Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks a TV show called Revenge sounds like a blood-and-guts action series. I can imagine a billboard featuring Bruce Willis or Mark Wahlberg with Revenge stamped across the top. A picture of a blonde girl wearing a provocative black dress would not be what I had in mind, but that's just what ABC's new show brings to the table. The new drama - airing Wednesdays at 10 p.m. - is actually more soap-opera than action, but it could be this TV season's best new guilty pleasure.
With the intrigue and exclusive society setting of Gossip Girl and a pinch of the vengeful Pretty Little Liars, Revenge is definitely a chick show, though it is based on Alexander Dumas' classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Emily Van Camp stars as Amanda Clarke, daughter of "convicted" traitor David Clarke (James Tupper). Amanda knows that her deceased father was innocent and takes it upon herself to take down everyone who had anything to do with his conviction - especially Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe), her father's former mistress. The show follows how Amanda - under the alias of heiress Emily Thorne - re-enters the elite, aristocratic world of her childhood in the Hamptons to get even with her father's accusers. She carries out elaborate plans for each of her revenges, including blackmail and a financial scam. So far she's carried out her revenge without guns, preferring to use the backstabbing nature of high society as her principal weapon. It helps that Emily is young, gorgeous and ridiculously wealthy. And, obviously, there are the usual doses of love triangles and scandals along the way.
Some familiar faces join Clarke in the show: most notably, Joshua Bowman (Make It Or Break It) and Connor Paolo (Gossip Girl). As with most other shows today, all of the main characters go through life without ever having an ugly day. And, given their upper-class status, their clothes are worthy of any fashion lover's attention. Give me a heroine who wears classic but chic clothes, and I'm half-sold on the show already.
That being said, I do have a problem with Emily Thorne as a heroine. She can rarely take her head away from her own problems to be interested in someone else's. Yes, the show is called Revenge for a reason, and she'll probably develop more depth as the show moves on. But viewers only learn a small piece of Emily's complex backstory each episode, so it will be hard to empathize with her until the very end of the season. Adding to my skepticism of Thorne as a heroine is that she is completely ruthless in her revenge. Her pitiless fury is so deep and serious that, with the proper context withheld, her revenge is sometimes almost repulsive to watch.
Overall, the cast performs convincingly for the show. There's only so much the actors can do with such a soap opera-esque plot, but they fully commit to their respective characters and make for enjoyable viewing. Revenge is definitely a guilty pleasure kind of show - not extremely deep, and a bit predictable, but it's something refreshingly escapist to turn on at the end of a long day. I admit it: I intend to watch the season to the end - I'm hooked. Well played, ABC. Well played.
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