Round Two: Revolution

Revolution: Season 1, Episode 2 “Chained Heat” (C)

If ever a second episode resembled its pilot, this is it. Swordplay seems to be the most fascinating and frequent part of a future devoid of technology, and dictatorship is in full swing. What’s most grating about this show is just how terrible its writing is. Anything that comes out of the mouths of either of the show’s two most imbecilic characters, Miles and Charlie, is hopelessly irritating, and the ragtag duo made up by Aaron and Maggie isn’t much better. The only characters given decent dialogue are the villains, Captain Neville and the great General Monroe. Devoting a lengthy scene to Charlie’s recollections of her mother shooting a man after he tried to steal their food was entirely unnecessary, and it would make sense that she might have gotten over her aversion to killing much earlier considering her formative childhood. That reasoning will continue to bother me, as an obviously alive Rachel, Elizabeth Mitchell’s character, is told that her husband is dead, because apparently she’s just been sitting around doing nothing for the past fifteen years. This show is going to turn into a procedural if Miles keeps getting caught every episode and then energetically taking out all his captors. Nora seems to have just the right attitude for this show, which isn’t necessarily a compliment. Having sole electricity-possessor Grace get discovered by a villain after coming face-to-face with General Neville is illogical, since now there’s officially no hope for the good people still left in this supposedly intriguing future.