“Two wrongs can never make a right because two wrongs can never equal each other.”
Emily VanCamp stars in ABC's new soapy drama series "Revenge", which, as the title reveals, is about a young girl seeking revenge for something that happened to her father when she was a child.
Emily Thorne(VanCamp) , who is later revealed in the pilot as Amanda Black, moves to the Hamptons and mysteriously begins to target specific individuals in the cookie-cutter community, particularly the wealthy Grayson family which consists of stone cold Victoria(portrayed by Madeleine Stowe), her husband Conrad(Henry Czerny) and their children Danny(Joshua Bowman) and Charlotte Grayson(Christa B. Allen).
The pilot opens to a murder, which is instantly revealed to be the death of Danny who is engaged to Emily. After the discovery of the dead body, the show takes us back 5 months prior to the engagement party, when Emily first moved into her new home. The extended flashback format used in the episode was a major problem for me, as not only do we now know the result of a lot of things that will occur in future episodes, but it also takes the suspense out of Emily's vengeful acts.
While the series was mysteriously engaging and leaves you with many questions, I am not so sure how far the premise of Emily seeking revenge can go, namely for how many seasons. The pilot moved along at a rather slow pace, and the flashbacks within the flashback only made things go even slower. Many critics have praised VanCamp's portrayal as Emily Thorne, but what I saw of her portrayal was merely an emotionless and unmotivated performance.
"Revenge" is your typical primetime soap opera, with elements of lying, cheating, stealing and murder all added into the mix. But where it differentiates itself from other soaps, is that while normal dramas might take a few episodes to deal with a revenge plot, this show has opted to do so in the span of an entire series. In other words, "Revenge" is just a bit too dragged out.
Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on ABC.
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