Top 5 Reasons It's Ok for Revenge to End
Well, Revenge fans, the red Sharpie has officially run out of ink. ABC has canceled our favorite faux-Hamptons show. The series will conclude on May 10 with “Two Graves,” an ominous-sounding title that calls back to the Confucius quote from the pilot. While we’re bummed that Emily, Nolan, Victoria, Carl and the rest of the crazy cast are going away, we’re also okay with the announcement. Here are our top five reasons it’s okay for Revenge to end.
All the secrets are out. Most of the lingering mysteries and secrets teased by the show have been revealed and exposed by now, and there’s little more the show can do to expand its convoluted backstory. Emily even revealed her true identity to the world. Another season would have to introduce an entirely new story, and we’re not sure the audience would be down for that.
The takedowns are dead. A huge draw of the show in the beginning was watching Emily systematically and coldly ruin the lives of the people around her in the name of her father, all while looking demure and sweet as pie. Emily has taken on a much more adult look in recent years, exchanging beautiful dresses for muted sweaters and pants, and her takedown skills have waned considerably.
Most of the cast has been killed off. The show’s cast has changed a lot in the past two seasons, with newcomers like Margaux, Ben and Louise taking up a good amount of screentime, while fan favorites like Daniel and Conrad have been killed off. While their deaths made for great drama, we just don’t feel the same way about Beat Cop Ben and Margaux Lame-Marchal. Other deaths, such as Declan (admittedly nobody liked him, but he was integral) and Aiden, have had short-term story payoffs but left large holes in the world of the show.
The dead guy Emily was avenging turned out to be alive. Look, we get it. The show needed a really shocking cliffhanger to close out Season 3, and bringing David Clarke back from the dead did the trick. But it also nullified the show’s premise and made Emily’s quest pointless. The fact that David has been written as an insufferable, unhinged caveman has only made things worse. Another season of David’s histrionics would have gotten old fast.
The show never recovered from its sophomore slump. The anemic second season was followed up by a fun but largely silly third season of hijinks that, while fun, still didn’t come close to the early episodes fans loved. The fourth season, meanwhile, has been filled with increasingly hokey plot twists and paper-thin characterization. We doubt a Season 5 would’ve done much to improve the situation.
Are you devastated by Revenge’s cancellation, or are you at peace with the story coming to an end? Let us know in the comments below, or on Facebook and Twitter.
Want more Revenge before it’s all over? Visit DansPapers.com on Mondays to get the scoop from each week’s episode in our Weekly Hamptons Revenge Recap, and read more Revenge Top 5 lists here.