Revenge S2E1: Destiny

When a deliciously fun show with a strong hook comes along and captivates everyone’s attention in its first season, the fans all hold their breath when the second season rolls back around. Sophomore year efforts have a history of failing for Pina lot of reasons, but mostly it comes down to the people involved losing sight of what made the show fun in the first place. We’re happy to report that Hamptons Batman is back in all her pursed-lip glory and even better, she’s teaming up with Hamptons Two-Face this time!

But we have a confession to make. We’re very bad recappers. We suppose we could try and piece together all the information that was thrown at us last night but we allowed our minds to wander a bit and wound up focusing on:

• Jack’s abs
• Nolan’s abs
• Nolan’s wardrobe
• Ashley’s wardrobe
• Charlotte’s wardrobe
• Emily’s wardrobe

Hey. This is what you get when you read gay recaps, okay? Everyone’s dressing much nicer this season (which wPine predicted)! And while Nolan is fun no matter what he’s doing, we found Jack a lot easier to take when he had his shirt off. We suggest to the writers that they find more reasons for him to be shirtless. It’s summer in the Hamptons. It can’t be that hard.

Oh, that’s the other thing: It’s summer in the Hamptons again. Time has passed since Victoria’s plane took a nosedive, which is a smart thing for the writers to do. Another smart thing: They did the same thing they did last season, opened in media res, with Jack’s boat at the bottom of the ocean with a mysterious dead body on board. Sure, you could argue that this is a little repetitive and could get dangerously formulaic, but we thought it was the right way to go. It signals to the audience that they shouldn’t worry about the show losing its way or losing sight of what made it great. Now we have two entirely new plotlines to add to the existing ones: Who’s at the bottom of the ocean and where is Amanda Clarke’s mother?

Granted, this could all topple over from the weight of too much going on at once, but we didn’t get the sense that the writers were winging it. Quite the opposite: things seem tighter than ever, script-wise. The scene where Victoria finally reveals her frozen face to Emily was deliciously scripted and acted; the hatred each woman has for the other simmering just below the surface of their tight smiles and faux concern.

In other news, Nolan is still awesome, Ashley’s a bigger bitch than ever, Daniel’s an even bigger loser than ever, Amanda PinClarke is as crazy as ever (and her hands seem to be surgically attached to her baby bump), Declan is as annoying as ever, Conrad is as sleazy as ever and Charlotte is still a pawn in everyone else’s schemes (although there’s some indication that won’t remain the case).  Also: Revenge Sensei has a new face and there’s some cute Australian dude involved now, although we have no idea what he’s all about. Then again, we had no idea how tying Emily to a post as the tide comes in was going to help her remember her mother, but it worked, didn’t it? And sure, Emily walked into an abandoned mental hospital and found the exact bed her mother occupied 20 years before in about 2 minutes, but so what? It’s a soap opera and we both expect and welcome unlikely plot developments. So long as everyone involved doesn’t get high falutin’ about it and just embraces the camp of it all, this show is going to remain great fun for the foreseeable future.

Also: Clam Cam. You’ve gotta love that.

[Photo Credit: ABC]

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