Thursday, May 16, 2013

My Review of Revenge's 2x21: "Truth Part 1"


Written by Michael Foley And Nikki Toscano
Directed by Randy Zisk

Victoria (re phone messages): “Long live David Clarke.”

I was initially going to watch both parts of the finale and do one review but I found myself preferring to stick with my usual method when it comes to double bill season finales. This is the first time the show has attempted a two parter and if the opening episode is anything to go by, then they certainly can try it next season if they want to.

All season long the Initiative have felt like a faceless force and lacked the bite they should’ve had but within this episode alone, they managed to cause complete chaos on a surprisingly large scale and frame Aiden Mathis for some good measure.

It should’ve been obvious that hacking the Amanda Clarke fund and Carrion would end up being the very things that would give the Initiative the advantage over Emily, Nolan and Aiden but at least it was well played out, given the cataclysmic ending of the first part of this episode.

Keeping with the chaos – I’m not surprised that even telling Victoria anything backfired on Jack. Emily warned him about her and Jack ignored all sensible advice and now he end up a corpse if Conrad’s assassin has anything to do with it. You think Jack would’ve had some general savvy to at least arm himself if he was going to Grayson Global alone but nope, he didn’t think of that at all.

While it’s pretty obvious that Jack is unlikely to die, it does look like any hope of him taking Conrad down is probably gone out the window as well. The ‘Long Live David Clarke’ text message everyone received at the press conference might cause some trouble but I get the feeling it’ll be the type of trouble that Conrad will easily be able to wrangle his way out of though.

As for Emily – boy, did she have her work cut out for her this week. On one hand, she has to go and save Jack from being another Grayson casualty but on the other hand, she learned the hard way that both Aiden and Takeda have been lying to her all this time. I wasn’t totally shocked that Takeda lied to Emily about his interest in Flight 197. The reveal of Takeda losing his fiancée on that flight makes a lot of sense to be honest but also Takeda a hypocrite too.

Emily’s reaction to learning that Aiden killed Takeda though was interesting. She might have been furious with him but she still tried to get him to leave as well so the Initiative would fail in making him their fall guy. Aiden seemed to be packing a bag towards the end of the episode but at the same time, it’s pretty obvious again that he’ll end up doing the right thing by Emily as he’s tried to do this season. As has Nolan too, who was a little more underused in the first half of this finale. I am hopeful he’ll have more to do other than trying to undo the damage of Carrion in the second half though.

As for the Graysons themselves – more sniping, some of it amusing but hardly anything too new about it though. Victoria’s glee in pointing out to Conrad that Ashley and Jack were betraying him was one thing but it was more enjoyable seeing Daniel knock the wind out of her sails when he revealed that Charlotte was pregnant.

Speaking of Charlotte – on top of being pregnant, she’s now got Regina obsessed with her. When I said I wanted more LGBT representation on this show, this definitely wasn’t what I had in mind and I could’ve done without Declan being framed for hitting Regina. On the plus side, at least that bit was solved fairly fast when Charlotte realised that her new best friend was lying but overall, I’m still not loving this whole pregnancy plot though.

Also in “Truth Part 1”

I was surprised that they didn’t give two seperate titles for two parter, seeing as they’re both written and directed by different people.

Jack: “I suppose I should’ve expected as much from you, knowing how you felt about Amanda.”
Victoria: “It was she who came after my family, not the other way around.”

Victoria was upfront about the file on Amanda she had to Jack and the latter found out that Amanda was in Japan at some point too.

Regina (re Charlotte): “I get the forbidden fruit thing but you are particularly low hanging. You have something on her?”
Declan: “Yeah, blackmail is how I get all of my girls.”

Victoria (re Ashley): “Oh, my poor Conrad. Yet another female conquest hell bent on your destruction. It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Aiden had a passport for him under the name of Noah Campbell and Emily one under the name of Diane Miller.

Emily: “I just want people to pay.”
Takeda: “There’s two paths to revenge. One is failure, the other will set you free on your journey’s end.”

Daniel: “Listen, Emily isn’t pregnant. The test wasn’t her, do you understand?”
Victoria: “Oh dear God.”

Takeda’s fiancée was called Mai Ioki and we learned there were 247 people on Flight 197. The assassin sent to kill Jack is named Gregor Hoffman, who posed as an IT guy at Grayson Global.

Emily: “All I ever needed from you was the truth.”
Aiden: “Please don’t run away.”
Emily: “I’m not running, Aiden but I think it’s time that you did.”

Chronology: Pretty much from where the last scene of “Engagement” left off.

Finale wise, the first part of “Truth” has set things up rather nicely, so I’m looking forward to seeing where it’ll go in the second half. After being such an uninspired set of antagonists, it’s also nice that the Initiative are getting to be more interesting for a change too. Oh and the cliff hanger was pretty neat too, even if I don’t fear for Jack’s safety.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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