Revenge

[Blake (HDLYR)]

Daniel behind bars

1.17 Doubt A

Revenge returns true to form despite the painfully long hiatus. Gladly, jumping back in was smooth and easy enough to satisfy, thanks to a storyline that wasn't overly complicated. Yet the quality was still excellent enough and up to the usual standard for the show, allowing for the episode to live up to the hype of the long-awaited return.

With Daniel in prison for Tyler's murder, the Graysons are rallying around the theory that a third person was on the beach that night - a second shooter. Whether they can prove that theory or not doesn't really matter, it's all about influencing a jury with reasonable doubt. Everyone is quick to point to Amanda as the suspect, she fits the bill - the only problem is that no one's seen or heard from Amanda (last seen in a car with Takeda) since before the shooting.
That's where Victoria's typical cunning comes into play. With Amanda missing, the second best solution is to point the blame toward Jack, painting him as the impassioned lover. Naturally Emily's machinations go immediately into full throttle at the very mention of harm befalling Jack. She goes to great lengths to clear Jack's name, thus fouling up Victoria's plot, but the more surprising outcome is that she completely obliterates the "second shooter theory" in the process. Jack may be saved, but Daniel's hope at freedom hits a major snag - both outcomes are a result of Emily's actions.

Emily is quick to admit that she was emotionally compromised recently, and all the events leading to Tyler's murder and Daniel's arrest were on account of her emotionally ill-conceived actions. But has she changed her ways since her epiphany? It's easy to say no, she hasn't. While she plays everything with her typical coolness and lack of outward expression, convincing us that she has everything under control, she ultimately goes to greater lengths to protect Jack, rather than Daniel, at least in this case. And if that weren't enough to show her true motives, it's not until the end of the episode where we see how volatile she still is, as she (sexily) dons that blue-eyed, long-haired disguise and savagely beats down Victoria's goon without mercy.

Emily's emotional state raises an important question regarding her affiliation with Takeda. It's clear he only tolerates her schemes when she approaches them with detachment and self-control, but that's certainly not the form of Emily Thorne that is in play right now. If he's still got Amanda under his wing, how will he re-introduce her into the game? And will Takeda use her for Emily's benefit, or against her?

Treadwell is brought back into the mix, and he's an excellent wild card. His task is to find Amanda and bring her back into the fold, so the Graysons can place the blame on her. But Treadwell sees it as an opportunity of redemption and rather plays a key role in crippling the entire Grayson scheme from the inside. He's been one of the best guest stars this season because there's clearly something redemptive about him despite his past actions. Once a shameful participant in David Clarke's downfall, and later another one of Emily's sniveling targets, he's now someone who has the ability to bring the truth to light. Whether he remains a man on a quest to clear his guilty conscience, or possibly an ally to Emily and Nolan, let's hope we see more of him in the future.

Elsewhere, some equally mentionable moments I enjoyed throughout the episode included: Nolan taking a caring, protective stance for both Emily and Jack - his softer, sincere side was fun to watch. Declan and Charlotte taking a more active role in the main storyline - probably their most interesting material so far. Victoria arranging for her own son to take a beating in prison, for the sake of speeding along his release bond. And of course Victoria's old flame, Dominik, entering the mix - not because I'm entirely committed to this direction in the story, but simply because it's James Purefoy, and how could he not be a perfect addition to this show?

[Blake (HDLYR)]

Friends at the trial

1.18 Justice A+

Revenge shows off a bit of its versatility, playing its hand at a legal/courtroom drama. The surprising thing about it is... it's awesome. Better than most of the legal shows on TV.  I guess I honestly shouldn't be so surprised - it's a show about intrigue, and clearly a murder trial can embrace that concept. But the surprise is that it doesn't follow normal conventions. I tend to think our brains lean toward certain expectations when we see courtrooms on TV - we go into default mode and automatically think "procedural" - where every bit of drama raised in the entire episode gets resolved in the courtroom. But this episode clearly breaks the mold. I think what works so well here is that the writers clearly understand it's not so much what happens inside the courtroom that is pivotal to the narrative, but rather all the events taking place with the characters on the outside. The entire episode is one huge whirlpool, with various plotlines colliding into each other and every character forced to make uniquely different decisions, so ultimately it's almost impossible to predict who will land in the centerpoint of the whirlpool (the courtroom). I loved all the mixing and matching of plotlines surrounding Daniel's trial - Declan being forced to take the stand and the emotional choice that came with that, Victoria playing Charlotte who's playing Declan, Emily of course finding a way to manipulate everything to her advantage while simultaneously protecting Jack, Victoria hiring a goon to threaten a juror, and even the smaller players like Ashley and Brooks who clearly have significant input into Daniel's defense.

This episode takes place almost two months after the previous one, so even though Daniel's trial is in full swing, it's apparent the long waiting game has taken its toll on his sanity. He's clearly grown suspicious that Emily is involved with Jack - and while that's not exactly the case, he's closer to the truth than not. She has been going to greater lengths to protect Jack than him, most especially when it comes to this trial. At one point, such as stealing the bloody hoodie, it's easy to assume that she would cripple Daniel's entire defense and sacrifice him to the wolves of the prosecution if it came to a choice between protecting him or Jack, but knowing Emily Thorne as well as we do, it's clear she won't make such a decisive move if another long-term angle can be played instead. In the end, she ends up saving them both by planting the evidence on exactly the right person to serve her needs.


...seeing the signs

In fact, Emily's move is almost too perfect. Victoria's goon Lee takes the fall, he's prepared to sell out the Graysons to save himself, Jack is spared from testifying and having to admit to possessing the hoodie, and Daniel is on a path toward being cleared of all charges. Best of all, Emily has the tape of Lee threatening the juror and photos of his ties to Victoria, which if all else fails, she can use all of that as the ultimate trump card. Frankly everything is wrapped up with a nice, neat bow on top and Emily has full control once again. In essence, she has won, she merely needs to go claim her prize. While that's everything we hoped Emily would achieve, it's amazing the writers saw how crippling this development could be. Victory can never be too easy for the hero, or else things get stale - that's what makes the introduction of a gamechanger so essential and perfectly timed.

When all looks bright for Emily, an unforeseen complication comes to light. Someone within the prison system has staged Lee's "suicide" and a confession letter claiming he acted alone. While Emily still has the tape and photos in her possession that tell a different story, she's almost too thrown off by the existence of this unknown player to even think about using current evidence as a weapon against the Graysons. Her whole view on revenge is about to change. Because, in the end, it's not simply the fact that the Graysons betrayed David Clarke and destroyed his life, they literally ended it too. From our point of view it's not so far-fetched that the Graysons had a hand in David Clarke's actual murder, and that's probably true from Emily's point-of-view as well. The only shock factor is that she never saw the signs for herself - it's almost a matter of pride that someone snuck one past her. Despite her years of research and prying for information, she never saw any evidence that the Graysons were murderers until now. With that being the case, it's one thing to bring down despicable, pompous backstabbers - but an entirely different thing to bring down the people who murdered your father. In light of that, simply forking over some tapes and photos that show the Graysons cheating the legal system, only to be hauled off to jail, doesn't nearly seem like enough punishment - they deserve a fate so much worse.

[Blake (HDLYR)]

A moment of silence

1.19 Absolution B+

This was one of the series' slower episodes, but that's not to say it ever lacked in the necessary big-picture development. With Daniel free from prison and new information regarding David Clarke's death coming to light, Emily takes a break from her cold-blooded manipulation of those around her; instead we see her brilliant mind put to another use in the form of an investigation. Part of her success all season is the extensive intelligence she gathered about all the major players in the scandal, long before we were ever introduced to her character in the pilot episode. So it was fun seeing her "process" as she has to go back into recon mode in order to expose a new player. You see for yourself how much detective work actually went into gathering intel on just one individual, let alone a dozen or more. So that part of the "action" was definitely interesting to watch, and of course any time Nolan gets in the way of Emily's business, it's an automatic bonus. I always predicted Nolan was keeping secrets from Emily out of devotion to David, and that turns out to be true enough. On account of all that, I love that Emily has this tendency to always forgive Nolan for getting in the way, despite how annoyed that must make her. It definitely goes against her nature to forgive people, but somehow Nolan can always scrape by.

The major development in this episode comes with Daniel. Emily clearly has a role for every individual she brings into the fold - they're all exposed to some version of a lie, and that lie is either used to protect them, or harm them. But you could easily say Emily's role for Daniel Grayson has been the foggiest of anyone all season. To some degree, everything is brought to light with Daniel, and it's one of those answers that was always present - we probably just didn't see it. She has been testing him.
As Emily goes out of her way to destroy the Grayson empire, she has always been aware that Daniel wasn't actually part of the conspiracy that brought down her father. He's an innocent. But true enough, he's also a Grayson - and in Emily's eyes, that black mark cannot be absolved. He has that tendency to tread darker paths, to go the way of his parents to get what he wants - power, influence, wealth. Every bit of manipulation that Emily has exposed Daniel to has been a test of which side he will ultimately take. Will he remain innocent, separate himself from the Grayson name, and walk the honorable path? Or will he learn the truth about the conspiracy, and still remain loyal to his backstabbing, murderous family? Here, he finally makes his choice. It's clear enough that Emily developed real, unexpected feelings for Daniel during the course of the game, even began to think and hope the better of him, so his choice to back his family during a crisis hurts her immensely. I think what she fails to see is that, had she just been honest with him from the start, maybe even told him her true identity, then he would have made a much different choice - probably sided with her over his own family. But that is not the nature of Emily Thorne - she almost unrealistically expects people's integrity to be infallible and expects spotless moral choices from them, even when their moral code is placed under extreme pressure. She doesn't take accountability for her own role in other people's decision-making, and because of that she views their bad choices as betrayal.


Paying their respects

There's a few smaller sidestories here that are interesting enough but don't warrant too much attention. Charlotte and Victoria are unexpectedly finding common ground and picking up a united front. And the constantly ambitious schemer Ashley is putting all her chips on the Grayson name. Clearly all sorts of alliances are still being forged and broken as the finale looms closer, Emily's got murder in her heart, and with the amount of blackmail she has stacked against the ever-resourceful Grayson family, it's sure to play out in some explosive fashion in the end.

[Matt Latham]

Nice reviews.

Been hooked on this series - it's got it's slightly OTT soapy nature; but it never forgets that it's called "Revenge" and it's about "Revenge." It's managed to catch me off guard with some of it's twists and turns. Surprise favourite this season, this was.

[Blake (HDLYR)]

^Totally agree - a definite surprise. I couldn't have predicted I'd get so hooked on it.

[Blake (HDLYR)]

Amanda's first mission

1.20 Legacy B-

It's nothing new to throw a "flashback episode" into a season, and writers do it for all sorts of reasons. Filling in gaps, delving into characters' underlying psychology and motivation, answering long-standing mysteries... the list goes on. You can think of any number of reasons a writing team would want to tell a flashback story, but in my eyes the real challenge is finding a reason you need to tell a flashback story.
There may be any number of reasons to justify a bit of time travelling in the narrative, but you really have to commit to it. At some point you almost have to deceive your audience and convince them that this was the only way this particular story could have been told. Clearly present day for Emily Thorne is the most crucial time period that has been introduced to us - if we were meant to be emotionally invested in Emily's 2002/2003, then we'd have started the story from there - so any time you break away from present day, it has to pack a punch, something that makes us dizzy and entranced enough to forget we're being sidetracked.

By now you can tell, from the grade above, that the punch didn't quite knock me off my feet. There's plenty of interesting material, but not really enough to justify the existence of this episode in my eyes. For one, I was never at any point yearning for an explanation as to how Emily got to this point in her life. I thought the foundations for her revenge crusade have been established firmly enough through the given context that we didn't need any sort of rehashing to fill in the gaps. In fact, the missing years for me were more enthralling because of the mystery. Probably the greatest success of the flashbacks is that we glimpse a bit into Amanda Clarke's journey from reckless, delinquent teen with anger issues, into her first etchings as the calculating, intrusive mastermind Emily Thorne we see today. That's all a very entertaining concept to work with, but it doesn't quite manage to hold the full scope of this episode.

There were unfortunately too many instances where I felt like the flashbacks were simply "filler". Did we really need to know that Nolan was the one who bought the Porters' house? Does that knowledge change the dynamic of Nolan and Jack's present day relationship at all? - no. Did we need to see Jack's past girlfriend? Did she influence Emily's past or present feelings for Jack in any way? - no. Did we need to see the origin of Conrad and Lydia's affair, does it affect any present day standings between Conrad and Victoria? - again, no. And the slew of cameos across the board - from Frank, Lydia, Treadwell, and all the conspirators who have fallen by Emily's hand - all well and fun to see these folks again, but what exactly warranted so much screen time for them? I somewhat get the impression that, almost ten years later, modern Emily will end up in a room with them all again, but I can't be certain that was what was being implied.


Nolan Ross: pestering Amanda Clarke since 2002

It's hard to find the exact fulcrum on the balance beam, the perfect balance that could have made this episode both entertaining and justifiably necessary to the narrative. I can only pinpoint a few things that I personally found "refreshing", versus the more problematic feeling of "repetitive". Seeing the brash young Amanda was always a highlight, as were the moments she felt any sort of emotional resonance from her father's voice reaching out to her. Halstead was a relatable one-off character, along the same lines as Treadwell only more drunk and helpless, so I could buy into Amanda's desire to reach out to him. To me the pattern is clear - show more things we don't see in present day, but things that clearly impact the characters' present day arcs. We don't often see brash Amanda/Emily, we don't often hear David Clarke's voice, we don't often see the Treadwells and the Halsteads who are on the side of good - yet all those things are clearly important to the season as it is playing out now. That's what made the flashbacks interesting to me - but the majority of the episode didn't embrace that attitude.

Overall I didn't feel like the flashbacks contributed to much of an arc, be it for Emily herself or for the season as a whole. There wasn't an immense amount of change between the past portrayed here and the present day. Was the flashback meant to answer some lingering question? Because I never really had one. Emily's goal has always been the same. On the surface Amanda/Emily is a much different person, that much is clear - but we know her well enough to look beyond the surface to see her true fire. I didn't need to go ten years into the past to know it was there.

[Johno]

I completely agree about last night's episode. Was disappointed. It was decent, but I felt like it was just killing time.

[Matt Latham]

Yeah, did we really learn anything? Unless the next two episodes are set at the party they were going to and there's going to a lot of callbacks and symmetry in play...

[Johno]

Oh, Sammy

[Blake (HDLYR)]

Poor, poor Sammy...

^um... spoiler?... oops

1.21 Grief A

The past two episodes were the first time this series ever left me feeling underwhelmed (which is really equal parts compliment as well since it took a whole 19 episodes for me to ever feel that way), but it's great to see that Revenge recovered from the stumble so quickly. The writers waste no time getting the suspense rolling again and laying the essential groundwork for the finale. Not only are the usual trappings of conspiracy and blackmail in play, but there's a surprising emotional touch to the episode as well.

As sad as this episode is - given the title and all - it's actually the most emotionally uplifting development for Emily all season. At the start Emily is on a one-track path, a very dark moment in her life when she's full of rage, revenge, desire to kill, (you name it, she's got it), but it's suddenly all washed away as unexpected grief steps in. Granted it doesn't seem like much of an improvement going from a murderous heart to a grief-stricken one, but it's healthy, because this kind of pain is not centered on anger. That's very rare for her.

For as long as we've known her, there's always been a simple solution available to her: to run away with Jack and give up her vendetta. It won't fulfill every missing piece she has, but it's the best chance at a normal, happy life. So why hasn't she done it? Simply take that same sentence and reverse it, and you see it from Emily's perspective: it's the best chance at a normal, happy life, but it won't fulfill every missing piece she has. That's been her only reasoning for not taking the leap.

Seeing that Emily has recently become so engulfed in her desire to murder the White Haired Man, an action which would plunge her further into the darkness and distance her even farther from the simple Jack-based solution, it was only a question of whether she'd pull the trigger, or see the error of her ways before it was too late. Thankfully Nolan makes the right play to keep her in check, and it has all too surprising consequences. For Emily, it plays perfectly - because of Nolan's misdirection, she doesn't murder the White Haired Man, she ends up finding Sammy instead, and she has that all too tender moment with Jack at the right place and right time. (Yeah sure, killing off the animal was the quick way to garner some immediate, emotional bond between Jack and Emily - but come on, if you didn't feel something, you're heartless.)


Burt the Cable Guy

Emily is awakened to her true feelings, seemingly for the first time. Awakened to her feelings for Jack, awakened to her appreciation for Nolan and his loyal friendship. As Sammy lies dying, Emily's hand wrapped in Jack's, she has flashes of her childhood, of simpler, loving times - there's no place for anger and hate. For the first moment, murder and revenge are the farthest things from her mind. It's all very positive and optimistic...
...but you know it won't last. Nolan taking matters into his own hands sends him directly into the White Haired Man's clutches, and Ashley spies on Jack and Emily's kiss. Add to that the ticking time bomb that is the Grayson Family, the larger conspiracy with the White Haired Man (aka Crazy Clock Man) rising to the surface, and everything is on the verge of explosion. With the finale next week, the option of running away with Jack won't seem nearly as feasible as it does right now - not with Nolan needing rescuing and the conspirators coming in hot. This was clearly the episode that tells us "enjoy it while it lasts" - maybe the window to take the simple solution comes only once.

[Johno]

Finale tonight! Exciting!! ;D

[43 - livetogether]

So freaking good. Towards the beginning I thought they were wrapping up plot lines too quickly but they proved me wrong. Gosh I already can't wait for season two.