Pilot Inspektor: "Revenge"/"Free Agents" UPDATE

Keep a tight perimeter, everybody.

It's time once again for "Entertainment on Jeff's Terms" and my ongoing journey through the new additions to your television schedule during the 2011-2012 season.

After a disappointing Monday, yesterday's viewing of FOX's wonderful new Tuesday night comedy New Girl was a breath of fresh, DVR season pass-worthy air. Now, we move forward to Wednesday and our first stop at Disney-owned ABC this season.

Loosely inspired by one of my all-time favorite books, Alexandre Dumas' classic The Count of Monte Cristo, it's the new ABC Wednesday night drama Revenge. Is it a sweet one? Let's find out together.

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THE GIST OF IT

(So, remember Ringer? Remember how complicated it was?--Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet.)

It's Labor Day Weekend in the Hamptons. All the socialites, captains of industry and their respective families have gathered at Grayson Manor to celebrate the engagement of heiress Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp of Everwood and most recently ABC's Brothers and Sisters) and the Hamptons' favorite son Daniel Grayson (Joshua Bowman)...who is currently face-down on a nearby beach, presumably dead from the two bullets that have just been fired into his back. As a figure in a hooded sweatshirt drags the body away from the surf, two amorous partygoers appear on the beach to steal a few moments of intimacy. At the party, Grayson family matriarch Victoria (Madeleine Stowe, best known as the female lead in The Last of the Mohicans) aggressively questions Emily as to Daniel's whereabouts...which is just about when one of the aforementioned amorous partygoers, Daniel's sister Charlotte (Christa B. Allen; notable for having played a young Jennifer Garner in both 13 Going on 30 and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) rushes in screaming. Victoria stares accusatory daggers at Emily as we cut to...

FIVE MONTHS EARLIER...

Emily Thorne surveys her new beachside rental home. The realtor rambles on about how the house's owners recently divorced as Emily notes something carved into the rails of the front porch: a double-infinity symbol. She flashes back to her childhood, when she was still Amanda, daughter of honest well-to-do widower businessman David Clarke (James Tupper); the double-infinity symbol an expression of their love for one another. At eight-years-old, Amanda witnessed her father being violently accosted by federal agents, having been accused of a conspiracy that somehow (I have to pause and mention that I still don't understand this entirely) led to the crash of a commercial airliner that killed over 100 passengers. For the next ten years, Amanda spent her days in a juvenile detention center, convinced her father was guilty of these crimes. Upon her eighteenth birthday, Amanda was emancipated and released to the outside where one of her father's apparently closest friends Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann, who will always just be Alan M to me) waits with a transfer of all her father's earnings and a box containing his personal effects. He informs her that her father passed away in prison six months prior, and that he wasn't as guilty as she's been led to believe. We return to Emily (Amanda) and the realtor, who close the deal on the beach house as Grayson Manor, the home of her father's prime accusers looms in the distance.

Over the next few days, Emily gets acquainted with the various residents of the Hamptons including the owner of her beach house Lydia Davis (model-turned-actress Amber Valletta) who it is quickly discovered is having a long-running affair with Grayson family patriarch Conrad (Henry Czerny). She also happens upon Jack Porter (former Roswell star Nick Weschler), a childhood friend of Amanda's, now a bartender and owner of a boat bearing Emily's true name. (He may or may not recognize her. It's not entirely clear.)

...and believe it or not...I'm going to leave it at that. I don't want to spoil anymore of this for a couple of reasons: (1) it's seriously WAY complicated, and (2) see "IN ESSENCE, MY FRIENDS..." below.

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MOVING FORWARD (WHILE TRYING TO AVOID SPOILERS)

Over the next few weeks, we'll find Emily taking vengeful measures against a Wall Street hedge-fund manager and the district attorney who convicted her father, and yet more delicious downfalls for the Grayson family, all while we move ever-closer to figuring out how we got to that fateful Labor Day Weekend and the presumable demise of Daniel.

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IN ESSENCE, MY FRIENDS...

...GO WATCH THIS. DO IT RIGHT NOW.

I am so IN, it's not even funny. As I mentioned back in May, I can't think of a better idea in the current economic state than a weekly means to watch the unjustly rich and powerful be taken down a peg.

I'm a big fan of justice and watching people get what they deserve. I discovered this part of me back in April 2004, after a year of being publicly defamed and humiliated by my first ex. Over the course of two weekends, I took in the gleeful violence of The Punisher with Thomas Jane and the Dwayne Johnson-led Walking Tall remake. I took more pleasure in watching all the death and destruction in those two films than I had experienced in a long, long time.

That part of me never left, and in our world where the rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer, and good people keep getting dragged down...honestly, the prospect of what this show has to offer has me positively tingling.

Truth be told, it's probably pretty hard for me to view a show like this with a truly critical eye considering everything I just divulged. Sure, it has some flaws. Madeleine Stowe's performance is so over-the-top at times, it verges on the dramatic equivalent of the great Laurie Metcalf at her most broadly comedic. There are certain details of the backstory that need to be fleshed out (seriously, how did her father's work have anything to do with the plane crash?), but I have faith that we'll get a clearer understanding of such matters in the weeks to come.

Overall though, even as just a pilot, Revenge is such an unbelievably satisfying viewing experience...I can't even describe it. Moreover, I don't think they could have cast a more perfect lead than Emily VanCamp. I remember back in 2002 watching the Everwood pilot solely because of how taken I'd become with her from all the promotional materials. ...Admittedly, I never watched it again, but that's neither here nor there. (I mean...it was Everwood. It never really grabbed me.) In VanCamp, they've found the perfect combination of sweetness and--when necessary--cold calculation. It's like the part was written for her...and hell, for all I know, it was.

Point is...this is going to be a lot of fun. I hope you'll agree.

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THESE ARE BLURBS

A few more nuggets about ABC's Revenge...

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer favorite Marc Blucas was originally cast in the role of Amanda/Emily's father in the flashbacks. He had to back out due to commitments to USA's Necessary Roughness. It's a shame, but to be honest, I think I might have been too busy thinking "...Heh. Riley." to get as invested in those scenes so...perhaps it's all for the best.
• There's part of me that's surprised--for all my undying love of revenge stories--that I'm as accepting of the idea of a 25-year-old being someone of enough wealth--rightfully vengeful heiress or not--to afford a summer home in The Hamptons. A very similar logic issue played a big part in why you'll never see my review of CBS' 2 Broke Girls earlier this week. I've recently developed an adversity to people close to my age being overly successful (or too cynical to appreciate what moderate success they DO have). ...I'll leave this blurb before I go on a rant.
• Upon seeing the hooded figure on the beach, someone yells "Hey! 8 Mile!". Is that really STILL our main point of reference for people wearing hoodies?
• Emily VanCamp makes me swoon just as much--if not more--with jet-black emo hair as she does with her usual golden locks. Just something I noticed...although I've never been locked into any particular parameters (hair, body type, eye color, etc.) when it comes to the women who intrigue me. I'm an equal-opportunity swooner.
• This show has the distinction of beating both the season premieres of CSI: AND Law & Order: SVU in the ratings, so I'm pretty confident we've got a long run of delicious vengeance to come. I'm smiling big (and making this my third DVR season pass of the season, for the record), aren't you?
• REVENGE AIRS WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT 10pm EST ON ABC!

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SECOND EPISODE UPDATE: FREE AGENTS

Time once again for another second-episode update! Let's take a look at the continuing shenanigans of last week's most-promising new Wednesday night comedy, NBC's Free Agents.

This week, it seems our lead couple Alex and Helen (Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn) have settled into their attempt at a just-friends arrangement, but they still have a ways to go; something made most apparent when Helen is briefly assigned to use her wiles to secure a new contract with one of the firm's most trusted clients. Alex (whose last name is Taylor, which made me smile; I know a wonderful Alex Taylor) is clearly not pleased with this development, but is even less so when Stephen (Anthony Stewart Head) decides to send him with the client instead on a sort of "guys' night out".

Meanwhile at the office, a thankfully VERY toned-down Emma (Natasha Leggero) is attempting to get up the nerve to chat up a handsome investment banker (or somesuch; all these corporate jobs bleed together for me) a few floors up. She seeks Helen's guidance in brightening her usual dour, caustic demeanor and the pair head upstairs to make a go of it. As Helen and security manager Walter (Joe Lo Truglio) look on, Emma gets as far as "hi" before she's criticizing her suitor's taste in music (although, can you blame her?--The Spin Doctors?--It's 2011, dude) and has to be quietly shuffled away.

Out at the bar, Alex and the client have some difficulty finding some female companionship until a pair of barflies take them in. Inevitably, it turns out they're a pair of prostitutes and it's up to Helen and Emma to save Alex and secure the client's business respectively.

Overall, it was an enjoyable-enough second outing for the employees of Hale Dayton (so that's what the agency's called). Leggero's Emma is far more enjoyable when she's not channeling the ghosts of trite TV secretaries past and the lesser prominence of Mo Mandel's Dan and Al Madrigal's Gregg were a VERY welcome change.

As for Alex and Helen's relationship, I dig the fact that the show has skipped the will they?/won't they? and just came to the far more logical arrangement that they know they want to sleep together again, but they're simply making the choice not to for the time being. Their chemistry is still very much intact, but it's not the thing the whole show hinges on, which I appreciate greatly.

All in all, Free Agents hasn't hooked me enough to give it a season pass on my DVR yet, but I'll certainly be back again next week. It's a charming diversion that--if the ratings are any indication--may not be around too much longer, so I might as well enjoy it while I can, and I hope you all do, too.

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...and just like that, Wednesday night closed its awesome doors for the week.

Join me tomorrow for the biggest night of premieres this week, as I take a look at NBC's two new Thursday night offerings (freshman comedy Whitney and British import drama Prime Suspect) and CBS' new Bad Robot/Nolan brothers collaboration Person of Interest. Should be an interesting night of television and a long day of reviewing. I do hope you'll join me.

Until then...she certainly does.