If one thing is certain, it’s that Revolution knows how to start off with a bang. Each week the show grabs viewers in instantly, but the problem seems to be keeping the flame alive after the initial spark. Usually each episode feels drawn out with a lot of lulls in the story leading up to a predictable action sequence. It works most of the time, but if you really sit back and think about it, the show should be more. Luckily “Ties That Bind” doesn’t go for the big action sequences, but takes time to build an emotional story that ends with a lot of important implications for the rest of the season.
Charlie, Miles, Aaron and Nora need to cross a raging river, and the only two options are the militia-filled one they’re at or one that is days out of the way. The dilemma remains throughout the entire episode, but this episode focuses on Nora and her sister Mia, who was captured by the militia long ago and is being held for ransom.
Even though I promised this episode didn’t build up to an intense fight, it does contain one right after the opening credits. The gang uses explosives and quick feet to retrieve Mia and they set on their merry way. Only Mia is upset with her older sister for abandoning her. Flashbacks on their lives do a good job of building the tension. As the most mysterious member of the group, Nora gets some light shed on her story, but it wasn’t as forceful as Aaron’s a few episodes back. The episode highlights her internal struggle to be part of a family. Either she can go back with her sister to Texas or go on with her new family.
While it looks like she makes her decision and the two will ride off into the sunset, she realizes Mia was working as a bounty hunter for the militia and her capture/rescue was all a set-up. She goes back to rescue Charlie, Miles and Aaron, who are about to be ambushed. There is a brief scuffle, but more importantly, the militia now has their pennant.
But what does this imply? Monroe has the ability to turn power back on to begin to build technological weapons, but does he have the means to do so? He has Rachel held captive and she is shown working on something, but we don’t know what it is exactly. The episode raises a lot of questions, but none more important that the mysterious Randall.
The Department of Defense official shown in flashbacks and the capture of Grace, one of the scientists who help build the pennants, has been sprinkled throughout episodes. However, this brief appearance moves mountains. He is shown with the precise locations of each of the pennants and in some sort of underground bunker that may be a laboratory.
While Revolution has primarily focused on a girl’s quest to save her brother, we’ve all known there’d be something bigger. Heck, the show has shown us plenty to make us understand the story would be expanding soon enough, but now it looks to be coming up rather quickly. It probably is the most exciting turn of events to date in the show’s plot.