I'm glad I watched the second episode of Revolution, “Chained Heat”. It's a slight improvement over the pilot.

We get more about the electric device Ben had, and we get just enough about it to care. About halfway through the episode, Aaron asks Maggie (the British stepmom) why she still carries a long-dead iPhone. She tells him that it contains the only pictures she has of her children and hope to some day be able to see them again. This was the first point in the show where I cared about a character. Charlie still doesn't do it for me. I honestly didn't think anybody would, then BOOM! Maggie and Aaron get interesting. Aaron shows her Ben's power key (let's call it that from here out) and gives her some hope to bring the electricity back. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those things where the main quest gets in the way of the far more interesting subplot.

About that main quest: Miles runs off to find Nora, some woman who's “really good at blowing stuff up.” Charlie, the determined action girl that she is, follows him. They find Nora, a prisoner of the Monroe Republic because she'd tried to steal a gun. Miles and Charlie rescue her, she claims she didn't want to be rescued, and then we find out that she's part of an underground resistance group that wants to bring back the United States. She and Miles banter because they were once lovers and Charlie convinces her to help them rescue Danny.

The plot is still tough to piece together. We find Charlie staring down a Monroe officer and having a flashback to her childhood immediately after the blackout. A man threatened to snap her neck if her mother didn't give him the family's food supply. Her father gave him the food, and as he walked off with it, Charlie's mother shot him in the back. Then we flash back to today, and Charlie shoots the officer with her handmade gun strapped to her wrist that Nora had made. Somehow, this incident was related to her memory, but it's not terribly clear how.

And that kid Nate from the first episode shows up too, and we assume he'll be Charlie's love interest. The episode ends with an interesting cliff hanger: Charlie and Danny's mother is alive and being held captive by the president of the Monroe Republic.

That ending redeemed it for me. I'm still not 100% sold on this show, but it's things like that that bring me to watch the next week. I'm still not interested in Charlie, Miles or Danny and his plight. Like I said earlier, they're getting in the way. I really want to like this show, I do, but I still can't rate it that high. Now I'm invested in Aaron and the potential key to turning electricity back on. I want to see Maggie turn her phone back on and see her kids, I really do. I'm curious about Charlie and Danny's mother. But something about this show drags, and it's the weight of the main character and her quest to save her brother.

The dialogue broke out of last week's constriction a little and the plot moved along at a better pace.  Not by much, but some. It was mostly the minor characters' lines that freshened up and while it's still awkward, but it worked some of its kinks out.

"Chained Heat" is a step up from last week's pilot, but when I average the two, I think this is still just an okay show.