Served Just The Way I Like It

My friend just asked me to tell her why she should watch Revenge this season and she wasn't going to accept "because it's really good" as an answer.  So I thought it over and here's my answer: because it's like Veronica Mars, minus the comedy.  Fine, that may be over-simplifying the situation a bit but it's a legitimate and fair comparison. 

Emily (Emily VanCamp) is a mysterious and rich twenty-something who's out to exact her own brand of justice on the people who ruined her father's life - it's that simple.  Or is it?  It takes some fairly powerful and devious people to orchestrate a frame-up that involves embezzlement and funding terrorists so underestimating her opponents in this story would be a mistake.  But she doesn't seem to be looking for the quick victory here.  She wants them to suffer.  She wants to destroy them, take away everything they have, the way they destroyed her father and took away her childhood.  She's got time. 

While she's busy taking them down, she has a potential ally (or additional foe) in Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) who made several fortunes in "the internet" with the help of her father and remained loyal to him through his incarceration and death.  She also has a childhood sweetheart, Ben (Nick Wechsler), who nurses a crush on the girl he knew as Amanda all these many years later.  Ben has a little brother, Declan (Connor Paolo), who owes the douchebag jar a substantial amount after only one episode.  Declan and Ben's father owns a local bar that's about to be foreclosed, adding a layer of towny drama to the proceedings that is moderately disconnected from the revenge scheme but will surely get interesting if Ben recognizes Emily as Amanda. 

The real fireworks though are sure to come from any showdowns between Emily and Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) who is one scary bitch.  I for one can't wait to see what happens next.