'Revenge' 215 Review "Retribution"

ABC

This week’s episode of Revenge deals almost exclusively with the aftermath of Amanda’s death, and holy shit there’s a lot of aftermath!  
Amanda was one of the few people who knew the truth about Emily so she was trouble from the moment she came into town in season one, but it’s undeniable that Emily truly cared for this girl who changed her name for her.  Emily says it herself that Amanda was one of the people she truly loved and clearly it was the same for Amanda seeing as she had a photo of her and juvie!Ems hidden under the photo of Jack inside of her locket.  That being said, a death that you’d think would take some of Emily’s secrets to the grave has instead opened the door for several characters to find out much more than Emily has bargained for.

ABC

One of those is Jack, who found out from what Amanda left behind that she and Emily were far closer than he’d have imagined, but... of course Jack didn’t quite figure it out all correctly so he still doesn’t know about the switched identities.  So close, yet so far Jack!  It’s kind of funny however that the throwaway Stowaway plotline with the Ryans has actually thrust Jack deeper into the machinations of the Graysons and the overall plot with his new quest to finish what Amanda started.  Although I’d always thought the Ryan storyline was meant to give Declan some kind of plot service but he remains as far out to sea as ever. Hey, at least he’s back with Charlotte again.

ABC

Charlotte is of course the other character that’s been unwittingly pulled in closer to the truth of it all, but I doubt she’ll end up putting it together on her own. Instead, in a quest to have more people attend Amanda’s funeral, Charlotte finds Amanda’s long lost foster family. Well, her foster brother to be more specific.  He’s now in a prime position to blow the lid off everything if he can see that something’s wrong here which the previews tell me he might just do.  Either way, I think we’re bound to have someone find out  the truth about Emily and Amanda before the season is over.  My gut tells me it’s going to be Jack and as Nolan told Emily tonight it’ll be like ripping Amanda away from him all over again.

ABC

The loss of Amanda has clearly gotten through to Emily most of all like when she whipped the laptop with all the evidence against the Graysons on it into the ocean at the end of the episode.  She claims she’s done with distractions and is ready to get back to some old school revenging.  With Daniel more involved than ever before will she be more willing to really show Victoria how deep the loss of a child runs?  I sure as hell hope so since last season’s finale was a bit lackluster for me so I want them to pull no punches this time out.  Of course I’m not sure if I can rely on that sort of action happening when they chose to pull from the book of soap opera cliches by having the good ol’ never spoken about foster brother coming to town.