A bit late, but has anyone else found themselves succumbing to the considerable melodramatic pleasures of
Revenge? The reveals have grown quite a bit more skilful in their sleaze as the season’s wore on, and it’s striking the lengths to which the writers have gone to cram in absurd trope after absurd trope, no matter how disparate or jarring -- multiple false identities folding in on each other,
amnesia subplots, PG-13 Women-in-Prison flashbacks, mass terrorist patsies, dense corporate espionage conspiracies, and in the touch that sealed my admiration for its excesses, Pai Mei-esque martial arts masters. Madeleine Stowe surprisingly (though quite deservingly) gained a Globe nom for her marvellously campy queen bee routine, and there are fun turns from Gabriel Mann, William Devane, and Roger Bart as a windbag journalist whom I dearly, dearly want to believe is based on
Ray Carney. At its delirious best, it’s like the trashiest bits of
Dallas (or
Gossip Girl?) run through a filter of vintage De Palma/90s premium cable goodness. It even survives its more-than-occasional stabs at Hitchcock relatively unscathed --
in particular, the music cue when Takeda clocks Daniel with the rock was terrific
It's now on hiatus until April, so perfect time to catch up for anyone so inclined.