Last week concluded with the dramatic murder of Lydia. Well, it turns out she's just in a coma; however, Nolan's considerably freaked by the video he found. Likewise, Emily's freaked but only because something happened without her knowledge of it. After all, she's the revenge queen in the Hamptons. The conspirators move quickly to rid themselves of the dangerous head of Grayson security, Frank. Nolan anonymously sent the video to Conrad, who then fired Frank for his actions. Unfortunately for Emily, Kevin doesn't disappear like the other characters that were one-episode-and-done. Frank, in fact, is better than Nolan and Emily combined in their game of manipulation and revenge. Nolan learned this fact when Kevin threatened him at gunpoint at the Grayson's 4th of July party. Emily wasn't angry--just super pissed off.
The focus on Frank essentially removes the revenge-of-the-week formula of the initial three episodes. Perhaps this was never the formula as three episodes are hardly a pattern in the grand spectrum of a 22 episode season. Emily's been recently distracted, though, and the distractions have disrupted her plans. I suspect the series won't return to its procedural format because the narrative has a clear direction and purpose--the events at the engagement party.
Anywho, the depths of Emily's plans are unknown beyond her desire to take revenge on the Graysons for destroying her family's life. Thus, it's to figure out the main character and her motivations. I expected Emily to be smarter when dealing with Frank. Her line of thought went: Frank attacked Lydia in her apartment, he clearly snooped around; therefore, he saw the incriminating photo. And now, he must be removed from the picture. I felt the behavior was inconsistent with what we've seen or, perhaps she thinks poorly when under pressure. WHO KNOWS. I'm not in the writers room.
The serialization of any series is better than the alternative--episodic or stand-alones (whichever term you prefer). Episodic formats are boring. The storytelling needs to be so damn tight for the audience to invest in a whatever-of-the-week story. Usually, TV writers can't meet that quality of storytelling because of their insane schedules, so plots and character types are recycled each week, which makes for boring television. Revenge is in a good place because of the focus on a serialized narrative. The story's full of characters we've been watching for five weeks; now we're familiar with them and invested in their arcs. At least, Mike Kelley avoided the NOF disaster of too many terrible stand-alone episodes.
Besides the drama with Frank, which is actually quite light considering the one paragraph I devoted to it, "Intrigue" is a quiet episode. Nothing happens. The Graysons threw another party because the writers can't figure out how to bring the characters together in any other way. Tyler continued to push Daniel in the wrong direction, though Emily caught on to his deceptions. The Tyler character's an example of the show's weakness in characterization. Revenge is essentially built on the expectations that the audience will care enough to continue watching despite weak characterization and non-existent motives. Through three episodes, we know Tyler's focused on hurting Daniel more than helping him, and that's it. The actor wears a scowl in every scene to convey evil intentions. We'll find out soon enough why he's bad but the writing for the character makes me indifferent about the reasons for his behavior.
Tyler's not the only victim of weak characterization. The whole damn series is full of terribly written characters, even Emily and Victoria. Maybe there isn't more to Emily than revenge, but there should be more to Victoria than adulterous relationships and anguished looks when she recalls her painful past. I assume the audience should care about the Grayson marriage because there were several scenes in which Conrad and Victoria discussed their marriage. Why should we invest in their marriage? Both parties have clearly broken their marriage vows. I guess I'm just wondering, in the written word, about how someone can give a damn about story full of loathsome characters. I'm trying to make sense of devices disguised as characters. It's not as fun to analyze plot devices as it is to delve into character. Unfortunately, there's little to write about the characters that populate the Hamptons.
Next week's supposed to be the "game-changing" episode of Revenge--how timely that the game-changing episode arrives when November sweeps does.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
who's kevin? the name's frank.
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