In case the title of the show was too subtle, ABC's latest drama Revenge establishes the premise right out of the gate. Thanks! It's fortunate because the rest of the pilot was more than a little murky...
Which isn't to say that it wasn't good. I imagine that the writers and producers were so knee-deep in mystery and intrigue that they couldn't view it through fresh eyes and had a hard time putting in elements that the audience would need in the right order. Or, they simply wanted the audience to be a little confused. Either way, it was slightly irksome, but ultimately came together in the end. Sort of.Revenge stars Emily Van Camp as a woman whose life was destroyed when she was a child and who is now hellbent on puppies. I mean revenge. She returns to the Hamptons, which near as I can tell is like colonial Australia for wealthy nogoodniks, where she puts plans into motion to destroy those who ruined her life. Although the pilot fails to lay out this web of intrigue in any particularly elegant way, by the end of the pilot it has been established that her father's friends and colleagues did some bad things and set up a web of lies and deceits that put her father in prison for their crimes. Said father died some time prior to the beginning of the pilot, leaving a box of journals and letters to daughter, explaining his innocence and expressly telling his daughter to choose forgiveness. Spoiler alert. She doesn't.
The pilot opens with a line from Confucius which states, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." I positively can't stand it when a show starts off with the definition of a word, like, say, "revenge," but to start off with this quote gave the pilot a nice literary flavor that really set the stage. The concept for this show is very loosely based on The Count of Monte Cristo, so it struck a nice tone. This series will clearly err more on the side of soapy thriller than a literary classic, but even if it borrows an element here and an element there, you could hardly ask for better source material. That said, I'm not sure how this concept will play out as an entire series, potentially spanning several seasons. If they play their cards write, they'll reinvent the show season to season rather than dragging out the base concept until the end of time.
The show focuses on Emily Thorn nee Amanda Clarke, played by Van Camp, who has grown up and is now unrecognizable to the obscenely wealthy backstabbers she knew as a child. The pilot flashes back and forth between her childhood, now now, and five months prior to now now. Along with that, there are child versions of various characters, different time frames to keep track of, and numerous characters, all of whom are interconnected to everyone else on the show in different, very important ways. It was a lot to keep track of and my family and I found ourselves a tad lost on several occasions, usually along the lines of, "Wait, so was that the same guy as before? Wasn't he married to that blonde woman?" I can see where this show had a hell of a lot to establish right off the bat, but it got a bit tiresome. Like I said, by the end I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on who was who and how each person was related to everyone else, but it was a lot to take in. Were this a classic novel, we'd be 287 pages in by now, not 43 minutes. Had the pilot been crafted in a more elegant way, I think it all would have flowed together seamlessly, creating a complex web of intrigue for viewers to explore. As is, they created a web, but I kind of just felt like I got stuck in it. As the weeks progress, I'm sure it will all crystallize, but the pilot just felt a little to clunky at times and like it missed opportunities in others.
Foibles aside, I'm genuinely intrigued by this show, its premise, and the promise of twisty, naughty, knotty things to come. Again, it's hard to see how a concept like this will last for years and years, but if they play their mythology right, it could certainly keep me entertained for quite some time. The basic concept holds a lot of appeal for the gossip-mongering, vengeful side of me and I truly enjoyed watching the smirk break out on Emily's face when the pieces of her plan came into focus. While the pathos aspect has the potential to be quite riveting in its own right, the quite at the beginning tells me that the show will be examining not just the tawdry twists and turns of revenge, but the personal toll it takes as well. I'm as intrigued to see how this treacherous path affects our heroine as I am to see which rich bitch bites the big one next. I'm not entirely sure Van Camp can pull off the emotional range needed for such a role, but she did a nice job in the pilot and held her own on Everwood as well. She's truly the anchor of the show and acts as the viewer's window into this twisted mess, so she better be ready to bear the weight of the show on her shoulders. This is her story and its success or failure is hers to claim. I, for one, definitely hope she pulls it off.Along with Van Camp, the supporting cast is quite strong, with each cast member embracing his/her role and running with it. In spite of the somber tone of the concept, I got the feeling the show knows deep down that it's a soapy drama at heart and opted not to take itself too seriously. Or at least to try. The cast is expansive (although at the rate they're going, it will likely be pared down in no time--poison will do that), so only a few got serious screentime in the pilot, but they all did a serviceable job at least and quite a nice job at best. Madeline Stowe, in particular, plays the ice queen with devilish delight, banishing her onetime best friend without a second thought. That said, it was hard to keep the no-name actors straight from place to place, time to time, relationship to relationship, so some of the story aspects lost some of their punch. I almost wish they had cast some more familiar faces. It was very easy to keep Connor Paolo straight in my head. Random J. Boatowner? Not so much. Again, that should improve over time and if I can force myself to pay better attention than I have lately. There were a lot of distractions going on when I watched this, so there's a fair chance it was very logically and clearly laid out and I was just too distracted to notice.
The pilot established a lot of people and relationships, sparking more than a little intrigue, but it also left a lot of up in the air. The fact that Emily's late father was played by James Tupper, an actual name, tells me that we'll be seeing a lot more flashbacks in the future which should help fill in the holes over time. In the original pilot, he was played by Marc Blucas, so while I don't exactly have a poster of Tupper over my bed or anything, he's a vast improvement over Blucas. Unless of course Emily's father was known for sucking the life out of a room, in which case, losing Blucas was a serious blow to the series. I'm hopeful this show goes about filling in the wholes and exposing people and motives in an effective way. Handled with kid gloves, this could be an intriguing journey through past, recent past, and present to figure out just how Emily ended up at her engagement party while her fiance was being murdered on the beach. The show bookended recent past (5 months ago) with now now, showing us where things will end up in 5 months time, then going back to fill in the blanks. As much as I loathe the "3 days earlier" trope, in this instance, I think it will prove to be most effective. The audience doesn't know if Emily's engagement is for real, if she fell for her enemy's son, if she was in on the murder, or a combination of all three. Her face is inscrutable as her fiance's murder is relayed to the crowd, so we genuinely don't know what she knows or what hand she may have played. In terms of revenge destroyed the one seeking it, I think this set up the series in a thought
-provoking and titillating way. I can't say for sure how the show will get back to now now, but I'm intrigued enough to want to find out.All in all, the pilot certainly had some issues, but I quite enjoyed it overall. I'm still skeptical about turning this concept into a multi-year series, but I've thought that about a lot of shows that have gone on to entertain me for ages. At the end of the day, reservations aside, this is a highly serialized drama, not some crap procedural, so even with its flaws, it gets a lot of points in my book. I'm really hoping it all comes together because it has a hell of a lot of potential. "Coming together" depends on a hell of a lot of variables, but a little luck, Revenge could turn into quite the twisted thriller and maybe even a psychological examination of what payback brings to the, uh, payer-backer. You know what I mean. Come on, Van Camp! You can do this!
In short, it's a total guilty pleasure with more than a few soapy elements, but that's just fine with me.
Pilot Grade: B-
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