Revolution’s Second Episode “Chained Heat” is Only Lukewarm

From the huge opening pilot with big flashy names attached to it, all the glitz and glamor that NBC could attack the start of the show has started to fade as we enter the meat and bones of this new show. Not that this episode was bad, you just can’t have the kind of expectations that the juiced up pilot episode was going to be what you get every week. For the sake of plot and developing characters the story has to go from breakneck speed to a crawl.

Spoilers Ahoy!

That’s kind of what episode 2 felt like to me, a crawl. While there were some high and low points, this episode felt more of a middling for me in terms of excitement. There are some things it does well. Such as any scene with Captain Tom Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) in it. Yes, he’s supposed to be the bad guy, but the only real scene he got this episode was him finding a man with an illegal firearm that they hear the gunshot go off in a distance, then find his house with a deer strung up in the front yard. Which someone like me who tries to pay attention to post apoc and survivalist theories, is a “No, No.” I do have to accept that not everyone in a post apoc world knows what they’re doing, so when it turns out the man was a part of “The Rebellion” or a group that is trying to bring back the United States of America, everything getting torched was understandable. Captain Neville consoling the soldier that was shot in the gut, practically cradling the guy’s body as he talked about how he was moving to a better place and gave him some poison to kill himself so that he didn’t suffer was actually kind of touching. I feel like Neville isn’t a bad guy by nature, it’s just that when he had to adapt to survive, this happened to be his route, and he’s good at it for a former “Insurance Adjuster”.

Charlie is starting to be a low point on the show for me, yes, she’s the protective sister that has dead parents. Dead being very, very loose in term, because we can all see it coming a mile away that her mom is obviously still alive. Which she is, under Monroes captivity, as he’s treating her civil it seems to try and get information out of her. At least he doesn’t stab her to death like he did with the rebel being interrogated. They’re really hammering it down that Monroe, BAD! Everyone else, GOOD! No in-between. I’m hoping that maybe a character like Miles might start floating on that dividing line, but we’ll see.

I’m not giving up on Revolution, it’s got a nice idea surrounding it, and I’m interested to see how it plays out. It looks like we’re going to have to settle in for some slow character building and story building episodes, so we’re going to have to be patient. The near record breaking numbers for a Pilot on NBC may have slipped a little for episode 2, but it wasn’t that dramatic of a drop.

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by Ryan Thomason

Husband, Father, Geek and Usher Syndrome Advocate. I'm a man of various talents, a master of none. I serve as one of the WPR Overlords so if you ever have any issues/questions, just let me know.

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