Vengeance Shall Be Mine

My latest TV obsession is Revenge, a delightful little series just nearing the end of its first season.  As I am a big fan of revenge in general and revenge-plot stories, I had to give this a try when it hit my radar, and I was not disappointed.  It's a tale uniquely suited to our times, thoroughly enjoyable if a little over-plotted at times.

The premise: when the main character, "Emily Thorne", was a little girl her father was betrayed and ruined by his friends and business associates in the Hamptons jet set, framed for treason and money laundering.  Decades later, Emily has returned to her old beach house in the Hamptons under an assumed name and identity.  While working her way into the lives and affections of those who were closes to her father, she proceeds to destroy the lives of those responsible for the conspiracy one by one.

The series does its best, from the very first scene, to establish the theme that revenge is evil bad and wrong, that it destroys innocent lives and makes you into a terrible person, that we should forgive those who trespass against us instead of nursing grudges.  I can't help but feel, however, that it ends up subverting this theme more effectively than even most straight-played revenge fantasies.  For one thing, however much the writers strain to bring bad karma down on Emily, the fact is that this is entertainment and it works because people find revenge entertaining.  We all love to see people get their just deserts, and seeing Emily's plans come together and the guilty ripped apart in the ways that hurt them the most is an absolute delight.  It's kind of hard to convince people that something that feels so right is wrong, and it's a real tribute to our civilization that we ever managed it at all.

Second, it comes clearer and clearer that the fallout, emotional damage and unintended consequences of Emily's revenge plot have more to do with the elaborate double life she is forced to lead than from the act of revenge in and of itself.  "Amanda Clarke doesn't exist anymore." she says, speaking of her former life.  In attempting to evade not just her victims' radar but the social strictures we live under that prevent the pursuit of more direct and straightforward vengeance, she has made herself into an empty cipher.  Her gracious and friendly outward persona is like a velvet glove over an iron fist; the sharpness and hardness comes out during her dealings the few others who are in on the plan, but that is itself another layer of deception - self-deception, this time, as she believes she must leave all human empathy behind and dedicate her entire being to her revenge.  Obviously this is unhealthy and invites catastrophe.

But perhaps most importantly, it is made clear again and again that in the world of the 1%, where the justice of the state is bought and sold on a daily basis, revenge is the only way to restore the balance if your rights are violated.  It seems like almost every character has some sort of vendetta they're pursuing, for the most part, outside of the rule of law; and even when the law is involved, it's subverted and danced around as open enemies collude in pursuit of mutual advantages.  In contrast stand a few members of the 99%, salt-of-the-Earth types caught up unwilling and unwitting in the schemes of the untouchable elite.  Emily Thorne is able to pursue her vengeance only because of a bequest from her father which puts her on the same level as those she is stalking.  The clear implication is that not only are the rich above the law, but that there is simply no justice to be had when they abuse the common people, beyond the sharp and simple justice of the gun and be damned to the consequences.  The good folks at ABC may want to be careful what messages they're sending; for all their attempts at preachy morality, their viewers might just end up taking the real moral of the story to heart.