Revenged: The Complete Second Season is now available on DVD and Netflix. The DVD includes all 22 episodes in a five disc set.
Revenge is the perfect example of a show that would have worked better in an anthology format. The first season started off with a literal bang. It was fun watching Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) take down the people who helped frame her father and ruin her life. The problem is somewhere along episode nine when took out the Grayson’s minions the show seemed to stop forward progression. We got mired in cliche’d soap opera territory where things just got progressively worse ending with a plane full of FBI Agents and Victoria Grayson being blown to bits.
Season Two starts off with the aftermath of this bombing and I’m sorry but the season never recovers. Of course we know Victoria isn’t dead but how do you get away with not only blowing up a plane in this post 9/11 world, but also a plane full of FBI Agents and the investigation lasts only a few episodes? The FBI didn’t even seem to care. The Grayson’s just framed some guy and everyone was like, “Ok, we’re satisfied, case close.” It was too easily resolved. For the rest of the season I kept thinking “How can one family be involved in TWO airplanes blowing up and not have the FBI watch their every move?” This season Emily got a new love interest in the form of fellow Aiden Matthis (Barry Sloane), Nolan (Gabriel Mann) got some loving and poor Jack married fake Amanda (Margarita Levieva) in one of the weirdest wedding nights in quite awhile.
This season had a lot of twists and turns that never amounted to much and Emily got nuttered. She rarely got revenge on anyone and the few times she did it wasn’t because of cunning and it was on people that didn’t deserve it (like her foster Brother). The show just lurched and meandered from one silly circle jerk plot twist to the next. The final episode really upset me as it made zero sense and felt like it was written by people who didn’t watch the entire 2nd season and made me feel like I wasted a year of my life on this. However the closing scene with Jack and Emily gives me a sliver of hope that maybe this season will be better.
Presentation/Video/Audio
Not much to say about the Presentation and Video. This show is clearly shot with HD in mind, so it is odd that it isn’t available on Blu-ray. One of the reasons this show works is it is brilliantly filmed with vibrant colors, great costumes, set design and the beautiful Hamptons in the background. This all looks a bit muted in SD. Subtitles in – English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and there is nice English Dolby 5.1 mix.
Extras
The extras are spread out over all five discs, with a bulk of the bonuses being on the fifth disc. Extras include several featurettes, episode specific commentary tracks and deleted scenes.
- Disc 1 – Nine Deleted Scenes
- Disc 2 – Audio commentary on Illusion with Executive Producers Sunil Nayar, Melissa Loy and Writer/Co-Executive Producer Michael Foley. Three Deleted Scenes
- Disc 3 – Audio Commentary on Sacrifice with Executive Producer/Writer Mark B. Perry, Writer/Exec Story Editor Joe Fazzlo and actors Nick Wechsler and Margarita Levieva. 9 Deleted Scenes
- Disc 4 – Five Deleted scenes
- Disc 5 – Audio Commentary on Truth, Part Two with Creator/Executive Producer/Writer Mike Kelley and Emily VanCamp
Other Extras
- Schooled in Revenge – 3 Minute trailer for the Book Schooled in Revenge. Featuring a new character named Ava Winters who gets training from Takeda in the art of Revenge. I really think this is what the show should have been. An anthology series about people getting revenge.
- The Sound of Revenge – A 14 minute feature on Composer iSler’s score used in Revenge. Kind of weird because I don’t think of Revenge as having a memorable score or soundtrack but I’m always interested in watching composers at work.
- Haute Hamptons: Dressing Miss Davenport – An 8 minute look at the fashion and style of Ashley Davenport’s style. A nice little feature but seems odd that it would focus on Ashley and not one of the primary characters like Emily or Victoria. 10 Deleted scenes.
- Sneak Peeks
Conclusion
A high concept show like this HAS to have a clear beginning, middle and end unfortunately it has become an overstuffed, muddled mess. By the end of the season, they somehow managed to literally turn Emily from someone you didn’t want to cross to becoming a whiny you know what. ABC’s crazy scheduling of this show hasn’t helped it either. The cast still manages to make this show enjoyable and I hold out hope that it’ll return to the formula that made it successful to begin with- that is Emily taking down the Grayson family one by one and then we get a final confrontation between Emily, Jack and the Graysons. I’m more than ready to bail, but will probably give it one more chance if there’s no progress in the first few episodes, I’m done. This is a solid TV on DVD release and fans of the shouldn’t be disappointed.
Grades
- Show – C
- Video Quality – B-
- Audio – B
- Extras – B
Final Grade – B-