'Revenge' Director Describes the Complicated Planning Behind the Fire and Ice Ball

ABC

The Fire and Ice Ball is finally here. Fans have been waiting with much anticipation to find out whether it was really Daniel (Joshua Bowman) who died on the beach during the series pilot for ABC’s Revenge.

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On the episode titled “Chaos,” preparations for Emily (Emily VanCamp) and Daniel’s engagement party are underway. But not only does the audience have a better understanding of the show’s players now, but so do the actors.

“There’s some footage that we pull from the pilot,” Gabriel Mann, who plays Nolan, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But it’s some of the scenes you’ve already seen, but shot from a different perspective and you see what happens just before or just after the scenes that we had already showed you.”

“I mean we were just all laughing, because here we were back in our costumes from the pilot -- except now in L.A. -- saying the same lines we had already but shot in a way that was just kind of off in a good way,” Mann continues. “It’s like ‘That’s what I meant when I said that?’ or ‘That’s what I was talking about?’ So, it was super satisfying to kind of find out exactly what that meant.”

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Executive producer Mike Kelley told THR that keeping track of Revenge’s story lines was harder than he expected. So imagine how difficult it was to maintain the continuity of an event that we already saw in the pilot, but portraying scenes that will be introduced for the first time in Wednesday’s episode.

“I had a copy of the pilot on my iPad, which I watched over and over and over again to see all the details and how they shot it, and match it,” the director behind the pivotal episode, Sanford Bookstaver, tells THR.

“I spent a lot of time walking the set and talking it out and going over every single detail,” he continues. “We made a physical chart of where everyone was standing at the Fire and Ice party. And we actually spoke to all the actors to make sure the continuity was there exactly from the pilot and they were very helpful in filling us in on how they said something or what movements they made the first time around. We wanted it to be spot-on.”

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Obviously, much of the focus among fans is on the actual death, but the work the crew and actors placed into the episode makes for a pretty thrilling ride and an ending – whether your theory is right or wrong – that will probably still throw viewers for a loop.

“Up until the morning we got the script, which is when we had the table read and started shooting, we all couldn’t believe who it was,” Mann says of the death. “Because we all had our own theories too. Of course, Mike and all our writers took them and flipped them on their ear.”

Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

E-mail: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro