Revenge: The Final Chapter
Jul. 5th, 2015 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessRevenge 2.23 Two Graves
The picture for this episode on 4OD was so spoilery. Why would you take a picture from a scene in the last third of a finale?
So we start the very final episode (phew) with an Emily/Amanda voiceover, aptly, and an unconvincing flashback with a fake wee!Amanda.
Apparently, Margiaux didn’t mean for HER HIRED HITWOMAN to kill Ben, so that’s all right then. Both Charlotte and Patrick get a mention - sidebar: it would have made more sense for Patrick to appear than not, but I presume the actor was unavailable - and then, setting the bar the episode must live up to, Victoria revealed the body she left in the mansion was her own mother’s, which is mental. (And the timing was convenient. But later explained, in the way that things are 'explained' on this show.)
After the news that Officer Ben is (unlike Victoria) dead, hot on the heels of David’s bad news and collapse in the last episode, Ems lied some more and changed her plea. Because of course she and Nolan had a back-up plan to escape from ‘maximum security' prison.
Wow, Victoria’s mother was really horrible. Again. I am not entirely sure who she meant when she identified Victoria’s father, but I think the point is that Victoria’s mother was really horrible (although she made valid points about Victoria’s own mothering).
Nice escape, nice nod to the déjà vu of Nolan greeting her outside the prison gates, nice to have Jack in on the scheme and nice to see Ems in a hoodie.
As she delivered her eulogy, I felt faintly worried about who Louise would glomp on to next.
We got Victoria in the amazing (not) disguise of a wig AT HER OWN FUNERAL.
Margiaux was shocked that Victoria wanted to bring Louise into the inner circle because her flesh and blood children had rejected her and that Victoria was willing to kill people. SHOCKED! IN FRENCH!
Chez Ms Gaines, Ems and Jack caught up on the whole Victoria exploding her mother’s corpse thing and comment on it, much as I did, but in American English. They also figured out Ben was killed there. Unlike me, they could set that aside to make out and have sex in the building. I suffered the woes of a shipper (as I’ve been since the scene referenced where Emily Thorne first met Jack and Sammy and Amanda was reunited with them) when your couple canonically gets it together and you don’t like the how.
Of course Ems knows better how to disguise herself than Victoria, behold the wig AND glasses combo.
I thought Louise’s response to Victoria not being dead was extremely restrained, a relatively small gasp, no fainting, very little Southern DRAMAH.
Could Jack face up to the hitwoman? Er, no. Because he had no weapons and White Gold (oh snerk) plays dirty. (I kind of couldn’t get over the stunt casting there.)
Even with Ems wearing one of her patented ‘disguises’ (uniform, mask and glasses), VanCamp, supported by Mann, managed to find some emotional truth in Amanda and Nolan’s response to what happened to Jack. And the line about Ems being Nolan’s sensei, even.
I clapped like a seal that Louise came to them. CLAPPED LIKE A SEAL. Victoria used her one too many times, and I am delighted she saw through her.
After some oldskool sending messages through the laptop, we had a nice scene between Margiaux and Nolan.
I wished Jack hadn’t referenced the stupid beach wedding, but did find it sweet that his second thought after waking up from being knifed was to ask for David’s support for his marrying his daughter. As David is the no. 2 shipper on the show, there was zero tension. (Stevie is so not going to be as easy.)
Could Nolan withstand the hitwoman? Well, yes, because he had a TASER...and she needed him to send a message and so wasn’t looking to kill.
See what I said three or four times ago about Margiaux deciding on which side she stands. I couldn’t bring myself to care that she remembered she had a soul.
With all that monologuing, I totally believed Ems was going to shoot Victoria. Not. But Victoria filming it and David coming to shoot Victoria and protect Amanda instead (poor Charlotte) made for a satisfying moment, BUT THEN a not quite shot dead Vicky got back at David and Ems. Dramatic high point, right there.
And then we got to the final chunk, which didn’t quite carry me along with it. Amanda and Charlotte needed to work through a lot before getting where they were – months and months ahead. And we saw none of it on screen. So, that was a jolt, and for a while I was wondering if it was a dream sequence.
The second Amanda finished her father’s phrase, we knew what was coming (I quailed that VanCamp would break me with Amanda’s response to David’s death, but she underplayed it). More voiceovering. And then the least surprising wedding – even if 4OD wasn’t using spoily pics, it’s been the obvious endgame. Sadly, Nolan didn’t officiate as well as give Emily away and be the best man, as I’d been assuming he would, but Carl was the ring bearer. Called that. And Stevie had clearly reached a point where she could live with it. (I've come up with a lot of fill in the gaps headcanon for this episode already.)
All the white hat fallen had their moment in Jack’s speech. I did find it lovely that they were honeymooning on David’s boat, inspired by Jack’s.
Also PUPPY. (Who I bet Stevie had to look after during the honeymoon.) They had to do it as there was no danger of ‘surprise, I’m pregnant’ in this finale.
The ‘nightmare’/revelation that Victoria’s heart saved Amanda’s life was a good one. Was it enough of a scar to balance Emily’s happyish ending and justify the one last voiceover? Almost.
As the voiceover scrambled to make this a lesson about revenging, I still think it’s a lesson that not all stories are suitable for telling over US seasons plural. The show has been daft, and not often enough in good ways. But I did like that, after Amanda/Emily’s tale ended, the real ending was with Nolan’s story continuing – a kind of Harold Finch meets the A-team, I like to think.
The picture for this episode on 4OD was so spoilery. Why would you take a picture from a scene in the last third of a finale?
So we start the very final episode (phew) with an Emily/Amanda voiceover, aptly, and an unconvincing flashback with a fake wee!Amanda.
Apparently, Margiaux didn’t mean for HER HIRED HITWOMAN to kill Ben, so that’s all right then. Both Charlotte and Patrick get a mention - sidebar: it would have made more sense for Patrick to appear than not, but I presume the actor was unavailable - and then, setting the bar the episode must live up to, Victoria revealed the body she left in the mansion was her own mother’s, which is mental. (And the timing was convenient. But later explained, in the way that things are 'explained' on this show.)
After the news that Officer Ben is (unlike Victoria) dead, hot on the heels of David’s bad news and collapse in the last episode, Ems lied some more and changed her plea. Because of course she and Nolan had a back-up plan to escape from ‘maximum security' prison.
Wow, Victoria’s mother was really horrible. Again. I am not entirely sure who she meant when she identified Victoria’s father, but I think the point is that Victoria’s mother was really horrible (although she made valid points about Victoria’s own mothering).
Nice escape, nice nod to the déjà vu of Nolan greeting her outside the prison gates, nice to have Jack in on the scheme and nice to see Ems in a hoodie.
As she delivered her eulogy, I felt faintly worried about who Louise would glomp on to next.
We got Victoria in the amazing (not) disguise of a wig AT HER OWN FUNERAL.
Margiaux was shocked that Victoria wanted to bring Louise into the inner circle because her flesh and blood children had rejected her and that Victoria was willing to kill people. SHOCKED! IN FRENCH!
Chez Ms Gaines, Ems and Jack caught up on the whole Victoria exploding her mother’s corpse thing and comment on it, much as I did, but in American English. They also figured out Ben was killed there. Unlike me, they could set that aside to make out and have sex in the building. I suffered the woes of a shipper (as I’ve been since the scene referenced where Emily Thorne first met Jack and Sammy and Amanda was reunited with them) when your couple canonically gets it together and you don’t like the how.
Of course Ems knows better how to disguise herself than Victoria, behold the wig AND glasses combo.
I thought Louise’s response to Victoria not being dead was extremely restrained, a relatively small gasp, no fainting, very little Southern DRAMAH.
Could Jack face up to the hitwoman? Er, no. Because he had no weapons and White Gold (oh snerk) plays dirty. (I kind of couldn’t get over the stunt casting there.)
Even with Ems wearing one of her patented ‘disguises’ (uniform, mask and glasses), VanCamp, supported by Mann, managed to find some emotional truth in Amanda and Nolan’s response to what happened to Jack. And the line about Ems being Nolan’s sensei, even.
I clapped like a seal that Louise came to them. CLAPPED LIKE A SEAL. Victoria used her one too many times, and I am delighted she saw through her.
After some oldskool sending messages through the laptop, we had a nice scene between Margiaux and Nolan.
I wished Jack hadn’t referenced the stupid beach wedding, but did find it sweet that his second thought after waking up from being knifed was to ask for David’s support for his marrying his daughter. As David is the no. 2 shipper on the show, there was zero tension. (Stevie is so not going to be as easy.)
Could Nolan withstand the hitwoman? Well, yes, because he had a TASER...and she needed him to send a message and so wasn’t looking to kill.
See what I said three or four times ago about Margiaux deciding on which side she stands. I couldn’t bring myself to care that she remembered she had a soul.
With all that monologuing, I totally believed Ems was going to shoot Victoria. Not. But Victoria filming it and David coming to shoot Victoria and protect Amanda instead (poor Charlotte) made for a satisfying moment, BUT THEN a not quite shot dead Vicky got back at David and Ems. Dramatic high point, right there.
And then we got to the final chunk, which didn’t quite carry me along with it. Amanda and Charlotte needed to work through a lot before getting where they were – months and months ahead. And we saw none of it on screen. So, that was a jolt, and for a while I was wondering if it was a dream sequence.
The second Amanda finished her father’s phrase, we knew what was coming (I quailed that VanCamp would break me with Amanda’s response to David’s death, but she underplayed it). More voiceovering. And then the least surprising wedding – even if 4OD wasn’t using spoily pics, it’s been the obvious endgame. Sadly, Nolan didn’t officiate as well as give Emily away and be the best man, as I’d been assuming he would, but Carl was the ring bearer. Called that. And Stevie had clearly reached a point where she could live with it. (I've come up with a lot of fill in the gaps headcanon for this episode already.)
All the white hat fallen had their moment in Jack’s speech. I did find it lovely that they were honeymooning on David’s boat, inspired by Jack’s.
Also PUPPY. (Who I bet Stevie had to look after during the honeymoon.) They had to do it as there was no danger of ‘surprise, I’m pregnant’ in this finale.
The ‘nightmare’/revelation that Victoria’s heart saved Amanda’s life was a good one. Was it enough of a scar to balance Emily’s happyish ending and justify the one last voiceover? Almost.
As the voiceover scrambled to make this a lesson about revenging, I still think it’s a lesson that not all stories are suitable for telling over US seasons plural. The show has been daft, and not often enough in good ways. But I did like that, after Amanda/Emily’s tale ended, the real ending was with Nolan’s story continuing – a kind of Harold Finch meets the A-team, I like to think.
