REVOLUTION, 1.6 – 'Sex & Drugs'

written by David Rambo / directed by Steve Boyum

The worst episode of Revolution yet, by some distance, "Sex & Drugs" provided too much of its biggest problem: co-lead Tracy Spiridakos; an atrocious actress who should be headlining an Asylum "mockbuster", whose agent has somehow landed her a plum role on a big network drama. I have no explanation for her casting, because every expression Spiridakos attempts screams "I CAN'T ACT" down the camera lens.

David Rambo's script attempted to get around 'The Spiridakos Problem' by promoting her beauty over her performance, although she's not really to my taste in the looks department either, and it was uncomfortable to watch her go undercover as a prostitute to kill an Irish gangster—at the behest of kingpin Drexel (Todd Stashwick), a psychotic associate of Miles's (Billy Burke) who wants his rival killed in return for saving Nora's (Daniella Alonso) with a blood transfusion. Suffice to say Spiridakos made for a very un-sexy faux-hooker, and an even worse assassin—considering she immediately started brandishing the deadly hairpin she was given as a weapon after meeting her intended victim!

The many faces of Spiridakos: fear and happiness

The rest of the episode wasn't much better than Charlie's crappy storyline, as we learned via flashbacks that pre-blackout Aaron (Zak Orth) was a wealthy software developer and spent months after the blackout being an inept guardian of his suspiciously hot wife. So much so that he entrusted her safety to a more proficient group of survivors, effectively ditching her! Naturally, in the present-day, Aaron found his balls by saving Nora from the twisted impulses of Drexel—who ordered them to shoot each other in a sick life-or-death game.

The psychological transformation of Aaron might have worked, too, had the ridiculous ending not taken the shine off everything—when Aaron tricked Drexel by shooting himself, to spare Nora—only to have intentionally deflected the bullet off a hip flask, allowing him to shoot Drexel dead after his "resurrection". That's right; the writers seriously want us to believe someone shooting a gun at their own chest would survive if the bullet hit a hollow stainless steel at point-black range? If this were a cartoon, then maybe I could swallow it.

All you really need to know about "Sex & Drugs" is that Luke Skywalker Danny (Graham Rogers) was finally delivered to The Emperor Monroe (David Lyons) by Darth Vader Neville (Giancarlo Esposito), and reunited with his supposedly dead mother Padme Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) who's working for the Empire Militia. The rest didn't do enough to bolster the characters, unless you had trouble realising Aaron's a geeky coward who's beginning to gain self-belief. An unfortunate low-point for a show that wasn't doing too badly as the new kid on the block.

NBC / 29 October 2012

More faces of Spiridakos: confusion, contemplation & sensuality