*Revenge* 2 + Pasta

While making Saturday night's pasta and waiting for el V to get back from the studio I watched the last eps of Revenge.

It got more than a little Buffyesque by the last third. We even have a gay computer genius like Willow was, but Nolan's a he, and a billionaire proprietor of a social networking site or something like that. In any case, Nolan's great at any digital application you need performed, from finding the dirt on someone, keeping up hidden surveillance, changing data -- whatever you need he can do. And a billionaire so he can buy whatever or lose whatever and never notice. Several times over. Like Emily-Amanda and everybody else in the show are multi-billionaires, except the poor Stowaway Bar owner. Team Jack -- who ain't got jack, hahaha! -- and his brother, Declan.

We feel the Good Slayer Buffy / Bad Slayer Faith kind of thing with Emily, who is really Amanda, and Amanda, who is really Emily, though this switched identity thing going on is not supernatural. (There's the dead on arrival last season too of Ringer,* with SMGellar playing two sisters, one supposedly good and one supposedly not, both equally comatose as far as the audience was concerned.). 

By the last episode of Revenge's first season we learn there is a whole new level of Conspiracy Badness, which is called ... get this ... the ... INITIATIVE! The final episode had some serious ass kicking between a really Bad Guy and Emily Who Is Really Amanda. I wonder if SMG's fight double did this one too -- the fighting style looked fairly Buffyesque, and, of course, blonde.

So now that the EviLe Witch Queen Victoria is dead dingdong, we have a whole new group of Bads to go after, who were part of killing the Good Dad of Emily Who Is Amanda, and who seem to have Emily Who Is Amanda's mother prisoner. O, and the Bad Dad Grayson, who isn't the dad of Emily Who Is Amanda's half sister Charleotte is still living. And his son, Team Daniel, seems to becoming his Bad Dad -- though his mother, Witch Queen Victoria is dead. But wait! his half-sister, who is also half sister of Emily Who Is Amanda has started down the road to being her Mom who is a total Bad Witch-Bitch, who repented before she got blown to smithereens. This is a soap opera, totally. A Gothic soap opera, no less.

Because it's about the House(s).  Gothic = girl + house, and at least some bad weather.

The location is these two mansions in the Hamptons, plus the Stowaway Bar. And the beach. Except for the Graysons, none of these multiple billionaires has a single servant in their immaculate castles. You never see Emily Who Is Amanda shopping, exercising, getting buffed, mani-ed and pedi-ed or doing any of the things you know billionaire socialites do -- except talk on the phone. That's pretty much what these people do is talk on the phone, even -- particularly! -- at the constant round of parties. They are trapped in these houses. People either don't want to leave like the Mistress Lydia,  are always going to leave like Team Jack, but like the Hotel California (or, you know, these are EviLe billionaires shafting us all, more like Roach Hotel)  they never ever manage to leave. Even if they leave, like Amanda Who Is Emily, she always comes back (and pregnant -- did we mention the third or was fourth time Amanda Who Is Emily returned, she was preggers, with supposedly the baby of Team Jack who hasn't got jack. The same Team Jack that Emily Who Is Amanda is really in love with, her childhood friend.

And thus, Voila! Season 2. Which premieres at the end of this month.

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*Ringer is now available for instant watching on netflix.