Revenge Season 4 Episode 19 Review: Long Live Amanda Clarke

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Amanda Clarke made her big debut on Revenge Season 4 Episode 19 with a tear-filled interview detailing the past 20 years of her life and time spent as Emily Thorne.

There might have been some tears for the rest of us as we watched an episode made up almost entirely of flashbacks. Whether those were tears of boredom or fond memories remains to be seen.

Here's a fun fact as we discuss this week's Revenge. Tonight's episode, "Exposure," was originally intended to air as the penultimate episode of the season and next week's episode was originally slated to run tonight. The NEW second-to-last episode was supposed to be next week's installment. 

Basically, what this tells me is that the writers have no idea what it is they're doing with this series and its firm placement on the TV bubble. Is it returning? Did Revenge get canceled? We still don't know. And they have no idea how to craft an ending which can go either way as they await an announcement from the network.

With only four episodes left in Revenge Season 4, and tonight's being so full of flashbacks from previous seasons, I'm...well...I'm confused.

An episode like this one coming so close to what could be the end of an entire series feels as wasted as that episode in Lost Season 6 dedicated solely to telling us about the brothers on the island. Or the one about Richard and his life before Dharma. 

In short, it was a lot of wasted time no matter where this episode was originally supposed to air.

The 20 minutes of new development we got tonight were mostly repetitive and overly whiny. The shining moments were Emanda and David tag-teaming Kingsley, her interview, and her chat with David afterward. 

So Victoria wants to take Emily down and now she has the means to do it. She still blames Emily for Pascal's death but refuses to take responsibility for actually killing Aiden with her bare hands. Emily Thorne came to the Hamptons with her sights set on Victoria because Emily is a mean girl who hated the Graysons for no reason at all!

DONE WITH THAT. All of it. It's all so trite and DONE at this point. How many times can Victoria tell the same stories with the same words? Are the writers just recycling old script pages?

If this series returns, it needs to do so without Victoria. The best thing would be for her to go to prison for killing Aiden. She doesn't have to die, so that should it miraculously survive to a sixth season, she can return should there be an actual story for her. At this point Victoria the Villain is venturing into "cannot be defeated" territory and that's just bad news.

She has to go down. All villains do. Margaux cannot help rehabilitate Victoria's image. It doesn't need to be rehabbed. The woman needs to ride off into the sunset or reunite with the living children she still has and just...be a mom. Be something other than this person she is. 

Either evolve the character or cut her. Those are the only two options for Victoria Grayson at this point. 

And stop jerking Margaux around. We're all getting whiplash from watching her. 

The most disappointing new scenes tonight had to be Nolan crying and thinking that Emily only needed him because he was the hacker who could help her. Come on, Nolan. I know your fake wife just dumped you and all, but 1) you asked for that and 2) you're being nuts. 

Sure, she was mad that he'd kept files which could undo all they'd done together, but did he really expect her NOT to be upset upon finding out said information? Seriously? She was mad and had every right to be. It's still laughable that there wasn't a password and three layers of encryption on that computer, but hey, the girl gets to be mad, okay?

(But for real, no password on the laptop that holds proof of criminal activity like impersonating a Federal agent? REALLY?)

At least Jack was there to talk some sense into Nolan, I guess. I'm also super glad Jack didn't run after Amanda after the interview. By the way, it's really, really hard to start calling her Amanda, so bear with me, okay?

The final scene between David and Amanda was one of the best of the night, but there's this ominous sense of foreboding about their happiness. They're a little TOO happy, and happy doesn't last in the Hamptons.

Especially not with mysterious figures lurking on terribly green-screened beaches circling Amanda Clarke's face with a Red Sharpie.

What did you think of "Exposure"? How did you feel about all the flashbacks? Who circled Amanda's face at the end? Sound off in the comments below and remember to watch Revenge online!

Exposure Review

Editor Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
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User Rating:

Rating: 4.3 / 5.0 (36 Votes)

Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.

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Revenge Season 4 Episode 19 Quotes

Amanda Clarke is chaos theory and I cannot let this continue.

Victoria

Emily: Emily Thorne no longer exists.
Nolan: It's the end of an era.