Got caught up in Revenge all day yesterday.
The show's plot is as old as time: a young woman returns to a town to avenge all the wrongs done to her and her family. She's not who she claims to be, but then again, so is everyone--they all have secrets that can lead to their downfall.
What I love about the show knows their story has been done before, and yet it keeps you glued to the edge of your seat until 1AM on a rainy night. But most of all, the show winks at you--like that camera secretly wedged in between the books, situated right above Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, a book that I loved and devoured as a kid along with all the Brontes and Dickens.
We are astounded and shake our heads now that people can't seem to recognize people they know from way back. Something horrible happens, people disappear for years and then years later, a stranger comes to town fabulously wealthy and well-coiffed and no one recognizes them until it's too late.
A revenge plot is a revenge plot. Soap opera on television uses that. Thalia straightened her curly, barrio-lass hair and the innocent Marimar becomes the cunning Bella. And everyone tells her, "Hey, you remind me of someone I once knew." Even television that claims to have the scope and literariness of the novel, i.e. Mad Men, uses that secret identity/switched identities plot. It was good for literature then, it was good for television now. Hell, even Jose Rizal couldn't help himself. Seriously, did no one tell Crisostomo Ibarra/Simoun, "We knew it was you all along. Now can you please shave that terrible goatee."