After watching the show venture away from the main premise
of Revenge, which is Emily carrying out her plan for revenge against the people
who ruined both her and her father’s lives, in the first nine episodes of
season two, this episode was definitely a major return to form as the writers
finally did a takedown of the week episode for the first time this season.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved season two so far, and an episode doesn’t have
to be a takedown of the week episode in order for me to be able to enjoy the
show, because I always enjoy watching Revenge. However, if I’m being honest
I’ve always loved the takedown of the week episodes the most, because I feel
like they always really give Emily VanCamp the chance to shine as an actress,
and they are simply always a lot of fun to watch.
Aside from the fact that this was a take down of the week
episode, one of the other main reasons why I thoroughly enjoyed this episode is
that it felt very reminiscent of what the show was like before the writers
introduced the Americon Initiative last season. This episode did a great job of
demonstrating what made me fall in love with Revenge in the first place. Plus,
I feel like this episode also featured some very interesting plot developments,
several of which were previewed in this post that I had previously commented
on:Spoilers on Victoria and The Initiative.
I think it’s safe to say that one of main complaints that a
lot of viewers have had about season two is the whole thing with the Americon
Initiative. While I haven’t hated that element of season two, it’s definitely
the main thing that I view as being responsible for the show getting off track
and straying away from Emily’s quest for revenge. Plus, I feel like it
unnecessarily complicated the plot of the show to a certain degree rather than
help the show evolve in a good way by making Revenge feel like it was a massive
widespread conspiracy driven show. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not somebody who’s
incapable of handling stories with complicated plots. One of all-time my
favorite TV shows is Lost. It’s just that the show was relatively simple when
it began as Emily embarked on her quest for revenge. Plus, I liked the show
best when Emily and Victoria’s adversarial relationship was a vital and central
element of the show. When the Americon Initiative was introduced, Emily and
Victoria basically ceased to interact with each other or try to keep tabs on
what the other was doing and instead they became consumed with dealing with the
Americon Initiative for their own separate reasons.
In this episode Emily and Victoria forged a new found
alliance, but of course Emily is continuing along with her plan for revenge. This
was definitely most interesting plot development in this episode and in season
two in general so far for me personally. Part of their alliance involved Emily
setting out to reconnect with Daniel and work towards a reconciling with him. However,
in order to do that Emily and Aiden had to stage a very heated argument in
front of Daniel where they seemingly breakup, but Emily later told Nolan that
it was all an act and a part of her plan for revenge.
One of the things that intrigues me so much about the idea
of Emily and Victoria forging an alliance is that Victoria is supportive of
Emily and Daniel being romantically involved now, because she views it as a way
to get Daniel to lose interest in working for Grayson Global. Like I said, I’ve
always enjoyed watching Emily and Victoria’s adversarial relationship, mainly
because it caused problems between Emily and Daniel, so it will definitely be
interesting to see Emily and Victoria working together. I know that Emily is
going along with the idea of getting back together with Daniel because she
views it as a way to continue her plan for revenge, but I definitely think
things will be different between Emily and Daniel now that Emily and Victoria
have forged an alliance.
I have to say it will be interesting to see how the writers
continue play out Emily and Aiden’s relationship from here, especially if Emily
gets back together with Daniel. I’m wondering she will secretly continue her
romantic relationship with Aiden while she publically dates Daniel, assuming
they get back together, which it looks like that will be the case given the way
the episode ended. Although, I have say that the way Aiden was watching them
together at the end of the episode gave me the creeps. Something tells me that
Aiden might turn on Emily a little bit and cause some problems for her.
It sounds like things with the Americon Initiative are going
to be put on the backburner as the season continues. Although, it looks like
Aiden will continue to deal with the Americon Initiative as he continues to
search for his missing sister. I have to wonder what prompted the writers to
suddenly put things with the Americon Initiative on the backburner for now,
whether that was their plan all along and the writers’ execution of moving the
storyline into the background was simply handled poorly, or if it was a
decision Mike Kelley made on relatively short notice after many viewers
expressed their dislike for that storyline, which would perhaps explain why
putting things with the Americon Initiative in the background feels so random
and abrupt considering how much emphasis the writers had been putting on the
whole Americon Initiative storyline leading up to this episode. Regardless of
what prompted things with the Americon Initiative to be moved into the
background, I’m glad that they are doing that, because I definitely enjoyed the
show more before the Americon Initiative was introduced into the show. The
decision put the whole storyline with the Americon Initiative on the backburner
just feels a little abrupt to me.
As I mentioned earlier, this was a takedown of the week
episode, and Emily’s target in this episode was Judge Robert Barnes who was the
judge that presided over her father’s trial. Emily got to know him better when
she went to a dinner party that Victoria was having, which was also a part of
her plan with Victoria where she will try to reconnect with Daniel in the hopes
of getting him to lose interest in working for Grayson Global. After the dinner
party, Emily continued to investigate him and his wife, Patricia, and she soon
discovered that Judge Robert Barnes had been physically abusing her.
Emily confronted Patricia about a letter that had been sent
to her as a child, which she had always believed that Judge Barnes had written
her. The letter had apparently given her the hope and encouragement she needed
growing up since she had been abused by several of her foster parents when she
was younger. Patricia soon admitted to Emily that she was the one who had
written the letter and that Robert has been abusing her. Emily encouraged
Patricia to come forward and tell people about the abuse. Patricia revealed to
everyone that Robert had been abusing her by taking off her jacket so everyone
could see the bruises on her arms during her speech at an event for a new
organization, which would apparently try help people who were wrongfully
convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, much like Emily’s father, David
Clarke, had been.
I really liked that Emily was able convince Patricia to tell
everyone that Robert had been abusing her, which would free her from Robert’s
abuse and would obviously ruin his career. As much as I loved Emily’s
“punishment” for Robert Barnes, my favorite of Emily’s acts of revenge are
still in episode 1x04 “Duplicity” and episode 1x12 “Infamy”. While I love that
the writers finally did another takedown of the week episode after not having
done any this season, this episode felt a bit out of place me personally. I
think it would have been a better idea on the writers’ part if they had had
Emily get revenge on the judge who presided over her father’s trial during
season one, especially since the prosecuting attorney in her father’s trial was
another one of her targets last season.
I have to say that I’ve felt really bad for Nolan as he has
had to deal with Grayson Global taking over Nolcorp this season. I hope for
Nolan’s sake that he can find a way to sever ties with Grayson Global and get
his company back under his control. I’m also intrigued by Nolan’s relationship
with his ex-boyfriend, Marco. I feel like all the drama with Grayson Global’s
corporate takeover of Nolcorp and Marco coming back into his life has really
given Gabriel Mann a lot of great material to work with this season.
While I loved seeing the show get back to its’ roots as
Emily set out to get revenge on Judge Barnes, I didn’t think that this episode
was perfect. Jack’s storyline with the people he’s become business partners
with as well as his continued relationship with Amanda continues to bore me to
death, mainly because Declan and Amanda are definitely my two least favorite
characters on the show. Although, I do think that Jack being arrested for the
drugs that were being stored in the bar could make that particular storyline at
least a little bit more interesting in the upcoming episodes. I hope that’s the
case, because at the moment watching Jack’s storyline seems like the perfect
cure for insomnia.
The reason Declan and Amanda are my least favorite
characters on Revenge is because they are both very annoying characters, in my
opinion. Plus, the fact that Connor Paolo and Margarita Levieva are both very
bad actors only brings down the level of enjoyment I get from watching the
show. I always thought that Connor Paolo’s acting on Gossip Girl was pretty
bad, and his acting has always been pretty bad on Revenge too. As bad as I
think Connor Paolo’s acting is, Margarita Levieva’s acting is much worse, if
you ask me. I’m really hoping that the writers write Amanda/ Margarita Levieva
off the show soon, because both Amanda as a character, and Margarita Levieva as
an actress are driving me nuts.
All things considered, aside from Jack’s storyline this was
a terrific episode. It’s definitely best episode of season two at this point,
mainly because the episode really did feel like a major return to form. This
episode did an excellent job of reminding me of what made me fall in love with
the show when Revenge first started, and it definitely had some very good and
interesting plot developments. Watching this episode makes me feel very hopeful
that the show will really be able to get back on track as the season continues
from here, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A-.
No comments :
Post a Comment