OK, har har, in Revolution's intermittently power-deficient dystopia, an Affleck — presumably Ben, but don't discount Casey, he's always been the stealth-Affleck — is the governor of whatever California's become after it's been robbed of its life-defining solar panels, Priuses, and Vitamixed kale smoothies. Is that any crazier than a not-too-distant future when dudes with soap-opera-level acting chops are fighting with swords and crossbows? Probably not. And we get to imagine Governargo Affleck doffing his uniform shirt at the slightest provocation, mumbling something about how with all the washing machines taken offline by the worldwide Maytag outage he's just doing what he can to keep his clothes clean. Or that he's only gone into politics to re-revive his acting career, which went ice cold again in 2021 after he abused his directorial authority to disastrously cast himself as Luke Skywalker III in Star Wars: Episode IX. This wasn't the worst idea this show has had.
When we last left our ragtag gang of scrappy, sometimes-electricity-free Revolutionaries, lo these many hiatus-months ago, the helicopters were coming. And now they have arrived. "But hey," you might ask, "don't helicopters need power to whirlybird it up and stay in the sky? And isn't this a show about a world without power?"
To which we would respond, "Don't be stupid. They have magical bullshit necklaces that bring back the power, but only in a very limited range, unless they have a necklace amplifier, in which case the range is sufficient to fly helicopters," and then we would excuse ourselves to the bathroom to vomit for a little while, because remembering all of this makes our brains sick.
Like a runaway steam train semi-cleverly circumventing the rules of a show premised upon the near-total disappearance of modern conveniences in a post-electrical dystopia, Revolution barreled through its fall season finale, and is now ready to power down for a couple of months to, um, oh sweet Electro-Jesus in heaven, are we really going to do this?, recharge its batteries. It was an action-packed hour indeed: Lost brothers were found, other lost "brothers" were reunited only to be angrily de-brothered, swords were clanged, enemies were stabbed, and, in the end, helicopters were menacingly whirleybirded. We will say this about this final installment of 2012: They did not leave any gas in the tank. Wait, gas doesn't work either, right? Ugh. This show.
They teased it, and they delivered: "Kashmir" contained not one, but two Led Zeppelin songs. For Zep fans, this was very exciting; the band is so notoriously stingy with the licensing of their music that even listening to any of their songs in iTunes without explicit permission constitutes a copyright violation that could cost you millions of dollars in penalties. Don't risk it. Place your pendant atop your computer, fire up last night's Revolution on Hulu, and rock out (in darkness, let's keep it real) to this pair of classic cuts without fear of reprisal. Even General Monroe likes to get the Led out from time to time. It takes his mind off all the evil things he's going to do with his bullshit magical electricity amplifier.
As for the rest of the episode: Nine TV-hours in, the gang has still not found Danny. They did, however, trip their collective balls off due to oxygen deprivation. That's not nothing. And it's a damn sight better than a steam train, believe it.
Is it time for us to let the whole "bullshit magical amulet" thing go and accept that this is a show about the desire to possess the world's greatest costume jewelry, and not one about the struggle of a dying civilization in a truly post-electrical world? One can only rage against the rusting, dormant machine for so long, and we've been banging our heads against its vine-covered sides for weeks now. Maybe it is, as they say, annoyingly, what it is.
(And "what it is" is a Lost knockoff with inferior actors, no central mystery worth caring about, and some crossbows. Some weeks there aren't even any crossbows! We keep coming back for the crossbows. We were never very good at that game where you touch a hot stove over and over again to learn not to touch the hot stove anymore.)
This was the seventh episode of Revolution's first season. Let's get you all caught up on what's happened, in case you've been skipping the biggest new hit of the fall, like a crazy person with no regard for being entertained:
What were they gonna do, take two consecutive weeks off? If NBC's proven anything in the last few days, it's that they know exactly what they're doing at all times. This is not an organization you second-guess; the hand on the rudder is steady. Hold on, who's got the rudder? I thought you were going to do the rudder thing. No, I brought the paddle. Just fire up the motor and let's go. Wait, this boat has no motor? Haven't you been paying attention to how things work now, idiot? I thought maybe it ran on steam, like the train. I hate you. Anyway.
Yes, it's true: The power-starved future of Revolution is a miserable shit-slog of an existence, one ruled by murder-thirsty militiamen who would disembowel you with a rusty scimitar for just one more sweet minute of iPhone time, even if there is the occasional surge of magical electricity to remind you of a less dire, more Marvin Gaye–blessed era. But this civilization, as hopeless as it is, has yet to totally collapse: Some brave souls are committed to preserving the best of our cultural heritage, even if they have to stave off the seemingly inevitable encroachment of the New Dark Ages with ancient tools. The children of Noblesville may not have Xboxes, or even those tiny remote control helicopters toy-carnies sell at every mall kiosk (we assume the mall has been overrun by hungry panthers), but they have at least one hand-pressed copy of the last Harry Potter.
In the interest of spoiler avoidance, this week's One-Image Recap will follow after the jump. We couldn't live with ourselves if someone drew a picture of the post, brought it out to the cave where Revolution's hard-core, off-the-grid fans congregate, and showed it to them before their designated recapper could pantomime the entire episode. We don't need a carrier pigeon delivering an animal hide to the office with SPOILER ALERT, ASSHOLE! written on it in bear feces. (They have a pet bear named Tesla.) Not again.
What would happen if the world lost electricity, the lifeblood of modern society? NBC's Revolution, which premiered last night to (surprisingly?) strong ratings, has the answers: Civilization would quickly collapse. People would start sawing cars in half and converting them into horse-drawn buggies. There would be an acute shortage of asthma inhalers.
And then we'd start murdering each other with crossbows.
As a service to you, the reader who may have skipped Revolution in favor of Monday Night Football or a time-shifted Mob Doctor, we have cataloged every crossbow death — and there were many — in the pilot. Do with this information what you will (i.e., use it to watch only the parts where there is crossbow-delivered justice; the show wasn't very good once you got past all the crossbow killings).
