Five Things About Revenge: “Execution”

1. Wow, Revenge. Where was all this awesomeness and plot momentum ten episodes ago? I know I’m a broken record on this, but every year, I have this lament, and every year, it frustrates me to think how awesome this show would be if they didn’t have to spend a third of each season treading water before the big finish. Stop trying to make full length seasons happen, ABC! They’re not going to happen!

For real, so much happened in this episode that I don’t even know where to even start. Oh, wait, I totally do: AIDEN IS DEAD, AIDEN IS DEAD, AIDEN IS SUPER DUPER DEAD!

And not only that, but he was personally taken out in a boss move by none other than Queen V herself! (I knew there was a reason why I loved her.)

So many parts of the this episode could best be summed up by a series of escalating reaction gifs. But I’ll restrain myself and limit to just one:

Does it make me a terrible person that I literally starting seal clapping when Victoria was smothering him to death? Or that when Emily was shrieking and crying over his corpse, I couldn’t stop laughing over his frozen duh face of death? (Seriously, kudos to whoever directed him to make that face. It was legit hilarious.)

I can accept the fact that Emily has convinced herself that Aiden was her true love. Lord knows she has enough daddy issues to fuel a million poor romantic choices. (I have a little more trouble, as always, with the unfortunate fact that the writers feel the same way, but that’s a rant that you’ve all heard before.)

I absolutely draw the line at having to watch Nolan crying over that jackass, though. Because seriously: footage not found, writers. I would have struggled to say they even liked each other before now. Mutual toleration for Ems’ sake, maybe. Maybe. But WHATEVER. Because have you heard? AIDEN IS DEAD, YOU GUYS.

(May Barry Sloane’s new show be an enormous hit and last forever. Amen.)

YOU KNOW WHO’S NOT DEAD? THIS GUY.

2. The notes I took for this bullet point started out with “lol, dude from Prison Break playing a prison guard again” and progressed to “escaping already? boring” before ending on “HOLY FUCK DAVID CLARKE WHAT.” Which I think captures that sequence of events pretty accurately.

Because I watch General Hospital on the regular, my immediate reaction was to suspect one of those super realistic latex masks everyone in Port Charles is so fond of. But that would be exceedingly stupid and pointless, even for this show. So David Clarke is really alive, and this will either be embarrassingly bad or completely campy and wonderful. Knowing this show… I’m not exactly holding my breath.

REMEMBER WHEN EMS WAS HAPPY FOR FIVE
SECONDS? THAT WAS NICE.

It does open up some interesting possibilities, though. I’m completely down with the idea that although he may have been innocent of all the terrorism stuff, David Clarke might actually be kind of a terrible person. He’s certainly not winning any father of the year awards at the moment, if he really has just been bumming around for the last ten years, waiting for Emily/Amanda to avenge him.

Meanwhile: CONRAD! So much of my appreciation for him as a character can be encompassed by that split second after he sees the knife in David’s hand and just stands there, making this eye-rolling ugh, so this is happening face. RIP, Conrad Grayson, you magnificent bastard.

ARCTIC POOLS FOREVER

(Or not, since you’ll probably somehow survive to snark again. I mean, it’s not like knife wounds are really fatal on this show, David Clarke.)

3. The infamous Gideon finally showed his face! (With an actor apparently so incapable of a French accent that they had to come up with a ham-fisted plot reason to justify his American one, so this bodes super well). And he promptly murdered a hooker? Maybe?

Not loving the idea that this will be Nolan’s big story next year. Especially if the writers are going to be slotting Jack into Aiden’s place as Emily’s partner in crime.

Can’t Nolan’s plot be being Ems’ bestie? (Remember when it was just the two of them against the world? Good times.)

4. Speaking of ham-fisted, Charlotte figuring out Jack was her abductor simply from the feel of his hand on her shoulder — and being so certain of it that she immediately had him arrested — struck me as a bit… convenient. I mean, I’m all for Charlotte growing a brain and finally learning the truth about a lot of stuff. But couldn’t we do it in a way that makes sense?

But I am cautiously interested in seeing how that all plays out. I assume Jack will be taking the blame to protect Ems? (Either than or they’ll pin it all posthumously on Aiden, I guess.)

5. And finally: Emily smacking Victoria with the shovel! Was so super good for me, I can’t even–! Actually, everything involving Emily and violence was pretty amazing in this episode. Dear Revenge: more scenes of Ems hotly and competently beating the crap out of people, please and thanks.

Just like last week, the scheme relied heavily on contrivance and Charlotte inadvertently setting a parent up for a fall. And just like last week, I am totally okay with it when the results are as soapily delicious as that last shot of Victoria shrieking her head off in a mental institution.

(Although… won’t one of her kids be informed about her situation pretty quickly? And wouldn’t Daniel, at least, believe her if she told him everything?)

The only quibble I have is with any of this is the set up. That interview linked above talks a lot about how Victoria and Emily have both taken away each other’s great loves. And my feelings about Aiden aside, we’ve at least spent enough time with him and Emily to understand their history and his importance to her.

But Pascal spent most of this season as a vague off-screen name-drop. Until he actually showed up, we had zero indication that Victoria was thinking about him at all, much less that he was the great lost love of her life. A few lines of exposition about 20 year old history and a five second engagement do not a compelling love story make. (My feelings about Patrick aside, if he’d been the one to die, then I could at least have gotten behind Victoria’s reaction. And then bonus! We’d also be permanently rid of Patrick!)

Anyway, it’s been fun, Revenge. Thanks for another really uneven year. And thanks for finally killing Aiden. I mean that from the bottom of my cold-blooded heart.