Season Two of Once Upon a Time and Revenge

Tonight on ABC you can see the return of two long anticipated series where the female character is hoping to learn more about her past.  In Once Upon a Time, the citizens of Storybrooke are starting to remember their previous lives, which is bound to cause problems.  Henry's fairytale book, the slow recovery of everyone's memory, and the backhanded actions of the town's mayor have kept up at the edge of our seat long enough.  Now it is all out in the open and the consequences, both positive and negative, will keep us all engaged in the new season.

In the case of Revenge, Emily Thorne was knocked off balance at the end of season one when she learned that her mother was still alive.  It appears the Hamptons-based twists and turns of season one to avenge the wrongful death of her father are nowhere near an end, and we are all the more lucky because we get another season.  Of course, it is not for everyone.  For example, one Slate review recently called the show "ludicrous":

ABC’s Revenge, which returns Sunday night, is an enigma. It is not particularly well-written or plotted. The actors gather themselves up with a solemnity befitting the Royal Shakespeare Company, then spend it on lines like “Trust is the one luxury I cannot afford.” It is also the kind of show that divides character names into two groups: the vaguely aristocratic (Victoria Grayson) and the working-class Irish (Declan Porter). It’s the kind of show that cautions the exceedingly wealthy to think twice before stepping onto an airplane, or into an empty Manhattan loft: You never know where someone might have left an errant bomb or hitman. But don’t worry too much: Death has a malleable, impermanent quality in this context; the Reaper, like the accountant, is a connoisseur of loopholes. Revenge is a show, in short, where the aesthetic credo is: Make it ludicrous.

These points may be true, but everyone is entitled to an occasional guilty pleasure.  Enjoy.