Revolution Season 1 Episode 4 Recap: The Plague Dogs

Hello Revolution Fans! This week your regular recapper is away on super secret nerd business so I decided to be a pal and recap this week’s episode. This is another action packed episode for sure and we are getting a better idea of how the people are surviving after the blackout. We also get insight into the backstories of the main group before their numbers are thinned as promised in last week’s promo. So please click for a full recap (with pictures!).

The episode begins with Charlie seemingly running from a militia soldier, but we soon see that Miles (Billy Burke) used her as bait yet again to lead the soldier away from his troop. The man confesses that they did see Captain Tom Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) just a day ago and that he did in fact have Danny in tow. This lights a fire under the small group and they leave to meet up with Maggie and Aaron who are waiting at the rendezvous spot. On the road the tension between Charlie and Miles blow up again when he refuses to tell her anything about his militia past. He gives her an ultimatum to stop asking or he will leave. (He likes using that “I’ll leave” card a lot…)

Meanwhile Maggie (Anna Lise Phillips) and Aaron (Zak Orth) are waiting and Maggie has a flashback to where she was when the blackout happened. She is a stunning red dress with the Seattle skyline in the window behind her. Her children are in England and via Skype begging her to read a chapter from the wizard of Oz. She gives them several firm NOs before the light go out. Aaron drags her from her flashback with a plea to keep the function of Ben’s pendent between them; he explains that people would kill for it so the less that people know the better. Before she can agree Charlie, Miles and Nora arrive.

The group sets out for the road again and run into a pack of wild dogs devouring a deer carcass. RUN! They bolt, but on a fence Aaron’s leg is bitten and Maggie is forced to kill the dog. They get Aaron over the fence, but he is badly injured. The fence was a border to an abandoned theme park where we leave them to catch up with Danny and Captain Neville.

The militia group is on the road when Danny starts yelling that a storm is a-coming. He warns them that they should stop and find shelter. The men don’t want to listen, but the Captain can sense that Danny is telling the truth. They travel a bit farther, the wind has picked up and a tornado is in the distance. They hide the cart in an old barn and leave Danny unattended. He uses a diversion to escape out an open window, but before he can cross the field the Captain tackles him and drags him into a root cellar (saving both their lives). We get a bit of background on this villain when he tries to have a heart to heart with Danny. The Captain claims that he works in the militia because he believes it will lead to a better world for his son (who Danny happens to remind him of). Danny disagrees citing his father as a person who could’ve made a difference without violence. The storm picks up outside causing the root cellar roof to collapse on top of the Captain. The storm settles down and the Captain begs Danny to free him, he even manipulates him by saying leaving him there would be tantamount to murder. What would your father do? That convinces Danny and he lifts the rubble off the Captain’s body. He is immediately rewarded by having his hands bound behind his back. The Captain explains that Danny is too important to risk his escape.

Meanwhile at Militia headquarters …

Monroe (David Lyons) is interrogating Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) about her late husband, Ben’s work.  She refuses and is tortured by one of Monroe’s peons. We learn in a flashback that she actually left Ben and the kids willingly, making an empty promise to see them again in two months.

Back to the theme park!

“Nate” (J.D. Pardo) is sneaking around and is caught by surprise when Miles jumps him and starts wailing on him. Charlie breaks the fight up and explains that she thought she had taken care of this by handcuffing Nate days ago. Miles takes him as their prisoner and they continue their journey. Nora and Miles end up having a heated conversation where he reveals that the militia is too hot on his trail and he plans on leaving (ah huh AGAIN). Nora tells him that Charlie is family and too important, but he goes off like a child saying he doesn’t owe her anything and she is nothing to him. With the timing you only find on television we see that Charlie has been standing behind him the whole time and heard everything. They blow up again and she tells the group that Miles is planning to leave.

Aaron has been patched up during all of this and Maggie is having another flashback. She is on the east coast months after the blackout and she is still trying to find a boat to get back to her children across the Atlantic. She has walked all the way from Seattle to get there and there is no hope. She decided to take her own life by drinking a cup of poison. Before she can take a sip Ben appears and asks if he can fill some water bottles in the lake in front of her. She asks to be alone, but instead is invited to dinner. She says that Ben and his children saved her. This flashback bleeds into a heart to heart between Maggie and Miles. She tells Miles all of this and tells him that she knows his past and that Charlie can save him as she saved her.

Before he can tell us if he is staying they hear the howling of the pack of dogs and run to a diner. They do a head count and realize that Maggie is missing. She has been taken by a stranger who has been following them. Miles goes to rescue and discovers that the stranger (who we will refer to as Dead Dog Man) stabbed Maggie severing an artery because she killed his dog while saving Aaron.

Inside the diner “Nate” is tied to a pole so that Miles and Nora can go to the roof and find an escape. Aaron and Charlie are tasked with a hopeless surgery to try and save Maggie. While gathering supplies to sanitize Dead Dog Man pops up again and snatches Charlie. Maggie is bleeding out, “Nate” is tied up and Aaron is just standing there paralyzed with fear.

Dead Dog Man takes Charlie to a basement in the park and sets up a crossbow booby trap. She is staring at this loaded crossbow while DDM is telling her that she reminds him of his dead daughter. Charlie tries being nice to the man and then asking for her freedom, but he gets too close with a creepy proposition and she cringes away from him. He is angry, but hears Miles and “Nate” coming down the corridor. He sneaks up behind them, but they managed to overpower DDM and kill him. Charlie is still screaming through a duct tape gag because if they come in the arrow will be shot right at her head. She starts rocking the chair which is bolted to the ground (DDM must have been a boy scout!) and manages to sway enough that the arrow just misses her when the trap is tripped.

The three of them run back to the diner where Nora and Aaron have just finished patching up Maggie’s injury, but Maggie keeps saying she has lost too much blood. Charlie gets on her knees in front of Maggie and begs her to stay with her. It is an emotional scene as Maggie tells Charlie that she saved her and that she is ready to go.

As Maggie dies Charlie begs her again, “Please don’t leave me, everyone leaves me.” This really affects Miles and he hugs Charlie, “I’m not going anywhere.”

We end the episode in Rachel’s room again and Monroe is back. He sees that torture has not affected Rachel and tries manipulating her into cooperating. He says that she is a bad mother for leaving her children to join them. She doesn’t answer so he tells her that Danny will be there in a few days and that he plans to torture him. If she is a good mother she will keep that from happening. She has a flashback to the day she left her family and we see her walk into Militia headquarters. We expect to see Monroe, but instead we see Miles, dressed in full Militia regalia, emerge from the darkness. She says she came because he asked her to and because he promises that she will see her children again one day.

Pretty good episode, right?

Next week…