Revenge - Recap: Forget Me Not
Recap and review of Revenge - Season 3 Episode 11 - Homecoming:
I'm not sure it's possible for me to hate any plot contrivance more than amnesia, that all-too-convenient ass-pull utilized for the purpose of extending character arcs, and creating entirely new ones. Of course, while the end point is often better than the starting point for amnesia storylines, it's rarely worth the tiresome trouble of going the amnesia route in the first place (it's the same reason I loathe "rape-as-storytelling device"). With "Homecoming", Revenge simultaneously indulges in the worst of amnesia cliches, while rushing through them to avoid being weighted down by the absurdity of it all. It's a decent enough way to return from hiatus, given the sheer amount of potential OMG moments that are created over the course of the hour. While none of those big storyline bombs have detonated, all the characters are in place for what should be, if nothing else, an eventful second half of season three.
After being shot overboard, Emily (Emily VanCamp) struggles to find her way out of the water, climbing onto a buoy and activating the beacon on her garter. Eventually, she makes her way onto a fisherman's boat with Aiden (Barry Sloane), and while she begins to fade out from her injuries, she pleads with him to take her away from this place, so they can simply start living their life together, away from the Graysons. But Aiden insists on finding a way to get her to a hospital, lest she die from her injuries. And so Aiden retreats, leaving her on the boat for the fisherman to find. Before long, it's all over the news: Emily Grayson has been shot, and everyone is a suspect. We get the usual investigative rigamarole at the police station, with the cops questioning Conrad (Henry Czerny), Lydia (Amber Valletta), Victoria (Madeleine Stowe), and others on the boat at the time of Emily's shooting. Meanwhile, Daniel (Josh Bowman) learns from Emily's doctor what he already knows: she was never pregnant. He goes into the hospital room to confront Emily, and...well, she doesn't have any idea who she is. I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly sunk into the back of my skull, but at least this tiresome business is resolved by the end of the episode...in the most ridiculous manner possible, sure, but whatever, as long as we're moving on.
Credit: ABC
One of the good things "Homecoming" does to circumvent the silliness of the amnesia storyline is choosing not to make it the sole focus of the episode. In fact, the episode is far less about Emily's amnesia than it is about the effect her shooting has on the Grayson family. As it turns out, even though she has no memory of her mission against the Graysons, and despite that mission being derailed in a major way by the shooting/amnesia, Emily may actually succeed in her goal of bringing down the Graysons anyway. It isn't just that Victoria -- who lacks an alibi after being drugged by Aiden on the boat -- is now on the prime suspect in Emily's shooting, it's also the fact that Daniel is now wracked with guilt to the point where he's seriously contemplating turning himself in. This alone could bring the Grayson empire tumbling down, as the family's social stock is already plunging in the wake of the shooting scandal. Hell, Daniel and Conrad nearly come to blows, in one of the best scenes of the episode, as Conrad realizes that in order to save Daniel, he has to frame Lydia, the only other person on the boat with no alibi.
Credit: ABC
Conrad blames Daniel for taking away his happiness, and insults Sara -- who survived her suicide attempt, and is in recovery -- prompting Daniel to challenge him to say one more bad word about the woman he loves. Conrad backs off, but the stakes have been raised considerably -- both men are resentful of the other, but social status somehow manages to overcome those personal issues, as Daniel doesn't exactly do anything to ruin Conrad's plan. For all his big talk about wanting to do the right thing, Daniel seems perfectly fine going along with the frame-up, as Conrad convinces Lydia to go on the run, making her look even guiltier than she already does. The plot is a bit rote, but the performances are uniformly strong, as Bowman and Czerny really sell the years of pent-up frustration between father-and-son, as well as the begrudging loyalty.
But really, this is Madeleine Stowe's episode. Not only facing a potential attempted murder charge, Victoria is also facing the loss of her entirely family. She learns that Patrick (Justin Hartley) wasn't with her on the night of the shooting -- the night she needed him most -- because he was busy chilling with Nolan (Gabriel Mann), a person she specifically warned him against. Victoria has a total breakdown, storming off in tears as Nolan and Patrick's relationship utterly implodes (ah well, it was bound to happen sooner or later). Not long after losing one son, Victoria is then faced with possibly losing another, as Daniel confesses to shooting Emily, and a terror-stricken Victoria launches into a plot to save him. Once Margaux (Karine Vanasse) reveals to Victoria that Lydia isn't in any of the boat party photos, the decision to frame her for the shooting becomes obvious enough. And Victoria doesn't exactly suffer any guilt over it, particularly after Lydia arrives at Grayson Manor and makes a scene, pouring wine all over the rug and nearly getting into a catfight with the Grayson matriarch (another great scene, full of venom). All of these plot threads come together to tell a narrative of a family that is (somewhat) begrudgingly united in turmoil. Victoria, Conrad, and Daniel may have their issues, and they might still be at each other's throats at times, but they're still Graysons. While Bowman and Czerny are great in their roles, Stowe is the centerpiece: fierce and resolute, desperate and determined, and terrified and terrific in equal measure.
Credit: ABC
But even though it seems the Graysons might just escape this trouble unscathed, the fact remains that Emily has made nearly as much trouble for the Graysons as she would have if her plan had actually gone off without a hitch. But she has some trouble of her own, to be sure. When Charlotte (Christa B. Allen) comes to visit Emily, she begins to get some of her memories back, and tells Charlotte as much, saying she remembers her father's name: David Clarke. Of course, because this is Charlotte, she hardly thinks anything of it. And really, why should she? It's not like she's immediately going to consider that "Emily Thorne" is a made-up persona, and that this is really the daughter of David Clarke, returning to the Hamptons to seek revenge for her father's death via an impossibly complicated series of schemes, with marrying into the Grayson family being chief among them. But Charlotte does tell Jack (Nick Wechsler) about Emily's memories, and it leads to Jack visiting Emily in the hospital to perhaps jog her memories. And this is one of the parts of the episode that just didn't work for me...
Credit: ABC
Here, we have Jack explain to Emily that they've been friends for a while, but that they've gotten into a series of arguments that have been all his fault. In essence, he apologizes to Emily for holding a grudge over Amanda, expressing his guilt over forcing her to this point: as he tells Aiden earlier in the episode, he feels that if he hadn't rushed her into finishing her revenge scheme, this would never have happened, which...I'm sorry, but that's a bridge too far, for me. I just don't see how Jack is wrong to have been mad at Emily, or why he feels so guilty about putting her in this position when it's a situation she created entirely for herself. It's a character change the series doesn't really earn, as the vindictive, chip-on-his-shoulder Jack of the first half of the season is irreconcilable with the Jack we have here. But at the very least, Jack's appearance here kickstarts a welcome end to the amnesia storyline, as he gives her Amanda's pendant, and she immediately begins to remember who she is...and who shot her, telling Jack, "Daniel shot me."
Credit: ABC
"Homecoming" has a lot on its plate, such as a storyline in which we're introduced to Aiden's beautiful doctor buddy (Stephanie Jacobsen) who saved his life after Daniel shot him last season, and I'm guessing she's either a) a former student of Takeda's, since she claims to have been trying to track Aiden down, b) a former lover, going by the kiss she lays on him at the end of the episode, or c) both, since Aiden apparently has a thing for fellow Revenge School graduates. But while "Homecoming" is a pretty busy episode by Revenge standards, it manages to be pretty good, for the most part, thanks to ignoring the inherent ridiculousness of the amnesia storyline, or the way in which it's resolved, with Jack pressing the pendant into Emily's hand, giving her a kiss on the forehead, and whispering "Come back to us, Emily Thorne," an act that brings her memories flooding back as if she were Snow White and he'd just nailed her with True Love's Kiss. Now that the pieces are in place for Emily to deal with the circumstances of her shooting, and the Grayson family to face the aftermath of finding out just what kind of person Emily really is, the show should be able to really explore the high-stakes, consequence-heavy plots it's taken so long to build over the course of this season. So count me in.