Villainess Review: Bethany (Revenge for Daddy)

Revenge for Daddy (also known as Looking for Mr. Wonderful) aired on Lifetime on March 19, 2020, and centered on Lisa Clark, who had recently ended her relationship with police officer Bobby, due to his constant cheating. One of Bobby's flings was with Lisa's co-worker and so-called friend, Bethany, leading to a very chilly reception from not only Lisa, but from her best friend Nina. Lisa was set up with Michael Patterson, and it was later in the film that the group went out at a local bar--a night that ended very tragically for Nina, as she ended up killed.

Lisa woke up next to Nina's body, and because of this, she ended up as a suspect in her murder. She was placed on house arrest, though despite this, Lisa and another friend, Abby, returned to the scene to see if she could remember anything from the night in question, with the pair also telling Bobby to do some digging on Bethany, as they suspected something was up with her. Lisa's continuous quest saw her contact her boss, Ethan, regarding Nina's computer, but once Ethan arrived, he ended up knocked out by a masked assailant, who was later shown wielding a knife and chasing Lisa (the scene that began the film), before Detective Willis appeared and fired shots at the attacker.

Michael ended up arrested due to his business card being at the scene of Ethan's attack, though Bobby later visited Lisa at her house and revealed that he had looked into Bethany, whose real name was uncovered as Marie Dixon. Lisa's mother, Barbara, revealed that Marie was Lisa's half-sister--the daughter of Lisa's father, Tom Clark, from his previous marriage. Her backstory revealed that her mother left Tom and took Marie with her, though they ended up living with her mother's abusive boyfriend. Marie's mother's drug addiction ended up killing her, and afterwards, the teenaged Marie killed her mother's boyfriend. After being released from her prison sentence due to good behavior, Marie tracked her father and learned about his new life with Barbara and Lisa, and it was a year prior to the film's events that the renamed Bethany ran down and killed her father, who she had blamed for her troubled life.

Bethany's past remained hidden for a year, but after discovering that Nina had found out the truth about what happened to Lisa's father, Bethany killed Nina after drugging Lisa on the night in question, doing so to frame her half-sister. She also attacked Ethan and framed Michael, and after failing to get to Lisa, Bethany returned to the house and attacked both Barbara and Abby before confronting Lisa--a confrontation that saw Bethany admit to killing their father and reveal her plans to kill everyone else and frame Lisa. Detective Willis later appeared at the house, as Abby had somehow called 911 despite being tied up, though she ended up shot by Bethany, who was later confronted by Bobby and ordered to lower her weapon. When Bethany refused, Bobby and Willis both shot her to death, ending Lisa's nightmare, as well as Bethany's rampage.

Revenge for Daddy was quite an amazing film with a wonderfully twisted villainess in Bethany (aka Marie Dixon), played by Eva Hamilton. Bethany is a typical Lifetime villainess, as like most of them, she had a tragic backstory which features an immense amount of misplaced blame. She was immensely vengeful and sociopathic, and just a very dangerous villainess, though her masked look was very killer. Hamilton portrayed Bethany's insanity very well, and also portrayed her feigned friendliness in stellar fashion. I remember being genuinely surprised over Bethany's reveal (not overly shocked, but still surprised), and I think that was due to how well Hamilton played Bethany's introduced personality prior to her reveal as a maniacal villainess. It was a truly amazing performance, and I hope we see Eva Hamilton in more Lifetime films. This was her only one at the moment; let's hope that changes.

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