ABCRevenge is officially over...or is it?
Last night's whirlwind of a series finale seemed to tie up every loose end of the ABC show, until we got to Nolan's (Gabriel Mann) final scene, in which Emily/Amanda (Emily VanCamp) sent him another revenge-obsessed person trying to clear their parent's name. Fans (including us!) immediately started craving a Nolan spinoff—and Mann seems up for it too based on his tweets!—so could we be getting more Revenge somewhere down the line?
E! News got executive producer Sunil Nayar to sound off on the possibility of a Nolan spinoff, plus some lingering questions we had about the series finale. Check out our full Q&A below!
E! News: After last night's finale, everyone really wants a Nolan spinoff! Have you talked about it in a serious way?
Sunil Nayar: We loved the idea of ending his story that way. Nolan is so iconic and what Gabriel's done with him is so amazing. And it's like how Better Call Saul was born, here's a character that can easily have a life and show of his own. That said, there's been no official conversations about it yet, but I think that seeing the fan response off of this finale, I can't speak for the what the network is doing but it would seem to me that Nolan is a character worth exploring more story for.
Yes! If you had to pitch it right now, what would you want to see from a Nolan spinoff?
Oh my gosh! [Laughs] That's a fascinating question. I would want to see the new world that Nolan got himself into. The fun thing would be to figure out what kind of world, now that he's so confident and on top of everything in this world, where can you throw him where he is once again the fish out of water, getting his legs, so we can embrace what made Nolan so awkward in the beginning, with this whole new set of skills. At the end of the day he is not Amanda Clarke. He's Nolan Ross, one of the most famous people on the planet. He couldn't have done what she did. The fun would be finding an environment where you wouldn't expect Nolan Ross to have to go and see how he navigates those waters.
What's the fan response been like to the series finale so far?
It's been good! My gut always said that some people would feel cheated that Amanda and Jack got their happy ending, but when we kept talking about the right way to end the story, it just felt that it is the right way, with all the darkness that came with it that got them to that moment. I loved the happy ending.
But during the shootout between Emily, David and Victoria, it looked as if Emily wasn't going to make it out of the series finale alive. She ended up surviving, but did you ever consider killing her in the finale?
Definitely. We definitely talked about it. We talked about everything and we had to really invest in every single possibility of who lives and who dies. Of course, we explored the possibilities of what if Amanda dies, what if Jack dies, what if Nolan dies, what if they all die? But then we had to explore what it would feel like to our audience when it was all over. Every time we kept coming back to it, we felt like if Emily died at the end, it would have been unsatisfying, because she's such a hero and you've been rooting for her. If she lost her life, and it had that ripple effect through everyone who loved her and who we love, it would have left the audience in a place that was too dark and too sad for a four year journey.
A lot of fans seem to be confused about what really happened with Victoria and her real father. Did you want to leave that story open ended, or did you want to clear up any confusion about what exactly happened?
It dug deep into the history of the show. We wanted to answer the final question about Victoria, which was who was her father? And so we learned that it was the very man who, when she was 15 years old, molested her after she came back from being in a psych ward for six months. So Victoria, the poor woman, never stood a chance. Her mother was a horrible human being but that's trumped only by the monstrosity of her father. Our intention was to, in the very last episode, fill out the rest of Victoria's family tree to see just how sick it was.
Everyone also can't seem to agree on whether or not Amanda really did get Victoria's heart, or if that was a dream. Any chance you want to answer that?
I love the fact that it's an open question. I had many conversations with Emily and Madeleine [Stowe] about it, about what the metaphorical import was, what the physiological import was, what the story import was, but I just liked the idea that it's definitely a nightmare Amanda is having, but at the same time, the show has always shown that there's always a context for memories and nightmares, there's always some basis of truth, sometimes what you've been told is the truth but sometimes what you want to believe is the truth. It speaks to the core of the show: not knowing who you are in any given moment and not knowing if that is good or bad or if you are your own worst enemy. I love that it is being debated. I hoped it would. What are the implications if it's true vs. if it's just her nightmare?
Was there anyone you tried to get back for finale but couldn't for scheduling purposes or any other obstacles?
One of the people we definitively discussed, if there was a way to involve her in the last few episodes, was Jennifer Jason Leigh, who played Amanda's mother Kara Clarke. But she was off shooting a Quentin Tarantino movie! If we could have had her back, we'd want her for multiple episodes since there was so much story to tell. It would have been fun to see what Kara would do after having been away for a couple of years and gotten her act together and now knew the truth about everything.
There were also moments in the finale, because the episode ran long, we had to cut a couple of small-but-vital scenes. Like one between Louise and Nolan, where you learned that Louise bought the property where Grayson Manor was and was going to build an estate there. But for the most part, I feel very at peace with how our story ended.
Speaking of spinoffs, a lot of people were wondering if ABC's new drama pilot Kingmakers was going to be a spinoff of Revenge—what did you think of the comparisons between the two shows?
I thought it was great! I only read the script, I didn't see the pilot yet, but it was fantastic. It was infused with the same great blood and passion that fueled Revenge. But it was not so much of a spinoff of it. It was its younger brother, basically, but it could have existed in much the same world and I think there could have been great crossover opportunities. On its own, it had a great story. I was sorry to see it not get picked up.
After four seasons, do you have a message to the longtime fans who have been watching Revenge since the very beginning?
Thank you, more than anything! It has been their passionate support that kept us going. I also thank them for all their opinions as I learned what it was like to make a show in the time of Twitter. They did have a sway in the way we were working on stories. There was no way to make everyone happy but their criticisms and thoughts were important. This show was blessed with a superb fanbase.