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Revolution: The Plague Dogs

"Everybody leaves me."

Definitely a mother love theme going on in this one. After the Blackout, Maggie practically moved heaven and earth to return to her children, and couldn't. Rachel left her children to give herself up to the Militia, and Miles. (We don't know why, but I think they were hinting that it was to keep her family safe.)

The Maggie flashbacks certainly did their job, because they added dimension and poignancy to her character before she was fatally injured. She walked *from Seattle to Buffalo* and up and down the east coast, trying her damnedest to find a way to her kids in England, and I'm a mom, I totally get it. "Getting to England is like trying to get to the Moon." Poor Maggie. She was about to poison herself (she was big with the poison, wasn't she?) when Ben and his kids happened along and needed her as a substitute mom. It was like a cosmic joke that Maggie, the doctor, couldn't fix herself. Meatball surgery by Aaron in an abandoned restaurant with angry dogs barking outside wasn't enough to save her.

Charlie has abandonment issues, and I understand why. At least Maggie's death got Miles to finally man up (or "uncle up") and accept his responsibilities toward Charlie. I'm glad, because the way Miles was treating Charlie has been so incredibly irritating. I also liked that Miles made a snap decision to free Nate to help him rescue Charlie, and it immediately paid off for him. Not that I thought the booby trap would kill Charlie. Although killing off Charlie instead of Maggie would certainly have shaken up the series.

This was a good episode for Charlie. I'm still not warming for her, but I liked how she dealt with Amusement Park Dog Guy. She was smart to keep him talking, asking about his daughter, and smart to start rocking that chair since it was her only chance to escape that booby trap.

Now that we know why Monroe wants Danny -- to torture in order to get Rachel to talk -- Danny's importance as a quest object has definitely increased. It's too bad that Danny was too human to let Neville get crushed to death in that storm cellar. But then again, Danny is no match for Neville. Although, if Neville has anything resembling a conscience, he might be reluctant now to see Danny tortured. Here's hoping.

Bits and pieces:

-- Shades of Lost. The title of the episode is the title of a novel by Richard Adams, and the plot has some interesting resonance.

-- Rachel is working on a notebook that she's keeping concealed. Is she maybe sketching Militia holdings? Secreting plans for an Acme brand catapult to break herself out?

-- Before the Blackout, Ben was an algebra teacher working for the Department of Defense. We didn't know that, did we?

-- Aaron used to be a dog person. He had an expensive dog named Zoe that wore sweaters.

-- Amusement Park Dog guy had a daughter named Lilah who died of tetanus, something that probably wouldn't have killed her before the Blackout. Like Maggie's injury.

-- This week's coolest set was the amusement park covered with greenery, even though they've done that one before. No more amusements for the post-Blackout population.

-- This week's anachronism: Billy Burke (Miles) was absolutely and no mistake wearing contacts. Watch those close-ups, people.

-- Charlie: "What stories does that guy know about you? He looked like he was about to wet himself."

Each episode has gotten just a little bit better, and this was the best so far. I even cried a little when Maggie died. Two and a half out of four copies of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

9 comments:

  1. I had such high hopes for this show (especially since most of the women in it are so very awesome), but tonight was my last episode.

    After the flashback to Rachel leaving, I said to my boyfriend, "for goodness sake, they can't even make the main character likeable in flashback with a different actress."

    Now that I know for sure that Maggie, who wasthe only character I was really invested in, is the one who Died, I just don't care anymore. Bummer.

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  2. I was very disengaged through most of this episode, and almost turned it off half way through. And yet they still managed to get me choked up with that ending. Charlie's pleas for Maggie not to leave her were heartrending, and the shot of Rachel walking away in agony, as her daughter screamed for her not to leave, just killed me. I can only rationalize that I was projecting a bit, having two young daughters of my own, and imagining how awful for them and me it would be to have to leave that way. Because, even though Elizabeth Mitchell did her usual stellar job, I still don't feel particularly attached to any of these characters.

    So I'm left in a quandary. I kind of enjoy the flashbacks and learning about the history with Miles, Rachel, Ben, and Monroe (especially last week's story). But I don't much care about the present day stuff --- particularly the material with Charlie and Danny. I'll give it at least one more week, but I'm very on the fence with this show.

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  3. The writers are trying. Even Supernatural had visible growing pains in its first season.

    However, the big difference is that Supernatural had two leads who had chemistry and could act whereas here Danny is a black hole of nothingness and Charlie is played by an actor who cant act.

    Still, I'm enjoying everything around the margins and if you consider Charlie and Danny as nothing more than delivery machines for Billy Burke and Giancarlo Esposito, this becomes a more palatable show.

    Finally, Gus Fring vs. the Dad from Twilight

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  4. Cant wait for next week... (Sorry blogger ate the last sentence of my previous post)

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  5. I really liked this episode, perhaps my favorite so far. I am loving the Miles flashbacks. No wonder he is so uncomfortable around Charlie -- he took her mother away from her.

    And, I couldn't believe it when it happened, but I started to cry when Maggie died. I would have said that I was nowhere near that invested in her, but I guess I was. Her flashbacks certainly helped us see her as an amazing woman.

    I agree with CoolSid that Danny and Charlie are the two weak leaks, but I am warming a bit towards the character of Charlie (please, please producers -- get her some acting lessons!). The adults, however, I am enjoying watching so I will stick with it for the time being.

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  6. I too teared up for Maggie! At least she got that look at her kids' photo last week... helped her remember their faces this week.

    Definitely more interested in the adults here! I'm on the fence about Charlie and Danny but am sticking with it 'cause I want to know how Miles and Bass created the Militia and Republic, why on earth Juliette (oops!) would leave her fmaily and whatever finally happened to make Miles turn his back on and hide from the Militia and his old buddy???

    I'm more interested in their stories than finding out why the lights went out!

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  7. Maggie's death BROKE my heart. I really can't believe they did that! I was sure she would be with the show till the end!

    Charlie still annoys the heck out of me. Ditto for Danny.

    But all in all, after harping on the show since the pilot and preferring Last Resort, I think I'm back on the Revolution bandwagon as the former had a weak episode this week.I can actually see how Revolution will look like on a weekly basis. And I have faith in Eric Kripke; this episode was just full of emotion!

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  8. This was the episode where I finally got on board with Revolution. I like this show. I like Charlie, too. Admittedly, the show hasn't done a great deal to endear us to any of the characters yet (with the possible late exception of Maggie), but their back-stories are slowly filtering through and rounding them out. I got a little choked up when Maggie died, too -- so much so that I even forgave her for her sightly suspect English accent.

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  9. I'm slowly but surely warming to the show and I may be the only one(?) who really likes Tracy Spiridakos - could be 'cause I really liked her in "Majority rules".
    Her problem, and ours, I think has more to do with the character she's playing. I'm getting the feeling that she's not getting a hellofalot to work with here. Also, I think maybe we're expecting her to be Katniss-tough - only she's not there yet. She's just a kid. Not sure how old she's supposed to be - maybe 19? 20?
    I didn't like the fact that she was made into a victim in this episode, SHE had to be the one kidnapped?
    Like I said, the character needs development in a way to not be someone who gets other people in trouble and/or is a sad crybaby most of the time.

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