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Monday 7 January 2013

Revenge 2.1 "Destiny" Review

                                            
Emily: "Destiny, to believe that a life is meant for a single purpose, one must also believe in common fate.  ...Blood ties can be as unyielding as they are eternal.  It is our bonds of choice that truly light the road we travel...a person's true destiny can only be revealed at the end of his journey.  And the story I have to tell is far from over."

Guess it was our destiny to watch season 2 of this show, ha.  Emily (Emily Van camp) is tied underwater and there's a flash to The Amanda scuttled or shipwrecked underwater too.  She tries to undo her ropes with Takeda (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa) who takes over from the other actor, Hiroyuki Sanada in season 1 and another Brit guy Aiden (Barry Sloane) watching her.  She thinks of her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and recalls visiting her at the hospital when she was little with her father.  It's an asylum.  Her mother doesn't want to see her here.  Emily's fear doesn't allow herself to be free of her ropes.  Aiden rescues her and she gets angry as she almost had them undone.  She fights with him and leaves  returning to the US.

Flash to the present, three months ago and a year has now past since the planecrash in which Victoria (Madeline Stowe) is meant to have died.  Meant I say cos she got on the plane but I said she probably got off there anyway.  It didn't appear she would get onto it.  Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) is planning her memorial and Charlotte (Christa B Allen) wants to be there out of rehab.  Only if she's free of drugs and heh bloodtest is negative.  Conrad (Henry Czerny) doesn't want her to rush her recovery, cos Conrad is deviously planning to get his hands on her inheritance, so he's roped Doctor Thomas (Todd Grinnell) in to help him keep her there.

Ashely it seems is 'cosy' with Daniel (Josh Bowman) and Conrad, especially when Daniel says at least he can trust her not to cheat on him, Conrad asking whether he really can?  Of course no one can, the skank has her paws everywhere.  The look on her face when Emily turned up to the memorial with Nolan (Gabriel Mann).  Who has now sold his house as he wants to get away from the whole bad vibes thing.  So Emily lets him stay with her but only until he finds somewhere else.  Emily needs to find a way to get back into the Grayson's lives and she does this by visiting Charlotte in the clinic and she asks her to come to the memorial.

There's trouble in deep waters with Jack (Nick Wechsler) and Amanda (Margarita Levieva) as he sleeps on the boat and Declan (Connor Paolo) isn't to happy about big brother's drinking.  He wants him to come clean and tell Amanda he doesn't love her but instead he moves back into the bar for the sake of the baby and kicks Declan out onto the boat.  Emily gets Jack thinking that he may not be the father of her baby.  As well as declaring herself the baby's godmother.

On the harddrive Nolan copied they find Victoria knows a whole lot more about Emily's mother than she's letting on, as she talks with Conrad and the White-haired man (James Morrison) on the footage. Daniel feels uneasy around Emily when she shows up and Ashley proceeds to give a tribute to Victoria, of course Charlotte doesn't like what she has to say and wants to say a few words of her own.  That she was her mother and she loved her, a "woman of many contradictions."  Charlotte speaking up for her mother, something had to be up with that, why the softened approach.  The Doctor gets a call confirming Charlotte has drugs in her system and must be taken back.  She protests saying Conrad is behind this cos he planned the plane crash.  She manages to whisper into Emily's ear, which has her leave immediately.

Knock, knock, who's there, why it's Victoria, as if we didn't know.  Surprised she told Charlotte where she is and how she's still alive.  She trusted her enough to do so, a reason for Char to clean herself up.  More surprised that she answers the door for herself.  Those pesky government agents aren't doing a top notch job of looking out for her until they can find enough evidence against Conrad, if all and sundry can just drive up.  They have some words and Charlotte told Emily where she was.  Victoria calls Charlotte on her burn phone but the Doc finds it and removes it.  Why was the phone turned on anyway when not in use, why not on vibration and why did they not have a pre-arranged time for calling?

This all gets back to Conrad of course, who wants Daniel to invest the proceeds of his trust and his mother's inheritance into the company.  Daniel can't lay off the booze now but does think he's neglected Charlotte, that was big of him to admit.  He now stands out looking over to the beach house as mother dear used to.  Clearly he's not over Emily.  Who has brought back a clam shell from the cabin so Nolan can plant a camera in it.  A "clam cam."  She overhears Victoria planning Emily's 'removal' with the White-haired man.

Recalling the asylum, she heads back there with Nolan to look for clues and finds her mother's room and looks at the restraints on her bed.  Nolan finds her father visited her mother, Kara Wallace Clarke and so did a woman named Charlotte, but the handwriting is that of Victoria.  Emily now knows they, "did to my father, what they did to my mother."
Nolan: "now they're coming for you."
Emily: "good, let them."
Yes but will the White-haired man do anything especially since he knows she's really Amanda and hasn't told Victoria.

Emily: "Some say that to believe in destiny is to dismiss the role of free will.  That self determination cannot prevail in the presence of fate...and the truth is the only part of destiny we control is the fate we choose for another."  There it is, always boiling down to that fate vs destiny argument.  Do we control our own destiny, fate controls us and all the rest of it.

What's with the DB in the water along with The Amanda which we don't know anything about.  Suppose that's a ghost of the future to come, or of the past, for which we'll have to wait, or was Emily imagining it;  this ep was all about destiny after all.  Nolan's taken up boxing and karate to defend himself against the White-haired menace, if the need arises.  Which was funny, not to mention Emily turning up to the memorial wearing a red Special K cereal dress!

The opening with the sunken boat was meant to be this season's opening teaser, reminiscent of the Pilot ep opening when the shots were fired and everyone thought Daniel was dead at their future 'fire and ice' engagement party.  Think they're trying to re-live season 1 in that way.  In the Pilot ep Emily looked in the mirror to see Victoria and here she sees Ashley, bit scary that, grooming herself to take over in Victoria's shoes. It was only natural or not, that Daniel would take to watching Emily now from the balcony.  Though Nolan and Emily are still acting nonchalantly in their beach house, the way they speak so freely, I mean who's to say it ain't bugged.  Also in the Pilot, Victoria was having an auction for the painting and her friend, Lydia was there.  This time they unveiled an unfinished portrait of Victoria.

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