Revolution episode 1.06, “Sex
and Drugs” actually had very little of either. What it did have was another
very finely crafted episode. Once again I was impressed by the writing of the
episode and how wonderfully sewn together the various story threads were.
Tonight’s episode was written by David Rambo and directed by Steve Boyum and
both did a spectacular job.
The episode begins with our small
band in trouble as Nora’s stab wound has become infected and she is now
dangerously ill, forcing them to appeal to Drexel who turns out to be a psychopathic
drug and prostitute dealer who worked for Miles when he was the General of the
Militia. Unfortunately, when Miles left the Militia, Drexel was also labeled a
traitor, and he turned to growing poppies for heroin and prostituting young
girls. Drexel is wonderfully played by Todd Stashwick. Stashwick imbues the
character with enough manic energy to keep viewers on the edge of their seats
as you’re never quite sure what he will do next. One of the things Revolution has done a good job of is
creating complex characters like Drexel. It’s impossible to tell if he was
always a psychopath or whether he became one after the blackout due to
circumstances of having to survive or being betrayed by Miles and having the
Militia turn on him.
Neville arrives back at basecamp
with Danny and hands him over to Sebastian. Sebastian tells Danny he is
essentially his honored guest and apologizes for Ben’s death, saying Neville
will be dealt with. It’s obvious Sebastian is simply trying to win Danny’s
trust, and as soon as he leaves the room, Sebastian cuts off Neville’s
apologies and tells him he’s promoting him to major and wants him to take over
as head of Intelligence and Interrogations. Neville says that Julia will be
happy to have him home more, but it seems that his homelife may not be
trouble-free. Given what we know about Neville's backstory, it will be interesting to see what Julia makes of this new position. Neville's journey from the meek insurance salesman before the blackout his current role in the Militia has to have affected Julia's perception of him and their relationship, so I'm curious to see how that will play out. Aaron's story in this episode is also an interesting reflection of Neville's as Aaron moves from passive victim to active participant. Neville apparently embraced the violence, possibly through necessity, while Aaron is clearly still struggling against it. Neville’s relationship with Jason seems to be strained at the
very least. He criticizes Jason’s report in front of Sebastian but Sebastian is
able to learn from Jason about the pendant that Aaron has. When Sebastian tells
Neville to send Strausser after the pendant, Jason is obviously worried about
Charlie, and Neville is annoyed with him.
The two characters to see the most
attention and development in this episode were Aaron (Zak Orth) and Charlie
(Tracy Spiridakos). Finally! A Charlie episode I liked! Like all psychopaths
and bullies, Drexel unerringly hones in on the two weakest links, Charlie and
Aaron. They are separated from Nora and Miles who are sent to the basement to
see the doctor. Charlie goes to her room and luxuriates in a bath where she
symbolically has something of a re-birth. She flashes back to losing her
mother, father, and Maggie, emerging from the bath to sit naked on the bed and
sift through her Star Wars box of keepsakes. She then starts ripping up the
postcards she keeps to help remind her of the world before the blackout – a time
of relative innocence and a symbol of hope for her. It's also a nice symbol of her trying to break away from her childhood.
When Drexel insists that she has to
be the one to go kill O’Halloran, Miles tries to protect her, but Charlie
insists that she can do it. Miles and Aaron both insist that she shouldn’t do
it, but Aaron, in particular, is appalled. The other men that Charlie killed
were soldiers and these people are simply innocent. Charlie still insists that
she can do it. Even when Drexel punches her for authenticity that he “roughs
her up”, Charlie doesn’t cry, but hardens herself to the task at hand. However,
when she is actually faced with seeing O’Halloran as a person – she first sees
him playing with his grandson, she learns he was a policeman, and then she hears
the story of how Drexel killed his daughter – Charlie begins to lose her
resolve to kill him. She hesitates in killing him, momentarily losing the
advantage and has to brain him unconscious with the kettle before attempting a
killing blow. However, before she attempts to kill him, she apologizes. Boyum
has some great cuts in this episode and flashing to commercial just as the
blade descends, leaves the audience gasping for the seeming loss of Charlie’s
innocence. Miles arrives in the nick of time, of course, and stops the blade
from making the killing blow. I thought Tracy Spirikados did an excellent job
in this episode. She was able to move away from pouty Charlie and start to
explore a more mature Charlie who has to start to come to terms with the world
that is really out there and to deal with the people in it. Her performance was
more nuanced in this episode, and as a result, I felt a lot more sympathy for
the character in it.
The actor that delivered my favorite
performance of the episode, however, was Zak Orth. This episode filled in a lot
of Aaron’s backstory and also showed his own loss of innocence and a kind of
redemption and rebirth for him as well. The flashbacks to the blackout and
following year were centered on Aaron. Is anyone else suddenly wary of the
flashbacks centering on one of the characters we’ve come to care about since Maggie
died? I know I was suddenly very worried about Aaron, especially when Strausser
was sent after him to get the pendant – and now that is a worry going forward.
That said, the flashbacks helped to provide some great context for the present
storyline. We see Aaron and his wife drinking champagne in a limo on the way to
their private jet to head off for a romantic weekend when the blackout strikes.
Flash forward two months, and Aaron and his wife are not adapting well to their
new situation. Wife has contracted dysentery and is in a bad way because of
drinking tainted water. They manage to join a group lead by Sean. The next
flashback shows them eight months after the blackout being attacked and Sean
having to step in to save them as Aaron is simply beat up by the attackers.
These leads to Aaron despairing that he can’t do anything to help his wife
anymore: he can’t hunt, can’t keep her safe, can’t even build a fire. His wife
tries to tell him he’s the only thing that matters to her, but he determines to
leave her, so in the night he does the cowardly thing and leaves her his wedding
ring and a note telling her she’s better off without him. I’m betting right
here that we are going to see his wife again at some point...
In the present storyline, Aaron
really came into his own in this episode and was able to be the courageous one
to save the others, not once but twice. Aaron insists that Miles go after
Charlie to stop her from losing her innocence entirely and doing something he
knows she’ll regret because he really knows her because he has known her since
she was a small child. He tells Miles to go after her because she is his
family, but he also acknowledges that he’s her family too, once again
underscoring Kripke’s continuing focus on the theme of what it takes and means
to be “family.” Aaron breaking up his own family by leaving his wife is
balanced at the end of the episode by the reuniting of Nora, Charlie, Miles and
Aaron and by the reuniting of Rachel and Danny.
Aaron is also finally able to stand
up to and thwart the bully, Drexel. The duel scene is simply a tour de force by
Orth. Aaron tells Nora that he’s not going to shoot her and absolves her from
guilt by telling her that he wants her to shoot him. Nora, of course, refuses
and simply can’t shoot Aaron. This time, Aaron much more meaningfully
sacrifices himself to save someone else. Once again, Boyum uses the dramatic
cut just after Aaron shoots himself. I have to say that I hadn’t heard that
Orth was being written off, so I was looking for a twist, but so soon after
Maggie’s death, I was gasping just a little bit.... However, Aaron is
ironically saved by his flask and more than that kills Drexel and manages to
gain the upper hand on Drexel’s men, freeing both himself and Nora. Personally,
I’d love to see more of Stashwick as Drexel and as we didn’t see a lifeless
corpse, I’m hoping he may rise from the dead – or not so dead – like all good
fictional psychopaths.
It was nice to see some new facets
to our characters in this episode. The action was also once again tightly
orchestrated. I love getting to see Billy Burke eat up the scenery during Miles’
fight scenes as he breaks out of Drexel’s and then breaks into the O’Halloran
encampment. The hour, once more flew by for me with that great mix of action,
flashbacks, and our characters’ current plight. I’m looking forward to next
week, and it looks from the previews like we may be starting to get some
answers already about why the power went out and what the real significance of
the pendants is.
What did you think of the episode?
Are you looking forward to next week? Let me know in the comments below.
