Everybody’s Got Mommy & Daddy Issues on TV (Part II): ABC’s Revenge

In continuing with the theme of the last blog, I couldn’t help but think of ABC’s Revenge when trying to catalog contemporary television shows that could be classified as working through mommy/daddy issues.  This primetime soap is centered on the premise of “father worship” as it’s the story of a daughter who spends the majority of her young adult years trying to avenge the wrongful persecution and death of a father she believes could do no wrong.  As discussed in a previous essay, the Machiavellian-like narrative (with loose post-9/11 themes) concerns a rich and powerful family, the Graysons, who run in powerful political and corporate circles, and, occasionally, consort with illegal underground organizations that rule over both.  The main character, Emily Thorne, a.k.a. Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp), arrives in the Hamptons to position herself among the elite, and this family, in the hopes of avenging her father’s death.  Her father, David Clarke, had been the lover of the matriarch of the main family – Victoria Grayson – and ultimately the unwitting fall guy for a terrorist attack against an American flight. 

            

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the show in the first two seasons, suspension of disbelief became slightly harder to muster up as the incredulous plotlines proliferated throughout the duration of Emily’s revenge plans in later seasons.  However, there have always been enticing plots.  Emily’s epic battles against Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) have always been high quality drama and her co-conspiring banter with her bff, Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann), has been excellent comic relief.   The “will they, won’t they” romantic subplot between her and her childhood best friend, Jack Porter (Nick Weschler) has always provided tender, sorrowful moments.  And Emily’s relationship with Daniel Grayson (Joshua Bowman), the spoiled rich son of the power family, at various points was fascinating as it was often hard to tell (at least in the beginning) where her real feelings for Daniel ended and the where her manipulative plans to enter his family began.  When the show actually found her marrying the son after a faked pregnancy, in the efforts to carry out an elaborate scheme in which she would frame his mother for her murder, I was sitting at the edge of my seat.  And when that plot ended with Daniel learning (most of) the truth about her and shooting her in a drunken rage, sending her almost to the real iteration of the death she was trying to stage, I was impressed with the melodramatic arch of this show.  And when that plot twist ended in the Emily’s inability to have children, I almost teared up along with the main character who had already lost all her other family because of the cruel Graysons.  And, not many episodes later, when the show found her finally ready to move on and to abandon revenge to embrace the happiness she had found with her once fiancé, Aiden, only to find him strangled to death in her beach house (compliments of Victoria), I again found myself wanting to weep along with the main character.   I think Revenge has given viewers the most tortured character on television since, perhaps, 24’s Jack Bauer.

            

But beneath all the far-fetched plots and high-paced action, has always been the story of a distraught daughter.  The show has well utilized flashback episodes of Amanda Clarke as a child living an almost idyllic life with her single father:  scenes of father-daughter play on the beach, heartfelt conversations on their porch swing, talks of the forever-nature of their love (one symbolically recorded in various spots in the form of a double infinity mark:  on their porch rail, on the wooden box that houses all the secret proof that would launch Emily’s revenge plans, and eventually on her own wrist as a tattoo that would serve to remind her of her oath to avenge her father’s wrongs).   VanCamp has played the wounded daughter well.  And this year she got to play this role in a new way year when the show gave viewers a new twist to this damaged daughter storyline, bringing David Clarke back from the dead.

At this point, I must admit, I almost stopped watching the show.  Sure, I was anxious for the reunion of this father-daughter duo, but since his unfathomable return also accompanied his illogical reunion with Victoria Grayson, I found my patience with the program growing thin.  And although I let episodes sit for a weeks on my DVR, I eventually returned to the show and was glad that I did.  It was heartbreaking to see that David’s return from the dead wouldn’t bring about the end of Emily’s troubles or quests for revenge or her seeming-battle-to-the-death with Victoria.  (By the way, if read with some creativity, Victoria – who arguably exists as an evil stepmother type figure for Emily – and Emily’s relationship could be seen as a variation on the Electra complex).

            

The mid-season finale of the show again highlighted its dedication to playing out father issues but – in this case – not just Emily’s.  A good amount of the episode was devoted to Daniel Grayson who had recently learned that he was to be a father to the child Margaux, his former girlfriend, was carrying.  When Margaux first informs him that she wants him to have nothing to do with the baby because of his recent infidelity and past unethical behavior which paralleled that of his father’s, Daniel was sent down memory lane remembering the times that he had tried unsuccessfully to break free of his father’s corrupting influence.  The episode is framed with a voiceover of Daniel reading a letter he wrote to his father around just this very theme and for a few minutes it appears that Daniel is so distraught that he may commit suicide.  However, then Margaux calls and asks him to come home, declaring that she and the baby need him.  For a brief moment, it appears Daniel could get his happily ever after away from his father’s legacy.  But, sadly, he was not the product of just one horrible parent, but two. [Spoiler Alert]

            

The remainder of the episode had been devoted to drama unfolding from yet another of Victoria’s plots to destroy Emily.  Victoria had put an assassin, Kate, posing as an FBI agent, on the scent of Emily which culminated in a violent fight at Emily’s mansion – one that sent Emily falling through a balcony rail onto the marble foyer floor one story below.  Daniel, who had been contemplating his life history on the beach just feet away, heard the commotion and headed into Emily’s house to investigate.  When he sees Emily on the floor he moves toward her.  Emily immediately tells Daniel to run, but he doesn’t, and he is met with two bullets to the chest from Kate’s gun before Jack enters the scene to her down.  (Not unimportantly, the shots from these exchanges can be heard one house over where Victoria, who put these events in action, is sipping wine with David). 

As Emily tries to comfort the dying Daniel, telling him that he’ll be alright, he smiles feebly and quips that she is lying to him until the very end.  In a reprise of a conversation from just a few episodes prior – when Daniel had asked Emily if any part of their relationship and her feelings for him were real – Emily leans over Daniel with tears in her eyes and tells him that “it wasn’t all pretend,” referring to their relationship, to which he responds, “I know,” just before he dies. 

While children do not usually bear the scars of their parents’ actions in quite so dramatic a fashion as they do on Revenge, this primetime soap provides viewers with a deliciously sad and hyperbolic example of the ways that sons and daughters do get caught up living lives that are plagued by the issues they inherit from their mothers and fathers.  And while a lot of the subplots cause me to roll my eyes, I look forward to the return of this show in a few weeks… and I especially can’t wait to see the scene in which Victoria realizes that her own actions led to her son’s death.

            

Everybody’s Got Mommy & Daddy Issues on TV (Part I): Blacklist’s Narrative Tease(s)

It’s a shame that Freud isn’t around to watch contemporary television because the narratives we spin for the small screen are swimming in tropes from psychoanalytic theory, such as father worship/murder/rescue.  If it’s true that we’re all awash in our own individual mommy-and-daddy issues, then television shows today are providing us with mirrors (hyperbolically) reflecting the various ways in which our childhood baggage and parental role models are affecting us.  What’s sometimes more interesting than the somewhat clichéd depiction of the wounded daughter or son, are the more nuanced depictions we now receive of the parents who are supposedly responsible for inflicting the (seemingly pre-requisite, plot-and-characterization-dependent) damage upon their children.  Case in point:  Blacklist’s Raymond Reddington (James Spader).

Spader’s portrayal of “Red” on NBC’s (rare) hit show is perhaps one of richest characters on television right now.  He joins the recent ranks of other complicated anti-heroes (e.g. Dexter) as a mix of both villain and hero – a man of strong conviction and an idiosyncratic sense of wrong and right who trespasses across all illegal territory and easily enacts violent crimes.  He is the shining star of this well done drama.  

His stellar acting aside, the show has other strengths worth noting.  The premise itself is nothing spectacular but it is executed well.  Blacklist is a crime-drama focused on a black ops division of the FBI that takes down high profile international criminals through the information provided by Red, a former government agent who spent the past decades as a high-profile criminal.  In some ways the program is quite episodic in that each episode, like most crime-dramas, is devoted to the backstory and capture of one particular criminal.  However the filmic aspects of the show and the fast-paced narrative help build suspense.  Not, however, as much suspense as the underlying personal storylines that linger beneath the program’s weekly focus on crime.

Blacklist succeeds because it provides quite a few narrative teases, almost all which center around Red’s character.  The most central concerns the relationship between Red and the other main character, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).  The pilot episode finds Red surrendering himself to the FBI, insisting that he will only talk to a newly hired rookie FBI profiler:  Keen.  From the get-go audiences (as well as the other characters on screen) ask why, and this becomes the driving question of the show:  what is the real connection between the two characters? 

The show purposely leads viewers to believe that Red is Keen’s father, providing evidence that points toward that conclusion and then undermining it by a firm denial from Red (a well-versed liar) himself or other seemingly contradictory plot twists.  We see numerous connections between Red and Keen’s past, dialogue and visual clues on the screen that point toward their potential familial relations, and – most of all – the unmistakable father/daughter bond that these two characters cultivate.  Despite betraying each other on multiple occasions – and despite their statuses and experiences on different sides of the law – viewers see both of them sacrificing their own goals time and time again for each other.  Viewers also see Keen so desperately wanting Red to be her father (even if she doesn’t say so directly, or even admit it to herself). 

 

During this current season, the show cleverly provided a bit of misdirection concerning this plotline.  While some episodes further developed this narrative tease (e.g. introducing Red’s ex-wife and implying she could be Keen’s biological mother), the mid-season episodes purposefully caused viewers to temporarily abandon such hypothetical musings.  Various episodes focused on Red’s hunt for a girl viewers eventually presume is his actual daughter.  Then additional episodes focused on their growing relationship as Red met with this young woman under false pretenses to win her trust as she talked about her criminal father who she hadn’t seen in years.  But, of course, the girl turns out to be the long-lost daughter of another criminal and immediately the possibility of Red’s potential status as Keen’s father is resurrected.  It’s certainly a fun little tease… although I’m not sure how long it can last.

Thankfully the show provides us with others as well.  We still know little about the backstory of the man who posed as Keen’s husband for years (although we recently learnt that he has some connection to Red).  And we know very little about the covert, high power, international leadership group that Red supposedly holds power over.  And, perhaps most intriguing of all, we still know very little about Red’s own backstory – what caused him to turn from a legitimate government agent into a criminal, what caused him to lose his family.  (With its focus on the behind-the-scenes government tactics and power struggles, the show also joins the ranks of others in providing some subtle post-9/11 political commentary.)

While Red’s charisma, eccentricities, and wry, sophisticated humor draw me in to most episodes, it’s the moments when his façade drops away that stay with me the most.  In fact, it is the scenes in which both he and Keen are the most emotionally raw and vulnerable that haunt me long after the credits roll.

There are a lot of weepy main characters on television today and as armchair psychiatrists watching at home most of us could psychoanalyze them and easily blame their parents for some of their emotional hang-ups.  These characters, by themselves, are not often all that interesting.  Keen’s character doesn’t necessarily fall into this grouping although she falls into the “damaged daughter” category well enough.  But despite avoiding the stereotypical characterizations that can come with this label, like many female government-agent/police type characters, Keen is also not a fully developed character as of yet.  What makes her interesting, quite frankly, is Red’s interest in her, in the potential backstory he provides for her.  I hope that as the show continues to do this “will they, won’t they (be related)” dance, that it doesn’t get old because the onscreen (platonic/familial) chemistry between two characters is terrific and I hope to see it play out for years to come.