"Revenge" 208 Review - 'Lineage'

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Last season on Revenge we were treated with an episode that consisted entirely of flashbacks, it was a delight and had a lot of moments of fanservice for all of us who love this show.  This season they decided to try the same formula again, but aside from one story thread the episode entirely failed in my book.


It turns out that six years ago was when Aidan and Emily first met when she was on a little side mission for Takeda and he took her off her path to help find some of the answers that had to do with the downing of the flight.  It’s cool to see that Aidan isn’t just some other random revenger and that his story is very much tied into hers.  His sister was kidnapped so that his father would put the bomb on the flight that Emily’s father was imprisoned for.  So after ass-kicking some Russian gangsters, Aidan joined team revenge.  Now... I’m a bit wary about this being the full truth.

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At the end of the episode, when we spin back into the present day basking in the afterglow with Emily and Aidan, she makes him promise he won’t leave again. But I have a feeling he will or he’s going to end up dead because Emily just can’t become complacent now can she?  She even shows him her Revenge box, sharing with him her past self that she’s felt so disconnected from.  What I worry about is that Aidan isn’t all he’s told Emily or Takeda even and that Emily so willingly giving him all the information she has on these people is going to bite her squarely in the ass.

Also in flashback land we see Ashley back before she was under the wing of Victoria.  She was a down on her luck art major who was going to be prostituting herself for rent, but Emily paid her off to take her place for her mission.  Emily may recognize Ashley from then, but does Ashley recognize Emily from then is my question since she never really saw her.  Is this the girl Emily spoke of when she suspected she was someone she could easily manipulate or do they cross paths again? 

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The highlight of the episode for me was Thanksgiving at the Graysons.  Not the whole, ‘oh Daniel wanted to be a writer’ and what-if bullshit that was going on, but the chance to once again see Victoria shine at what she does best while learning some more of her past along the way. This show’s mommy issues continue with the introduction of Victoria’s mother.  She’s as big a gold digger as they come as she marries men solely for their money.  When Victoria was the darling young age of fifteen, her mother was wooing one of these men and when that started to go south she shot him. Not only that but she gave her daughter the gun and told her to shoot him as well because no jury would ever convict her.  Which they didn’t and when Victoria returned to her mother after some mandatory psychiatric evaluation, she was sexually abused by the next man her mother was going after. When her mother found out, she reacted by throwing Victoria out into the streets.  I love that Victoria has such a deep and colorful past that we’ve barely scratched the surface on and I am just dying to know how exactly she met up with the very much married at the time Conrad.

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The whole backstory reveal, which came out to the man her mother was currently trying to woo, was amazing but it got so much better.  It turns out the man she was trying entangle herself with was hired by Victoria and Conrad because Victoria really wanted to destroy her mother.  I completely didn’t suspect this the whole time, so bravo Revenge for throwing something surprising my way.  It goes to show that whenever Victoria and Conrad work together it’s always much better than when they’re apart and sniping at each other.

We also got a glimpse into Nolan’s past this episode and how he has a bad history with his company’s  CFOs... and by bad I mean he likes to date them and there’s a consistent lack of chemistry.  Sure there was a kiss like the promo teased, but it was so fast that I thought it wasn’t even there the first time I watched. This entire flashback felt like it was there to service fans who enjoy seeing Nolan with a guy more, and to set up Nolcorp’s continued downfall to Grayson Global in the next episodes.

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And the piece de resistance of this less than stellar episode was the flashbacks involving Jack’s father being bullied into giving up protection money for The Stowaway.  Which naturally spun into everyone’s wtf storyline of the year with JR Bourne’s character. Surprise he turns out to be the son of the wannabe mob boss so now he’s at The Stowaway seeking a bit of revenge of his own!  Also, what’s up with the racist undertones of having a black guy who we’ve never met before but was apparently really buddy-buddy with Jack’s father be the one to kill Ryan?  That really rubbed me the wrong way.

Now I really do enjoy the flashback sequences on Revenge, but I think they shouldn’t fall too heavily on the crutch of having an entire episode consist of them once again.  This week really felt like a filler episode that was just stalling  before next week’s winter finale.