Revenge - Recap: Dishes Best Served Cold
Recap and review of Revenge - Season 2 Episode 20 - Engagement:
Revenge has set up next week's two-hour season finale with a barn-burner of an episode in "Engagement", which sets some of the season-long arcs into motion for the endgame. It's an exciting hour full of the sorts of schemes and passive-aggressive sniping that made season one such an unabashedly addictive pleasure. The series is also regaining much of its nuance by distilling the broader conflicts back down to the pairings that matters. It's Emily (Emily VanCamp) vs. Victoria (Madeleine Stowe), and it still works. Hell, I'd argue it works better now that it did then, as Emily doesn't have to pretend with the niceties anymore. She doesn't like Victoria, Victoria doesn't like her, and neither one believes that the other's motives are anything but sinister. It's a great conflict that's only gotten better since the decision was made to refocus on it, especially given how this episode reveals Victoria's knowledge that Emily's engagement to Daniel (Josh Bowman) is a sham. Yet Emily, now feeling free to call a spade a spade, retorts by name-dropping David Clarke, the mother of all sham relationships (or was it?). In effect, this was the perfect penultimate hour before the season finale, since it kept things lively without getting too bogged down in narrative complications.
Credit: ABC
So Emily and Daniel are engaged, which is all well and good, except Aiden (Barry Sloane) has got it in his head that Emily would be better off if she were able to plow through her whole revenge plot and realize that vengeance is hollow. To this end, he teams with Nolan (Gabriel Mann), who goes to the jailed Falcon with help in locating Victoria's long-lost son, while learning how to hack the Amanda Clarke Foundation account (which contains all of the Graysons' considerable wealth, hidden from government taxation). It's a terrifically dense plot, the kind that this show does well when it isn't obsessed with developing villains that are nearly impossible to care about (the Ryan brothers, the Initiative, anyone who's not Victoria or Conrad, etc.), as Takeda reveals to Daniel that Aiden's father was the man accused of planting the bomb on the flight that David Clarke was convicted of bringing down.
Credit: ABC
Daniel flips out, firing Aiden on the spot. To add salt to the wound, Daniel is planning to move to Paris with Emily in two weeks, when they get married. Emily has accepted Daniel's proposal as a further means to an end, yet it's hard to know, exactly, what her endgame is, particularly when she's talking (sarcastically, of course, but still) about having children with him. Jack (Nick Wechsler) is hardly pleased with the development either, even after learning that Daniel broke up with Emily the first time as a result of having learned from Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) that she and Jack had kissed. Jack confronts Emily, who reveals her conflicting feelings, stating that she let go of Jack after Amanda returned, pregnant. But when Jack digs deeper, Emily tells him that there's tons she wants to tell him, she can't tell him now, though she hopes to someday. With that, Jack officially washes his hands of Emily, sick of all the "somedays" and lies of omission.
Credit: ABC
The episode develops several other plotlines worth mentioning: Victoria meets with the Governor's wife, believing Conrad (Henry Czerny) to have had an affair with the woman, but it's revealed that Conrad had been meeting with her for an entirely different reason: her husband is ill and isn't expected to survive another term as Governor, much less survive the year. She was meeting with Conrad as a means of sabotaging her husband's campaign. Naturally, the audio of this conversation leaks and the press has a field day, all but securing Conrad the victory in the election. This would be all well and good if not for the added drama within the Grayson household, as Charlotte (Christa B. Allen) reveals to Daniel that she's pregnant. The look on Daniel's face is worth the price of admission alone, since I don't imagine, as her brother, that he has any interest in hearing this. Yet it's a necessity, since Charlotte doesn't have many other people she can go to. Her new friend/drunken makeout buddy from last week is too tentative an outlet, while Declan (Connor Paolo) would probably freak-out (albeit good-naturedly). To make matters worse, Charlotte gets arrested for underaged drinking, adding to her scandalized, tabloid image. I'm not sure where the plot with Charlotte could possibly be going, but hopefully it bears greater fruit than most plotlines involving Charlotte or Declan.
Credit: ABC
All of these various plot elements build to the climax, in which Aiden has a sword fight (I'm not kidding) with Takeda, who reveals that he has a higher purpose in mind for Emily. Aiden is able to subdue his former master and impale him on his own sword, in a particularly badass sequence. But Aiden's got a packed schedule, as he meets with Nolan to drain the Grayson bank accounts from the Amanda Clarke Foundation. Emily arrives to try and stop the transaction, for fear that it will ruin everything she's worked so hard to accomplish, but she's too late. The bank account drains to zero, and like that, it's officially gotten real. Yet matters threaten to get realer still, as the lights begin to go out across the city. Nolan immediately knows what's up: the Carrion program is in full effect. The Initiative has enacted its citywide blackout, a nebulous profit scheme that involves plunging the city into chaos, as if this were some Marvel Studios film. That's not necessarily a bad thing either.
Credit: ABC
"Engagement" is an explosive episode that keeps the plot moving, which is essential for the penultimate episode of a season. The two-hour finale is next week, and all the pieces are in place for a truly spectacular finish to what has been a so-so season, in many respects. Not bad, just far below expectations, given the salacious, soap opera goodness of season one. Here's hoping for the return to the series' former scandalized glory.
