Revolution: Soul Train Review

Witness the beginning of Captain Neville.

Spoilers lie ahead.

I said last week I was hoping for it, and it came: a Captain Neville-centric episode. Granted, like usual, the flashbacks were far to short and left you wanting quite a bit more, but they were still good. Giancarlo Esposito has been one the show's strong points since the first episode, and him taking center stage was great. His flashbacks showing him as the guy that pretty much everyone walked all over while he puts on a happy face for his family and a disturbing amount of rage builds up was really interesting, and Esposito more then sells it, he owns it. You can tell, too, that he really was a different person back then, by the way he tweeks his mannerisms and intonations ever so slightly.

In no way was he a let down in the main story of the episode either; One of the first scenes was him beating the crap out of Danny for fun. After being a bit stupid last week, Danny boy's wised up a bit, effectively telling Neville he's sick of his crap. Bravo. Speaking of Danny, our heroes have tracked him to a train town that's gonna locomotive him to Monroe and Rachel in Philly. So, it's a rescue mission, in which they recruit none other Lapidus himself, Jeff Fahey, playing a bookstore owner (even in the post-apocalypse, Joe Biden gets no respect.) Fahey was great, selling his misplaced desire to avenge his wife, and like Mark Pelligrino, he made it out of this episode alive. Here's hoping to see both of them in the future.

If there was a weak link, it was, surprise surprise, Charlie. Sure it was cool when she and Neville met and realized they'd never actually seen each other, but is she really so damn dumb as to follow him, the exact opposite of what Miles told her to do and an all around not good decision? Apparently yes, though to be fair, it lead it a pretty sweet confrontation between Miles and Neville, ala Han Solo vs Darth Vader (though there, Han is quite capable of kicking Vader's ass, probably because he's sort of Vader himself, if you follow). And of course you then have a Charlie-Miles fight, Charlie crying those Tobey Maguire tears we've gotten way too used to seeing. At least she had an excuse this time, i.e. she's still reeling from Maggie's death, which got a nice shout out at the beginning of the episode. By the end, Charlie claims she's gonna toughen up. Here's hoping, because if that doesn't take the only way we're gonna avoid any more of these Niece-Uncle fights is if Charlie gets multiple-personality disorder and becomes a totally different person.

And then we have the assault of the train, a very nice action sequence if ever there was one. While the Danny-rescuing mission didn't work, it was still cool, and now he's in Philly with Mamma and Uncle Bass, i.e., no more of the traveling prisoner story line, which was starting to stretch itself a bit thin. Monroe really is evil given what he's doing to Rachel, and it works too, because she let's the second big twist of the episode slip: those electricity-generating pendants? Yeah, there's twelve of them, and Monroe needs all of them if he wants to turn the lights back on. I say the second twist, because of the other one: Not-Nate, AKA Jason, is Neville's son. Gasp. I might not have been shocked by this, but I was glad about, because the writers are trying to make Nate relevant beyond being Charlie's love interest.

Overall, Revolution maintained it's usual brand of good but not great this week, with a few good twists, some nice action, and fantastic performance by Giancarlo Esposito.

Final Rating: 80%