‘Revenge’ Cast & Creator Hint at Very Different Original Ending

On Sunday, Televerse hosted a 15-year reunion for the TV show Revenge, which ran on ABC from 2011 to 2015.

The series, created by Mike Kelley, told the tale of Emily Thorne (a.k.a. Amanda Clarke), played by Emily VanCamp, a woman who returned to the Hamptons to seek revenge on Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) and Conrad Grayson (Henry Czerny), who had framed Amanda’s father, David (James Tupper), for committing terrorist acts but were, of course, the true criminals. For four seasons, Emily stayed two steps ahead of Victoria and other foes, hoping to make them pay for destroying her father.

Kelley, along with cast members VanCamp, Czerny, Ashley Madekwe (Ashley Davenport), Gabriel Mann (Nolan Ross), Connor Paolo (Declan Porter), Nick Wechsler (Jack Porter), Josh Bowman (Daniel Grayson), and Season 3 addition Karine Vanasse (Margaux LeMarchal), took part in the Televerse panel, walking down memory lane and examining the highlights of the cult hit series.

In the program’s finale, Emily and Victoria, along with a back from the dead David, were locked in combat. David prevented his daughter from killing Victoria by shooting her himself, ending her life. Emily didn’t emerge unscathed, however. She needed a heart transplant, and in a nightmare sequence, which may or may not have been true, Emily received Victoria’s heart.

VanCamp was asked if Emily had found forgiveness from the people who had wronged her dad.

“No. Not really,” VanCamp thoughtfully replied. “Victoria had to die. That was where it had to head. Too much had happened.  [There was] forgiveness in many ways. [Emily] got what she wanted in the end, but she had already lost so, so much throughout her journey. That’s my perspective on the ending.”

“Well, I had a different ending,” Kelly told the Televerse/Revenge panel attendees.

Despite chants of “Tell us! Tell us!” Kelley said that his version of how the program would have concluded would go to his grave with him because “I want to honor your guys’ work in the show.”

Pressed to share some details, Kelley referred back to the Confucius quote (from 504 B.C.) that opened the series, which said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Months after Victoria died, David, who was dying from cancer, followed her to that great soap in the sky. So, in that sense, the “two graves” part of the Confucius quote was fulfilled.

Did Kelley, however, intend for Emily to be in the other grave, alongside Victoria? He wouldn’t go that far but he did address his feelings towards Amanda.

“I will also say that as I was going through the journey of writing the show and getting to know all of these characters in a deeper way, I just got very protective over Amanda Clarke,” Kelley says, “and I liked the idea of revenge and the collateral damage that it caused. How much are you willing to allow to happen in service of justice and revenge [which] are different things?

“So, I feel like at the end of Season 2, frankly, with [Emily] stepping in to stop [Jack] and to reveal her identity at the critical moment…if that helps you guys understand where I was maybe heading with this, in my mind, for the ending of the show…then, that’s as close as I’ll get to telling you,” Kelley said.

“I struggled with the ending,” shared VanCamp. “There were a lot of conversations that I was having with our showrunner, who came in to replace Mike. To me, Mike was the voice of the show. Still, he had this incredible team of writers, but it felt like the vision [he had for the series] had changed. So, the ending had changed.”

“I felt very protective of the ending,” Emily/Amanda’s portrayer adds. “So, there were some battles. I had my own perspective [about the finale]. At a certain point you kind of have to just go into the thing [and finish it]. Do I think that [Emily/Amanda and Jack] should have ended up together? I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Colleen Hayes / ©ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Revenge may not have concluded the way that Kelley had envisioned, but the Season 2 finale, in which Emily revealed herself as Amanda to keep Jack from killing Conrad, hit the right note as far as the show’s creator was concerned.

“It was interesting because the whole show was Jack Porter pulling [Emily] back to Amanda Clarke, and Daniel, in many ways, kept pulling her into Emily Thorne,” Kelley offers. “We got to this moment where Jack has lost everything meaningful to him and he’s about to commit murder, to avenge out of revenge and a sense of justice.”

“Emily realizes in this moment that if she doesn’t stop him, if she doesn’t get in the way, not only is Jack lost forever, but so is Amanda Clarke,” Kelley pointed out. “So, Emily is protecting Amanda in a way that I don’t think was really explicit in the show, but in that moment, it certainly was.”

Kelley spilled the tea that the network (ABC) didn’t want Emily to reveal her true identity to Jack in the finale. “They felt it would ruin the series,” Kelley shared. “I said, ‘No, you’re not doing that.’ They said, ‘Well, you’re not coming back next season so it’s not really up to you.’”

Kelley said that his next call would be to the entertainment press if his vision wasn’t executed. “I have mad respect for ABC,” the Revenge creator hastened to add, “for what they allowed us to do. I think people get scared and they have wrong opinions. It’s a creative business, and we all took a step back.”

The next day, cooler heads prevailed and Kelley’s version was kept. “We talked about the [danger] of losing Emily if she doesn’t stop him,” Kelley said.

Revenge, Complete Series, Streaming Now, Hulu