BY: ORANGECHAIR
NBC’s new show Revolution hit is mid-season finale, the point where the network will air no new episodes for a number of weeks. Usually, a show returns around March after a mid-series finale but there is no telling when it will actually return. So far there have been ten episodes in the first season and, if they tighten up the plot in the second half of the season, it could shape up to be a pretty good show.
Quick recap for those of you who don’t know. The story of Revolution takes place ten years after all the power in the world stopped working. Cars, trains, planes, lights and everything using power stopped working in an instant. Ten years later, the world has turned dystopian. After years of the powerless world crumbling, settlements have turned into safe zones but the rest of the world is still in turmoil. In the North Eastern United States, an oppressive force known as the Monroe Militia has risen up, lead by Sebastian “Bass” Monroe (David Lyons). Sending out one of his best men to scour the States for Ben Matheson (Tim Guinee), the man who may known why the power went out, the story begins when Captain Tom Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) arrives at Ben’s settlement.
Resistance occurs from Ben’s family when Neville tries to take him. Ben is shot and Neville ends up taking Ben’s son Danny Matheson (Graham Rogers). This kidnapping sets up the first half of the season as Charlie Matheson (Tracy Spiridakos), Danny’s older sister, embarks on a quest to save him. Enlisting the help of her uncle, Miles Matheson (Billy Burke), a friend of her father’s, Aaron Pittman (Zak Orth), her stepmother, Maggie Foster (Anna Lise Phillips), and resistance fighter Nora Clayton (Daniella Alonso), Charlie and her group head to Monroe’s base in Philadelphia. The mid-season finale culminates in most of the group making it to Philadelphia and confronting Monroe.
The reason I began watching this show was due to one name, J.J. Abrams. As long as Abrams puts his name on a show, I will at least watch two episodes of it. As the story line continues, Revolution becomes much more than just a story about rescuing Danny. We learn that Miles used to be heavily involved in the Monroe Militia, in fact him and Monroe were best friends. Another interesting plot twist appears during the course of the show as we learn that Charlie and Danny’s mother, Rachel Matheson (Elizabeth Mitchell), is alive and being held by Monroe. Each episode drastically changes Rachel’s character development as she tries to survive Monroe without helping him turn the power back on or build a weapon.
In my opinion, Revolution has left us with a lot to be hopeful for. The J.J. Abrams style running unanswered questions does appear throughout the show, leaving the audience still wondering why the power was ever turned off in the first place. We know that it has something to do with twelve pendants, each of which has the ability to power up items around it, but why and how the power turned off is still unknown. We know that both Rachel and Ben Matheson were working on a project that lead to the mass power outage. The story behind the pendants and the project involving them unravels slowly as it is referenced in flashbacks and mysterious pendant weilding members of the project begin to appear.
I was hoping for a good, thought provoking cliffhanger at the end of the mid-season finale and at first I was disappointing. SPOILER ALERT After being imprisoned by Monroe, Charlie and her group finally escape with Danny and Rachel in tow. As they are running away, a project Rachel was working on for Monroe begins working, giving Monroe the ability to boost the pendants power. With this he is able to get a helicopter working and points the guns at the main characters. Now of course that’s not a good cliffhanger. We all know that the main characters aren’t going to die. The interesting part of the cliffhanger is the prospect of Monroe having power during the second half of the season. The story line so far has had a unique background but has started to get a little stale after just half a season. The idea that Monroe is the only person in the world to have power opens up the story to an endless amount of possibilities.
Overall I think Revolution has a pretty good start. With a complex background to the story that gives the opportunity for even more complex growth, Revolution could very well turn into a complicated mystery thriller. The show needs to stop its villain of the week setup and start expanding its story line. There have been enough episodes to establish how bad the world has become after the blackout with enough sickeningly twisted characters to prove how bad things have gotten. I look forward to the return of Revolution with the hopes that they step it up and turn into the mind-blowing show it has the potential to be.
