Revenge, Episodes 21 & 22: "Truth Parts 1 & 2"
"I'm Amanda Clarke." With those three words to Jack Porter, Emily Thorne sent fans of ABC's sudser reeling. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about Revenge's sophomore slump. In the post, I included some ideas about how the show could get back on track. One of them was Emily revealing her true identity to her one true love, Jack. I didn't think that the producers would do that, especially so early in the show's run, so imagine my surprise when, in the final seconds, they pulled the trigger, just as Jack was about to pull the trigger on Conrad, literally.
These two hours were jam packed and they flew by. There was no time to catch your breath. There was a lot of good in this episode and you got the feeling that the writers and producers were addressing a lot of the criticism that had been levelled at the show this season.
The first part of the two hour finale was a lot of setup. It picks up right where the last episode ended with the Carrion created blackout. Jack is still at the Stowaway with Victoria and proving that he is still a revenge novice, he spills his entire plan to her. Victoria, of course, runs and tells Conrad all about Jack and Ashley being in cahoots. The lights come back on pretty quickly, which was kind of a surprise. I had a feeling that the blackout would be a bigger part of the finale, but it seemed the writers had bigger fish to fry. Nolan and Emily locate Takeda's body and come to the conclusion that Aiden killed him pretty quickly. Again, I'm a fan of the writers not dragging these reveals out unnecessarily. When Emily confronts Aiden about him murdering her twisted, surrogate father, Aiden reveals that Takeda was using her to further his own revegenda. It turns out Takeda's fiancé was on the doomed Flight 197.
Meanwhile, over in boring plot land, Declan is trapped with Charlotte's lame friend, Regina, in the bank. While they attempt to verbally spar, Declan shows heretofore unseen intuition and comes to the realization that Regina is in love with Charlotte. Regina plants money on Declan and beats herself up, to convince Charlotte that he's no good, for her or life. Charlotte, who sometimes has a brain and sometimes doesn't, believe's Regina at first, until Declan shows Charlotte that Regina has the video of them making out on her phone. Regina be gone and the lamest version of Romeo and Juliet ever are back together, and Charlotte reveals to Declan that she is in the family way. You know who else finds out? Victoria. She reacts like you'd expect.
Emily and Nolan find out that Conrad has hired an assassin named, Gregor Hoffman, to bomb Grayson Global. The bombing will serve two purposes. It will show the people of New York how Conrad will react in a crisis, and it will get rid of Jack. Conrad has lured Jack to GG via fake text from Ashley with the promise of giving him the laptop that contains all the Grayson secrets, the same laptop that Emily tossed into the ocean. Emily rushes to save her one true love, but arrives too late, just as the bomb is exploding. Right before the bomb rocks Manhattan, everyone with a cell phone receives a text that reads "LONG LIVE DAVID CLARKE."
Emily is undeterred by the EXPLOSION, so she rushes in to the building to presumably search for and rescue Jack. She finds a body buried under the rubble, but is pulled out by firefighters before she can see who it is. You know who it isn't? Jack. He is at NolCorp asking Nolan some very pointed questions about how he knew about the explosion. So, who was in the building? It was Declan. He was there to declare his honorable intentions to Conrad. Speaking of Conrad, he is outside directing rescue efforts, in full view of the cameras.
Emily convinces Jack to feign death to keep the Graysons away from him, but once he finds out that Declan is in the hospital he steals some scrubs, as you do, and sneaks into see him. Jack checks up on Declan and Declan puts on an obviously brave face, telling his big brother about Char's pregnancy. Everyone, except Jack, knows that Declan is lying about his prognosis. Jack has apparently never watched a soap opera... or TV, before. After Jack is gone, Dec reveals to Nolan that there is something wrong with his heart. He has to have surgery, but he isn't confident he'll make it. He doesn't. Declan dies during surgery. Nolan plays Jack a video Declan made before he was wheeled to the operating room. Declan's death sends Jack on a grief tailspin. He grabs a gun and plans to use it on the man he blames for all his family's misery: Conrad.
During all this, Aiden is arrested trying to flee the country after Daniel tried to blame him for the blackout. Aiden gets released though, after pointing the finger at Nolan. He is charged with treason. Nolan tries to explain that Carrion, the blackout and the bombing were not his doing and points fingers at the hacker, the Falcon. Only to find out, the Falcon has denied everything and the FBI believes her, because of Nolan's recorded friendship with David Clarke. The nail in Nolan's coffin is a video of Padma saying that Nolan is Americon Initiative and his nothing but an anarchist. As the video plays, Nolan becomes painfully aware of two things: that Padma was forced to say these things by the Initiative and that the Initiative planned to pin everything on Nolan all along.
Before Aiden gets out of dodge, he stops by Emily's and finds Daniel there. He triest to warn Daniel away, but Danny Boy isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. The two men engage in some vaguely homo erotic fisticuffs. Aiden knocks Daniel into Emily's hutch. He grabs her gun and the next time we see Daniel he's at Conrad's victory party with bloody hands. Is Aiden no more? Fingers crossed.
After Emily's confession to Jack, the second best thing the finale did was finally get rid of the Initiatve. It turns out that Conrad Grayson is the Initiative. Conrad has been responsible for all the terrible things that have happened on the show from the downing of Flight 197, the downfall and assassination of David Clarke, the death threats against Daniel from earlier and the bombing of Grayson Global. Conrad's motive is deceptively simple: money and security for his family. When bad things happen, business people get rich. Why wait for bad things to happen, when you can make them happen? Victoria is understandably disgusted by all this. She becomes the second Grayson to turn on Conrad in the episode. The first was Daniel, once he found out that his father orchestrated the bombing. Victoria decides to skip Connie's victory bash, so she's home when her first born son, Patrick, shows up at her door.
All this leads us to the episode's final moments, where a frantic Emily searches for a revenge fueled Jack. She finds him in the balcony, steps in front of the gun and utters the finale's final words. "I am Amanda Clarke." Whoo-boy. It's going to be a long wait until September.
Final Verdict: Revenge suffered from a Desperate Housewives-style sophomore slump. The finale did a fantastic job course correcting and setting things up for what should be a redeeming sophomore slump. Emily revealing her true identity to Jack, sets him up to become her new Nolan. It should also lead to some nice scenes between Emily Van Camp and Nick Weschler. Also, how is Emily going to continue her crusade without Nolan's mad hacking skills? Making Conrad Grayson the ultimate big bad was a good move. Will Victoria join Emily in her crusade sometime next season? The enemy of mine enemy and all that. Will we see the return Em's mom and who will be cast to play Patrick? This finale re-energized my love for a show that was coming desperately close to being cast from my must watch list.
So, what did you guys think? Were you as enamored with this finale as I was? Do you think the show will be able to continue the upward swing in season three minus creator Mike Kelley? Hit the comments and let your voices be heard.
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