ABC-TV’s Revenge has become the surprise hit of the fall season. Said to be an updated version of The Count of Monte Cristo, this nighttime soap opera has captured our attention and it’s easy to see why. Who these days doesn’t long to seek revenge against an individual (Bernie Madoff), a group (the wealthy), or an organization (Wall Street, Congress, oil companies, fill in the blank)? Things are messed up and how sweet it would be to right all those wrongs by making others suffer. For an hour each week, Revenge allows us to channel our anger, rooting for those who have been hurt at the hands of others.
Revenge is the story of Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp) who, as a little girl, saw her beloved father, David (James Tupper), arrested as a terrorist and blamed for the downing of a plane that killed hundreds of people. Amanda herself is sent to a home for wayward children and later imprisoned as a juvenile offender. Finally released, she learns that her father, now dead, was innocent, and that he left her a fortune. His diaries explain in detail how he was set up. Amanda, now Emily Thorne, returns to the Hamptons to exact revenge on the people who destroyed her father.
The brilliance of Emily’s plan epitomizes that old saying, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” She has had a long time to plot her revenge and she comes to the Hamptons equipped to do battle. She has specific targets, the prime one being Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe), the Queen of the Hamptons. Victoria’s husband, Conrad (Henry Czerny), was the man actually responsible for downing the plane. The two set up Emily’s father to take the fall.
Emily makes her enemies suffer, not by killing them, but by taking away what they value—their reputations, their wealth, and their relationships. While she seeks revenge, she doesn’t seem vengeful, one reason we can root for her to win. Her targets are, of course, the types we love to hate—rich, beautiful, entitled, snobby, self-absorbed, and lacking empathy for anyone. These are the ladies who lunch, organizing events to raise money for charities not to help the less fortunate but to help their public images.
Organizers for Occupy Wall Street should take a page from Emily’s play book. While the protestors seem to be lashing out at anyone and everyone, Emily zeroes in on the individuals responsible for her tragedy. And she knows their weak spots, how to hit them where it will do the most damage.
Her plan isn’t perfect. Emotional demons from her past continue to haunt her and real life demons threaten to expose her true identity. Yet she remains determined and focused and somehow we know that in the end, like the Count, she will triumph and at least one injustice will be reversed.
