That’s a very, very good question. I don’t know. Maybe because I’m an idiot, but not a quitter. Or maybe I just care about the hundreds tens of readers who are waiting with baited breath for their next recap. But whatever the reason, here I am and here it is, another truly terrible episode of Revolution.

We open eight weeks after the blackout. Miles is telling another Army dude about his plans to walk to Chicago to find his brother. The friend, Jeremy, is apprehensive but goes along for the ride, er, walk. That reminds me, I haven’t seen a single person on a bicycle. Doesn’t everybody have one? Or know where to find one? Or, dare I suggest, build one? I would think the bicycle building business would be a booming economy in a world without electricity, but for some reason everyone chooses to walk.

Anyway, back in the future, Nora takes Miles and Charlie to The Rebel Base where she is greeted by Nicholas, who is very excited that Nora got a rifle. He tells her that they’re in trouble, and it’s bad. And he’s right! Inside there are people with really horrible special effects makeup. The blood, it’s bright pink. The gauze, it’s entirely too neatly wrapped. Oh, the horror! Terrible Television Bonus Points: Nora’s makeup is absolute perfection, despite the fact that the last Sephora closed fifteen years ago.

Somewhere out in the woods, a man with a lot of fake blood on his face is being tortured for information on the location of The Rebel Base.  He gives up the location like a strumpet on the street corner.

The neighbor and the girlfriend find Grace’s house. It’s empty, and not in a good way. They find the upstairs where the computer used to be, and the neighbor recognizes all of the smashed up computer equipment because Coincidence! He used to work for Google! He suspects that Grace had electricity because who would build a computer unless they had electricity? A nerd?

The Rebel Base is under attack. A hail of bullets rain down on them. More fake blood. The Rebels are fighting back with sharp shooters, but Miles is digging at a cement wall and actually says with a straight face “We need to Shawshank our asses out of here.” During the attack, Charlie and Nora find time to braid each others’ hair and talk about boys while they make pipe bombs. “Nora, why are you doing this?” “Oh, there was this boy, he was so dreamy….”

Miles and Nicholas are almost done Shawshanking the wall when their tunnel collapses. But it doesn’t matter, because the militia start coming in through the roof. There’s more kung fu fighting, lead pipes are swinging, everyone has a sword, and Miles sees his old army buddy, Jeremy. “This is Miles Matheson, Commanding General of the Monroe Militia, second only to Sebastian Monroe himself. You taught me everything I know.” ZOMG! Major plot twist! It’s a shame that I stopped caring [checks watch] two and a half episodes ago.

Charlie’s confused, which means the characters get to explain to the camera. Miles’s soliloquy goes something like this: I know General Monroe. I was in charge of the whole militia. I killed fathers and sons and husbands. I trained them, and they are brutal and smart and ambitious because of me. That’s why when you see them coming, you don’t fight, you run.

Nick’s plan is to charge out the door and whomever makes it, makes it. Miles suggests a trade. If Jeremy lets everyone go, he will turn himself in to Jeremy who will be a hero. Everyone reluctantly agrees, and Miles toddles off with the militia. Jeremy says Monroe wants Miles because he knows something about flipping the lights back on, but Jeremy is skeptical. As they approach a bridge, someone up ahead trips a wire and kaboom! Magically, Nora and Charlie are there and set Miles free. After a little bit of sword fighting, Charlie takes her bow and arrow (which we haven’t seen since well into last episode) and Katniss Everdeens a bridge with a flaming arrow. Big kaboom!

Two months into their journey to Chicago (or six months after the lights went out), Miles and Jeremy find dead bodies on the side of the road. They then see two men kicking the crap out of someone. Miles steps in to stop the assault and ends up shooting them, saving the life of someone who I think is General Monroe.

Meanwhile, the neighbor is trying to piece together a computer out of Legos, Silly Putty, and gumption. The neighbor tells a story about how he was beat up in the fifth grade but it got better when he grew up. He had everything he could have ever dreamed of, and then the blackout happened, and it went back to being one big schoolyard again. Then, the pendant lights up and the electricity turns on. Music. iPhones work. And then everything turns off again.

And this raises one big, important question: Who in the hell carries around a nonfunctioning iPhone for fifteen years? And is the battery life really so good that it’ll just power up a decade and a half later? Okay, that’s two questions. Two very important questions which I am certain will be answered in next week’s episode.

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This week, we get a taste of the immediate aftermath of the lights going out. Charlie and Danny’s mother is still alive. I don’t know what her name is, but since she played Juliette on Lost, that’s what I’m calling her. Ben and Juliette loaded their kids into a little red wagon, tossed some food onto a luggage cart, and left their house behind. This is stupid. I would’ve gone for a shopping cart, or one of those giant bins NYU students are always using to move Ikea furniture in and out of their dorm rooms. Somewhere down the road a piece, Charlie gets held hostage by a vagrant, and Juliette shoots him in cold blood.

Fast forward to real time, where Charlie, Miles, Ben’s girlfriend, and the neighbor flee Chicago. Miles is looking for Nora, who he says is really good about blowing stuff up and can help get Danny back. She’s in Indiana, and it’ll take two weeks to walk there because Indiana is farther away than Chicago. Charlie goes with him, leaving Ben’s girlfriend and neighbor to fend for themselves. Kids these days.

Danny remains a prisoner of Gus from Breaking Bad, who believes in the militia because it’s the only order they’ve got left. We learn that guns are outlawed for everyone except the militia, and ‘murican flags are for burning. We meet Sebastian Monroe, the President of the Republic, General of the militia, and former buddy of Miles.

Now on their own, the neighbor shows Ben’s girlfriend the necklace. He says he has to take it to someone named Grace Bowman who, what a coincidence, is the woman with the computer who Danny ran into late week. The neighbor says that he thinks the power outage was man made, which means that it’s fixable. But will they find Grace in time? Of course not. Some guy named Randall gets to Grace first. She is able to type out a quick “Randall is here” on the computer screen before Randall bursts into the room with some sort of big ol’ Electric Poker Of No Good. We don’t find out what he does with it, but hopefully it’s nothing more than wiping out Grace’s electricity.

Meanwhile, Miles and Charlie stumble upon a chain gang of mostly beautiful white people in sexy yellow tank tops pulling a helicopter for General Monroe. In another big, huge, unbelievable coincidence, one of the members of the chain gang is Nora. With the flick of a wrist, Miles sets her free. She’s pissed at the rescue and claims to have gotten caught on purpose to get closer to the guns which she wants to steal. Charlie volunteers to help Nora steal the guns because Charlie wants to free the slaves. So Charlie wanders into the chain gang, claims that she got lost hunting, and shoots a gun that she has hidden in her jacket. Chaos ensues, people get stabbed, everyone is slicing and dicing, and there may have even been a bit of kung fu fighting. Turns out Nora wanted the guns because she joined The Rebels who are gonna take back these here United States of ‘murica.

Finally, we see Juliette alive and well. And not just living, but living the high life in a fancy house with fresh clothes and shiny hair and cups of tea. But oh, wait, no. Just like on Lost, Juliette is being held in luxurious captivity. General Monroe brings her news of her husband’s death and the capture of her son, Danny, and he demands to know what Ben knew about the lights going out.

And that’s it for this week. The show remains terrible-but-watchable, so let’s try this again next week, shall we?

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I’m a sucker for sci-fi. I love global destruction, dystopian societies, and end-of-the-world calamities. So when I saw the commercial for Revolution, I was pretty damned excited. Not only did it promise mystery and intrigue combined with stunning visuals of a weird, changed world, but it had some rather impressive names attached. J.J. Abrams, Jon Favreau, and television’s bestest bad boy, Giancarlo Esposito.  But only minutes into the season premiere, I knew the show would fall far short of my expectations.

Everything using electricity turned off, all at once. People died of starvation and disease, and nobody knows why it happened. Fifteen years after the blackout, suburban Chicago has transformed itself into a forest. Trees grow where pavement once lay, and crops line the streets. And we’re supposed to care why this happened. That’s the big mystery—why did the lights turn off? But I don’t care. I kind of just want to see the immediate aftermath, but we only get a two second glimpse before fast forwarding to Colonial Williamsburg.  Instead of focusing on the starvation and disease and iPhone withdrawal, we get a scene of some guy copying data onto a flash drive moments before the lights go out which is then disguised as an Ed Hardy necklace. Snore. Show me chaos! Show me looting! Show me anything other than harvesting crops and hunting for deer.

Speaking of hunting, another problem I have with Revolution is that it’s desperately trying to ride The Hunger Games wave by making a bow and arrow the main weapon used by its teenaged characters. Yeah, we get it. They hunt for food. Crazy how fast plants grow in this region, especially considering the icy cold winters the northern Midwest is famous for. See what I mean? Revolution is kind of infuriating in the way it glosses over some basic details. Take grooming, for instance. The world goes to shit, yet the women never stop waxing and plucking. I don’t know about you, but if I was in survival mode, the first thing that I would forgo is the deforestation of my body hair. Maybe I would shape my eyebrows for six or seven months, but after spending all day scavenging for food and all night protecting my homestead, I’d probably give it up.

Anyway, here are the basics that we know so far: the American government fell and reformed as The Republic of Monroe, and the military is looking for the guy who copied the data onto his Ed Hardy necklace, Ben, along with Ben’s brother, Miles, who used to be in the U.S. Army. Ben is quickly killed off by the spectacular Giancarlo Esposito, and Ben’s son, Danny, gets taken into custody as a replacement prisoner. Ben’s dying words to his daughter, Charlie, are to go find Miles in Chicago so that he can get Danny back. Charlie then takes off on a journey to find Uncle Miles with her neighbor (who now holds the Ed Hardy jewelry) and her dead father’s girlfriend. Along the way they happen upon Nate, another handsome teenaged boy with an official Hunger Games Bow And Arrow Kit, and he joins their group. They kill a few bandits in an abandoned private jet, and bing bang boom, they’re in Chicago. How do we know they made it to Chicago? Because of the tired, overwrought shot of Wrigley Field covered in vines and plants and green.

Not only was the walk to Chicago a relative breeze, but as luck would have it, Uncle Miles is the first Chicagoan that the group happens upon. I had sort of tuned out before, but this really made me roll my eyes in disgust. Seriously? They just wander into a bar, ask for Miles, and he’s there? No. Just, no. My imagination is fairly pliant, but this stretches credibility past the breaking point.

Other incredible things that made me shout “are you freaking kidding me?” and “do you think we’re stupid?” at the television:

• Danny escapes from the militia and stumbles upon a farmhouse inhabited by a woman who also has her own Ed Hardy necklace and (spoiler alert) a working computer.

• Turns out Nate is a bad guy who was looking for Uncle Miles this whole time. What good fortune that Charlie ran into him on her way to Chicago!

• Uncle Miles is a handsome-but-surly barkeep. He fights capture by the militia on a dramatically crumbling marble staircase strewn with columns and bric-à-brac. I know that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it appears that buildings in Chicago can crumble to ruins in a matter of years.

• Danny gets recaptured.

• There is a fight scene that approaches Kill Bill levels of ridiculousness.

• Uncle Miles used to be buddies with General Monroe of the Republic of Monroe before the lights went out.

So. Will I tune in again? Probably, because I have fairly lousy taste in television shows. I thought the first episode of Lost was crap and still tuned in religiously for seven seasons and have seen nearly every episode of Survivor. But I’m still classifying Revolution as terrible television.

Revolution is on Mondays, 10 p.m. on NBC. You have been warned.

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