Reviews

I just started watching Revenge on Hulu, and am very much into it. But have to agree with Danny's review on some of the more ludicrous and unbelievable plot contrivances. That being said, let's suspend our disbelief, and just go along with it for the sake of entertainment. Even then, however, I think we can agree that character development is important for the coherence and plausibility of the plot. Someone please explain to me, then, why the real Emily, i.e. the stripper who just killed Frank, has to say "Za shchastiye!" (To Happiness!) in Russian every time she raises a glass to toast someone? Sure, the actress who plays her, Margarita Levieva, is Russian, but how the hell would her character, who is supposed to be some run-of-the-mill, all-American, trailer-trash-juvie-stripper chick with a 100% Anglo name like "Emily Thorne" know how to say "cheers!" to anyone in a foreign language? Did she learn that in juvie? Come on. What is this? Some kind of cute gimmick the actress thought up herself? "Oooohhh, I know! Let me say 'cheers' in Russian every time I drink, that would be awesome! Cause, you know, I'm, like, Russian and all." Seriously? That's great and all, but for the purposes of this show? Not. Making. Any. Sense, people. Consistency, please.

At first I thought: oh come on, give me a break... The wandering, dreamy-eyed young teacher, the pouting, rap-music-blasting village Lolita sucking oranges, the white panties on the clothes-line, could you be any more clichéd? But then the story grew on me, with its many parallels to the Greek myths, so much so that I think I'll go back to the source and reread the original material. Some of the sea and water images reminded me of "Sex and Lucia" which I still prefer. Also, in the R-Rated version I rented from Blockbuster, the sex scenes must have been cut. Nothing spectacular, by far. So Bigas Luna likes breasts, but then again, we knew that already. ***1/2