puts the journal away, frustrated, and attempts to pick Rachel up so they can continue the journey, but her broken leg and the obvious pain she is in causes him to stop. Rachel finally realizes that, no matter what, Aaron will not leave her to continue on to the Tower by himself. She tells Aaron to hand her a backpack, and pulls out a small leather pouch. From it, she removes the electronic device that she had removed from Danny, and tells Aaron that she might know how to fix her leg, although she is pretty sure that it won’t work, and might even kill them.

Back at the Coalition, Charlie is pumping water when she and Jason hear the sounds of approaching aircraft. Charlie runs to a nearby lookout, racing up the stairs until she reaches a bell. She starts ringing it frantically in an attempt to warn the other rebels. Below, Miles and Neville hear the bell, and a shout from Nora alerts them to the airplanes overhead. As they watch in shock, the planes launch rockets, which hurtle into the nearby buildings, their explosions sending everyone flying.

As Miles is knocked down, we see the first flashback of this episode: a continuum of a flashback from a prior episode. Seven years after the blackout, we again see Rachel walking into a barn and announcing her arrival to Miles, who is still part of the Monroe Republic. Shortly thereafter, she is led outside by Miles, who tells her that they had asked Ben to join them, not her. He asks Rachel if Ben can get the lights back on, and Rachel responds that they both can. She reminds him that she was project lead, and that she knows as much as Ben, if not more, on how to get the power back on. She also tells Miles that Ben has no interest in turning the lights back on, whereas she does. A skeptical Miles responds that they will go find Ben anyways.

Back in the present, Miles slowly regains consciousness, his face bloodied and his ears ringing. As he staggers to his feet, he looks around to utter chaos, with buildings on fire and the rebels and Georgia military almost decimated. He starts walking, and hears Nora screaming, trapped under rubble from a nearby building. He manages to free her, and, when he realizes that she doesn’t know where Charlie is, starts screaming the girl’s name.

In an old electronics store, Rachel is now sitting on the floor watching as Aaron pages through Dr. Warren’s journal and starts building something out of various electronics. As she slowly unwraps her broken leg, revealing the gaping hole in her flesh where the bone had snapped through, she explains to Aaron that the capsule device is a first-generation Nanotech and that it was responsible for keeping Danny alive. She tells him that it fixed Danny’s lung tissue, and that Aaron might be able to reprogram it to fix her leg.

In Kentucky, Miles discusses the air strike with Neville, while Nora is off looking for Charlie. Miles eludes to the fact that the only way Monroe could have found them is from a spy in their midst; Neville merely looks at Miles, not saying anything, until Nora approaches and lets them know that Charlie and Jason were last seen heading towards the north lookout. A Georgia soldier also comes over, informing them that Monroe’s troops were spotted 3 miles away, heading in their direction, coming from the north. Miles instructs the soldier to take any survivors to the river, to escape on the boats. He tells Nora to go with and help get as many people away as possible; however, Nora decides to go with Miles to look for Charlie, even though that means they will be heading directly for Monroe’s soldiers. At first, Neville simply watches them leave, before cursing and heading after them. Despite his earlier animosity towards Jason, he tells Miles and Nora that Jason’s mother would never forgive him if he let Jason die alone.

At headquarters in Philadelphia, Monroe stands in his office, listening as his captain, a man named Jeremy, tells him about the successful air strike over Kentucky. Monroe broods over the unknown factor of Miles’s death, and when Jeremy urges him to come drink with him in a nearby bar, to celebrate the imminent victory, Monroe at first refuses. However, Jeremy reminds Monroe that he is one of his oldest friends, and that Monroe deserves to take some time off and enjoy himself. He manages to convince Monroe to come with him. They are just leaving the building, and heading down a walkway toward the bar, when the guards escorting them are shot down from above. Monroe manages to take cover in a doorway, while Jeremy crouches down on the path. The two men stare at each other, and Monroe’s expression slowly twists from shock to suspicion.

After Aaron finishes creating the machine as outlined in Dr. Warren’s journal, Rachel instructs him to plug the capsule into it. The machine fires up, and Aaron types some commands on a keyboard to reprogram the capsule. He removes the device, and pushes it into Rachel’s leg. At first, her screams are agonized, but soon taper off as she and Aaron watch her bone straighten and the flesh and muscles amazingly start to knit back together. The ordeal is barely over, however, when two men appear with weapons, demanding to know how Rachel was healed.

In the Coalition camp, Nora, Miles, and Neville crouch behind a destroyed wall, and watch as two Monroe militia men drag an unconscious Jason past them. Neville distracts the men so that Miles and Nora can sneak up on them. They quickly dispatch the men, and pull Jason back to their hiding spot. Neville cradles his son in his lap, as Miles anxiously asks him about Charlie. Jason tells him that Charlie had been the one ringing the bell in the lookout tower, and that it collapsed with her inside. He urges them to leave him behind with a gun, and go find Charlie. Neville tells Miles and Nora that he will stay with Jason and help him escape. As Nora and Miles turn to leave, Miles hesitates, and wishes Neville good luck. He then pauses for a moment, and we see the second flashback of this episode:

Still at seven years after the blackout, Miles exits a house in a forested area. Rachel stands nearby, along with several Monroe soldiers. Miles demands to know where her family is, as apparently the house was the last place that he knew Ben and the children were at. Rachel responds to his words with a shrug, telling him that she doesn’t know where they went, and she doesn’t think she will see them again, considering it a small price to pay to keep them safe from Miles. She then tells Miles that she and Ben have heard all about “General Matheson, the Butcher of Baltimore,” and that they won’t give him the ability to kill more people by showing him how to turn the power back on. Angered, Miles grabs Rachel by the throat and shoves her up against the side of a wagon. He regains control of himself, and tells Rachel that he used to care about her, and thought she felt the same way. Rachel replies that they had a “cheap, nasty fling,” and that she has always regretted it. Miles barely stops himself from punching her in the face, before telling her that that’s not the only thing she will regret.

Returning to the present, Rachel and Aaron are escorted into a house by the men who found them in the electronics store. A woman sits next to a couch, where a boy lies injured after being thrown from a horse. The men believe that Rachel and Aaron are healers, and the boy’s father pleads for them to help save his son. Rachel kneels next to the boy, and pulls up his shirt, revealing a large bruised area on his side. She tells the man that she can heal his son, but first he needs to take them back to the electronics store for a few things. The man gratefully does so, and as he and Aaron walk back towards the computer where Aaron had reprogrammed the capsule, Rachel lags behind long enough to bash the man over the head. A bewildered Aaron asks why she did that; he had assumed she was serious when she said that they would help the boy, thinking that they would remove the capsule from her leg and reprogram it for the boy. Rachel coldly informs Aaron that the boy’s injuries were too extensive for the capsule to make a difference. When Aaron continues on the same vein, asking Rachel what the point of having power is, if they can’t use it to help people, he is stunned into silence when Rachel responds that she’s not returning power to the world to help people. Her only goal is to get the power on so that Monroe’s enemies can destroy him and Danny’s death is avenged.

After returning to his office, Monroe sinks deeper into his paranoia, musing to Jeremy about how lucky Jeremy was not to be shot. He also ruminates on the timing of the attack, and progresses to full-out accusation, telling Jeremy that he deliberately led Monroe there in an attempt to kill him. When Jeremy tries to laugh it off and leave, he is stopped by other militia men. He turns back to Monroe, and angrily tells him that it is the man’s own paranoid, brutal, unhinged manner that caused loyal men like Miles and Neville to betraying him. After listening to Jeremy’s tirade, Monroe thanks him for his honesty, before walking from the room. After he leaves, there is a brief spat of gunfire, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Near the edge of the Coalition camp, Neville settles Jason down against some concrete rubble for a brief respite, and Jason tells his father that he doesn’t understand why Neville is helping him. Neville stares down at Jason, and informs him, through gritted teeth, that while he has done every bad thing imaginable, even he has to draw a line somewhere, and that leaving his only son to die alone is where he draws the line. Later, as he is dragging Jason into the woods, they are surrounded by some of Monroe’s men. Neville raises one hand as if in surrender, lowering Jason to the ground, before turning and firing at the militia men. He manages to kill them all, but not before being struck by a bullet in his left shoulder. He barely acknowledges the injury, asking Jason if he is okay, before reaching down to help his son up so that they can continue on their journey.

At the lookout tower, Charlie manages to dig her way out of the collapsed area where she was trapped, but finds that she cannot make a true escape, as militia troops patrol nearby. Nora and Miles manage to get close to her, before getting pinned down by enemy fire. Nora tries to convince Miles that they should flee, saying that Charlie is likely dead, and that while it may seem selfish, she doesn’t want to lose Miles too. Miles refuses to listen to her, telling her that he won’t leave Charlie for dead; that he did that to Rachel, and won’t repeat that mistake. When Nora realizes that he won’t leave, she darts across the clearing, distracting some of Monroe’s men long enough for Charlie to run from her hiding spot. Miles sees her, and yells her name, but Charlie doesn’t appear to hear him. Miles can only watch as she runs off in one direction, and Nora runs off in another, both pursued by militia. As this happens, we see the final flashback of the episode:

Shortly after returning to the Monroe camp, after discovering the abandoned house, Miles has Rachel tied to a chair. She curses at him, telling him that she has no idea where Ben and the children have gone. Miles crouches down before her, placing his hands on her knees, and tells her how bad things are going to get for her, hinting at torture and worse to come, and going on to say that he doesn’t care about their past or the fact that they were family.

As Charlie flees, she is brought to the ground by one of the militia soldiers. He pulls a sword, and she attempts to deflect its swing, slicing her hands as she struggles to keep it away from her throat. Miles appears, killing the man, and as he reaches for Charlie, asking her if she is okay, Charlie flings her arms around his neck and starts weeping, whispering thanks to him. He hugs her tightly in return, before the two of them go in search of Nora.

We swing back to Philadelphia, where Monroe is once more in his office. As he sits behind his desk, one of his majors enters, and Monroe listens in disbelief as the man reports that they have caught his would-be assassin; that a Georgian spy confessed to the attempt, and apparently was acting alone. Monroe can only gape at the man as he comes to the realization that he killed Jeremy in error.

At the Georgia Federation, within the Presidential Compound, Jason awakes in a bed and finds Charlie nearby. She tells him that his father was the one that got him out, and brushes off his apology for leaving her. The two share a kiss, just as Neville appears in the hallway. When he sees them, the expression on his face is anything but approving. Meanwhile, in another section of the compound, Miles argues with one of the Georgian soldiers, wanting him to gather troops to try and find Nora, whom he and Charlie were unable to locate. The man responds that Monroe has destroyed too many of their troops for them to risk more men for Nora, and Miles says that he’ll have to go alone, then. They are interrupted by President Foster, who informs Miles that he isn’t going anywhere. After ordering the other man out of the room, she tells Miles that over half of the Georgia army has been lost to Monroe’s drone strike, and that unless Miles has a brilliant idea, she plans to surrender to Monroe to save as many people as possible.

The episode concludes with a blindfolded Nora being flung into an underground room. As her blindfold is yanked off, she finds out that she is not alone: Monroe sits in a chair before her, and as she stares up at him, he greets her and tells her what a pleasure it is to see her again, a small smile flickering across his face.

Thoughts on Revolution Episode 1.17: The Longest Day

WOW! I would definitely say that that was a long day for all involved! What did everyone think about last night’s episode? Who do you think might be the “mole” – I found myself speculating that it might be Nora, but I don’t have anything concrete to base that on. We’d all like to think it’s Neville, I’m sure, but he showed a surprising change of character when faced with the possibility of Jason’s death. Do you think he and Jason will reconcile? What do you think about tonight’s flashbacks into Miles’s treatment of Rachel? Do you think he is trying to make up for that with his protectiveness towards Charlie? And speaking of Rachel – what are your thoughts on her reasoning for turning the power back on? Let us know your thoughts on this episode in the comments section below!

Responses

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Revolution has had its up and downs this season. This episode was a step in the right direction. The flashbacks with Miles and Rachel were the higlights of the episode since it providesd background on their relationship and perhaps why Miles left Monroe.

    Not sure who the mole is perhaps Nora or even Jason (based on next week’s promo). In any case, next week’s season finale looks to be explosive.
    Thanks for the recap!