Revolution 2.18 "Austin City Limits" Review: Swan Song

    This week’s episode of Revolution, “Austin City Limits,” was written by the team of Paul Grellong and Jim Barnes and was directed by Helen Shaver. This writing team last collaborated on “Captain Tripps.” Apparently, the Nevilles aren’t safe with them! In fact, there were a couple of shocking surprises in this episode. Shaver does a fantastic job with this episode, giving us some very powerful performances. A special shout out for J.D. Pardo who fittingly did his best work to date in this episode.

    The first shocking moment of the episode is when Priscilla (Maureen Sebastian) sticks her hand in the fire. Aaron (Zak Orth) starts to get suspicious because Priscilla hasn’t mentioned her family in a long time. Sebastian is simply fantastic in this episode as she turns on and off her emotions to respond as Priscilla. The final clue is when Aaron realizes she isn’t sleeping – or even blinking! He confronts her and learns that Priscilla hadn’t been able to resist the dream world in her head and is still living it there. The nanotech tells Aaron that it’s one thing to “hear” about sensations, but it’s completely another thing to experience them – like eating an apple or having sex... Creepy much? I loved Orth’s reaction to that – I shuddered. Clearly, they aren’t really experiencing the sensations in the same way or she would have screamed when she so severely burnt her hand.

    Priscilla-tech leads Aaron back to Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) because as Aaron explains, she’s very good at tracking. She tells Aaron that he’s going to be her guide until they’ve learned how to be human. Which of course begs the question, what then? Will they manifest themselves? Use robots? Or simply take over human hosts? Aaron suggest he could say no and we never see Priscilla-tech’s answer, but he doesn’t let on anything is amiss with Rachel. I think it’s fair to assume she told him do what we say or Priscilla dies or your other friends die or both.

    The show teased that a fan-favorite would die tonight and the preview images and promo certainly lead us to think it might be Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos). However, as it turns out, it was Jason (J.D. Pardo). Frankly, given the little Pardo has ever really had to do on the show, I think it was a mercy killing. That’s not to say that when he was given some good material, Pardo really delivered and he does so in this episode. However, the show has a large cast, and they never really seemed to decide what they wanted to do with the character. Pardo has already moved on and filmed a pilot – The Messengers – that is waiting to be picked up, likely by the CW.

    We finally see Jason split from Tom (Giancarlo Esposito). It’s ironic that Jason breaks the iron control his father has always exerted over him to do the right thing, only to end up almost killing the one person he really had feelings for. The scene is an absolutely powerful opening to the episode as Jason begs his father to come to his aide for once, he begs him to help him. But Tom offers him hollow platitudes to buck up and hold on just a little longer so that Jason can simply help Tom to fulfill his own end game. The only emotion Tom truly shows is when Jason insists that Julia is already dead. Frankly, I can’t wait for Tom to find out his son is dead. Unfortunately, he won’t feel the guilt he should over it, and it will likely make him more determined than ever to kill Monroe (David Lyons), Miles (Billy Burke), and everyone close to them. I did think it a bit of a plot hole that Jason was able to find Monroe and company so easily and Tom was nowhere in sight.

    Once again, Jason doesn’t really receive any better treatment from his former allies. Granted they are gun shy due to his betrayal, but they are just as willing to use him as his father was – regardless of the cost to Jason. Jason himself is simply focused on getting payback for what the Patriots have done to him. In a nice nod to last week’s episode, Jason isn’t fighting for some higher purpose as Gene urged Miles to do, he is simply fighting his own internal demons and it ends in tragedy for him.

    The scene in which Jason faces off against his former “trainer” (Gonzalo Menendez) is also an intense one. He taunts Jason, saying he is dumb, obedient with low self-esteem, just the type to make a grade A student. Jason takes the hits but comes back and tells him he is a good student and he’s done taking orders. The student outstrips the teacher and Jason gets the information from him. For anyone else who is a fan of Supernatural, there’s no way you could watch that scene and not see a direct parallel to the scene in “Dream a Little Dream of Me” when Dean confronts himself in his dream and he’s become a demon. Demon Dean says, “Dad knew who you really were. A good soldier and nothing else. Daddy's blunt little instrument.” Here the trainer taunts Jason with,  “Your Daddy raised you right. You’re a dull, blunt weapon.”

    It was also heartbreaking to see Charlie gradually come to trust Jason again, insisting that he could have the handcuffs off because she did trust him. While trying to save Carver (Anthony Ruivivar), Charlie sees Jason walk off. She doesn’t see him get reprogrammed by the owner of the gun store, who turns out to be a Patriot – Shirlee Jenkins (Gail Cronauer). She follows him and confronts him. I had to wonder if Jason wasn’t at least still partially aware as he does try to simply get her to leave. However, as soon as Charlie sees the rifle, he doesn’t hold back in trying to kill her. Spiridakos is also fantastic in this final scene as she begs Jason to come back to himself. She is clearly devastated by having to shoot him, and we see Charlie show more emotion than she has in a very long time. She needed something bigger to fight for and something to make her want to live – surely, she will want to live to see the Patriots pay for Jason.

    Meanwhile, Miles is also confronting his inner demons. Rachel refuses to go on the run with them because their mission is to kill the cadets. Given how determined Jason was to beat the Patriots at their own game and how spectacularly he failed, it is clear that there was no saving these kids. However, when Miles is forced to kill Dillon (John Omohundro), he is clearly troubled by it.

    Miles accuses Monroe of not knowing him as well as he thinks he does, but in fact, Monroe may know Miles better than Miles knows himself. Monroe twits Miles about leaving the ball and chain home for the weekend, and he tells him that Rachel has changed him. She clearly has – her disapproval over their plan could only result in Miles feeling guilty over what he was forced to do. Monroe sees Rachel’s influence as a negative one, one that makes Miles’ weak.

    As with all Monroe’s plans, this one goes spectacularly sideways, leading to some good action sequences and comedy. Did anyone else catch that the Governor of California is a woman named Affleck whose husband is dead? Can we assume Jennifer Garner (Alias)? And that’s definitely got a JJ Abrams shout out to it! Blanchard’s (MC Gainey – Tom Friendly from Lost - Abrams again!) penchant for sex-play and his safe word of “walnut” being only one example. I had to wonder if it also wasn’t a part of Monroe’s plan to get Miles away from Rachel’s influence to get him back in the game, back to where he would do what needed doing, which in the end, Miles did.

    Jason’s death will definitely set several characters on new paths. Once again, I have to commend the performances of J.D. Pardo, Tracy Spiridakos, and Maureen Sebastian, but especially Pardo. I really feel that he was a missed opportunity on the show. What did you think of the episode? Were you sad to see Jason go or were you happy it wasn’t another character? How much trouble do you think Priscilla-tech is going to be? Is there any hope that Monroe and Miles will win Texas to their cause or at least prevent the rift between California and Texas from happening? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!