Revenge Review: Know When to Hold 'Em
Miranda Wicker
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Tonight's Revenge review absolutely must begin with all the snaps to the costuming department on this show. ALL OF THEM.
Emily's dress on Revenge Season 3 Episode 17, or dresses, I should say, as well as Victoria's? If I weren't watching Revenge for the soap-y drama and silly love triangles, the fashion each week would be enough to keep me interested.
But I am watching for the soap-y drama and silly love triangles and tonight's installment definitely brought its A-game in that department.
In order to get closer to Pascal in hopes of learning more about the mysterious letter she found in Stevie's files, Emily throws a Monte Carlo Casino Night to lure him into her grasp. She needs to see if she can trust him before digging deeper about "TWM" but realizes that he's more loyal to Victoria than she originally thought when she discovers a camera recording in his suite.
Pascal LeMarchal is going after Victoria with everything in his arsenal, the culmination of which is telling her that he intends to get closer to Emily to suss out what it is Emily wants with Victoria and why she's still in the Hamptons.
A lesser woman would've folded at merely the accent and swagger oozing out of the French businessman. But not Queen V. Oh, no. Not Victoria.
Having already had her trust shattered by him once, she's not keen on the idea of going there again with Pascal, no matter how diligently he pursues her. That is, at least not until he hands over the deed to her house. A deed which he procured from a pretending to be drunk Conrad Grayson who swindled his ex-wife out of it by guilt-tripping her about her illegitimate son.
For a split second during Conrad's conversation with Stevie, I almost felt sad for Conrad. He almost made it seem like he really had loved her and been sad to lose her once upon a time. Then I remembered that A) he cheated on her and B) this is Conrad and he has no feelings at all except hatred for Victoria and love of money and promptly stopped feeling badly for the man.
I spent the next scene willing Stevie not to turn to the bottle to calm her nerves after the encounter. I'm glad she didn't go there, and that Jack saw how she almost did, but I hate that the writing is on the wall for her to exit Jack and Carl's life by way of booze. Again.
At this point it's like Jack is in this show just to lose the people who come into his life.
First Fauxmanda, now probably his mother, and maybe Margaux, too, if Daniel has his way. Seriously. Poor Jack!
And I wish someone would punch Daniel Grayson in his smug face.
He's nearly as good at manipulating people as his mother and father are, which I suppose is all we should expect from the sole fruit of that union. Seeing the way he pulled Jack into his conversation with Margaux, and used Charlotte to do it, after telling Charlotte he'd keep Jack out of things, really, truly made me hate him even more than I thought possible.
If Conrad and Victoria are vindictive it's because they're working their world like a giant game of Chess. Daniel Grayson has the air of a whiny, bratty tantrum being thrown wafting around every scheme he cooks up.
While tonight's machinations did net them Voulez again, Daniel used his contact more to oust Conrad than to free the magazine of Pascal. Pascal has been funding the operation! If he goes, knowing that the magazine is bleeding money, how can the two of them expect to make it a successful venture?
(Why am I thinking so thoroughly about the potential success of a fictional magazine?)
An Emily-shaped wedge has been driven between Jack and Margaux by Daniel, and at the casino night, Jack begins hammering away and driving the Daniel-shaped wedge further between them.
He doesn't trust Daniel, and for good reason. Margaux doesn't even know Emily as anything more than an acquaintance and doesn't trust her probably just because she's a woman.
Ugh. Can the impending doom of this relationship be even more trite and telegraphed? Please, writers, prove me wrong! I want you to prove me wrong and make me eat these words I'm writing!
Aiden's return makes it seem as if perhaps Jack and Margaux will work out after all and Aiden and Emily will eventually rekindle their old romance, however Aiden says he's not here for Emily. He's here because the mysterious "TWM" in Pascal's handwriting is his father:
Trevor Warren Mathis.
Dun dun dunnnn....the plot thickens! Again!
What did you think of Revenge season 3 episode 17? How many times did you want to punch Daniel tonight? Which lady's dress was better?
Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.
