Revolution recap: Homecoming
Brownie Harris/NBC
The slowly unfolding truth about the Blackout was pushed aside in the latest episode of Revolution, which focused on emotion-charged stories for Monroe, Miles, and Aaron, who all in some way found themselves facing long-lost people they had cared about deeply.
Revolution always jumps between a few locations and a few storylines, building the suspense with the switch from one to another, but in this episode (called “Home,” another title Eric Kripke also used for Supernatural), every storyline was particularly strong and compelling – Aaron finding his wife, Monroe’s plan to draw out Miles, and Miles’ solo rescue attempt of another woman from his past.
Things kick off with Miles and Jim Hudson after a battle, where they, alongside Georgia Federation soldiers, defeated a group of Monroe’s men. But Miles and Jim are wearied and pained to hear the results of the battle from their superior, Captain Dickson: There were no militia survivors, nine rebels were killed, and 13 Georgians were killed. For the military man in Miles, this is of course good news and a victory. For the Miles trying to get back in touch with his humanity stripped away during years as a militia general, it’s tough news to swallow.
“I hate that guy,” Jim says when Dickson leaves. Throughout the episode, it’s never made explicitly clear what all Dickson does to so deserve their hate, but he is a nuisance – taking a long break to get water on the road while Charlie is eager to get going and find Miles, hovering over Miles and Jim, and a constant reminder that though President Foster asked Miles if he’s ready to be a general again, the Georgia Federation doesn’t entirely trust him.
In Philadelphia, Captain Jeremy Baker (yes, Mark Pellegrino is back!) is filling Monroe in on their losses in battles against the rebels and Georgians. Monroe is more determined than ever to kill Miles, and kill him immediately – “now, not next week, not next month. Now,” he says.
Monroe, Baker, and more militiamen board their helicopters and swoop into a small town, which we soon find out is where Miles and Monroe grew up.
Back at the Georgian and rebel base, Charlie is in a tent sorting through guns she’s lifted off of militiamen killed in the battle – they got three dozen enemy rifles, she tells Miles. But she’s being cold and quiet with her uncle. He asks her what’s wrong. “You wanna talk?” Charlie says. “Let’s talk about what happened between you and my mom.” She still doesn’t get an answer because just then Dickson walks in and tells them a militia messenger is in the camp, asking for Miles.
Monroe’s messenger insists on speaking to Miles in private. Though Dickson is reluctant to let Miles go unwatched, he leaves the tent where the messenger is tied up. Miles learns that Monroe is in their hometown and wants him to be there by dawn. “Forgive me,” the messenger says as he’s about to deliver Monroe’s words verbatim: “Miles, you are to come alone, and you’ll turn yourself in to me, or else I’m going to kill everyone in our hometown, I swear to God. Anyone you ever cared about or loved will die, just because they know you, starting with Emma.” Really tough words to hear for the man already mourning the people close to him who have been hurt through his own fault.
NEXT: Miles and Monroe — they meet again
A flashback – this time not attached to a title card indicating how many years before the Blackout this is – shows a teenage Miles (Days of Our Lives’ Casey Deidrick) with a young woman who can only be this Emma. Miles has just enlisted, and Emma’s worried about him. But he reassures her with a promise that he’ll be okay and a kiss.
Cut to Monroe and his men in his hometown. The general is standing in a white gazebo, watching the militiamen round up the townspeople. We meet Emma (General Hospital and 24’s Annie Wersching), a woman with clear blue eyes, bright red hair, and freckles that surround her soft smile. “It’s me, Emma,” she says, walking past militiamen and approaching Bass. He appears stunned at the sight of her – maybe, even with the messenger’s threat, he wasn’t sure she’d be there, or maybe the memories that come flooding back to him make this that much more difficult for him. We see one memory: A quick glimpse back at the flashback of Miles and Emma in that kiss shows them parting lips, to reveal teenage Bass (Necessary Roughness’ Patrick Johnson) watching them with a hint of jealousy and longing in his eyes. Back in the present, Emma tells Bass she missed him and asks him what’s going on, why everyone’s being shoved into the town courthouse. She easily sees through his lie that this is all for their own protection, that there’s been a terrorist threat. “We’re old friends,” she tells Bass. “I know you, and I know when you’re lying.” That’s when Sebastian Monroe the general comes back: “Yeah, you’re right, we’re old friends. That doesn’t give you the right to talk to me like that.”
Bass visits the cemetery where his family is buried (remember, they were killed by a drunk driver on their way to a Harry Potter movie). There are flowers at the tombstone of his parents, surely placed there by Emma. Another flashback reveals teenage Emma pulling a blanket over Miles, who’s fallen asleep on the couch. She walks into the kitchen, where she and Bass draw close, his fingers drifting across her hand.
Later, at night, present-day Emma approaches Monroe again, now in the courthouse. She’s overheard militiamen talking and knows what Monroe is planning. “I know you loved me once,” she says, adding shakingly, “Bass, I loved you too.” He looks at her sharply, like this is the first time she’s ever said this. Indeed, he asks her why she’s never told him this before. She brushes off that question and implores him to not go through with his manipulative plans. “There has to be a part of you that’s still you, that’s kind and decent. If there is, please let us go,” she says. Bass asks about the flowers at his parents’ grave – yes, Emma says, she put them there.
There are plenty of militiamen in the room – including Baker, who has just informed the general that Miles is here – but in one moment, Bass acts like he and Emma are utterly alone. He draws close to her and whispers, “You see the best in people. You see the best in me. I wanna be the Bass that you know. I wanna be him so badly, you have no idea.” Bass gives teary-eyed Emma a long kiss, then draws away and says firmly, “But he’s dead.” Emma is taken away by militiamen, and Monroe orders his men to lock everyone in the basement and burn down the building.
As Miles — who quickly left the camp after receiving Monroe’s message without telling anyone — makes his way to the courthouse through the gunfire, Monroe and his men exit the courthouse, then light it on fire. With a bullet in his leg, Miles hobbles into the courthouse and breaks the townspeople free from the locked basement. There he sees Emma, who helps him guide people to safety – but it’s a safety that doesn’t exist. On all sides are flames or militiamen armed with guns. It looks like Miles is about to die in the ever-nearing fire along with Emma and everyone else trapped inside, but then militiamen outside one nearby window are gunned down – it’s Nora and Jim, who have made it to town with Dickson, Charlie and more Georgia Federation soldiers who were able to get an answer out of Monroe’s messenger about Miles’ whereabouts and Monroe’s plan.
Miles, Emma, and the rest of the townspeople escape out the window amid more gunfire, but Emma isn’t free for long – Monroe has her at gunpoint. Hiding behind columns in the town square (where a plaque indicates we’re in Dubois County, Indiana), Dickson urges Miles to take the shot. “I can’t do it. I’ll hit her,” Miles confesses, to Dickson and Charlie’s frustration. Charlie says she’ll take the shot – she’s unwavering in her determination to kill the man responsible for her brother’s death. “If anyone takes that shot, I swear to God, I’ll kill him myself,” Miles hisses.
As a shaky and almost mad Monroe starts shouting a countdown to Miles, Emma cries, “I don’t want to die. I want to see him again.” Monroe has no sympathy for her desire to see Miles one last time – but that’s not who she’s talking about. “Not Miles. My son,” she whispers. “Your son.” A quick return to the earlier flashback shows teenage Bass and Emma having sex on the kitchen counter. Bass lowers his gun slightly. Miles’ furrowed brow and Emma’s inaudible next words from the wide shot seem to indicate he hasn’t heard this reveal. Then Emma explains that Bass was at basic training, and her parents wouldn’t let her tell him or Miles about the baby. Mouth gaping, one tear falling from his eye, Bass asks her where their son is. “He’s not here,” is all Emma says. And it’s the last thing Emma says – just then, a bullet goes right through her chest.
Miles, shocked, looks back and sees Dickson with his gun raised. He immediately stands up and kills the Georgia captain with two shots to the chest. Bass, lying on the ground with the dead Emma fallen on top of him, is wounded too. He sees that she’s gone, and, in a rare moment of loudly vocalized anger and despair, shouts, “Noo!” and begins firing rather blindly in Miles’ direction. Militiamen step in and pull their injured leader away, back to the helicopters. Miles and Charlie start firing at the militiamen, hitting a few more, but not Monroe or Baker. Once the helicopters lift off, Miles rushes over to Emma and he sees that another person he loved has died.
Later, Jim walks over to Miles as he’s covering Emma’s body with a blanket. Jim can tell this woman was important to him. “I used to be engaged to her,” Miles says. Then: “This is how Monroe wants to fight? He’s got it. He has no idea what he’s in for.”
NEXT: A painful reunion for Aaron and his wife
Now, about Aaron and Rachel: They’ve made it to the Plains Nation by crossing the Mississippi River, the Monroe Republic’s western border. In La Grange, Missouri, Rachel pores over Jane Warren’s diary, full of drawings and notes that hold some clue to how they’ll turn the power back on. “It’s kinda like Da Vinci on meth,” she tells Aaron, while sitting at a table in a bustling outdoor market. “It’s gonna take me a while to translate.” Aaron offers to help. Rachel just tells him he can go get supplies – definitely not the kind of help the one-time Google man had in mind. “Two doctorates from MIT, but I’ll go shopping,” Aaron grumbles. Rachel, distracted, just nods without acknowledging his frustration.
As Aaron steps into the marketplace, he sees someone he’s been wanting to see again for a long time: his wife, Priscilla, whom he left years ago, believing she would be safer in the post-Blackout world without her decidedly not-outdoorsy husband. He goes after her, shouts her name, but he loses her in the crowd. Later, we see Rachel urging him to calm down – he’s been searching for Priscilla for hours. Then he finds her at a bar, next to a man with scruffy Scandinavian good looks. Aaron exchanges a few uncertain hi’s with her. But what comes next is certainly not the happy reunion Aaron was hoping for – and it’s not because Priscilla voices any anger about him leaving her. With restrained emotion, she introduces Aaron to the man sitting next to her, “Steve, my husband.” She then introduces Aaron simply as an “old friend.” Priscilla makes it clear she wants him to leave with a “it was good to see you,” but Aaron breathlessly begs her to go someplace where they can talk. Rachel gently pulls Aaron away, as Priscilla watches him go with a pained look on her face. Then it’s revealed that the man sitting next to her has been pointing a gun at her under the bar counter.
Aaron didn’t see the gun, but he knows something was wrong. So, despite Rachel’s insistence that it’s better to let this go, that she won’t be safe where they’re going, Aaron seeks out his wife again. At night, he finds her being tossed into a cart by this man she called Steve, who explains to Aaron that Priscilla is a fugitive. She begs Aaron to walk away, and he does – but then he turns back around and attacks the man keeping Priscilla captive. Punches are thrown – most of them at Aaron, but then Priscilla knocks out her captor cold with a metal bar.
Aaron and his wife go back to one of the market tables to talk, with Rachel sitting nearby. Priscilla tells Aaron that the man was a bounty hunter taking her back to the Monroe Republic – she killed a militia sergeant to protect someone she cares about. Then comes Aaron’s apology: “Priscilla, I have to say this –” She interrupts, “No, you don’t,” but he says, “I am sorry. I never should have left you. I thought I was going to get you killed.” Through tears, Priscilla makes it clear that she thinks Aaron’s belief that he was protecting her is preposterous. Everyone he left her with died, she tells him. “I wish I could take it back, you have no idea,” Aaron says, also shedding tears.
He asks her to come with them. When she says no, he says he’ll go with her. But no, that can’t happen either – because Priscilla really does have a new family. She killed that sergeant to protect her daughter, who’s now 11. Aaron can barely look at her, eyes shifting from side to side, but he asks if Priscilla’s daughter is okay. Yes, she is – his wife’s new family is in Texas. Then he looks her in the eye again and says simply, “Well, then you have to get back to them.”
Priscilla tells Aaron that she loves him and she always will and kisses him – then they let each other go again. “Don’t worry about me anymore,” she whispers. “Goodbye.”
The last scene of the episode takes place in the Georgia Federation Presidential Compound. One of President Foster’s people brings up Miles’ murder of Captain Dickson. “Well, obviously Dickson couldn’t handle him, and I need somebody up there who can,” the President says. Who can handle Miles? Enter Tom Neville. Doors open to reveal the one-time Monroe Republic major in a crisp, gray three-piece suit, and President Foster says, “Tom, I hope you’re ready to get back into action.” Cue dramatic brass section notes – and Neville’s stern face that morphs into a small, sly smile.
Your turn, Revolutionaries. How much did you love seeing Aaron, Miles, and Bass face their past in this episode? What do you think of Charlie’s admission to Nora that she would have taken the shot at Monroe and Emma if Dickson hadn’t? Any thoughts on how Emma’s son could pop up on a future episode? What would you like to see happen as Neville teams with the Georgia Federation?
Follow Emily on Twitter: @EmilyNRome
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