The RP: An Open Letter to the Producers of “Revenge”

The RP is neither stiff-necked nor arrogant enough to believe that the producers of the ABC freshman TV hit, Revenge, read his little-known Web site. However with Hollywood being run by Jews and liberals — the RP’s two core constituencies — we imagine that someone in the RP Nation knows the show’s producers.  If you are one of those suitably connected, please share this open letter with them.  Thank you – RP Staff.

Dear Revenge producers:

I’m really enjoying your new program. Sure, the plots are contrived, the writing sophomoric, and the thespianism over-emotive. But in the spirit of many of the best primetime soaps from my adolescence — Dallas, Dynasty, the ’85 Red Sox — it’s good ole cotton-candy fun, with plenty of beautiful people intertwined in delicious intrigue and hyperbolic conflict. And the writers are setting up a doozy of a climactic catfight between the protagonist Emily Thorne (played with considerable emotional nuance by Emily VanCamp) and her Lady MacBethian rival Victoria Grayson (the always-wonderful Madeline Stowe).

Indeed, there are two special features that I enjoy the most.

First, while the underlying plot is an obvious homage to fiction’s ultimate revenge fantasy, The Count of Monte Cristo (If you hadn’t picked that up by last week’s episode, the camera pans to a copy of Dumas’ classic on a character’s bookshelf), Emily’s face sometimes reflects conflicting feelings about pursuing vengeance against her enemies. Indeed, in its oh-so-unsubtle fashion, the series opened with one of my favorite Confucianisms: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” I’ve written often about the value of forgiveness and the toxicity of holding grudges, and I hope the series ultimately reflects the downside of Emily’s pursuit of retributive justice.

I also love the way that some of the episodes reveal the motivation of some character’s actions through a quick glance or action in the final or penultimate scene. Just when you discount the show for some obvious implausiblity or incoherent misdirection, the writers rescue the narrative with a clever twist or explanation.

Which brings me to why I write this letter, dear producers.

Something’s been really nagging me since the pilot episode.  I’m not spoiling anything by revealing the key secret at the center of the narrative: Emily Thorne is actually Amanda Clarke, who as a young girl, watched her father framed for a crime he did not commit by a conspiracy of characters whom adult Emily now targets for revenge in each episode.  Emily/Amanda returns to the summer home which she shared with her dad years before to wreak vengeance against those who betrayed her and her father, particularly Victoria Grayson. (Last week, we learned that Victoria had little Amanda committed to a mental institution because — as revealed in flashback — she spotted the young girl peeking behind a chair at the very moment Victoria was planting evidence against dear old dad.)

Here’s the problem:  Not a single person suspects that Emily Thorne is the grown up Amanda.  Not her childhood boyfriend, Jack, who remains so smitten by his lost love that he named his beloved boat after her. (Of course, Jack’s dog — formerly Amanda’s — has sniffed Emily out, which is quite remarkable, considering that the miraculously lively canine must be at least 26 years old.)

Not even Victoria Grayson — who spends every episode consumed with discovering the true motivations behind Emily’s seduction of her son — suspects that Emily is the adult version of the little girl who has clear and convincing motivation to destroy the Grayson family.  So this blonde young woman — about the age that the blonde Amanda would be — moves into Amanda’s summer home, seems to be connected with every mysterious development that occurs around the Grayson family; and not for a single moment does Victoria suspect the ridiculously obvious!

So producers, if you haven’t planned it already ready, I urge you — I beg you, in fact — to explain this loose end. How about a revelation that little Amanda was reported dead years before?  Or better yet, through her talent at digital espionage, Emily has convinced the Grayson clan that Amanda has been struck with a severe case of soap-opera-strength amnesia? I’d even been satisfied if it is revealed that this whole story was all just the convulted, technicolor nightmare of Pamela Ewing.  Or Bob Newhart. Or even Bill Buckner.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best wishes,

The RP