Courtesy of ABC
A tricky balancing act demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining multiple storylines as Emily (Emily VanCamp) revisits the past with her foster brother, Eli (Collins Pennie). Also Padma (Dilshad Vadsaria) is kidnapped and hopefully killed. Fingers crossed!
Let’s bitch it out…
‘Victory’ suffers from trying to stuff too many dull storylines into a single hour, which means that everything suffers as a result. Last week’s episode was a success because it more or less cut out all of the Initiative crap. For a brief moment, it felt like the Revenge of old and everyone cried in relief.
That’s all over this week as we see the return of the Initiative in the worst way possible: the reintroduction of Padma’s kidnapped dad storyline. Holy hell, is there anyone who gives a crap about this?! Once again there’s a video of her father, once again we hear about the Carrion program and how dangerous it is and once again Nolan (Gabriel Mann) thinks that he’s better at REVENGE than Aiden (Barry Sloane). It’s clear from the get-go that the trade-off with Padma will not go well, though I’m more convinced than ever that Padma is in on the ruse. Anyone want to bet that she make a false exclamation of danger and then willingly hopped in the back of the SUV. We’ll have to wait to see, because aside from discovering the head of the turtle tracking USB, the trail to find the most boring character on the show has gone cold. Let’s all collectively pray to our gods and false idols that the bitch stays disappeared. All I can say about this turd of a storyline is that I was severely disappointed that it was not her head in that box ala Seven. What a missed opportunity!
There’s a strange sense of familiarity in the Emily storyline as we see the return of the old-school REVENGE take-down, complete with a cameo appearance by the infinity box and the red-sharpie of doom. With Eli back in her life, Ems tackles her time as a foster child at Hayward House for pyromaniac children. The set-up is pretty much a callback to S1 that doesn’t require anything more than a confessional speech by Eli at a fundraising benefit to take down the cartoon villainy of Mrs. Hayward, who – in Harry Potter fashion – locked the misbehaving children in a cell in the basement. It’s all very silly, especially the moment that all of the adult victims stand up to support Eli’s claims (why wouldn’t they have spoken up beforehand? And is no one really checking to see what kind of surrogate parent she is or checking for signs of abuse?) The only truly interesting part of this saga is learning that Hayward sold letters from David Clarke that reveal that Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) has another son. For such a frigid bitch, the Ice Queen sure does have a lot of children, no? So now we have another new character to introduce and involve in the scheming. Oh vey.
Courtesy of ABC
Other Observations:
- Just in case you were reconsidering your nomination for mother of the year award, Victoria removes herself from contention by sending Daniel (Joshua Bowman) a picture of him and Emily at lunch with two bullets. No matter what you may think of your mother-in-law, no one could possibly be as evil as Victoria
- Conrad’s (Henry Cznery) campaign is tanking is every aspect aside from its connection to the Fauxmanda foundation and special cameo appearances by Jack Porter. It’s all pretty yawn-worthy except for when Conrad interacts with Ashley (Ashley Madewke). She lays claim to the best eye roll of the episode, which is enough to make me wish she was actually given a legitimate storyline
- Oh right…in the boring Jack (Nick Wechsler) REVENGE storyline, he tracks down Kenny Ryan (JR Bourne) and discovers that dead Ryan brother Nate secretly taped all of his conversations with Conrad. Too bad that info is completely inadmissible in any court of law, but it’s enough to convince Jack to a) go REVENGEING on his own (well, he involves dead weight Declan) and b) join Conrad’s campaign, presumably to sabotage it in much the same way Eli does to the Fauxmanda foundation for poorly chosen baby names
- After only two episodes, Eli is effectively gone as he gets fired from the Fauxmanda foundation for burnt boatfire victims and leaves town in shame. We know that he’s leaving because he dresses casually and wears his hoodie up, as all disgraced REVENGERS do
- I still have no idea why we’re hanging out at Aiden’s bachelor pad now, but apparently ABC spent a ton of money on the set, so we’re going to visit every week now
- In the opening scene, we see child Emily disgustedly apply the red sharpie of doom on her dad’s face after reading Mason Treadwell’s (Roger Bart) book. Guess the urge to REVENGE starts early.
- Speaking of Mason, his brief scene with Emily is enough to make me realize how much I miss seeing his smug face on the show regularly. Come back soon, Roger Bart!
- Finally, I’ve decided that my favourite character on the show is now April, the secretary in Daniel’s office. How awesome would it be to have an episode dedicated to her point of view as she tries to manage her inept man-child boss? She could be a dominatrix on the side if the ratings aren’t high enough
Best Lines:
- Nolan (to Aiden as they line up the gun scope): “I’m sorry Lee Harvey, I get nervous when I’m about to kill people”
- Nolan (to Aiden, after Padma has been kidnapped): “You should consider another line of work”
- Mason (to Ems when she shows up in jail): “What, no cake?”
What did you think of the episode? Are they trying to balance too many storylines on the show? Were you happy to see Padma get kidnapped? Are you unhappy that Eli is gone already? And how inept will Jack prove to be without a REVENGE degree from Takeda? Hit the comments below with your thoughts.
Revenge airs Sundays at 9pm EST on ABC