Season three of juicy ABC soap-drama "Revenge" will feature the Hamptons socialites engaged in more streamlined intrigue, as well as a lot more sex.
Many viewers were disappointed by last season, which featured complicated story lines and a divergence from the main issue at hand: revenge. Gabriel Mann, who plays Nolan Ross on the show, told TVLine that the series will be getting "back to basics." Mann stated that the future episodes are "certainly a revisiting of everything people really came to enjoy about the show in season one."
Madeleine Stowe, who plays Victoria Grayson, also commented on the show's changing focus. "It's going to really involve the interpersonal relationships of the characters; that's what the show is intended to be," Stowe said.
Stowe's Victoria will be reuniting with her long-lost son this upcoming season, who, like everyone else on the show, may not be exactly how he appears on the surface. Stowe said that the son, who will be played by Justin Hartley, "is going to be interesting because he appears to be sunny and bright, but this is 'Revenge,' so...."
"I have a feeling that if he comes from Victoria, there is something very warped there!" Stowe exclaimed. Yet, she added that Victoria and her son will have a "a very loving relationship" at the beginning of next season.
Mann also dished that "Justin's one of the first people to get his clothes off."
Mann shared that his character, Nolan, will also be taking his clothes off a lot next season. "Aside from his best partner-in-crime Emily - which is really the place where he holds the most love - Nolan's not looking to get too attached," Mann revealed. "So, we may see a new, slutty phase that he's going through." As for his former love, Marco, Mann adds, "we haven't seen him return yet" in the third season.
Although his character had a run-in with the law last season, Mann said that Nolan will not be confined to a jail cell next season. "I think a miserable season of Nolan crying in prison would really not be the path that we're setting up," Mann joked. "This [year] is everything we started to do in season one, with just a buttload of sex thrown on top of it - which to me was always a missing element. When you're doing a show like this, you want to see these people get naked. You want to see them mix it up in creative ways."
Barry Sloane also shared that his character, Aiden, will be "in a place he's not been before" when we next see him. "He's 'in bed with the enemy' a little bit." As for who the said enemy is, Sloane hinted, "I have been working with Madeleine a lot."
As for what viewers can expect in the season premiere, Showrunner Sunil Nayar shared with TVLine that the words "The Initiative" will be said in the premiere, then never uttered again. "Conrad [Henry Czerny] sort of said in the season finale that it never really existed in the first place," Nayar said. "So we're going to embrace that reality and go forward that way."
Nayar also shared that the first episode will feature a fast-forward to Emily's wedding, although viewers will not be able to tell if Daniel (Joshua Bowman) is the groom.
"You're going to see something spectacular happen," Nayar hinted, "and we're going to [build toward] that in the first half of the season."
Tune in for the drama when "Revenge" returns on Sunday, September 29 on ABC.