Miss Emily was a busy, busy girl in last week’s episode, and she pulled off a really exquisite trifecta of crossing someone off her list, putting that person in Victoria’s crosshairs, and making herself appear to also be a victim. Also, she sipped a late night Pinot Noir with the lovely Jack (and Sam). Bravo!
The backstory: when David was duped, Amanda was dropped into Child Protective Services and put under the care of child psychologist Dr. Michelle Banks. Victoria came to see Banks and offered her the devil’s deal of cutting David off from ever being visited by Amanda in exchange for a swanky Hamptons private practice. Cut to Amanda being treated crappily by Dr. Banks when she keeps repeating that she just wants to see her dad. All of this happened because Amanda witnessed Victoria taking her dad’s laptop and giving it to Frank, something Victoria doesn’t want David to ever know.
In the present, Emily sits in Dr, Banks’ now-swanky office and spins a tale of being unable to commit to a man. We also find out Victoria is still seeing Banks all these years later. Ashley is conveniently PRing a charity fete honoring the doc and hosted by Victoria when the regularly scheduled fawn-and-praise video program is interrupted by the greatest hits of Dr. Banks’ secret video recordings of her sessions with select Hamptons housewives including Victoria and Emily. Victoria of course publicly dumps Dr. Banks and Emily orchestrates her kidnapping, which throws back on Victoria as a suspect because she publicly threatened her at the luncheon. Genius.
On the homefront, Daniel is duped by his BFF (and I’m thinking secret crush) Tyler to dive back into the bottle when he does his own manipulation of reality to make Daniel think Emily has backed off their courtship. Jack and Nolan are in cahoots with financial planning about the bar and Nolan is all too happy to prod Jack toward Emily. Jack takes the bait and shows up at Emily’s door when she’s a few glasses into a bottle of wine after Daniel’s unknowingly stood her up. He brings her flowers as a thank you for returning Sam and she invites him in. They sit and chat and Daniel creeps onto the porch and looks in to see them together and is immediately suspect.
Declan is friendlier with Charlotte and they bond as he discusses potentially pawning his mother’s wedding ring and she grouses about her mother’s aired tape confessing she wasn’t sure she ever wanted Charlotte. And Conrad is still sleeping with Lydia. And that’s all the setup going into this week’s episode.
I’m digging the episodes more and more. I really do prefer Jack to Daniel. The timeline is a bit jumbled and I almost blame the special effects chyron people for affixing specific dates and years to the video footage and photographs that vary from 1992 to 1996 when maybe TPTB didn’t intend to be THAT specific. It’s funny to me that there’s chatter fixating on Sam as a magical Lab. Yes, a Lab can be very vital at 16, which I think he’s likely supposed to be, and not 17 or 18. Again, I’d love to ask TPTB what they intended.
If you’re going to nitpick about suspension of disbelief, let’s talk about Jack not recognizing Emily, or Victoria for that matter. I’m just fine with Sam. He’s awesome, and he comes with Jack. Wasn’t Lost’s lab, Vincent, supposed to be immortal? That didn’t bug anyone. Just saying. It works for me. So does Nick Wechsler, BTW. Never cared for him on Roswell. Loving him here.
Photo Courtesy of ABC