Revenge: Collusion

Revenge is all-new tonight, back from a forced three-week hiatus to make room for the Super Bowl and other assorted competitor programming. Why they didn’t wait one more week vs. going head to head with the Grammys is anybody’s guess. So, since it’s been a while, let’s jump into “Collusion,” which was a humdinger cross-country episode.

Emily is shanghai’d by Daniel into accompanying him to California to seal the deal with Stonehaven. At the same time, Victoria ia also winging west to seal her own deal with Prosser. And Aiden has been sent west to kill Victoria.

Emily works her magic by hilariously promising to buy Nolan a house if he’ll uncover some dirt on Prosser for Daniel. That’s all Daniel needs to unravel the Stonehaven deal at the table, which sends Prosser, who’s just been bedded by Victoria in a show of good faith, raging out of the negotiations.

Aiden’s been shown cell phone video of his sister and the Initiative promises to keep her safe if he’ll take care of Victoria. Emily gets wind of this just as he’s about to put a bullet in Victoria and talks him down. By the end of the evening that has backfired badly and Aiden’s been sent video of his sister (supposedly) ODing. He dissolves into his own rage at Emily and tells her it’s her doing and she’s now on her own. I think our takeaway there is that we’re about to find out exactly what Aiden means to her.

There’s a throwaway scene at the beginning of the episode where she’s dreaming of Aiden in her bed and then he morphs into Daniel. So she still has that to sort out. Toward the end of the episode, after the Stonehaven deal is closed, she comes clean to Daniel about being Victoria’s pawn, and he tells her he knew, but she stops short of actually rekindling their relationship.

Over at the Porters, Conrad gets the charges against Jack dropped and buys out the Ryan brothers’ share of the bar, making him a partner in The Stowaway. By the end of the hour, that’s proven to be a capital bad idea because Nate has dangled the idea that if the Stowaway goes under, the docks can be prime casino territory by spring, and Conrad, despite Ashley’s call for a cool head, doesn’t say no.

Charlotte turns 18 by herself and when her family gathers the next night for a makeup party she drops the little bombshell that her gift to herself is to drop the Grayson name for Clarke. Surprisingly, nobody loses it, and Emily, just outside the room, smiles about the news.

Nolan has his own pickle to deal with when he realizes Padma is playing him for info on Carrion. In the opening of the episode, there’s a conversation between Helen and Padma that makes it sound like Padma’s being done the same way Aiden is, but Nolan doesn’t know that piece. He bugs his office and leaves enough breadcrumbs to show Padma Carrion and she goes for it and he’s disappointed. He shares that with Emily when they go look at the house she’s buying him, and she’s genuinely sorry to hear about it, so at least he’s not alone in that.

So that’s where we find ourselves as we head into tonight with Jack and Amanda’s wedding, getting us closer to that season opening scene of the Amanda wreckage. Mazel tov?

I’m glad we finally got to the bottom of the  Ryans’ plan to take the bar for a casino. I don’t think they’ll get anywhere with that (unless we actually lose Jack on the boat, which I also think is unlikely). Either way, I’m glad we’ve spun that away from being entirely a revenge scenario.

Revisiting Daniel and Emily as a couple proved, to me, anyway, that we don’t need to go back there. I think she definitely has more heat with Aiden, but they also haven’t had a chance to be normal with each other, so maybe there isn’t anything there outside of a shared desire to avenge. I’d like to find out, though.

Since Emily’s pretty well packed away her feelings for Jack this season and moved past him, I hope the wedding isn’t super heavy-handed about making her suddenly pine for him (which the preview below certainly alludes to, but that could be tricky editing). There was a lost leader look at the christening (that Amanda misread), but that’s been it. It’s not the way I wanted that arc to go after the potential at the end of last season, but it did, and it would seem disingenuine to make Emily “what if”  Jack again now. At the end of the day, Revenge is a soap, so anything is possible.

“Union” premieres tonight at 10 pm E/9 C on ABC in the US and City TV in Canada. Here’s a preview:

Photo courtesy of Richard Cartwright/ABC.