Revolution, Season 2, Episode 15: “Dreamcatcher”
Written by Ben Edlund & Paul Grellong
Directed by Roxann Dawson
Airs Wednesdays at 8pm (ET) on NBC
It doesn’t take too long for Aaron to clack together his ruby slippers and remind himself that there’s no place like home, even though that familiar landscape is a desolate, sprawling hellscape where there’s exactly zero chance of a cold beer.
The nanites easily could have trapped Aaron in this alternate reality for multiple episodes. Instead, he is back to reality before the closing credits. What existed in the electrified world of his mind was false and he could not accept that, despite the promise of a more comfortable life. It’s a shame, though, that the episode’s two major twists — that the world of Pittman Digital existed only in his mind and the nanites tricked him into believing he was back in the post-blackout world so he’d reveal the code — were easier to see coming than a tornado twisting across the Kansas tundra.
It’s best not to think too carefully about the logic of the episode. The timeline, as noted last week, is a mess. How Aaron went from a high-powered Google executive to having his name on a building in under two years (from blackout to present dream day) is tough to fathom. If the nanotech is capable of manipulating the neurons inside Aaron’s mind, one might wonder why the machines simply did not extract the code fragment from his mind, but there’s much to be said for the character’s free will. But since we don’t really understand the full capabilities of the nanotech nor the human mind, it’s easy to forgive lapsed details and plot holes thanks to the setting.
That said, this is a tremendously enjoyable hour, where we run into some familiar faces (namely Daniella Alonso and the unfailingly excellent Željko Ivanek). It’s a fun sideroad, veering away from the path of Revolution‘s true landscape but hemming close enough to it so the episode is not a complete dream sequence. From start to end, “Dreamcatcher” is a complete blast, and both expands the world of Revolution and narrows its focus to Aaron’s inner conflict. It’s a big hour that also plays very small. The details — Neville’s skeezy insurance ads, the meta humour, Monroe and Miles as roommates — are sublime.
“Dreamcatcher” is, at is core, a diversion. It takes an entire episode to circle back to a slightly different outcome for last week’s final scene. It’s likely to have few lasting effects beyond Aaron fixing the nanotech and getting a refresher of a life that once was. We should treat it as a wildly enjoyable capsule episode, albeit one that shows how fine this show can be when the writers go for broke. Let’s just hope that the showrunners don’t forget this glimmering Emerald City too soon.