If not apparent from the last discombobulated rant, we're still in the middle of watching
Revolution. Well not the middle, finishing with 15 of 20. So while everyone who watched one week at a time has the story, we don't. It will be interesting to see how the guesses work out, but with how things are going, we don't guess much since it can be yanked any which way at this point. Still, it's interesting. Slow, although not slow-paced, with so much going on. But we're kind of ready for the main story to be over, so if we learn anything in the meantime, no big deal. Still, not purposely going out of our way to learn any more than what's in the show.
One thing that springs to mind about this, is rather than having one show to watch and then a week to think about things in it (or forget about things in it) instead, watching two or five at a time compresses things. Maybe it compresses them into something that maybe makes how the overall comes across less believable, more contrived, and aggravating than it would be otherwise.
Whichever, that is a question, which is difficult to answer. How do you imagine watching something once a week, when you've been watching multiple episodes a day multiple days in a row? You really can't.
Yes, more spoilers here. Which to most people probably wouldn't be spoilers, just to us or somebody doing the same and earlier on in the watching process. Or not having watched at all. (We can summarize the main points pretty easily, it's the interactions and whose turn is it next to die in some stupid way.)
Now some things happened in episode 15 (and 14 and around there, it blurs when you see two to six in a day) that depending on how you look at it are worse mistakes and errors in judgment and crazy actions and what have you. We learn that indeed Monroe is both crazy and opportunistic (for reals) but also that he's still human-ish to some extent. Trying to nuke another "country" next to them, home town population locked in the basement of a burning building to draw out Miles, only caring about the old flame once she says he's got a kid. Well, Emma says son. We find out that Rachael was right (Tom will escape, it's their only chance to kill him, bye bye padre). See that Jason is a true rebel. Watch Tom getting the hell out of the Monroe Republic and away from the other psycho. We learn more of the tower and the nanobots. And so on.
Yet we've still got the fortuitous and the random. In clubs and diamonds. It's like there's a couple of sets of cups, one with characters and one with messed up things to happen. They throw two ping-pong balls, one each into a set of cups. And voilà, what horrible thing happens to a character, or what terrible thing does a character do. Which depending on if the character is a main and required character or not. Unless they decide somebody's got to go.
Which sometimes is well planned about though, or doesn't happen. We can pretty much tell, although if you're just watching, there's not much time to think very far ahead.
So Aaron, as expected, happens upon Priscilla. That's handled pretty well, he essentially (but not fully) redeems himself, and we find out what happened to her. Rachel is more focused and less cray cray as the two go to the tower. Nobody dies during the situation (unless they killed the bounty hunter) so all's well that ends well. Although I suppose it's more poignant if nobody dies.
Then there's later. The two guys burning. Of course it's your friend Jane the techno-wizard, has to be. Rachel, why so surprised. Rachel in asking for help to turn the power back on makes none of the arguments you want her to make or expect her to make. How Monroe "only" having power is going to make things worse, what he did to the rebel camps and the other scientists (skip that one part though) and how Randall and them are going to make it worse. The nukes. Slave labor. No, it's the (LUCKILY ENOUGH) other one overhearing the conversation and happening to agree with Rachel. Um, duh? Although that did a lot to explain why Danny had to die. We no longer have to worry that Rachel might have a change of heart to save Danny, he's already dead and it's all theoretical. At least we find out a reason to want to keep the power off. (Keep the pervasive all-present nanobots eating electricity.)
Let's see, Miles kills the protégé, they disarm the nuke but keep the fissionable material. Surprising the president didn't push that one, but I suppose Miles is of more use as an arm of violence to her than some radioactivity is. We learn of the past history (somewhat) of Miles and Kelly, and also of Miles and Rachel. That last one, so does Charlie, leading to a bit of a block between her and Miles. (Miles just says he hurts people, so far that's all he's said about what he did to Rachel...)
But back to things. Monroe knows how dangerous Miles is, in charge of troops, so plans a trap. Kidnaps all the people of their home town, including the ex-finance and ex-lover of Miles and Monroe, respectively, yeah, I know. Sends word to Miles, who goes alone. (Yes of course the others find out from the courier where.) You wonder how they'll get out of the guarded (well, sort of) burning building, but they do via help, but of course nothing's that simple. Monroe has Emma their ex (one imagines at this point, Miles is unaware) at gunpoint. Where as soon as Monroe finds out they have a baby, he goes all soft and curious. Which of course she won't say where it is, just that it's "not here". Yet, which was a bit of a surprise, the rep watching our heroes shoots her. Does Dixon shoot at Monroe himself (who's not really holding Emma all that well) a few times? Shoot her a few times? No, once, and he's all proud like he did something other than kill Emma. And Dixon is right near Miles, who shoots Dixon directly, not missing, a few times, until dead. Well yeah, Miles said he would. (It's unclear if Charlie had taken the shot as she said later she would have, if the same thing would have happened to her... No, at this time, of course not. Maybe later, once she finds out what Miles did to Rachel. Who knows.) Monroe, still not knowing where his kid is, obviously, wait for it, gets away.
Monroe probably thinks Miles shot her, Miles is POd Monroe tried to burn up everyone in town, Charlie wants to know what Miles did to her mom, and the game has changed yet again.
Back in the Georgia Federation. 'He's given us lots of information.' Well that must be where Tom went. Okay. 'Somebody's got to replace Dixon somebody who can handle Miles.' NO, WTF, BBQ. Geez, what an amateur hour we got here. (Hint to writers; really?)
I'm sure that will be wonderful, Tom and Miles working together. But the bigger question is Rachel and Aaron and Randall and the tower. We might remember that Grace is working on getting the elevator going, down or up or both to the 12th floor. To do what? Turn on something, totally destroy it all? Will she succeed, and when.
For the future, we might imagine the show more interesting if everyone has power. Knowing these clowns, crushing that idea seems more likely. Yet we're running out of pendants, okay, the insides of them. The USB memory with the software that kills or whatever the nanobots before they can eat the electricity the insides produce. (Although maybe they can make more of the innards...) As supposedly there's twelve total and so far Rachel's melted four of them we have seen if I remember correctly. We don't know what happened to the one on the nuke, but Randall (who has one on his neck) can track them, remember. So there's that. The number of pendants, the tracking of what there is. Making more innards. The power, and amplifiers which they seem to make very quickly. There's the six pendants besides the four insides that Rachel melted, the nuke one and Randall's one. One imagines we could get a pendant to the Georgia Republic folks, but the tracking.... Did Jane have one, or more than one? Of course she'll be invulnerable, unfindable, or is she? Maybe she has some other form of them Randall can't track. Or another bargaining chip when Rachel gets to the tower.
I'm imagining that Rachel gets to the tower, too late (or just barely too late) and Grace gets Randall to where he either becomes unstoppable (at least apparently; a potential big cliffhanger) or where he destroys the ability to turn it back on (he seems to want a world with no power but for the few, which means low scale and including him). Which is it, powerful or powerless? Or is it something else. Perhaps not even involving Randall or the tower. Maybe Aaron and Rachel turn out to have been lovers at one time, and Aaron has decided he wants the power for himself. Or if Randall hates war and senseless slaughter and violent people with power, why be honest with Monroe about his plans. See?
Whatever it is, right now the possibilities are seemingly endless. Sure, perhaps the clues so far haven't been parsed correctly by us. How could we tell though? Something about the device that was in Danny, Randall's motives, how Jane and her life partner really feel or who gets to them potentially, how Monroe is feeling about what to do to Miles next, another character. Then what next anyway. Randall, maybe next time whoever is Charlie (or even her, she could easily show up in the next five episodes at any time, weeks or months skipped ahead to) maybe that Charlie won't shoot at Randall's feet. Maybe at the tower, maybe Aaron grabs him and they both fall into the power source. There's always not paying attention and walking into an open empty elevator shaft, or being pushed in by Grace. Slipping on a banana peel.
Just like we could ask, when and if does Randall (or for that matter, Rachel, or Aaron, or some long lost friend or son or daughter or new character) become expendable, no longer prime, sacrificed to the gods of the plot, victim of the whims of the writers and producers. We would imagine that only Charlie and Miles are safe here, Tom and Bass are maybe too, but you never know. I don't remember ever an entire cast being replaced at once or through a season, but who knows. And things here, well this is only the first season.
Maybe it only depends on where which ping-pong balls fall into what cups.
Needless to say, I stopped watching at some point and it got cancelled at some point.
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