Revenge: Union and Sacrifice

Revenge is finally back after a forced hiatus for the Academy Awards and the Red Widow premiere, and they left us hanging with quite a doozy.

The most surprising thing was that they actually wrote out Amanda, and while I found her character beyond grating, I have to hand it to the actress and the writers that when she died onscreen, I was unexpectedly a little wistful about that being the end for her. We’ll get to the how.

First, Jack and Amanda are setting their wedding in motion when it becomes evident that Conrad has double-crossed the boys in bailing out the bar. Emily gives Amanda a check to undo the deal and Conrad turns it down. When Amanda conveniently spies Emily’s hideaway under the stairs, she takes Emily’s laptop and plops it down in front of Conrad with the threat that she can and will release its various contents unless he takes the money and backs out of his development deal. He does as she asks but Nate doesn’t take that lying down.

Emily and Aiden find out with Nolan’s help that his sister died six years earlier and that the Initiative was milking the footage to their needs. Aiden is livid enough that he says he’s leaving despite Emily begging him to stay.

Nolan also learns from Padma that her dad has been kidnapped by the Initiative so he’s looped on what she was doing and he explains to her and to Emily that Carrion is a big bad software that can come to no good.

Victoria is surprised at home by Helen, who thinks she has the upper hand until Victoria shoots her. Then she, Conrad, and Daniel have to hide the body and keep the Initiative at bay about what they’ve done. They also decide to announce Conrad’s run for Governor at their Labor Day bash, where one of Helen’s men comes calling because he hasn’t heard from her.

With the dock development off the table, Jack and Amanda get married on the beach, and it’s intercut with scenes of a childhood Amanda and Jack having a ceremony on the beach with her dad, Sammy, and pretend rings. Emily brings that ring to the ceremony and it’s obvious that means the world to Jack but Amanda doesn’t really know the history until Jack explains it and then she’s touched by Emily’s gesture. Emily’s grieving what might have been when Aiden appears on the bluff above and she relaxes a little. When they talk later he tells her he won’t leave her alone.

Jack and Amanda head off on the Amanda for their honeymoon with an unknown passenger, Nate, hiding below. They have a blissful few hours before they find out about the same time Emily does when she spies Nate in some of Charlotte’s wedding photos. She and Nolan take a speed boat and haul ass out to the boat just as Nate is getting aggressive (with Emily and Nolan watching through a nifty reverse link of Declan’s laptop webcam) and asking what they did to undo the deal.

Everything goes south pretty quickly. Amanda sabotages the boat and then Jack is shot. Nolan and Emily arrive in time to get Jack off the boat and Emily sends them on and stays back to help Amanda, who tells her the PC is back at home. They fight off Nate and are climbing into a lifeboat when Amanda realizes she’s lost her necklace. Despite Emily’s protestations that she leave it, she climbs back over the railing and grabs it just as Nate flicks his lighter and the boat explodes. We find out in flashback that the necklace had been Emily’s and it was part of her deal with Amanda that she came back for it while they were in juvenile detention.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Emily holds Amanda above the water on what’s left of the life boat. Amanda is hurt and she asks Emily to take care of Jack and her son. Emily says how sorry she is and that she will and Amanda forgives her, telling her she had this life because of her. Then she dies and Emily can’t hold her body anymore and lets her sink into the water.

And then the loss is all over her face as she starts to weep. I think that was probably what was most telling—she thought she about to lose Aiden and he came back for, and Amanda, despite all her troubles, was family. Amanda made her own bed, but Emily put her on that path. I’d bet that losing her will send Emily full force against the Graysons again. The complication will be Aiden, and now Jack, about whom her feelings aren’t entirely resolved, and who’s now been left to recover from being shot and raise a son alone. Drama!

I’d also lay good odds that we’ll see Margarita Levieva attached to a pilot soon enough. Regardless of how infuriating Amanda was as a character, Levieva made her watchable.

We pick up the pieces tonight with “Retribution” at 9 pm E/8pm C on ABC in the US and CityTV in Canada.

 Photo courtesy of ABC/Vivian Zink.

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