Happy New Year folks! Revenge returned with two brand new episodes after a month-long break, and there’s a whole load of trouble brewing as we kick off our winter season. Let’s catch you up on the tidbits that have been happening.
Emily—the wheels started coming off a bit after Emily lost her Japanese warlord tutelage privileges because he called her out for falling in love with Daniel. Then she fell out with Nolan when she used his liaisons with Tyler to her advantage. They reconciled just in time for Tyler to trip the hell out and beat Nolan senseless and hold everyone at Daniel’s birthday party at gunpoint until his brother showed up to get him back on his meds and take him home. That is, until Emily planted evidence on him that made it look like he killed Frank. Oops. Emily also gets tangled up in Amanda’s refusal to leave, and when she encounters Mason Treadwell (Roger Bart), the writer who betrayed her dad, she has Amanda interrogate him and demand that he admit it. When he doesn’t, she burns his house down, including his in-draft memoirs, and leaves behind Amanda’s lighter. Emily also learns from watching Treadwell’s interview tapes (stolen before she torches his place) that David believed Charlotte to be his daughter (called it!). We also learned in there somewhere that David was killed in prison by another inmate, which I don’t think we’d been told.
Daniel—finally grew a backbone and is siding with Victoria and standing up to Conrad. He makes a move toward seizing his inheritance shares only to have Conrad add a rider that he can’t have them until he’s 30 or married, so now Daniel is ready to propose to Emily, although he’s not really selling it as the right girl so much as the “right girl for now.” He and Emily have also turned some sort of weird corner where now that he’s staying with Victoria, she booty calls him at the guest house, and I’m still not feeling them together.
Nolan—has recovered from his near Tyler homicide and is back in Emily’s good graces, so he’s all too happy to help her put one over on Treadwell without being in the loop that she’s going to burn his house to the ground while they have dinner to discuss a supposed bio. There was also a hilarious scene with Emily and Daniel at the gun range where Nolan showed us he will never receive firearms certification.
Jack—has his hands full with Amanda, who keeps pushing boundaries, although it’s unclear whether they’re yet sleeping together. He keeps giving her the benefit of the doubt and he’s about to have the rug yanked on him since Emily’s set Amanda up for the fire, even though we know (but Emily doesn’t) that she’s on her way to Atlantic City with him at the time it’s set. I was glad to see that Sammy at least called Amanda out for not being who she said she was, but Jack missed it.
Charlotte and Declan—are all cutesy and conniving until they aren’t and Charlotte moves into her dad’s place and gets excited about school. Declan makes an effort to understand the world she’s heading into while still keeping them together. They also pretty much let Victoria know they’re together despite her checkbook.
Victoria—enlists Ashley to help her monitor/manipulate Emily and gauge the climate for a maybe-engagement. We’re getting vibes there that Ashley would be happy to help Emily fail but we don’t have a bead on yet on *why*. We get flashbacks with Victoria and Treadwell where we find out that she bought him off to control his story, then helped kick off his literary career. Setting the stage for another twist, Victoria’s divorce attorney is the same man who let Clarke go to prison and didn’t mount an appeal, so he’ll be coming up on Emily’s short list.
Amanda—is still definitely a needy Nellie and we don’t really know whether she’s hanging onto Jack because Emily obviously feels something for him and she can lord that over her, or she genuinely likes Jack for herself. Either way, the girl seems desperately in need of some medical intervention because she goes from mad to sad to glad very, very quickly.
The loose leaders in the mix are Conrad, who’s up to something with his divorce machinations that demand that he be sneaky and manipulative without blowing up the Clarke saga. And he still has Lydia stashed somewhere.
And that’s our setup for tonight’s new episode.
I wouldn’t be unhappy to see Amanda go, but I’m pretty sure the Jack/Emily reveal will be a long, long time coming, so I doubt that she’s going anywhere anytime soon, and I’d even bet there will be blowback on Emily for setting Amanda up for the fire. If that torpedoes her friendship with Jack, I’ll be annoyed. We already know the Daniel engagement is a go because of the pilot, so we’re getting close to seeing that unfold in real time. I’m ready to see what happens after that.
Photo Courtesy of ABC