Ahh Revolution, what would you be without your inane plot twists? “Home” was a filler episode at its heart that was given more importance due to some soap operatic plot twists. Revolution continues to shift its main focus, at least when regarding character development and their individual stories, that end up hurting the show and make it far less interesting.
“Home” was split into two main stories. The first was Monroe, after being defeated by Miles in a few ancillary battles, deciding he needs to take action and kill Miles once and for all. Monroe decides to do this by going to the two’s hometown and threatening to kill all the townspeople if Miles doesn’t come alone and surrender. This opens up all sorts of random possibilities that didn’t make any sense.
In the town we meet Emma, who is later revealed to have been Miles’s former fiancée. Flashbacks tell a very different story, however, as Emma and Monroe were hooking up while she was dating Miles. If the storyline didn’t feel soapy enough then it was sure hammered home with the visuals of the flashbacks. Not only did the younger, incredibly attractive versions of the three characters barely resemble their current day counterparts but the poor lighting and weird close-ups made the scenes feel less professional than the storyline already had deemed them. And don’t worry, by the end of the episode the storyline almost feels ripped straight from a soap opera.
Miles ends up infiltrating the town and kills more than his fair share of militiamen when he goes to the burning church to save all the townspeople because Monroe locked them all in there. He does this with relative ease but as he is about to escape the militia makes sure he can’t go through the only exit – well two militiamen at least. The “suspense” of whether Miles will make it out lasts all of two minutes, augmented by a commercial break, before Charlie and company arrive to kill the militiamen and free the hostages. Miles tells Emma to run to the woods to safety as he and Charlie take more of the militia on.
For some reason no one escorts any of the freed hostages to safety because Monroe almost immediately comes into the fray with a gun to Emma’s head, threatening to kill her. Charlie pushes anyone to take the shot at Monroe but Miles warns that whoever takes the shot and hits Emma will be killed because of it. Then we’re back in soap opera land.
As Monroe holds the gun to Emma’s head she reveals that all she wants to do is see her son again. And it just so happens that her son is also Monroe’s son. Dun dun DUNNNNNN. While Monroe is visibly confused but somewhat excited by this news, despite the fact that the good side of Monroe is dead (according to Monroe), Emma and Monroe are shot. Emma dies immediately but Monroe is also wounded. Monroe is whisked away to his helicopter before finding out where his son is and Miles, trying but failing to emote, ends up shooting the Georgian military officer who shot them. Charlie says she would have taken the shot if the Georgian hadn’t, which only furthers Charlie’s ridiculous hard-edge attitude that she apparently has matured into the second half of the season.
Charlie’s character no longer makes any sense. While she has become battle hardened since the beginning of the season, her constant portrayal of someone who no longer cares about anything and is pissed at the world feels off. She does have reason to feel this way but her transformation was so quick that it doesn’t seem real. Her grudge against Miles for whatever happened between him and her mom is also out of place. Perhaps there will be a moment where she realizes this new, badass version of Charlie isn’t who she is meant to be but at the moment her character is more annoying disappointing than anything.
The other, lesser important storyline, revolved around Aaron finding the wife he had abandoned because he couldn’t protect her. Rachel and Aaron cross over into the Great Plains Nation and as Rachel is completely under-utilizing Aaron’s intelligence, which he reminds everyone of, Aaron spots his wife from across the market. He then becomes obsessed with finding her again and does, only for her to give him the cold shoulder because she is with her supposed new husband. But of course Aaron finds something fishy about their encounter and it is revealed his wife is being held at gunpoint. Dun dun Duuuuun. Aaron redeems himself and frees her from the bounty hunter – she apparently killed a militiaman recently – and redeems himself for his earlier cowardice. Before all is right with the world, however, his wife tells him that she is actually remarried and has a family and they go their separate ways.
That entire subplot has no purpose other than to show that Aaron isn’t as much of a coward as he once was, which has been shown at least a few times throughout the season so far. Aaron running into his ex-wife offers absolutely nothing to the larger plot or Aaron’s development as a character. Sure, it is nice to see that he has been redeemed but there was no need for a third of an episode to be devoted to it.
Before the episode is over there is one last twist to be had. In the last scene, after the Georgian president gets word that Miles has shot the military officer that was meant to be keeping Miles in check, she reveals she has the perfect man for the job. Tom Neville, in all his glory, enters the room and the final twist is revealed. Clearly this will bring some cheap drama to the proceedings but was, yet again, another plot element that didn’t need to be introduced at this particular time. There are so many more interesting things Revolution could do but their unwillingness to deviate from the most tired and hackneyed plots makes the show all the more disappointing.
image: NBC