Nolan And Emily's Friendship Is The Best

One way to tell that Revenge is destined to be an enduring camp classic is that the viewer is more invested in its heroine's relationship with her gay best friend than she is in either of the heroine's love interests. Think about it: last night's Season 2 premiere reunited Emily (Emily VanCamp) -- after a months-long separation -- with both her former fiancé Daniel (Joshua Bowman); and with Jack (Nick Wechsler), the childhood sweetheart she kissed, thus ending her engagement. But were either of those meetings as compelling to you as the moment when Emily walked into that boxing gym and got her first look at Nolan (Gabriel Mann) and his fly new haircut?

Part of what makes the Nolan/Emily friendship so interesting is that he's the only person in her life -- at least, the only person among those she sees every day -- who knows her whole story. Like any commitmentphobe, Emily resisted Nolan's overtures. He didn't want to get mixed up with a girl like her; she's a loner, Nolan. A rebel. But ultimately, an endorsement from her late (OR IS HE?!) father convinced Emily that she could trust Nolan. Though Emily rarely seems to take any pleasure from spending time with Nolan, she rarely seems to take any pleasure in anything, so he apparently knows not to take her default bitchiness personally. Anyway, he enjoys their scheming enough for both of them.

Of course, Nolan is in Revenge partly for the purposes of plot convenience and character development. If Emily never shared her plans with anyone, we'd have a harder time following what they are. And if she had to carry off all her machinations without any (knowing) accomplices, we'd have a harder time believing they were plausible. But Mann makes Nolan more than a vehicle for exposition; one gets the sense that before Emily came to town, he was bored of the idleness his fabulous wealth allowed him, and that nothing has given his life more purpose than his vocation as her helpmate has.

On Emily's side, the friendship with Nolan gives her an outlet to be herself. For most of Season 1, as seducing and getting engaged to Daniel took up most of her time, the Emily we saw was the one presenting herself as charming, sweet, complaisant, philanthropic -- marriage material, basically. Emily's interactions with Nolan remind us that nice-girl Emily is a front -- a very good, very convincing one -- and that dead-eyed, ruthless Emily is always in control.

Whatever Emily's true feelings are for Jack or Daniel, they're practically beside the point. Maybe she accidentally did start to fall for Daniel in the midst of her con. Maybe she'll be the only person whose childhood boyfriend is still a viable partner in adulthood. But the more both of those bros reveal themselves to be gullible morons -- not just falling for her elegant deceptions but for clumsy ones from the likes of Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) or "Amanda" (Margarita Levieva) or Conrad (Henry Czerny) or the "late" Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) -- the more convinced we must become that the only man who is truly Emily's equal is Nolan. That they can never hook up romantically may just be the ultimate proof that they can make it for the long haul.