Tonight’s episode of Revenge was all about improvisation as certain characters were put on the spot and forced to make quick decisions. We also got some interesting flashbacks and it looks like the body count may be up by one...
The 25th year in the marriage of the Hampton’s most perfect couple.
Victoria and Conrad are hardly the perfect couple, and what better way to remind them of that than for a Times reporter to show up and face a great big mirror at them, unintentionally forcing them to see just how flawed they are with every positive comment made about them.
The Graysons celebrated their silver anniversary by throwing a small, intimate dinner, which somehow managed to condense the drama substantially by comparison to the other gatherings we’ve seen. Charlotte invited Declan, which proved to be the dinner’s undoing. His frustration over being treated like an outsider at the dinner was understandable, though I’m not sure that justifies huffing and storming off in the middle of the dinner. There’s a time and a place for making a scene. Declan seems a bit inexperienced there, but his reasons for being uncomfortable and irritated had been stacking up.
Tyler managed to get under Emily’s skin some more tonight when he pointed the Times reporter in her direction, knowing she wanted nothing to do with the article being written about the Graysons. Emily wasn’t thrilled by the public attention, but she improvised by gushing about Daniel to the reporter. That made it into the article, much to Jack’s disappointment, which was part of the reason Declan was annoyed during the anniversary dinner. While Emily smoothed things over with Jack by giving him a mariner’s compass and one of her sweet smiles, Declan threw that in Daniel’s face at the dinner, causing Emily and Daniel to have an argument and then make up after both of them agreed they are falling in love with each other.
Whether or not Emily is really falling for Daniel is a little unclear. She did tell Nolan that Daniel wasn’t a target, but it also seems obvious that he’s part of her scheme. It’s hard to get a read on her true feelings for Daniel though because it doesn’t seem like a subject she’s willing to be completely upfront on with Nolan, and the rest of the time, her affection could just be an act. If she doesn't start talking to herself aloud, we may never know.
Back to the Graysons, their anniversary ended with a fight, which was expected as things were tense for them all day.
Tyler the sexually ambiguous con-man...
Tyler’s a problem for Emily. Tonight’s bit with the reporter, which didn’t go unnoticed by Daniel, forced her to take action and she did this by tasking Nolan to dig up some dirt on Daniel’s old friend. That took Nolan about five minutes. He soon learned that Tyler was once a “kept boy” to a man named Leslie, who now has a restraining order on him. I’ve been theorizing that Tyler is in love with Daniel, and this seems to push that theory up a few notches, knowing his sexuality is somewhere in a more flexible place when it comes to gender preference. Nolan admitted that he too is about a 3 on the Kinsey scale.
Nolan not only got it on with Tyler to seal whatever tentative deal Tyler thinks they have, but he also recorded it and implied (when he checked in with Emily) that this would not be the last time the two got together. I’m getting the impression that Nolan is still up to the task of snooping around on Tyler and possibly blackmailing him, but at the same time, not above using him for his own physical needs. Or maybe I just want to believe that if push came to shove, Nolan would have Emily’s back and that he won’t be falling for sneaky-Tyler.
Speaking of sneaky-Tyler, he filled up a flash drive with a bunch of stuff from Conrad’s business and admitted to Ashley that he’s going to use the info to secure a job for himself. Somehow, I don’t see that working out for him. He also told Emily that his father’s business went bankrupt. I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, but I’m also still theorizing that Tyler was never rich to begin with. Given that we now know he’s a con-man, it’s probably fair not to believe anything he says.
Frank meets Emily Thorne
Is Frank really dead? I’m thinking that’s more or less confirmed by the fact that we saw him laying on the side of the road, not breathing. But then again, we saw Lydia drop five stories and land on a car and she turned out to be alive, so who really knows? We’re getting ahead of ourselves, anyway. Let’s step back a bit...
Frank cashed the severance check Conrad gave him and disappeared from the Grayson’s view, but he wasn’t willing to walk away from his responsibilities and vowed to make Victoria trust him again. He confronted Emily and called her out, though he didn’t have much to go on at the time. This prompted Emily to contact the warden at the place she was locked up. Apparently she and Warden Sharon Stiles are on very good terms. Is that because Emily donated a bunch of money to the place to fund a library, or is there something more to the relationship? Stiles’ willingness to lie to Frank when he came snooping around is one thing, but in a conversation with Emily, she referenced some advice she gave her about keeping her guard up and not underestimating her enemies. It seems like the two are sort of close. It’ll be interesting to see what develops there, if anything.
Back to Frank, when Warden Stiles didn’t give him any useful information, he broke into her office and stole Emily’s file. This led him to the real Emily Thorne, who is posing as Amanda Clark and earning her living as a stripper. Frank got stripper-Emily alone and got her to admit that she and Amanda switched identities. When Emily told him to meet her in the parking lot, I had a strong suspicion that one of them was going to end up dead. At the time, I thought it would be Emily. I figured he’d get whatever information he could out of her and then off her in order to keep his tracks somewhat clean. That might have been his plan, but if it was, he never got to carry it out. While he was just about to tell Victoria what was going on, Emily snuck up on him and hit him with a crowbar. The first hit knocked him down, and the second hit appears to have killed him.
Emily showed up on non-stripper-Emily’s doorstep later and told her what she did. So now there are two Emily Thorne’s living in the beach-house and our Emily is going to have to improvise yet again. And I’m going to have to figure out how to talk about both of these Emilys without confusing them.
Flashbacks
Tonight’s flashbacks showed what looked like Victoria’s attempt to warn David about what was about to be done to him years ago. Frank caught her and pressured her to go back home and stick to the plan. We later saw them working with her on her testimony, which once again shows that Victoria wasn’t entirely on board with the plot against David. It seems like the fear that she would lose Daniel was the thing that forced her to go along with Frank and Conrad’s scheming.
The other flashback showed the meeting of Emily and Amanda, which began with the two of them fighting in their cell together. From the hug they gave each other tonight, it seems like at some point they formed a friendship. Did stripper-Emily kill Frank to protect Emily? Or does she have her own secrets to keep?
Finally, Lydia’s awake. That was fast!
That about wraps it up! For an episode that didn’t have Emily crossing someone off her list, a lot happened and there’s a lot of set-up for even more drama.
Soapy moment du jour...
"Get out!"
"With pleasure..."
