I finally have a bead on the Revenge plot system and it’s sort of diggable. Each week as we dial back from the night of Daniel’s “death,” Emily (I’m just going to call her Emily, y’all) targets a new person who played a role in her daddy’s downfall and makes Victoria increasingly nervous.
In “Trust”, she targeted Bill Harmon, the hedge fund manager who had been her dad’s BFF – she took him and his entire company down by faking a charade with Nolan. She flirted her way through a polo match to gain a date with Daniel, which ended at a surprise party at her beach house to celebrate her purchase of it (by outbidding Victoria). Jack wound up at the party, too, as part of his boat sale/pseudo friendship arrangement with Nolan. The episode closed with Emily celebrating Amanda’s birthday alone.
The target in “Betrayal” was Tom Kingsley, an attorney-now-political-figure who prosecuted David. Emily’s takedown is a rather twofold exquisite affair where she torpedoes Victoria’s attempt to reveal her as the thorn in the Davis marriage and Emily puppets Kingsley into surrendering his professional life because he knocked up his mistress and she has them on tape (she bought the building where the mistress lives).
“Betrayal” also gave us a little backstory that Victoria really did love David and thought she could bail him out through a deal with Kingsley, but it didn’t happen. I really find it hard to believe that whatever happened, she didn’t still try to orchestrate a way to keep Emily out of the system. I have an inkling that Charlotte is Emily’s sister. She also set Daniel up to have a confrontation with the brother of the girl he injured, which led him to break his promise to Victoria not to visit the girl in the physical rehab center.
The Porters have a crap week as Jack has to deal with his dad’s death and Declan take s a beating from Charlotte’s goon boyfriend and his buddies. The one upside is that Nolan is alerted by Declan that the boat sale was to float the bar, so he offers to return the boat at the end of the season.
Emily has a few meet cutes with Jack when she has to return Sam, his dog (who was her dog) back to the bar. I think the vibe with Jack is so much stronger than the one with Daniel, so I’m rooting for that relationship vs. Daniel, which seems to be moving glacially when we’re nine episodes away from their engagement party. I also kind of maybe really think Jack knows who Emily is/they know each other now, but we’re not supposed to know that yet. The only indication that that is maybe not the case is that she doesn’t respond like I think she would about Mr. Porter’s death even if they’re masking a friendship/relationship.
Also, Victoria is investigating Emily with the superhot Max Martini (so glad he’s on this show!), who has discovered a few gaps in her history. He was also involved in covering up Grayson’s affair. So far, all the plotting is being done very expeditiously. We have one fleeting moment of Emily not being so sure of herself when she has a nightmare about SWAT invading the beach house for her like they did David.
Aside from that, she’s trucking along with her red marker. In a weird way, it feels like a Ten Little Indians variation where Emily isn’t killing people but is instead taking them down one by one as she crosses them out of the group photo David left for her. So far, I’m intrigued.
Photo Courtesy of ABC