Revolution recap: Randall's Power Play

Brownie Harris/NBC

Revolution fans, we were promised we'd learn the cause of the blackout in the second half of the season, and it looks like we're getting pretty close. This week's episode, called "Ghosts," chronicled the aftermath of Danny's death and gave us some more of Randall Flynn's backstory, which turned out to be pretty revealing of his motivations and got us ever closer to the full answer of how the lights went out.

First things first: The Fellowship bury Danny. While Aaron and Miles drive shovels into dirt to fill in his grave, Charlie watches with her "no way in hell I'm gonna cry" stony face on. Standing next to her is Rachel, who reaches out to clasp her daughter's hand, but Charlie pulls away.

The rebels begin to pack up to move on to another base and make plans for how to strike the militia next. But Miles tells Commander Ramsey his plans are too small. He says they need to take down Monroe, hit the militia hard, and "burn Philly to the ground." Miles determines he needs his senior offices (the ones who helped him in his attempt to assassinate Monroe) to get the job done.

While Miles and Nora set out to look for a former militiaman named Jim Hudson, the rebels move to a new camp, Echo Base, which was once a hospital. They immediately begin going on raids – raids that we don't see, but we do see how they affect Rachel: She doesn't at all like the idea of the one child she has left putting herself in danger like that, and she tells Charlie as much, but Charlie shrugs her off and goes anyway.

Aaron, unpacking his bag in their new but surely-as-temporary-as-all-the-rest home, pulls out the two Lockets of Power, sets them down on a counter, and walks away. I was worried this lingering close-up on the pendants was going to be intruded by a pair of mysterious hands snatching them away (really, Aaron, you're leaving them out in plain sight?), but instead the pendants light up and buzz to life.

Yet again the Lockets of Power are turning on randomly. Why do they do that? Why did Ben's pendant turn on at the lighthouse and at Grace's home? Well, we're finally about to find out. Cut to Monroe's office in Philadelphia, where Randall and Monroe are looking at a computer. A computer that looks like it was made in the '90s, but still, a working computer. Two little dots glow red – it's the pendants. Randall can track them when they're on. "Every so often I flip them on remotely, give them a little ping to see where they are," he says. He says Grace taught him how to do that.

Monroe tells the former G-man that he should have come to him earlier.  Randall explains that he thought about it, but "honestly I couldn't make up my mind about whether you were worthy or had your head deeply up your own ass." It's rather satisfying to see someone talk to Monroe like that, even if it is another despicable character, but it's even more fun to see how Monroe reacts. He appears taken aback, about to say something, but then he flashes a big, forced toothy grin briefly, then looks around the room and says, "Most people don't talk to me like that." Randall's response? "Most people don't have the power to hand you a continent."

He points out that he could have gone to any of the other territories that have sprung up on what was once the United States – he could have gone to Governor Affleck in California, he says. Anyone else think this is a reference to reigning king of Hollywood Ben Affleck? He recently squashed rumors that he was running for Senate, but who's to say that he wouldn't take the opportunity to turn his popularity into real power in a post-apocalyptic world?

NEXT PAGE: More Stephen King references as Miles finds Jim Hudson

Next we get our one glimpse of the episode at that pill-shaped object that Rachel pulled out of Danny's chest. The inside of the small, clear object looks like the innards of a computer. While Rachel looks at it under one of the hospital's microscopes, she sketches out a circuit on a notepad. Any electronics experts know what any of that drawing means?

Nora and Miles reach Culpepper, Va., the town where they believe Jim Hudson is (based on information from his brother living 20 miles away). It doesn't seem like Hudson's kind of town – "It's a little Stepford," says Nora of the quaint town with signposts that point to the community garden and the library. That library is where we get our next sighting of Eric Kripke's love for Stephen King – there's a whole shelf devoted to the prolific author, and the apparent librarian is handing one visitor a copy of The Stand. That librarian turns out to be Jim Hudson (Alphas actor Malik Yoba), but that's not the name he goes by anymore, and he is not too happy to see Miles there. Now he goes by the name Henry Beemus. He has a new quiet life, and a new wife. Miles tries to convince his old friend to finish the job he once helped him with (Jim got Miles into Monroe's bedroom the day he tried to kill him), but Jim doesn't want to be that man again. "You can't run from who you are," Miles tells him. "You can't wash that much blood off your hands. Sooner or later it's gonna catch up to you" – just like it caught up to Miles when he got a visit from his niece. But Jim isn't convinced.

Back at Echo Base, Rachel and Charlie argue when Charlie returns from a raid with a large wound on her shoulder. Rachel doesn't want her daughter to put her life in danger anymore. "I can't lose you too," she says. Charlie makes it clear it's not Rachel's place to boss her around. When Rachel insists, "I'm your mother!" Charlie snaps back, "Since when? You weren't there for me. You weren't there for Danny. You don't get to be –" and smack – her mother slaps Charlie across the face.  Rachel's immediately horrified and apologetic, but Charlie storms away.

There's not much time for Charlie or Rachel to take a breather from the heated moment because an air raid siren starts to sound throughout the base. Militia Humvees are in sight headed their way, and the Lockets of Power turn on again. Rachel, knowing exactly what both of these things mean – Monroe has power again and Randall has teamed with Monroe – springs into action, dumping chemicals into a sink to destroy the pendants. Aaron ties to tell her that it's useless, that he and Miles already tried to destroy them. But Rachel of course knows more about the pendants than he does – she pulls out the flash drive from both pendants ("it's a fricken' flash drive?!" a frustrated and shocked Aaron says). Charlie has joined them by this point and frantically tells her mother that there's no time, that they have to run. But Rachel knows Randall is tracking them – if she keeps the pendants, they'll lead Randall straight to them. If she leaves them, then that's more power for Monroe. She yells at Charlie, "Every pendant Monroe gets is another chopper, is another kid dead, okay?" So she tosses the pendant flash drives into the chemicals, successfully destroying them.

NEXT PAGE: Randall's night-of-the-blackout flashback

Meanwhile, in Culpepper, Miles has failed to convince Jim to leave his new façade of a life and help him take down Monroe. While Nora and Miles are on the outskirts of town readying their horses, they see a group of militia ride in – they're in town for him, "a kill squad," Miles says. Someone tipped them off about their presence in Culpepper.

So while Rachel, Aaron, and Charlie are fighting off the militia at the rebel base, Miles and Nora, soon joined by Jim, fight off a couple dozen militiamen in Culpepper. It's about time for another sword fight! And this is a thrilling one, with Miles and Nora outnumbered by gun-bearing militiamen. But in both fights, the good guys manage to win, though not without a couple scares and sacrifices. Rachel is briefly captured by Randall (he's not just after the pendants; he's also after her brains) before escaping, and Jim's wife, Sophie, sees the violent man her husband really is when he slashes the militia captain to death right in front of her.

Later, Jim tries to comfort his wife, but she's still horrified, and it's clear she doesn't want to be with this man she really doesn't know. So Jim decides to go with Miles.

They make their way to the rendezvous point, the rebels' new camp, where Miles sees Charlie and Rachel patch things up. "I said some terrible things," Charlie, finally dropping the stony face, says to her mother, and they embrace.

Now before I wrap things up here, we have some important revelations to go over: Randall's flashbacks. We learn some key things: 1) His marine son, Edward, died in action in Afghanistan a year before the blackout. 2) A month before the blackout, Randall is convinced it's time to try out their new technology that can wipe out others' electric power, while Ben and Rachel implore him to try more containment scenarios. 3) The night of the blackout, Randall sits at the head of at a large, long table in the Pentagon with several other government men, connected via satellite to men in Kabul and in the mysterious Tower we learned of last week. Holding the dog tags of his dead son in his hands, he orders, "Tower, prepare to execute." I have a feeling that not long after that he starts wishing he'd tried more containment scenarios.

So it looks like we're very close to some complete answers here. And so is Aaron. Aaron has been begging since Rachel's return for her to explain where she's been and how she's not the "mild-mannered housewife" he thought she was, and at the end of this episode, we learn that Ben and Rachel "took [Aaron] in when no one else would," and we hear Aaron say again that he deserves to know. So Rachel finally agrees to fill him in. "There's this place," she says. "It's called the Tower."

Want to know more? Well, you'll have to wait until next week! And anyone who watched the promo for episode 13 can probably agree it looks like one well-worth the wait. What do you think will happen next, Revolutionaries? What did you think of the revelations about Randall? How fun was it to watch him talk back to Monroe? How do you feel about his belief that electrical power should be in the hands of the few to protect the many? How do you think Jim Hudson will fit into the team now? Any other theories on that object that was inside Danny's chest? Sound off below!

Follow Emily on Twitter: @EmilyNRome

Read more about Revolution:

'Revolution': Boss and Elizabeth Mitchell preview the second half of the season

PaleyFest 2013: 10 'Revolution' revelations

'Revolution': Check out a map of North America 15 years after the blackout

'Revolution': The production designers on creating a world without electricity

How 'Revolution' landed two Led Zeppelin songs. Plus: Which Cat Stevens song almost was in the pilot