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Warning! Contains spoilers for all of season 1. If you haven't watched it, turn away now!
When Revenge first aired on TV, I wasn't all that interested. I know that seems the case for most of the shows I've been watching lately, but I was so wrapped up in The Vampire Diaries, Grey's Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, and all those other good shows. I just didn't get the appeal of Revenge. Even though they promo'd it well and touted it as the female version of the Count of Monte Cristo, one of my favorite movies, I don't know, I just didn't think much of it.
Once again, I made a promise to myself to watch new shows and get out of my comfort zone. So I tracked season 1 down and watched it up to the point before the spring continuance of the show and then watched the rest on TV. OH MY GOSH! Why did I never see it before? This seems to be my reaction to a lot of new shows that I'm watching, but I can't help it. I'm just so mad at myself for not seeing it along with the rest of the world. Then again, if I did, I wouldn't have been able to keep going through the episodes instead of having to wait a whole week for it.
The show opens with the murder of some guy in a white tux jacket. Now, we're supposed to believe it's one of the people at the party so throughout the whole season, we're constantly reminded of that visceral image. We all want to know who that person was. Then we're introduced to Emily Thorne, this sort of mysterious statuesque beauty played beautifully by Emily VanCamp. Mostly we just see her interacting with Ashley, played by Ashley Madekwe, which to this day, I still don't know if they're supposed to be good friends or not.
Emily has taken interest in a certain summer house that's currently on the market by Lydia, played by Amber Valletta, who's having an affair with Victoria's husband Conrad, played by Madeleine Stowe and Henry Czerny respectively. And this all just in the first ten minutes or so! To say that this show is ambitious and heavy on the drama is an understatement. But what I like is that they don't shove it down your throat. Some of this information, you're learning on your own, some it's later on in the episode.
So they're at this party, Emily's being shown around the boat by Ashley, and Emily takes a keen interest in Victoria, or Queen Victoria as Ashley jokingly calls her. At first glance, we're supposed to believe this is just a new girl getting to know the people she's going to be interacting with. But for those of you who have watched the whole season, we now understand that all of this was planned. She wanted to know what Victoria was up to at this point in her life before Emily came in and started messing up things.
Throughout the first couple of episodes, we finally glimpse Lydia and Conrad having their affair and how Emily sneakily let this slip in front of Victoria. So now we see that Emily isn't just an innocent bystander. She's actively showing us that she's not all smiles and grace. She has some bite to go with her bark. In response, we also see how deadly Victoria could be. Instead of being catty and calling Lyida and Conrad out on their transgressions, Victoria simply announces that Lydia is giving up her house and moving away from the Hamptons and like a smart cookie, she got out of there while still saving face.
Victoria is definitely a force to be reckoned with. She doesn't deliver her revenge in your face, she does it in cute little ways to the point where you know it's her revenge, it just came with a pretty pink bow. I think the casting directors made the fabolous choice in choosing Madeleine. She just delivers an old school grace to her character that could be unmatched by any other person. I know if someone else had done the role, they would have been faithful to it, but I don't think they would have had the regality of Madeleine.
So Emily finally gets the house, and through flashbacks we see how the house belonged to her father. Now, I thought I was tripping when I saw that ABC switched the father between two actors. First it was one, then in the next episode, he was different. Through extensive research on the internet (because apparently, no one else saw it, or Wikipedia just didn't comment on it), I realized that they did in fact switch the persons out. It wasn't a big deal, but for some reason I liked the first dad versus the second. I don't know, maybe he just looked more like a dad? Either way, in the season we learn why Emily is hell bent on her revenge.
The Grayson's owned this company and accidentally caused a plane crash that claimed the lives of a lot of people. Instead of taking responsibility, Conrad blamed it on Emily's dad because Victoria was having an affair with him, and the FBI took him to jail. What really made this scandalous, was that everyone just seemed against Emily's dad. Victoria wouldn't come to his defense because she didn't want to get dragged into it either, Emily's therapist kept her away from her dad sprouting lies that her dad was bad, an author painted Emily's dad as this really horrible guy. It was just so many people against him, especially when he "accidentally" died in a prison riot. This was just not this guy's lucky lifetime. And to me, Conrad and Victoria seemed like Blair and Chuck in thirty years without actual love.
So yeah, I could see why Emily wanted to bring the Grayson family down. And it didn't help that Charlotte is also Emily's sister. That one threw me for a loop! But what do you dangle in front of your enemies' face especially since it seemed like Victoria was untouchable? Her family of course! Victoria loves her son Daniel, played by Joshua Bowman, to death and she'll do anything for him. So now Emily has integrated herself into his life and they're getting married. I have to say, Daniel and Emily are just gorgeous. They're like the equivalent of Brad and Angelina and that's saying something! I know it's typical for fans to hate for Emily to be with him and instead be with another guy, but I don't know, they just totally work. From their personalities, to how they look standing together, it just completely works.
There's a side story going on with Jack Porter. Now, Jack is super hot, but I just can't see him with Emily. I know they loved each other when they were younger, and I'll admit, I was screaming at him when he went after Amanda thinking it was the same one from when they were younger, but that was only because I didn't like Amanda's character. She was just loud and obnoxious and she claims that she'll do anything for Emily but she just totally ruined things by going after Jack. And Jack, played by Nick Wechsler, has to deal with that, his unexplainable feelings for Emily, and the death of his father. Not to mention, his little brother Declan, played amazingly by Connor Paolo, who also played on Gossip Girl, and all that Declan goes through. When I saw him in the first episode, I almost screamed because I had wondered for so long why my favorite character Eric wasn't on Gossip Girl anymore. And now I see why. Smart career choice Connor!
Can I just say that at the end, I clapped for Declan. He finally saw what a snake Charlotte was. She dumped him because he was being a supportive boyfriend and told the principal about her drug habit, yet she wants to get mad that he's hanging around some other girl. Like this is the type of stuff that makes me so disappointed in my gender. It's like think girls, THINK! And she completely got the wrong idea when she saw the girl in Declan's clothes and she ran out and tried to kill herself. Like how stupid do you have to be to do something like that? All because YOU dumped him, YOU embarrassed him in school, and YOU disowned him, you want to go and kill yourself because you mistakenly thought he was sleeping with someone else? UGH. Yes, Charlotte is not my favorite characer on this show. LOL.
So Emily is taking out her list of people one by one, with the therapist, the author, the politician, and even Amanda although Amanda technically was taken care of by Emily's mentor. But what I like about Emily's character is that she doesn't see problems. She only sees solutions to her problems. Like with the white haired man who "kidnapped" her, she beat the snot out of that guy! I also like how sneaky she is. She covered all her bases when going to the Hamptons so when Victoria called around asking about her, she had her cover story all ready. I also liked that she did it all with a Mona Lisa smile so that you never really know what's going on in her head. I liked that she was really loyal to those she considered to be her friends and important people in her life like Nolan and Jack. It was just really nice to see such a strong character played by a woman. Especially one as awesome as Emily VanCamp!
Towards the end, Emily's true intentions are called into question and her secret almost gets discovered by Tyler, Daniel's friend from school. Played by Ashton Holmes, Tyler was a sneaky SOB unabashedly ambitious as all he wanted was to secure a future in the Grayson fam business and was willing to do anything to get there. I'm still thinking of when Nolan scammed him into having sex on camera! He figures out what Emily is doing and holds the fam hostage on Daniel's birthday, threatening to tell everyone, but of course Emily has everything figured out. Tyler is eventually taken down, and at the end, it's revealed that Tyler is the one who lay dead on the beach but unfortunately, Daniel gets blamed for it.
Also, towards the end, we see that Victoria is going to go on a revenge spree herself. Conrad has a habit of degrading her and bossing her around when it comes to her affairs and he always "takes care" of it, yet still treats her like crap. Despite all that, Henry Czerny plays this character so well it's hard to stay truly mad at him. But his actions are still despicable! So there's this powerful image of Victoria getting on the plane at the end of the season with this powerful song to back her up, and that sets up the foreshadowing of next season set to air at the end of September.
Lastly, I am sooooo deeply in love with Nolan played fantastically by Gabriel Mann. No revenge story is complete without its trusty sidekick and Nolan plays it with devillish charismatic charm that you can't help but fall in love with him. Emily's dad invested in his company when he was starting up so now he's forever indebted to Emily. And I love that loyalty he has. And his little quips are a hoot! "Just stay there and don't do anything revengery until I get there." Riot! I love that he's willing to go extra miles for Emily and do his little tech stuff. He's just so hot, it's hard to write about him! LOL. But I do like that he keeps Emily on her toes. He lets her know her risks, to let her know when to wait, and all that and I like that he doesn't listen to her when she kept telling him to back off or leave. You can't buy that kind of loyalty and devotion. I also didn't know that was him in the Bourne movies. I watched those not too long ago and I was like hey! I know that gorgeous face anywhere! It was the hair that threw me off. It was short in the Bourne movies.
As a final note, I'm really iffy about Ashley. I'm really wondering whether or not she's just there to give the show a little "ethnic" flavor, considering she's among the few black people on the show. First she's so overwhelmed at being Victoria's assitant and party planner. Then Tyler comes along to uplift her status and she rats out Daniel. But then flips by being the perfect assistant once more. But then flips again and rats out Emily who got caught kissing Jack. I'm curious to see where her character goes from here, but I don't know, she just seems like a fill in character to get information from point A to point B. And this is also why I'm a little iffy. Wasn't she supposed to be Emily's really good friend? Like some friend you are if you're ratting out people that quickly. Like I said, I'm eager to see where her character goes, and I hope she has more of a meaty role in the upcoming season.
Hope you enjoyed this review. I'm sorry it took me so long, since this post technically isn't on Wednesday. I've been dog tired all day. But I want you all to know I stayed up to write it because I know I promised both you and me to get these posts out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. So enjoy!
