Translate

Monday 5 January 2015

Revenge 4.1 "Renaissance" Review

                                              
Victoria: "In my lifetime, I've come to understand that there are three ways for a person to disappear.  The first is to die.  The second is to lie.  And the last is to be reborn."  Clearly Victoria's on her second bout of this, as she lies to her therapy group, "it was after my former husband's death six months ago that my transformation began.  I made my peace with those who have wronged me and with those who I've wronged.  No one more so than Emily Thorne."

This time round the revenge tables and stakes are reversed as we get Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) becoming Emily (Emily VanCamp) as Emily lives it up in the Grayson mansion she bought.  As we know the Grayson name is now dirt and Victoria plans on colluding with her fellow 'inmates' to get out of the psych hospital.  Making friends inside she manages to get hold of a phone, courtesy of Phyllis (Yeardley Smith) but calls the house where Emily is the one who answers it.  Notifying the doc of Victoria's call.  But Victoria also gets a new ally to use in terms of planning her getaway.  This time round it's a girl, Louise (Elena Satine) whose mother has committed her so she can get over her father's death, or as she puts it, to make her insane.  Victoria uses her trunk to get Phyllis locked inside so she can leave.  As a diversion the sprinklers are put on and she manages to get away, but leaving her 'poppet' Louise behind.

Emily crashes Nolan's (Gabriel Mann) car into another woman's, Nancy (Alicia Lagano) and we know Emily can't quite leave the revenge behind, but more importantly, she can't leave the addiction behind of helping others, hence a reason why she can't reveal herself as Amanda Clark.  Even Nolan calls her out on this at the lavish party she throws, she invites Nancy over to pay her the cheque for the damage to the car and also reveals the man who killed her fiance, by substituting the name of his mistress, 'Valerie' on the boat to be launched, instead of his wife's, Jennifer.   Nancy telling Emily she was angry but she got over it, cos he'll get out anyway and what good will it do her now to see 'justice' done.  Something Emily realizes is that she can't help people who don't want to be helped, or who are not her, those vying for revenge.

No matter though since Victoria pays her a visit and tells her the revenge will all be hers now, which is why I said she's going to be Emily now.  She says she wants to end this and she wants Pascal back, Emily adding she wants Aiden back.  Also saying Emily should've admitted she was Amanda when she got here and things would've been different.  Also that she feels she's like Emily now when she came out of juvvie.  But then Victoria gets taken by David (James Tupper) who chloroforms her.  After deciding it's time to return home.  A shame Emily didn't see him hiding out in the dark in her beach house, but her first thought was of Aiden whom she found lying there after he was killed.  Thinking that Nancy was the only one who could sympathize with her cos she went through the same thing.  But it wasn't the same thing, she did lose him, only she moved on instead of careering off the tracks.

Jack (Nick Wechsler) has become a policeman now. albeit a rookie and is teased that it's cos of the kidnapping by Ben (Brian Hallisay) when Charlotte (Christa B Allen) was kidnapped, but he wanted to do some good when he saw people get away with murder for so long (meaning the Grayson's). Charlotte takes Carl from nursery just to make Jack worry and to get him to admit he kidnapped her, which he denies.  He later brings Ben to Emily's party where he finds Charlotte taking drugs along with Gideon (Daniel Zovatto) who's no doubt being encouraging her.  Then again Charlotte always was a waste of space and as Emily tells Nolan that's one reason why she's still here, cos of her.  Little good that does.  Ben arrests her, but Jack has to talk him out of it cos she's family.  Charlotte also scams $7,000 for rent from Daniel (Josh Bowman) which isn't for rent of course and it's obvious Daniel doesn't have any money.  Selling his car at a loss, but also having resigned from his position at the magazine.

Nolan tells Margaux (Karine Vanasse) about Gideon and tells her to ask Daniel about the 'redhead.' The redhead being the woman Gideon took compromising photos of with Daniel after she ODed, with a little help from him.  I couldn't help think of, "oh how the mighty have fallen" when I was writing this! Ha.  Then Daniel is no saint, he did shoot Emily after all and got away with it.

I didn't find this episode as interesting as the other season openers, no longer done is the 'x number' of months earlier ploy and then coming back to the present day, I missed that.  Wonder if Emily's narration will return or if it'll be Victoria doing all of them from now on.  Lots of questions, here's hoping the season will improve over time.  Oh and did I mention Nolan brings in a throne for Emily, "long live the new queen", now if that isn't a reversal of fortune or taking over from Victoria, then I don't know what is.  But I still miss Victoria's first throne, er chair!  David, Victoria and Emily playing happy families, I think not!

No comments: