I was absolutely dreading having to watch this episode, let alone re-capping it, but it ended up being much less rape-y than the promo made it out to be (in which case, WTF promo monkeys?!). It was still not great, and I’m still pretty over this show and how much it hates women.

So I’m going to switch re-capping styles. We’re doing bullet points instead of capping in paragraph form. Still have gifs though, of course. And there’s a fun drinking game too, where we get to drink every time something stupid/sexist/racist/offensive happens. It helps.

This episode was basically just filler, as it did nothing to advance the plot whatsoever, so, awesome. We did get Aaron back-story/development and twist! he didn’t die right afterwards.

• Stealing a Militia wagon! Surprisingly easy!
• Even though the last time we saw Nora she was totally fine, now she’s on the verge of death. Sure, yeah, why not. Miles is taking her to get help somewhere.
• Aaron tries to assure Charlie that everything will be okay, but Charlie’s turned the corner onto the “everything and everyone in the world is terrible and nothing will ever be okay and we’re all going to die” street. Miles  is unhappy because there can be only one misanthrope in the group, and he’s cornered the market.

• This is an Aaron episode, so we see him on Blackout Night. It’s his anniversary with the wife he mentioned earlier, the one who actually loves him and not for his money. Blackout, limo crawls to a halt in the middle of an intersection and they get t-boned by a mack truck. I thought maybe this is where Aaron’s wife died and that’s why she isn’t around, but nope. Zero adverse effects from that intense car crash.
• Danny has his first face-to-face with Monroe, who acts super sad that Ben is dead, and mentions Danny’s mom. Danny still assumes Rachel is dead. Danny’s Monroe’s “guest, so all he has to do is ask for “food, women [Drink!], anything” and he’ll get it.
• Rather than getting punished for letting Ben Monroe get killed, Monroe promotes him to head up the Intelligence and Interrogations Department. Neville seems less than thrilled.
• Miles and the Gang get to his friend’s beautiful house, which is surrounded by poppy fields. Or used to; they are now “extra crispy”. Poppies! Aka heroin in the raw, and his friend Drexel supplies 1/2 the Republic.
• Drexel is actually not quite a friend. In fact, he comes out super pissed and is about to execute the whole gang.
• Jk! The gun isn’t loaded. You know right away that Drexel is a Bad Guy because he’s played by Todd Stashwick, who is very good at always playing a bad/creepy guy.
• Nora and Miles go see the doctor. Drexel has rooms/wine/baths for Charlie and Miles. When Aaron says they’d rather stick together, Drexel gets all sociopathic about him “turning down his hospitality”. Aaron: “Sure, I’m really glad you brought us here.” Drexel goes off to “bury himself in tail”. Drink.
• That’s exactly what Aaron does, from his flask.
• So Aaron’s wife was sick, but it’s not from the crash; it’s 2 months post-blackout and she’s got dysentery. An attractive blonde young blonde dude approaches them, and turns out to be the only stranger on the show so far who isn’t a psycho-killer-rapist. At first I thought it was the blonde guy who played Cato in The Hunger Games,  and then I thought it was Jake Abel who was in Percy Jackson, but it turns out it’s another preppy generic blonde dude. He helps out Aaron’s wife and gives her water. Aaron feels useless/helpless, because of his inferiority complex.

• They’re growing homemade penicillin in the medical lair of this kingpin house. Nora’s in septic shot and needs a blood transfusion. LUCKILY, Miles just happens to be O-, universal donor. What a crazy random happenstance. miles lies down for the donation and holds on to Nora’s hold because feelings or whatever.

• Charlie takes a bath and thinks about all the people in her life who have left/died: her mom, her dad, Danny, Maggie. She gets out, takes her Return of the Jedi lunchbox she’s apparently been lugging around in her bag the whole time, and rips up all the postcards she’s collected. Sad.
• Monroe and Neville discuss Not!Nate’s (I honestly can’t remember his real name) report of his mission, which M finds satisfactory, but Dad thinks is light on the details of his being held by the Gang, especially “the pretty Matheson girl”. Drink. M questions him about Nora (“is she Latin?” Racism drink) and the pendant, which he reports that the “fat guy” has (Drink). Not!Nate gets dismissed, but is not happy when M orders Torture Guy Strausser to go hunt down the Gang, because he’s not big on survivors. M’s fine with that, because all they need is Miles and the Power Pendant. Wouldn’t it be advantageous to also capture Charlie to use as additional leverage against Rachel? Of course this is just cause Not!Nate’s in love with the pretty girl.
• Torture Guy Strausser creepily tells some tiny Militia/farm boy about his creepy butcher father. It’s like they decided to take one actor from Justified and then just swap in the character background of another character from the same show (Limehouse). I miss Justified. Neville comes to give him his orders
• Nora’s resting, doctor gives her survival odds at 50/50. Miles starts packing to leave ASAP, because Drexel’s both crazy and still pissed about how they used  to be in cohoots back in Miles’ Militia days, but when Miles deserted, Drexel got punished for his association with Team Miles. I like the line about lining his war chest “with so much gold you could dive in and swim”, because it makes me think of this and imagine Miles as Scrooge McDuck. Anyway, Miles owes Drexel a lot.
• To square things up, Drexel wants to kill the head of the “drunk Irish family” who torched his poppy fields who “just have a problem with heroin”. “Can you believe that?” “Yeah, Drexel, I can believe that.”
• Little Irish racism: “potato-eating Leprechaun bastards.” Ironic considering Stashwick played an Irish Traveller on The Riches. I miss The Riches.
• Miles is ready to go do his killing thing, but the only person who will be able to get in to do it is Charlie. Miles is against that, but if she doesn’t, Drexel’s going to kill the whole Gang, starting with “Latina Barbie”. Drink. Charlie agrees to do it.
• Miles makes it all about him, because of course. He’s super sorry he got her involved in his. Aaron is pretty freaked out that Charlie’s  just going to “go kill some dude”, especially one who torched the heroin, which Aaron thinks is great. Charlie’s is sick of this double-standard; to Miles: “you’re the one always telling me to toughen up, and you’re right. The world’s not a bunch of pretty postcards.”That’s not weird at all.
• Of course her cover story involves her dressing and posing as one of Drexel’s “girls” who is going to the O’Hallorans to give up info on Drexel for beating her. Drexel proclaims her outfit to show “just the right amount of biscuit”. Drink. And to make plausible, Drexel slugs her across the face. Drink.
• Aaron doesn’t speak up in front of Drexel ,which reminds him of the time when bandits attacked the group camp he and his wife were staying in, and the guys beat him up and were about to take his wife when the Blonde Guy Sean shows up and takes the guys out. Aaron feels inadequate some more.

• And some more in the future. He badgers Miles, that he has to go and stop Charlie, but they are stuck there, with the armed guards and Aaron being a worthless fighter. “Screw you, Miles.” Drexel comes back to toss Miles a bag of coins: “for your trouble, and burial expenses for the girl”, because once Charlie kills the Irish leader, there’s no way she’ll be getting out alive. So now Aaron begs Miles to go get her, because FAMILY. Drink.

• Aaron has an idea to get Miles out as long as he can take care of the guard at the door, which he does. Aaron directs Miles to use the dumbwaiter to get down to the kitchen and escape. This is the 2nd dumbwaiter escape this week (the other was on 666 Park Avenue). Miles successfully escapes from the kitchen.
• The Irish clan’s headquarters are in the English department building of Ohio State, which is handy in geographically placing us. Charlie bluffs her way inside, but then sees that the patriarch, the guy she’s supposed to kill is with his wife and playing with his adorable little grandson. He’s also played by David Andrews (another Justified alum) who does have a very non-threatening, grandfatherly feel to him, so of course Charlie won’t be able to kill him. Also, he had a daughter who ran away to Drexel’s back in the day, and Drexel got her hooked on heroin and she overdosed. So yeah, they have a problem with heroin. They are also a family of policemen, so, yeah, they’re good guys.
• Miles’ escape included gunfire, which alerted Drexel to the shenanigans, she he’s dragged Aaron and Nora (who gets shot up with pure adrenaline to wake up from her sleep/coma/whatever) out to the front yard and is going to make them shoot each other. Or rather, whoever shoots the other first will get to live, he promises. Sure.
• As Miles is sneaking into the English Department, Charlie and Uncle Bill talk. He’s both nice but also wary of her; when she does attack him, he easily stops her, but she manages to whack him over the head with a sturdy-looking tea pot. She’s about the seal the deal when Miles stops her hands and they peace out.
• Aaron has yet another flashback to really drive home the point about how he’s not great at post-apocalyptic life, and how he feels totally useless to protect his wife. She doesn’t care about that because she just plain loves him, but he can’t get over himself.
• So of course Aaron asks Nora to shoot him, because he’s useless and she isn’t.

• And then this was actually legitimately shocking. Aaron cocks the gun, and then…

• Drexel comes out from behind his armor plated car door shield to kick at Aaron’s foot, and then blammo!

And that’s why you should always carry a flask, kids.

• Aaron: “Does anybody know how many bullets this psycho put in this gun?” Now that he’s dead, Drexel’s minions are cool with letting Aaron and Nora grab their crap and go. That’s nice of them.
• Aaron and Nora meet up with Miles and Charlie (who took off her hooker shoes to escape – hopefully Aaron remembered to pack her non-hooker clothes too). Miles asks them what happened, and while Aaron is reluctant to take any credit for his awesome move, Nora outs him: “Aaron shot the song of a bitch.” Miles: “Aaron? Shot Drexel? This Aaron?” Aaron: “I think I broke a rib, but … yeah.”
• Aaron is very happy to hear that Charlie did not murder the Irishman. Miles: “So. Everything turned out okay.” Relatively.
• So even though now he’s come to realize he has more skills and bravery in this world than he thought, he didn’t use to. His wife woke up in camp the morning after the bandit attack to find him gone; he left her his wedding ring and a note:

•  She yells his name, but he appears to have deserted her, so when the camp moves on, she goes with them as Aaron watches from a distance. Sad. I hope she shows up again at some point. She seemed nice. I wish we had learned her name.
• Finally, in Philly, Danny’s being taken somewhere at night. He thought Monroe wanted to see him, but the orders were to bring him there: to see his mom. He recognizes her, even though he was a toddler when he last saw her. They hug, Rachel crying and Danny looking dazed, since he thought she was no longer alive.

That’s all, folks. Thankfully, NBC just released their mid-season schedule plans and this dumb show is taking a hiatus starting in November and isn’t coming back until the end of March. Someone up in there loves me.

Can I just ask something? I (obviously) have soured on this show, and I feel kind of bad about being so negative about it here (not that I don’t think it deserves it, but if y’all are still enjoying it fine, then I don’t want you to be put off by my negativity). So I’m wondering if y’all might be interested in having someone not-me take over the capping? Or is there even enough interest that you would be fine with no more recaps? Tell me your thoughts.

Here’s the promo for next week. DRAMA!  Colm Feore! That guy has a great name.