Revenge: Is There Any Hope for Emily and Jack? Emily VanCamp and Nick Wechsler Weigh In

by Meg Masters

Revenge‘s wholesome Jack Porter took an enormous leap of faith in last Wednesday’s episode by professing his love to the alluring Emily Thorne. Of course, unbeknownst to him, said Hamptons “It” girl is actually his childhood sweetheart Amanda Clarke, and yet that stil ldoesn’t stop her from rejecting his advances.

So, what’s next for the star-crossed twosome? Is there any hope for a romantic reunion down the road?

“Look, Jack came right out and made a play for Emily, and she shot him down,” the character’s portrayer, Nick Wechsler, tells TVLine. “It was pretty heartbreaking for him, and so moving forward he is going to take a huge step back from her… It’s just a sore subject.”

Leading lady Emily VanCamp adds that while the “undeniable connection” between the two “is completely valid,” don’t expect an actual relationship to develop anytime soon. “It was so hard for Emily to shut him down because there’s such a deep love there, but she’s decided to take it to the next level with Daniel (Josh Bowman), and you’ll soon realize just how committed she is to that relationship.”

Ah, yes, Daniel. The guy who was supposed to be Emily’s fake love interest, only now things have taken a turn for the serious. “She’s going to struggle with her feelings for Daniel because it really is terrible that she’s using him, but it soon becomes more than that.

“And then there’s always Jack,” she adds, playfully, “so she’s just in a tough position. Really.”

Still, there are some memorable Jack/Emily moments in episodes to come. Wechsler says that the vengeance-seeking gal will soon come by his bar, The Stowaway, to “give Jack a gift — a mariner’s compass which she found in her attic — and while it’s really sweet, it just messes with him again.” (Translation: the aforementioned moments aren’t necessarily good ones.)

“[But] I bet something will happen between these two in this first season,” continues the actor with a laugh. “There has to be something. But the smart play [for the writers] is probably not to give too much Emily/Jack romance just yet.”

by Stephanie Webber  at TVology.com

Revenge is by far the best guilty pleasure of the season. Never has a show been so addicting and viewer’s so thrilled when it received a full season pick up recently. So many new acting faces, so many picture perfect characters that are soon seemingly broken down in the dire riches that is the Hampton’s. When a sweet enough looking Emily Thorne comes to town to seek some revenge, you just don’t know who will be the target, what the past may bring and who’s manipulating who.

The writing is brilliant and Emily’s childhood crush and now bar owner is a guilty pleasure all on his own. Nick Wechsler, who portrays Jack Porter in the series, was happy enough to talk to Ology about the hit series and shared some spoilers about tonight’s episode.

OLOGY: First off, have to ask. How was it finding out about the full season pick up?

NICK WECHSLER: It was huge. I got texts like crazy from all of them just gushing. It was great. They were all so sweet. They were saying, ‘Hey do you want to come with us on set to celebrate with everyone?’ So yeah. I was unfortunately busy at the time but it was a lot of excitement. I think they brought champagne to set and apparently it was electric on set.

It was so exciting to hear there would be more. Now as of more recently, the character Nolan Ross played by Gabriel Mann seems to mention about you and your past with Amanda a lot to ‘Emily.’ How would you describe that dynamic? What are his possible motives?

I can’t give you anything, not because I can’t give you spoilers but because I don’t know. [Laughs] Somebody said once that his relationship with Emily is almost brotherly and it’s like he’s always picking on his younger sister. Her dad took him under his wing and helped him out when he was struggling. He was like a father to him and he was a father to her of course. So they’re kind of bonded. It makes sense. There’s a brother sister type of relationship. Everyone perpetually is annoyed by him. You’re kind of a friend of his reluctantly, it’s by circumstance he becomes a friend. He obviously obligates me to him with the ‘If you’re my friend I’l give you this thing [boat] back.’

I think he’s–it’s hard to say. The way he’s playing it and the way he’s directed to play it, is very ambiguous. Its hard to know if he’s manipulating us or if his intentions are good. We don’t know what he’s doing. I’ll say this-he’s been really nice to me. We have a moment in an upcoming episode where I’m kind of sh*tty to him and I end up apologizing. He makes a nice gesture and offers to leave me alone and I’m the a**hole. But he tends to manipulate the situation so I stay friends with him and I don’t know if it’s genuine or if its all part of some scheme. If he’s pulling some strings or something.

I don’t know what hand he’s going to have in this whole thing. How involved in what happened at the beginning of this show is he? How involved in the scene my character drags this body out of the surf. How involved in that was he? He seemed to know what was going on back when he was at the Fire and Ice party in the pilot. [Laughs] So I don’t know if he really is just nice or filled with manipulation.

What will it be like now that Daniel Grayson may be coming to work for Jack at the bar?

We don’t spend that much time–I don’t think I’m blowing a huge thing, but he doesn’t work there for very long. Which in some ways might be a missed opportunity but maybe not, maybe not. I think it actually makes room for something better. It only being brief makes a new more dramatic, more complicated situation. So I think the thing that it left room for is more effective. But there’s apart of me that says I wish they had known that before and never wasted time hiring Daniel, making people think something dramatic is going to happen. [Laughs] Because it doesn’t really go anywhere.

What do you think about tonight’s episode Intrigue?

My favorite script was Intrigue. This one has a lot of major stuff for every character. There’s something significant for every character except for Ashton unfortunately. Perhaps the most significant moment for my character so far. It happens in this episode and I say that because my involvement is largely that person she knows from the past and one she has feelings for. In this episode we get to address that a little more directly than we have been.

I’m so happy that Jack finally takes the leap and this triangle really begins. How does it affect Emily?

It’s my characters involvement in this whole thing, the love interest in the past. He’s someone she can’t get too close to because that threatens her whole revenge plan. Not only would it expose it, I imagine it would be hard to love me knowing who she was because she’s back for revenge. So she probably–if she just fell for me–it would just ruin her, ruin her plan. So this next episode is that significant moment that will finally address that there’s feelings going on and more direct then ever. It was just a fun scene because she’s [Emily VanCamp?] just f*cking good. The scene was well written and I for once didn’t hate what I did.

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Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC. 

It may be tough to discuss the series while trying not to reveal too many spoilers but there’s so much more to come! 

Check back to Ology for more Nick Wechsler talk about his Revenge cast, spoilers and what he does off set when he’s not taking on the Jack Porter character.

“Revenge” is this television season’s biggest surprise. The drama about a woman systematically destroying the lives of the people who framed her father for a crime he did not commit has turned out to be one of the most engrossing, entertaining shows on television. The show’s one truly moral character is barkeep and sailor Jack, who finds himself inexplicably drawn to Emily (Emily VanCamp), not realizing that she is really his childhood crush Amanda. Nick Wechsler, who plays the working class hero, reveals why tonight’s episode, “Intrigue” is a game-changer for almost every character, why Jack does not have the same accent as his brother Declan (Connor Paolo) and offers a possible explanation for Sammy The Dog’s surprising longevity.

The previews hint that this week Jack could be a threat to Emily. Why?
Basically, it could change his dynamic with Emily. There are many reasons he threatens her, threatens to blow her cover, threatens to reveal her whole revenge plot because he is this guy from her past she has feelings for. This is a significant episode for that kind of stuff. That’s all I’ll say about it… Episode six is one of my favorites, if not my favorite because it had so much significant character stuff for everyone except for Ashley. It gave everyone something meaty. It’s hard to write something significant for all of them [the characters] in the same episode. But in this episode, everyone gets some attention and it’s juicy stuff. There’s some cool s–t with Daniel (Joshua Bowman) and Tyler (Ashton Holmes).

Catch Up On Last Week’s Episode Of “Revenge”:

Is Tyler in love with Daniel?
It’s hard to say what his motivations are because it’s, Does he have feelings for his old college friend? So far, in this world they’ve created, everyone but Emily and the Porters, is obsessed with status and wealth so is he pursuing that and it’s all manipulation. We don’t know yet.

Does Jack on some unconscious level recognize that Emily is Amanda?
I don’t think so. I think if he knew on a subconscious level, he would know. I don’t think there’s a way you could have a huge crush on someone, think, There’s something about this girl and I can’t put my finger on it, and then somewhere in the back of your mind be like, Maybe she’s that girl I named my boat after. But maybe not – and not put those things together. I think he has to just not know. I think he confuses the sensation of being really drawn to her because of who she is to him, because of the familiarity and because of their past, with thinking, She’s just a really attractive girl who I have chemistry with.

In the last episode, Daniel took a job as a bartender at Jack’s bar. How will Jack being Daniel’s boss change the dynamic of the Jack/Emily/Daniel triangle?
The idea, I think, for having him get hired there is to ratchet up the tension as far as this love triangle’s concerned. I think ultimately it ends up not being utilized much, which is kind of disappointing because you want to make things more tense for them. Having him around makes me [Jack] really uncomfortable. I can’t wait for him to f— up so I can fire him and get rid of him. [Joshua Bowman] had this theory in an interview that maybe he takes this job to be close to Emily. I like the idea that he’s doing it to stay close to Emily, too, and to keep an eye on her. But the cool thing about it is that being his boss is such a rare moment of me having power over one of the elite. I get to manipulate the situation a little bit and it leaves me some room to pursue her a little more.

Nolan and Jack have one of the most entertaining relationships on the show. Where is their reluctant bromance headed?
It’s a generally hard one to answer because he is so ambiguous. You never know with Nolan (Gabriel Mann)  if he’s manipulating the situation or if he’s trying to get close to me to [screw] with Emily or to manipulate her into letting him get involved in their relationship. Their relationship is sort of brother-sister and he’s always pushing her buttons. It’s like she’s playing ball and he wants to join and she won’t let him. So he’s like, You have to let me play or I’ll tell Mom. So it’s hard to tell if I’m a pawn to him or if he genuinely wants me to hang out with him for the summer – if he genuinely wants me to be his friend. I like the idea that he has genuine affection for her dad because he took him under his wing and nurtured his career, but it’s really hard to know where this is all going.

One of my friends swears he read that “Revenge” is a one season show. Does he need to take a reading comprehension class?
I don’t want to tell your friend that he’s really stupid, but what everyone has to keep in mind when they express this concern that we’re going to run out of ideas and it’s going to get tired because Emily can’t get revenge all the time, you’ve got to keep in mind that we’re not idiots. We’re not going to take a person down every single episode. She’d run out of red ink. The other thing he needs to keep in mind is there’s very little mystery about where a story of revenge ends up. The mystery is how we get there. Any story about revenge is ultimately a story about forgiveness, redemption, or the futility of revenge. So we are likely heading there. It’s how we get there that we can get seasons out of. You start a show about revenge with a girl taking down a baddie every episode. Then I think you start easing into character stuff, their relationships and how that complicates revenge plots. There’s plenty of stuff that can take over and not be all revenge all the time.

How is Sammy the dog so seemingly young and energetic after all these years?
Some people have been theorizing that he’s a ghost dog. He should be long dead. Is he taking a helicopter from Montauk to the Hamptons? Because that’s 40 miles or so. The episode where he runs away [to Emily], that’s unlikely. And he does it twice.

Is there ever going to be an episode where Jack asks Declan about his strange accent?
I’m going to defend Connor by saying I screwed him over. I would argue I was screwed over first, but he’s just better at it than I am. I can’t do the accent very well. So I have for the most part abandoned it because I find it distracting and I feel like an audience doesn’t give a [damn] if you say someone is from somewhere but don’t really have them do much of an accent. If I have a certain attitude and do certain things right you can get away with it easier than you can doing an accent and doing it badly. That will ruin the suspension of disbelief for everyone whereas not doing an accent will only ruin the suspension of disbelief for people from Montauk. He’s from New York and I think he relishes the  challenge of seeming like he’s from this different part of New York.  He’s just being a good, hard working actor and I am terrible at accents. So unfortunately I make him look bad. We got these accents kind of sprung on us at the last second like, “Oh, yeah, you’re from Montauk and we want you to do accents, so here’s three days notice and two YouTube videos.” I couldn’t get it down in time. I really am ashamed of my accent in the pilot.