Revenge Boss Reveals Plans to 'Solidify' Victoria as a Villain and Clarify The Initiative's Big Plan
This Sunday marks the return of ABC’s Revenge (at 9/8c) — and the beginning of a return to form for erstwhile Big Bad Victoria Grayson.
“My big goal [for the rest of] this season is to reset the revenge element between Emily and Victoria, and to really solidify Victoria as our villain once again,” creator Mike Kelley shares with TVLine. “She’s quite gray in a lot of ways this year. She’s evolving, which is good, but when her back is truly against a wall, she’s capable of some pretty terrible things.”
PHOTOS | Revenge‘s Emily Cozies Up to Aiden and Daniel – and What’s Going On at The Stowaway?
And terrible things we’ll see throughout this latest batch of episodes, which find “Emily and Victoria forced to work together for their own purposes — even [as they are] keeping secrets from one another,” Kelley previews. Ultimately, he adds: “Everything we’re [currently] doing between the two of them is leading toward greater conflict in order to reset and refuel the series for some time to come.”
Also receiving a slight tweak in the second half of Revenge‘s sophomore run is the increasingly twisty — and at times convoluted — Initiative plot. Kelley is firm in his belief that there “needs to be a heavy, dark force” on Revenge — which this evil corporation (?) no doubt is — yet concedes that “the show was never meant to be about a grand conspiracy in Alias or Homeland terms. It’s a smaller story about a girl out for vengeance to get the people who killed her father. What she really needs is the identities of those people and she’s going do anything she can to get them; that’s what her goal is here.”
RELATED | Revenge Sneak Peek: Ashley Returns by [Spoiler]‘s Side, Daniel Takes on Dylan Walsh
Which means that the focus of the show will now be to “make sure that [The Initiative] is not as nebulous; that we understand, specifically, what they’re doing as it unfolds, as well as how it involves Nolan, Padma, Aiden, Daniel and everybody… It will tie everyone together.
“The show only works when it all leads back to Emily,” Kelley affirms. “The more successful outings where The Initiative is concerned aren’t when we’re podding other characters off in their own Initiative story. Rather, it’s when Emily’s involved and we know exactly what’s at stake, what the crimes are and what we’re doing.”
Still, Kelley enthuses, “Everybody just needs to hold tight a bit for a little clarity on The Initiative… All in all, I feel like once this season is taken in as a whole and everything is understood — meaning you know what you’re watching and what you’ve watched — it’s going to feel as satisfying, if not more so, than the last.”
Related stories
Private Practice Videos: Cooper & Co. Play the (Baby) Name Game, Violet's 'Beautiful' Flirtation
Revenge Recap: In Vino Veritas
Revenge Boss Previews a 'Powerful' Tragedy, Emily/Aiden At Odds and Amanda's 'Darker' Path
Get more from TVLine.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter