Revolution Watch: Episode 9 - Kashmir
With only one episode to go until the fall finale of Revolution, Miles and the gang are back on track to finding Danny. Oh who cares about Danny; what we’re really looking forward to is the confrontation with Monroe. Until then, it’s time for some psychological horror inspired tunnel scenes as they make their way to the main militia base.
Something In The Air
Or rather, something isn’t in the air, and it is a lack of, um… air. Each week it’s pretty easy to poke fun at the characters who seem to constantly mess things up along the way. It used to be Danny back when he was on the show (mostly just ruining my enjoyment of any scene he was in), and then more often than not it was Aaron (usually involving his handling of the pendant, or inability to do anything). Then there is Charlie. She is prone to miss-stepping along the way plenty, and tonight is no different when she plants a foot on a pressure plate. Long story short everyone almost dies because of her.
Ok, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. But the dominoes falling from this moment involve an explosion that crumbles the path behind them, cutting off an oxygen supply; and lack of oxygen means it is time for some rather telling hallucinations. Mostly anyway; I’m not quite sure what Nora’s alligator freak out stems from… We already knew from “Sex and Drugs” that Aaron still has trouble coming to terms with his past based on how the flashbacks fed into the situation he was in, so what does it say about Aaron that the hallucination of his wife would point out the inconsistency of what he is doing now versus what he did then by leaving her. Why was he willing to go with Charlie when she left the village in the pilot?
We've already been down that road before, and as the oxygen further thins we finally get a scene between Miles and Monroe, even if it didn’t actually happen. As Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” builds in the background, Miles hugs the man he once tried to assassinate for what he was doing to the people of the country, the same man who is convinced that Miles will come back to the militia if Monroe were to offer up this option. It isn’t quite clear why Miles is scared that he would do this (considering all of the hallucinations were of fears), though it could just stem from a fear of who he once was. With that said, it does foreshadow what we see in the preview for next week. Should be interesting to see how it plays out.
Bullet Delivered Dream
With everyone imagining things that aren’t there, it was only a matter of time before Charlie gets to play along, albeit in her own special way since it wasn’t from the lack of oxygen, so much as a bullet to the head. Because of this, her imagined scene doesn’t quite play out as all the others that deal in fears, so much so as plays off the wish that she must have of everything being as it once was. This may not stem from a fear of hers, but on the outside of this dream world we get to witness a true showing of emotion from Miles as he is clearly afraid of losing the family he now has. Thankfully Miles’ tears were not magical enough to wake someone up from a bullet-induced black-out, but the fact that he was tearing up is enough of a statement on its own within this episode that is already sharing more about the man than he has through the entire season. In addition to his emotions in this scene when he fears losing his niece, as well as the telling hallucination with Monroe, we learn from Nora that Miles was unable to pull the trigger on Monroe before. Now tie that in with his slightly drunken talk with Charlie in the beginning of the episode about not understanding why she is so sure he even knows what he is doing and we’ve got some real self-doubt issues to deal with, contrasting greatly from the self-assured fighter we’ve known up to this point. Maybe he really will turn over to the dark side in order to save his family, just like Rachel.
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The Amplifier
Speaking of Rachel, as frustrating as she can be considering what she has done in order to protect Danny, the one thing that can be said about her is that she always keeps us guessing. Just take this episode: it starts out with her showing off what the amplifier can do to Neville, saying that instead of the necklace only being able to affect smaller objects within ten feet, it can now reach bigger things within half a mile, such as Monroe’s fleet of helicopters. Tsk, tsk Rachel.
Well, let’s not be too fast to judge. As willing as she was to go along with what Monroe asked of her before, there comes a time when maybe she’s had enough. Turns out that the amplifier actually was made to go “boom,” and might have had the chance to do so had Neville not been as perceptive as he is. For now her plan is ruined by Neville and Dr. Jaffe’s second opinion about what she really had planned (guess this is why we don’t endanger other people’s families), and Rachel would have been tossed to the side for this disloyalty had she not taken out the only other current hope for Monroe to get his amplifier by stabbing her past colleague in the chest, with the don’t mess with me line of “Now you need me” to close out the episode.
Final Thoughts
With only one episode to go this year, we are looking for one great fall finale if it continues on the pace set up by “Kashmir.”
So what did you think of this week’s episode of Revolution? With all the hallucinations, did you have time to miss the flashbacks that usually run through the episodes? If you were standing on a mine, how comforted would you be if someone said they think they disarmed it, but there may be a second mind underneath anyway? If Nora knew Miles back when he was a general, was she also with the militia? If they hadn’t given Ashley a name, would she still be alive? Who had the biggest failure moment this episode: Charlie with the mine (and the dominoes that fall because of it), or Miles not recognizing someone he once pinned a medal on while working in the militia? And on a serious note: do you think Miles will say yes to Monroe’s offer of rejoining, or will he find a way out of it? Let me know your thoughts on all things Revolution in the comment section below!