Tuesday, April 15, 2014

My Review of Revenge's 3x19: "Allegiance"


Written by Ted Sullivan
Directed by Jennifer Wilkinson

Victoria (to Pascal, re Emily): “All this time I thought she was waging war on our family but this goes much farther. It’s revenge for David.”

It’s been 63 episodes and Victoria finally susses out the very thing that she probably should’ve copped onto a long time ago. I guess this (finally) means that the finale will result in each Victoria realising that Emily Thorne is actually Amanda Clarke or she’ll have to be told but either way, it’s a small bit of progress in another episode that felt like coasting.

That’s not to say the episode didn’t have some good points though. Victoria’s whole contrivance with making sure Luke Gilliam and Emily became brief pals at least confirmed her suspicions and was probably more effective than Daniel’s piss poor attempts of getting at Emily by using Javier but at the same time, why did it really take Victoria this long to suss this out about Emily?

If she hadn’t wasted so much time judging Emily by her own social climbing/gold digging standards, she might have been better prepared for Emily but at least now we have something to get potentially excited about. How will Victoria actually react when she realises/is told that Emily is Amanda? Will she show some actual remorse for ruining the girl’s life and setting her on the revenge path? Dramatically there’s potential here the writers better explore to the hilt once it all comes out about Emily Thorne.

It’s also a damn sight more exciting than Victoria and Pascal’s dull as ditchwater relationship as well. Even Conrad trying to play them off each other wasn’t that amusing to watch but I do like that Conrad tried to enlist Aiden in order to take Pascal down. That was an interesting enough turn.

Speaking of Aiden – I enjoyed seeing him and Nolan teaming up to track down Oscar Chapman (or Brenda in disguise) but aside from revealing that Mathis Sr was murdered instead of killing himself, I did think that the character was disposed of by Pascal a little too quickly though. As for Pascal killing a man in cold blood – hardly that shocking but handy enough to further cement Emily and Conrad’s pet cause in taking him out of the equation though.

Getting back to take downs though – I actually enjoyed the fact that Emily and Victoria in their own ways took down Luke Gilliam the sharpie parallel at the end of the episode with the two of them was pretty amusing as well. As for Luke – aside from casting Tim DeKay, he was a pretty nondescript character but he served his purpose well enough though.

Last but not least – I love the idea of Nolan waging war on Daniel over Javier. I’ll however love it even more if Nolan actually delivers on his threat and actually manages to take Daniel down a notch or two as well. As for Javier himself – I hate to admit it but I am beginning to tire a little of him as a character so I’m not too concerned as to which side he ultimately chooses in the next episode or two.

Also in “Allegiance”

I suppose the scene at the races with Emily and Pascal was a way of reminding viewers of his gambling addiction.

Emily (to Pascal): “What do you know? I win.”

This wasn’t a great episode for Margaux, was it? She might have got her father’s business empire but she was insensitive with Jack and tried to snare Javier with Daniel. It does look like her and Jack might be over fairly soon.

Victoria (to Emily): “I’d love to stay and chat but I have less boring people to talk to.”

Jack: “I want in.”
Emily: “Let’s do this.”

Emily’s becoming quite the ‘pretty poisoner’ isn’t she? Last week it was Mason and this week it was Luke. Let it be Pascal in the next episode.

Charlotte (to Javier): “You can either be standing next to Nolan Ross or you can be the next Nolan Ross.”

Javier: “No-one plays me.”
Nolan: “Oh but you’ve been played.”

Standout music: Temples “Shelter Song”.

Nolan (to Daniel): “I just want you to understand this is war.”

Chronology: Not long from where “Blood” left off.

Another mixed bag of an episode with “Allegiance”. Aside from Victoria finally getting a clue about Emily and Nolan honing in on Daniel, not too much actually happened in the episode.

Rating: 7 out of 10

1 comment:

Jesus said...

look,you are right, victoria realized that emily is amanda too late, but look, give the woman some credit, i thought that she would reconize amanda from the first moment she saw her in the boat party in the first episode, but, she probably thought that it was imposible, victoria didn't know that david gave amanda those journals about the truth, she didn't know about the Nolcorp shares, and she thought that Amanda knew her father was a terrorist, so Victoria thinking that Emily is Amanda was a little hard for her to find out, besides, the only way is if victoria would descovert the infinity box without emily knowing, but still, and now, the war between them was kinda boring, i mean emily have reasources but Victoria is broke and doesn't live in the grayson manor, that's an unfair fight