Revenge - Recap: Trust Go With It

The show does a lot of juggling to unite all its disparate story threads together. On the one hand, Emily (Emily VanCamp) builds a relationship with Hunter (Brian Hallisay) in order to prod him for intel on Chief Alvarez, whom she suspects of being behind the hospital attack. For his part, Nolan (Gabriel Mann) isn't too keen on helping her out this time, since she seems set on a path of self-destruction. Besides, he has his own Clarke-related troubles to worry about, as he's now reestablished trust with David, who reveals to him what's really going on: an arms dealer named Malcolm Black is the person who's targeting him. David reveals that Black smuggled him to Canada and then forced him into laundering money for him. If he refused, Black would have Amanda killed. However, David now feels he has the goods to bring Black down, and needs Nolan's help to get the job done. That is, if Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) doesn't blow it all: angered by David's decision to keep his mission a secret from her, she reveals Emily's true identity to Black via secret messenger...a messenger who just so happens to be FBI Agent Kate Taylor (Courtney Ford). You know, the same Kate Taylor who, after an episode-long seduction, ends up in bed with Jack (Nick Wechsler).

Credit: ABC

All of these plot developments are certainly juicy, and it accomplishes the task of criss-crossing all of the different ongoing plots with one another. And yet, I didn't particularly love the episode. Perhaps it's because it spent too much time on stories with no apparent relevance to the main story. For instance, does it really matter that Margaux (Karine Vanasse) is pregnant? I suppose Daniel (Josh Bowman) is interesting when he's trying his best to be sincere, but that isn't enough to make up for how boring his storylines often are. The only worthwhile thing to come out of his storylines each week are the heart-to-hearts with Emily (Emily VanCamp), which are poignant and passive-aggressive all at the same time. It's compelling in a way his relationship with Margaux isn't, which is why it's all the more confounding that Revenge is asking us to care about Margaux's pregnancy, in much the same way it was perplexing that the show wanted us to care about Charlotte. I've always felt like the show has had a problem in allocating its screentime to the wrong characters. Of course, just because I don't care doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people out there who do, but even then, I struggle to see the point in the ongoing issue between Daniel and Margaux. Hopefully, it'll tie into the main storyline a little bit better than not at all. Same goes with all this drama with Louise (Elena Satine), who's offended that Nolan is looking into her family's sordid past, and proceeds to have a breakdown over it. Maybe nine episodes is a bit early to be getting restless, but I feel like I've been waiting the better part of forever for this Louise story to actually go somewhere. Once again, I can only try and give the show the benefit of the doubt, and hope they have a plan in place to tie this all together, because it's just not working, in my opinion.

Credit: ABC

Thankfully, there are plenty of incisive character moments to make up for all this. While I've never been a fan of Ben Hunter, I found myself enjoying his "dates" with Emily, almost in spite of myself. His realization that Emily was using him for info on Alvarez was a great character-building moment for him. It was bad enough that he was being passed over for promotion by Jack, and even worse that he embarrassed himself by drunkenly knocking on Emily's door in the middle of the night to ask her out. But it's offensive at a whole other level to learn that Emily is basically just toying with him, and it lends a certain equality to their conversation letter, when he teases her about how awful she is at dating. Granted, it doesn't make him a great character or anything, but to see Emily recognize a bit of herself in his sad recollection of his failed marriage, makes him feel more vivid than he did before.

Credit: ABC

Speaking of relationships, Revenge also manages to sow more tension to the Victoria/David pairing, as both parties have issues of trust. Victoria feels David is hiding the truth of his plans from her, while David feels Victoria has no ground to stand on, considering she hid Emily's true identity from him for weeks. In attempting to convince him to trust her again, she recalls the date they would have run away together 20 years earlier -- a date tragically interrupted by his arrest. It's a moving scene for Madeleine Stowe, who really illustrates how tortured Victoria has been all these years, and how desperate she is to cling to what little she has. Her plea for David to run away with her is poignant, even if it ultimately doesn't work. It makes her later betrayal of David all the more villainous, even while it's understandable, from a certain point of view. Victoria is trying to keep David under her spell, because he's basically all she has left. But she's doing it by attempting to, once again, neutralize the effect Emily has on him. Now that he knows Emily is Amanda, little else matters to him. And Victoria can't stand to share the spotlight. So having Kate sell out Emily's identity to Black is particularly treacherous, and frankly, sad.

I wasn't crazy about "Intel", but I'm hopeful about the narrative direction it implies for Revenge -- one filled with danger and intrigue. This season could have a lot more in store, once all of these disparate plot threads start coming together. And I'm eager to get to that point, if only because the setup has, occasionally, been rough going.