Emily VanCamp Revenge Portrait - P 2012
ABCRevenge returned from the midseason hiatus only to remind viewers why we tune in to the freshman series’ soapy goodness. In Episode 11, it dispensed of Tyler (Ashton Holmes), Daniel’s (Joshua Bowman) manipulative college friend who went off his meds and off the rails.
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“The thing that I love about this show is that you can go to those super high drama places,” Executive Producer Mike Kelley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But that was an 11 on a scale of 10. And I think that the fun of this show is that we can go to a lot of different places. That was an exercise in super drama. And now we’re going to be able to kind of pull back a bit and reconnect to the origins of the show. And not be wagged by that particular story with Tyler’s crazy shit.”
Kelley gave THR an idea of where the series is headed this season post-Tyler. Take a look at 10 things to expect.
1. We may not have seen the last of Tyler. “That’s the other part of Revenge is that everybody, even dead, can come back,” he says.
2. Get ready for some takedowns. After a string of takedowns in the beginning of the season, the series took a break to develop the characters. But starting with Wednesday’s Episode 12, “Infamy,” Emily gets back to bringing her enemies down. “It’s a major one and it provides story for the rest of the season,” Kelley Says. “But it’s a really great takedown and yeah we love those. We just want to make sure that when we do them now they’re not empty takedowns. You want to make sure that they matter.
3. Family secrets even Emily isn’t aware of will be revealed in Wednesday’s Episode 12. “The author who wrote the tell-all crime novel about Emily’s father that’s in episode 12 and the interview tapes that he recorded during the process of writing that book are going to become very big in revealing some secrets that neither Emily nor the rest of the cast were aware of. So, you’re going to learn things about David Clarke [James Tupper] that you didn’t know. And Emily is going to be very surprised.”
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4. Keep an eye on Victoria’s (Madeleine Stowe) divorce attorney. “He is one of the few people that has seen her as an adult and for good reason. We’re just expanding what we’re going to learn about Emily and just how deep her plan runs. And just how many people are involved in it.”
5. A dark secret will reignite Emily’s thirst for revenge. “In Episode 13 we made a decision to give Emily a solid reason to reinvest in messing these peoples’ lives up. Even though we love humanizing Victoria, we also love revealing another layer of wickedness. And so in episode 13, we do both those things. We reinvest Emily, we reveal something very dark about Victoria.”
6. You may be rooting for the other Emily soon. “I think the audience will be surprised, because their knee jerk reaction to people who are an outsider of the show is to be wary of them. They don’t want to like them. They’re very protective of Emily. It’s funny. But I think that you’re going to find that a lot of people are going to start to come on board the [Margarita Levieva] train and actually start emphasizing with her shortly. So, yeah it’s pretty cool. Look what Emily has done, manipulating people has costs and she’s about to start paying it.”
7. Nolan’s romances may shift. While the audience saw a tinge of flirtation between Nolan (Gabriel Mann) and Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) when they linked arms and walked away at the end of the last episode, Kelley says he doesn’t have any plans for them romantically… but “the fun is watching what works on the show. Watching where the chemistry lies and following those trails. These actors are terrific. They’re game and they keep surprising me and you get inspired by their choices and that reveals stories sometimes.”
8. And while we saw Nolan act on his “3 on the Kinsey Scale” with Tyler, Kelley explains Nolan is a wild card. “I think that it’s got to be a match for him. Whatever is attractive to him. Whatever makes sense for him. Whatever challenges him is going to be a partner for him or a romantic interest.”
9. And, of course, the all-important “origins episode” is coming. While we’ve seen much of Victoria and David’s story in flashbacks, the series will dedicate an entire episode to them. “We’re looking at around Episode 18, I think. We’re going to get into Victoria’s origins, her mother, what made her the wicked person that she is, and what drove her into David’s arms… and what drove her to destroy the guy.”
10. Don’t expect more than 22 episodes for Season 1. While ABC tends to give its hit dramas 23 or 24 episodes, Kelley says we shouldn’t hold our breath on an increased season order for Revenge. “I’ve been very vocal about not wanting any more than 22. It’s a really, really complicated show. I didn’t have any idea frankly when I jumped into this how complicated the serialized nature of this can get.”
What’s your take on what’s ahead for the ABC series? Tell us in the comments section below.
Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.
Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro
