Last summer, Revolution has ended with a cliffhanger where eight nuclear missiles were launched by Randall Flynn, a “patriot”, to the cities Atlanta and Philadelphia. He then committed suicide by locking himself inside the room which controls the missiles.
For those who do not know the background of Reovlution, the story was set in a world 15 years in the future without electricity, since 2012. The cause the global blackout was the former United States assistant secretary of defense, Randall Flynn, who ordered the deployment of a weaponised technology, consisting of a nano-sized virus, in order to test it. The test went wrong and the virus grew exponentially immediately, leaving the world in pitch black. For the past 15 years, warlords and militias rose and the United States government crumbled; USA was torn into 6 different parts. Scientist Rachel Matheson with her estranged daughter Charlie, programmer Aaron Pittman and former general of the Monroe militia Miles Matheson grouped together and found a possible way to reverse the process of the global blackout. They set out a journey to a place called The Tower – a building in the former Department of Defense of the USA – where electricity might be able to be turned back on.
The season two premiere picked up where the previous season had left it. While each second the nuclear missiles crept to Atlanta and Philadelphia, Aaron was trying to deactivate the missiles through another control room. The show runners decided not to show us what happened afterwards; instead they continued the story six months after the missile launch. We saw that Charlie left her mother Rachel since their relationships was not quite normal. Charlie unintentionally found out that Sebastian Monroe, president of the Monroe Republic, was in New Vegas, and travelled there to assassinate him. However, during the assassination, two mysterious men sneaked behind Monroe and kidnapped him, while Charlie’s arrow flew just above his head.
After the nuclear missiles bombarded the east coast of the former USA, the Georgian Federation and the Monore Republic were wrecked; refugee camps were set up. With the presumed death of his wife, former Georgian Federation major Tom Neville was on the brink of committing suicide. Having the gun cocked, suddenly Tom and his son Jason heard noises outside their tent. A glorious ship appeared in front of the docks, with a flag of USA hagging on the pole. Justine Allenford, Secretary of the US government, was introduced. She made a speech to the refugees, telling them that she was sorry that the US government could not fight beside the rebels (people who rebelled against the militias), but that the government was back to help the people, and to recruit people to join them. However, Tom knew that behind these handshakes and smiles, a darker secret was present – he suspects the nuclear bombings were the work of the patriots. He then withdrew his plan for committing suicide, and swore that he will tear the patriot organisation down and have them pay for their action of killing his wife.
Meanwhile in Texas, Miles, Rachel and Aaron took refuge in Willoughby, a town where their leader is Rachel’s father, Gene. Devastated from the bombing incident, Rachel thought there was blood of millions of lives in her hands, since she could not stop Flynn from launching the missiles. She was mentally wounded and this situation continued for around four to five months. We saw that in this episode, the way Rachel looked at Miles, the admiration in her eyes, hinted that the relationship between them might change in a near future, despite Gene’s objection to them together. The episode ends with a mysterious war clan from the Plain’s Nation invading the town. Miles was captured during the attack and was brought to the clan’s leader, Titus Andover; Aaron was killed protecting his girlfriend Cynthia. However, after few hours, Aaron suddenly woke up unexpectedly.
I was especially impressed by the acting of Giancarlo Esposito (Tom Neville). He went from an extremely depressed state, to an ambitious state of revenge, due to his suspicion of the patriots. His sad-turned-angry emotion was obviously shown to the audience, with a powerful tone in his conversation with his son Jason, plotting to rip apart the patriots from the inside of the organisation. Also, it makes us think whether the “patriots” are really people from the United States 15 years ago; but the ultimate question is still about the resurrection of Aaron. Did any of those supernatural events have to do with Aaron? We shall find out in the next few episodes of Revolution.
6/10
Revolution is aired on Sky1 at 10pm every Sunday.
