Breaking down the pilot of REVENGE

Previous Pilot Breakdowns:
Veronica Mars
Alias
The Office
Homicide: Life on the Street
Everwood

Continuing our Pilot breakdowns, here's REVENGE, created by Mike Kelley. Original tweet thread is here.

I picked REVENGE because it's a good blend of a procedural within a serialized uber-arc. There's a pattern to every episode - Emily takes down a different person who wronged her father each week - but within a larger advancing story. As someone who rebels against that every new series needs to be "more of a 13 hour movie, really" I like a show that can tell a longer story and make its episodes feel like individual chapters. Also easier to get an audience jumping in if they miss the first few eps.

I also recently wrote a pilot that I'm loglining as "REVENGE meets 13 REASONS WHY so this feels like an easy and relevant breakdown for me to do.

The pilot starts with a trick we all hate, but we've all used. A scene set some time in the future with a dramatic climax, then a flashback so the series will now show us how we'll get here. To be honest, the first time I saw this, I felt like it was a weird start.

A gunshot on the beach. A body falls. In the distance, a Labor Day party in the Hamptons. Victoria Grayson's holding her "Fire and Ice Party" to celebrate her son Daniel's engagement to Emily Thorne. We meet Emily, establish its her party. Daniel's walking on the beach. NOLAN walks up to her: "You shouldn't be here." she says. "That makes two of us," he retorts.

We also see Victoria's daughter Charlotte, who gets her bf Declan out ont the beach. Jack is hiding right near the body, right where the two teens strip and hit the water. Emily dials a number, Jack's cell rings, alerts D & C, and when they investigate they find the body. (They REALLY want us to think it's Daniel who's dead.)

Meanwhile, Victoria is giving a very dramatic speech about how she approves of Emily. It's clear she doesn't like her much, and Emily's acting makes us think it's mutual. C's screams from the beach draw her mother who assumes the body is Daniel... and we flash 5 months back. Honestly, I think this is the kind of intro you do when you're foregrounding the mystery, but nearly ever character gets a better reintroduction later when we meet them in the past.

Demonstrating my point, Emily's buying a beachhouse. Flashback to her childhood shows us she lived her with her father. There's also a double-infinity symbol carved into the post. We see it had meaning for her and her father. This house also is within sight of Grayson Manor. Even without the flashforward, we can get from that scene that Emily's up to something, Grayson Manor is her target, and it relates to her father.

Re-introduce Victoria, checking out Emily's arrival from a distance while her husband Conrad takes care of work. Charlotte comes in and is busted by her parents for sneaking out. Dad tries to defend that "She got straight As" Victoria: "No one's accusing her of being stupid."

Now we meet the blue collar Porter boys, Jack, who's Emily's age and Declan, teenager. Ultra-rich Nolan offers to buy Jack's boat "Amanda." Jack doesn't want to sell, doesn't like Nolan much. Again, it's a lot of people to set up so you do what you can to get their POVs fast.

Case in point, we now see Victoria presiding over a meeting of all the Hamptons wives, prepping the Memorial Day party and charity auction. Exposit that her friend Lydia is going through a divorce. She owns the house that Emily's renting.

That was about 13 minutes to establish everyone. And with the execption of the opening, most of those scenes work as character beats more than plot beats. With an ensemble like this, you need to get us into the characters first - THEN set up their schemes.

Backstory time: Emily is watching old news footage of her father being convinced of funneling money to terrorists to took down a plane and killed 246 Americans. We also learn that her father worked for the Graysons. Flashback to the FBI raid of their house. Young Emily... who is called Amanda here... screams.

One person who testified against her father: Lydia. And Amanda has taken photos of Lydia having a tryst with Conrad, V's husband. Guess what, that's our ACT OUT! So we know what Emily's avenging, and we know who she's after.

Hotel room - Mid sexcapade with Lydia, Conrad has a heart attack.

Jack and Declan are working at their father's bar. A guy from the bank comes. We know that's usually not good. Charlotte and her friends come in, trying to buy drinks while underage. Declan busts them, so she offers her phone number.

Outside the hotel, Conrad is taken to an ambulance. Lydia looks concerned, and in a sneaky move, Emily runs up, "My god, is this your husband?" She offers to help. Great way to put Lydia on edge without being suspucious.

Emily sees Jack playing with his dog. Flashback reveals Jack and Emily/Amanda were friends as kids. She even recognizes the dog, Sammy. (How OLD is that dog?) Present-Jack is clearly taken with Emily, and doesn't seem to realize she's Amanda. Gotta build out the relationships

Victoria meets Conrad at the hospital. the Dr. mentions Conrad should stay away from the "spicy bisque" at the South Fork Inn. V's no idiot. She clocks why he was at the inn. Tells him "Don't do it again." ACT OUT.

I like the dynamic we see there.

ACT UP. Memorial Day party - Emily's friend and V's party planner guides Emily through the party, dropping exposition. Important stuff, Nolan's richer than all of them put together, and Daniel is a party boy who paralyzed a girl in a car crash last summer. If you're writing one of these shows, you end up writing a LOT of party scenes, so get used to juggling action here. That means giving people a lot of conflicting agendas and cross purposes. Find the conflict. Here's it's that Lydia is dodging Victoria, trying not to be exposed.

Emily is introduced to Victoria. E also says hi to Lydia, manages to say "We met yesterday at the South Fork Inn. I hope your husband's feeling better." Madeline Stowe does a FANTASTIC job of playing every emotion you expect as she processes that. And she does it silently.

That's another writing lesson. Way better than a "you fucked my husband" blow-up AND it builds tension. We KNOW Victoria isn't gonna let this slide and she seems like the type to make Lydia stew, terrified of how she'll get even.

Meanwhile, Emily "accidentally" spills a drink on Daniel to manufacture a meet-cute meeting. I should also mention that Emily VanCamp is good at playing every scene like a cat that's toying with a mouse. Really sharp at switching to dead eyes then putting the mask back on.

Victoria kicks off the art auction, saying Lydia won the art auction for her Van Gogh. That painting was a gift from Lydia. Message sent. She also announces Lydia will be selling, not renting her home. Another message sent. Stowe has a sweet/evil delivery on "I hope the Van Gogh is a constant reminder of the friendship we shared." Emily locks eyes on her with this. Daniel comes by to offer a drink, and we ACT OUT.

So Victoria is fully established as the Queen Bitch of the Hamptons, and we've seen Emily as the ruthless avenger eager to make her pay. First time I saw this I was like, "I can't wait to watch these two play chess against each other."

Conrad later tells Victoria she was cruel. Victoria says he could have had anyone, and he chose her best friend. he says he proved himself years ago. Victoria says, not without tears that she helped him destroy a man. Conrad says she did it to save herself.

Nolan/Jack subplot. Jack needs money for his father's bar, decides to sell to Nolan. Nolan goes through his pics from the party and clearly recognizes Emily.

Nolan is waitng for Emily when she comes home. "Welcome home Amanda." She manhandles him like someone trained in combat. He offers to help. She says, "You're not a part of this." He says he saw firsthand what these people did to her father. When she declines, he says "I can be just as powerful an enemy as any one of them." That was the line where I knew I liked Nolan.

Another flashback: teenage Amanda released from juvie, ten years after her father's arrest. Nolan is there to meet her, bringing the news that her dad died six years ago. he's got a box for her. Amanda thinks her father was a murderer and a liar. Nolan says he wasn't. The box has many journals and a lockbox for an account in Zurich. David invested in Nolan's company and Amanda is a 49% owner of it now. (Remember what I said about his wealth?) The journals tell the whole story of how David was framed.

David's VO says he wanted her to know the whole story and that she needs to forgive. Instead, she uses it as a roadmap for revenge. There's a picture she has of a company picnic. She makes a red X over Lydia's face.

"This is not a story about forgiveness." Emily's there to takedown EVERYONE who framed her father, especially the woman he loved who betrayed him. END PILOT with the two women staring across the beach at each other, Victoria in her house, calling someone to look into Emily Thorne.

Okay, that was harder than I expected because I forgot how plot heavy things get in there, but let's recap the important pipe that was laid:

Emily has come back to the Hamptons under an assumed identity. She's incredibly wealthy and the only person who knows the truth about her and her father is Nolan. She's there for payback and has a ton of info that can be used to destroy everyone complicit.

Victoria is the ultimate target, but she's also the queen of the Hamptons and incredibly formidable. She's not an oblvious dupe, nor is she a one-dimensional villain. This is important. Emily is cunning, almost Batman-like, and V is equally ruthless. If you're setting up an ongoing chess game between hero and villain, I don't want the villain to be some vapid dupe waiting for her turn. It also helps if she's got SOME humanity. That scene where we see regret about what they did to David is critical for this.

So what else? Well, Emily still seems to have feelings for Jack, her friend back when they were both 10 or so. Jack DEFINITELY is still somehow carrying a torch for her. Here's the angsty triangle: she loves Jack, but her mission requires wooing Daniel. Also, there's built-in conflict about how he'll react when he inevitably finds out "Amanda" has been back and lying to him the whole time. (The show later has a great story about someone assuming "Amanda's" identity coming back and falling for Jack)

Nolan is the bridge between this romance and the revenge uberplot. For whatever reason, he wants to befriend Jack. (he's Team Jemily for sure). As a tech genius, Nolan also fits the hacker every show needs. BUT I like he's not overtly geeky like every crime scene lab tech.

So we have:
Conflict: (E v V)
Romance: (J/E, E/D)
Secret Identity tension
Procedural element (weekly takedown)
Uber plot (All takedowns lead to V)
Opluant setting: Hamptons

Oh, and lets go over the mysteries the flash-forward gives us:

Who is the body on the beach?

Why is Jack near the body? Did he shoot the person?

Why are Emily and Nolan showing signs of tension?

How did Declan and Charlotte become an item? (okay, maybe we care less about that.)

If Daniel ISN'T dead, where is he?

(Like I said, I personally don't think you NEED that flash-forward. The rest of the pilot does a good job of laying all the pipe and putting balls in the air. But if you can raise questions your audience cares about, go for it.)

And I can't BELIEVE I forgot to mention this but REVENGE is a modern (very loose) adaptation of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. You can imagine "a modern TCoMC in the Hamptons" would work as a high-concept pitch. Also, public domain, folks.

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 12: Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?
Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on


How about some more business oriented questions? In this segment, Liz explains what it means for a writer to have an "overall deal" with a network.  If you read the trades, you may have seen that term crop up a lot.

The other interesting apsect of Liz's answer is the way she explains how a show can evolve beyond its original conception as other members of the writing staff contribute their voices and imprint their perspective onto the show's voice.

Further, Liz explains the difference between writing on Once Upon a Time and writing on Revenge, and how working on both shows forced her to come at stories in a way unlike her usual process.



Part 13 - The Bitter Questions

Revenge - when it's okay to show us the climax first

Major spoilers for last night's Revenge in this entry, so if it's still on your DVR, you're going to want to skip this.

Figures.

Just one week after I run a rerun post about how one should never use the cheap writing device of starting a script with a climax and then flashing back (which I call "Pulling an Abrams"), I'm in the position of praising an episode of Revenge that did just that.  Actually, the entire season did that, as the pilot episode opened with a sequence featuring the events of last night's episode before flashing back 12 weeks to show how the plot arrived at that point.

I have to confess, that was one of the few elements of the pilot that didn't work for me when I saw it the first time.  I found the first few minutes a little jarring and disorienting, but the rest of the pilot was strong enough that I found it easy to ignore that one quirk.  In that opening, we were led to believe that Daniel Grayson was shot dead on the beach as the party celebrating his engagement to Emily Thorne was in full force nearby.  Meanwhile, Jack Porter attempted to hide the body, but was unsuccessful before Daniel's sister spotted the hooded figure dragging what she presumed to be her brother.

A good number of viewers guessed early on that Daniel's death was a fakeout, especially since we never saw the corpse's face.  When the conniving Tyler arrived a few episodes later, it didn't take long for fans to theorize that he would be the one who died on the beach.

Later still, when the real "Emily Thorne" - now posing as Amanda Clarke - arrived in the Hamptons and seduced Jack, a good many fans theorized that Jack's role in hiding the body happens because Amanda was the shooter and he was trying to protect her.  (Though under this theory, it was probably more likely that Daniel would be the one to end up dead, as Amanda seemed to have more motivation to kill Daniel as a way of hurting Emily.)  Amanda had already been shown to kill one person with little provocation and she stirred up trouble for Emily from the beginning.

Last night we finally caught up to the timeframe shown in the opening of the pilot.  In fact, the episode opened by "pulling an Abrams again" by showing Daniel clearly falling face down in the sand, followed by an unseen figure discharging their gun.  With that, the episode flashed back 24 hours and built up to the engagement party.  By episode's end, we'd find there was more to the reveal.

Amanda, attempting to stop Tyler, ended up on the beach around the time of the murder.  Jack followed her there and arrived in time to see her kneeling over the dead body.  Assuming Amanda did this, Jack tries to hide the body.  But as we learn when the crowd is summoned... it's not Daniel's body - it's Tyler!  Daniel arrives as the crowd gathers on the shore, presumably having been knocked out by the real killer... though he has Tyler's blood on his body... hmmm.

I admit that's a lot of explaining on my part just to make a simple point.  Why did "pulling an Abrams" work here?  Because what we thought we were shown wasn't what actually played out.  Better still, even those who were convinced that Tyler was the dead man had to have been shocked with how it all played out.  The misdirection at the start of the episode showing Daniel's body falling to the ground was an effective way to provoke doubt.

I don't see that kind of cleverness in 99% of the scripts I read with this gimmick.  Too often, flashing ahead to a climactic moment is used as a cheap gimmick to get an intense scene in early on as the hook.  It usually is a sign the writer doesn't have faith in their ability to drawn the audience into the story linearly, so they have to resort to the trick of saying "I promise there's cool stuff down the line if you just sit back and bear it."  Then when that moment comes, there's rarely much of a twist. 

I have to give Revenge some credit - they did the flash-forward trick twice and when the reveal eventually arrived, few people could have guessed it ahead of time.  Moreover, along the way, there were other reveals that could have been anticipated, reveals that raise the stakes going into the last stretch of the season.  (These include Tyler telling Daniel there's more to Emily than he knows, Emily's revenge sensi picking up Amanda, and Amanda learning that Emily may have tried to help get her and Jack back together.)

I still think opening your script with a scene from your climax is a cheap trick.  But if you must do it, please be smart about it. Don't show us what you're going to do and then do it.  Show us enough to make us think we know where the script is going- then pull the rug out from under us.  There always has to be more to the climactic moment than what you reveal in the flashforward.

Why is Revenge kicking Ringer's ass? A lesson in tonal consistency

As the new fall season approached, there were few shows I was more eager to see than Ringer and Revenge.  Both promised to be the sort of drama that I usually sink my teeth into - more serious than something like Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives, but more escapist than The Sopranos or The Good Wife.  As an added bonus, each one starred one of my favorite "former girls of the WB."  Revenge was headlined by former Everwood ingenue Emily VanCamp, while Ringer was the comeback vehicle for onetime Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Interestingly, both series featured the lead characters passing themselves off as someone they were not.  In Revenge, Amanda Clarke returns to the Hamptons for revenge on the people who destroyed her father's life and reputation 17 years earlier.  Having assumed the name "Emily Thorne," Amanda uses her amassed fortune and insanely detailed plans to take down her father's betrayers one-by-one. 

Ringer, on the other hand, as Gellar playing identical twins.  One has married into wealth, while naturally the other one is a stripper on the run from the mob boss she was meant to testify against.  The wealthy twin Siobhan disappears soon after meeting with her sister - a sister none of her friends know about.  Thus, the poor sister, Bridget, decides to take her place, only to find that her sister's seemingly envious life is full of its own tension and drama.

Now that we're about a half-dozen or so episodes into each series, it's clear that Revenge has pulled way ahead of Ringer, not just in the ratings, but in critical buzz and in fan reaction.  Revenge has been one of the better received new shows this year, while Ringer is viewed mostly as a disappointment.  To be fair, Ringer has shown incremental improvement creatively week-to-week, even if it still clearly has a way to go.

But what is Revenge doing right that Ringer is doing wrong?

One thing that strikes me about the two shows is that Revenge employs a greater variance of tone.  I know I've spoken in the past about the value of tonal consistency, lest your script feels disjointed or unbalanced.  Still, there's something to be said for a little variety in tone.  Think of it like how a counter-harmony compliments the lead singer in a song, or how a song's bridge offers some relief from the main verses of the melody.  (And as I know very little about music, that's how far I'll take that analogy.)

Ringer is so tonally consistent that it's almost a mono-tone.  The show seems to be striving for a noir tone, but it takes itself so damn seriously that it sucks any potential fun out of the premise.  As the concept has the potential to be goofy, I can almost understand why the producers would work so hard to ground it.  The problem is that it leaves the actors with only a few notes they can play.  Gellar, Ioan Gruffudd, and Kristopher Polaha have all shown their range on past projects, and there's ample evidence that they've got a gift for comic timing.  Unfortunately, there's no chance for any of them to have any fun with the morose characters and the situations they find themselves in.

Contrast that with Revenge.  Though Emily's mission of vengeance provides the show with its spine, there's been a bit of levity in pretty much every episode.  Gabriel Mann's Nolan character is an effective sidekick for Emily, being the only one who knows who she is.  He's eager to help out, but at least at first, she resents his butting in.  His snide, sarcastic attitude tends to steal nearly every scene he's in and he's often used to puncture the pretension of some of the other characters.

It doesn't stop there.  Both Revenge and Ringer feature storylines focused on teen characters.  In Ringer, the story of Siobhan's step-daughter so far has ended up being an excuse for greater melodrama.  She's been thrown out of her prep school over drug use and has some trouble fitting in at public school.  Tonally, it's no relief from the melodrama of Bridget's life.

In contrast, Revenge treats its two teenage characters - Charlotte (Krista B. Allen) and Declan (Conor Paolo) - as the two innocents in the next of vipers that is the Hamptons.  She's the rich girl and he's the working class guy from the wrong side of the tracks.  While that's hardly a dynamic dripping with originality, the two actors manage to make the budding romance a bit cute and endearing.  It works because it doesn't feel like everything else in the show - and it rarely takes up a disproportionate part of the episode.

The other difference in tone is that Revenge is often all about how Emily gets the upper hand and takes someone down.  There's a vicarious thrill for the audience in seeing someone get what's coming to them.  Ringer never has that release.  Bridget never gets to win - nothing EVER seems to go right for her.  Week after week, the show seems to be an exercise in making Bridget miserable.

From a dramatic standpoint it makes sense to continually challenge your character.  There's that old saw about the way to write good drama is "Act One - get your character stuck up in a tree.  Act Two - Throw rocks at them."  If the rocks seem to be unrelenting, there's the risk that the audience will become numb to the blows.  Apathy is the real enemy of drama.  Revenge makes excellent use of shifts in momentum by letting Emily win, and then throwing her a few setbacks now and then.

Certainly these aren't the only reasons for the gulf in quality between the two shows.  I don't think it's possible to underestimate the importance of tone, though.

Subtext in "Revenge" with Emily VanCamp and Madeline Stowe

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw that Wednesday night I mentioned this scene from ABC's new series Revenge.  This is a perfect example of subtext in dialogue.  Every writer should strive to have subtext, which is the undertone and meaning beneath the dialogue.  It's what the characters aren't saying - but what they mean.  Often a scene with subtext will seem to be about one subject on the surface, but really be conveying a completely different idea or emotion.

Watch the scene and then read below for my explanation of what's going on here.



Okay, the premise of the series is that Emily - played by Emily VanCamp - has returned to the Hamptons fifteen years after her father was betrayed by some of the most powerful people there.  Her father was framed for essentially funding a terrorist act, and everyone who worked at his company testified against him.  Why did they do that you ask?  Because Victoria - played by Madeline Stowe - supposedly masterminded it.

Victoria's the target of Emily's revenge scheme - but before Emily attacks her directly, she aims to destroy everyone around her who was a part of the scheme.  Since "Emily" is actually an identity that Amanda Clarke assumed, Victoria doesn't realize she's having tea with the daughter of the man she destroyed.  However, since "Emily" has taken an interest in her son, she's determined to find out her secrets.

Prior to this scene, Emily had been renting her former childhood home.  In the intervening years, it had passed into the ownership of one of Victoria's close friends.  That woman was Emily's first takedown the week before, which resulted in the house being put on the market.  Emily mentioned to Victoria earlier that she put in an offer - and then later got a call that she was outbid by the tech billionaire/associate who's the only other person who knows who Emily really is.  When Emily confronted him, he revealed that Victoria swooped in and outbid Emily with a cash offer.  Thus, he outbid Victoria with his own offer and then put it in Emily's name.

Victoria doesn't know this at the start of the scene.  She's secure in the belief that she won.  Furthermore, prior to this scene, we saw Emily find out she had the house.  So when she "checks her email" and is excitedly announces her win it's all for Victoria's benefit.  Hence the line, "Thank you so much for tea, Mrs. Grayson.  I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this."

Yeah, I bet you have.  Now with that Cliff Notes set-up of context, do you see the double meaning in many other lines in this scene?

Victoria's subtext is essentially, "You're on my turf, little girl.  Don't think I'm not aware you're hiding something."  Emily's on the other hand is, "Better luck next time, bitch!  I'm gonna enjoy taking you down before you've even realized what's happening."

I should point out that as strong as the writing is, subtext really needs to be in the hands of capable performers who can really sell it.  Here, VanCamp and Stowe play the scene to perfection.  There's just enough awareness of the subtext in their performances without either of them crossing the line and overplaying it.  That's a tricky tightrope to walk.  Lesser actors might have gone slightly broader just to make sure the audience "gets it."  In doing so, it would have compromised the reality that Victoria doesn't realize exactly what Emily's pulling here. 

VanCamp has to sell that she's tossing darts at Victoria without making the attack obvious, and Stowe has to sell that she thinks she's being subtle and that she doesn't notice the additional layer behind Emily's words.  The result is probably my favorite scene of the week, and watching these two actresses spar is like watching two tennis pros in their prime.  If Revenge keeps serving up scenes like this, consider me hooked.

So far Revenge is one of the best new shows this season.  Check it out if you haven't already.