WARNING – This is an angry review of a naughty show. Some things cannot be said without foul language.
The revenge plot is one of the oldest and most famed stories in fiction. The Count of Monte Cristo, written in 1844, is considered a great work of western literature, and is one of the most pure examples of the revenge fantasy, which has had perhaps countless imitators over the years. Of course, one could cite the Euripides play Medea, first performed in 431BCE, as being the true antecedent of the genre, depicting as it does how the former princess of Colchis took her revenge on the unfaithful husband who abandoned her, with the gods on her side even as she goes through many a terrible movement in ruining Jason.
But despite that legendary pedigree, the revenge story is also one of the easiest sorts of tales to get wrong. It is easy, perilously easy, for revenge stories to degenerate utterly into morasses of edge and skewed priorities that, rather than entertaining, leave a body baffled and often a bit upset.
Read More…Read More…