Revolution: Billy Burke On Rachel, Monroe & Tonight’s Alternate Reality Episode

The gang is reassembled on Revolution, but perhaps before we see a lot of that, tonight takes a detour into a different world where things are not what we have come to know and love, as Aaron has woken up in a reality with power.

The episode airs at 8PM tonight on NBC, and star Billy Burke told us the episode is “so much fun” – but more on that later. First, we’d like to know the current status of Miles Matheson.

“He’s sort of taken a bit of a passive turn this season,” Burke admitted to us when we talked to him at the Texas filming location of an upcoming episode of Revolution. “That is mostly due to him contemplating what it is that he actually wants in the end. They’ve been fighting, and he has been fighting, for so long now, all of last season and this season, against something that he knows he doesn’t want. We’re not sure what he wants when he gets there. When he wins the battle, then what? What’s he going to do? So a lot of that is geared towards that, which is now, I’m assuming and hoping, coming up in these final episodes.”

The next episodes will see Monroe hanging out with Miles and the rest of the gang – for better or for worse. What does Miles really think of this? “Deep down, he loves having his buddy around,” Burke told us. “That’s the thing. That’s the not-so-well-kept secret that he has from Rachel. She’s kind of basically telling him ‘come on. You know you want him around just because you want him around,’ and he’s sort of in denial about that, because Monroe represents everything that was bad about his life before, yet when he looks back at that, that life was never boring, and I think he realizes that.”

Burke also addressed the current status of the relationship between Rachel and Miles – are they finally settling down? “I don’t really think that anything is firm on this show. It’s there for a second, but you can always expect things to change very quickly just when you think they are comfortable,” he said. “We have solidified [the relationship] somewhat this season, at long last, but I think, now that that’s happened, I think we’re moving on to an arena that might be less comfortable and a little bit more sticky. It’s almost like there’s a love triangle between he and Monroe and Rachel, because there’s this dynamic – will he/won’t he with her, and will he/won’t he get back with him to do their business?”

Moving forward to tonight’s episode, “Dreamcatcher,” Burke admits that the cast wishes they had more episodes like it. “It’s a real departure from what you expect to see from this show. It sort of turns everything on its ear. Aaron wakes up in this sort of nano-dream situation, and everybody is what they might have been in 2014, had the blackout not happened. What the blackout did for Miles was, it gave him a sense of purpose, because at the time of the blackout, he was kind of aimless. He was a soldier, but he didn’t really know what his full purpose in life was. The blackout gave him some purpose. So in this scenario, we find Miles kind of purposeless again, and that was a lot of fun to play, and a lot of fun to do. It was a lot of fun for all of the characters. We all did this plastic side version of our characters. It was a lot of fun.”

Might we see Miles’ brother in this other scenario? “I don’t know,” he said, deflecting the question. “There’s a possibility of seeing Ben again this season, but I don’t think I’m allowed to speak about it.”

Here’s video of our interview with Billy Burke, where even more topics are discussed. Don’t miss a new Revolution tonight on NBC!

Disclaimer: Travel arrangements for our Revolution set visit were provided by Warner Bros. Television.