Notes for Episode 18: "Revolution"

Hey everyone! Hannah here, closing out our final obligations to Revolution. One thing you might notice when reading through these notes is that the "Cute Things We Said" section is nearly empty. This is because we were actively miserable while watching the show and yearning for any moment of release from it. But now we HAVE that release, so next month we'll be coming at you with... a much better show. By definition it's gonna be a much better show. There's literally no way. See you all then!

• Plot / Structure Stuff:

  • The dad put the USB in a special necklace… I wonder if the protagonist will either have that or need to find it

  • 4 minutes into the pilot a teacher asks “What caused the blackout?” Alright so we’re being very subtle about our Lostalike mystery

  • I hate how poorly they set up the state of the world in the pilot. They’re flying through story but the setting is all empty genre signifiers. Like I’ve played fucking Fallout too guys

    • They’ve made the most Ubisoft tv show of all time

  • It kinda just feels like they’re on a quest for an artifact at this point… the electricity being out does not feel like it’s core to anything happening

  • The fundamental problem here is that this is not an interesting apocalypse. So none of the specific character drama registers because it feels like it’s coming from the same stock-standard playbook as the setting

    • Like say what you will about The Walking Dead but the zombie apocalypse is still a somewhat gonzo concept and requires total reorientation of how its characters interact with the world and with each other. Not at all the case here

    • And a big part of that is that it feels like this is an apocalypse that can be reversed! Like if the power ever gets flipped back on everyone seems like they’ll just go back to normal

  • Something that Lostalikes constantly get wrong, good ones like Zoo or bad ones like Terra Nova or awful ones like Revolution, is that you can’t lay out 80% of the mystery and expect viewers to be hooked by the last 20%

  • Like a third of the way through the season I guess there’s still unanswered questions about the power going out? But we know it was a military project, we know some of those military guys are still around, I feel like I can take it from here

  • I long. For. Flashforward

    • The yelling in that show at least progressed things. They’d yell and then they’d go on a field trip. Here they yell and they stay put

  • They showed way too much Monroe stuff. The show still sucked in episode 1 but at least we had “damn who are these mysterious heavily armed uniform guys.” And now I’m so fucking sick of them. Their fucking backstories. Their little dramas. They needed to be Others style at first

  • This show is way too addicted to:

    • In medias res cold opens

    • Cliffhangers that go nowhere

• Character / Performance Stuff:

  • The guy who’s in charge of Giancarlo Esposito….. ohhh, he does not look like a gravitas haver (this ended up being Monroe). This is gonna be rough

    • All seasons of Sea Patrol have consisted of standalone episodes dealing with serious breaches of Australian law, such as illegal fishing, asylum seekers and other problems the RAN encounter on typical patrols. The premiere of each season usually introduces a larger event which is expanded on and connected as the season goes on, before being resolved in the finale. This format, however, with a storyline running throughout the season, was absent in season 4.

  • Giancarlo sounds like a British actor trying American, it’s not the best

  • This show has such a YA type vibe to it but it doesn’t fucking work because half the characters are 40. YA is inherently not a four quadrant thing, you can’t have Katniss and Katniss’s Cool Uncle

  • Why do they keep milking the idea that Nate’s (Jason’s) real name isn’t Nate?? That’s not a cool fact to know

  • This show doesn’t understand what an uncle is. And that’s tragic. Baron Harkonnen is an uncle. Steppenwolf is an uncle. Miles is not a fucking uncle

  • Everyone on this show is a violent thug

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff: 

  • Explaining a catastrophic event to an American: imagine a lot of cars

    • The planes falling from the sky is very fun though

  • The title screen saying EVOLUTION before the R blinks back in… that’s rough

  • Horizon Zero Dawn ass imagery

  • 80’s movie guy apocalypse. Oh no. Return of the Jedi lunchbox

  • This is a henley ass show. EVERYONE is wearing henleys

    • When the power went out… so did the drywall

  • The TVTropes crew seemed to think this was inspired by The Hunger Games / chasing the Hunger Games dollar but like. Can we get serious now. The Hunger Games has panache. Nobody here has a character design

  • The sword combat isn’t BAD but it needed to be better if it was gonna be happening every episode. If this is the “good guys kill 20 people with swords every episode” show then I’m gonna need a little more. I’m gonna need it to be like Into the Badlands

  • More than any other Lostalike so far this one is ripping the SCORE so hard

  • Come episode 19 basic things like “scene transitions” are breaking down Usually we complain about shows cutting on scenes too early, here it’s like… they arrive at the next scene too late

    • They’ll cut to a scene of Charlie throwing knives to kill some Monroe guys and the knives are already like, mid-air when the scene comes in

• Notable Quotes:

  • “You’re so strong, like your mom” 

    • You were JUST saying the mom went out sad in the wilderness

  • There’s so many circular conversations. Nothing changes. I 100% believe these guys have been saying the same things to each other for 15 years

  • “Monroe, with a train? That makes him more dangerous than ever” “I know” AND WE KNOW BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT YOUR LAST CONVERSATION WAS FUCKING ABOUT

  • Johnny Crowder on Charlie: “I like your girl. She’s a peach. And I could eat peaches…..all day.”

  • “We can’t let anyone get to level 12… it’s too powerful, too dangerous”

  • “We are so close… it’s almost over”

    • Pull quote for a TV spot. In only one week, you’re free of Revolution

  • “The only thing I ever cared about was watching your back” okay so not even Monroe has ideology, what the fuck are we doing here

  • “You think I give two craps about Monroe?” That’s a sterling example of network TV dialogue my friend

• Cute Things We Said:

  • This show would be way more endearing if it did the Simpsons route with zinc being mysteriously gone instead of electricity

  • Randall firing ICBMs at Atlanta and Philadelphia… they’re taking out all the bisexuals and all the polycules