Life is so much more interesting in the Hamptons. At least, it is in the soap world of Revenge, where it’s a high-class hotbed for the exploits of the rich, beautiful, and irrevocably corrupt. Though it’s quite different for the beguiling Emily Thorne (née Amanda Clarke), who’s returned to the Hamptons of her childhood with a hefty agenda: to learn the truth about her past, and retribute those who framed her father for a heinous crime he didn’t commit. We’re keeping weekly score of Emily’s endeavors, and the many others of our favorite Hamptonians, by calling each episode’s winners and losers. For the jam-packed penultimate episode of the season, it’s Emily and Daniel’s re-engagement in the Hamptons. Though the party’s a lower-key affair this time, hosted at Emily’s abode, as befitting a Grayson soirée, there is sufficient drama to fuel next week’s two-hour finale. Discover this episode’s victors and losers below.
WINNERS
Daniel: At the start of the episode, Emily surprises her fiancé with a romantic office dinner atop the roof of the Grayson Global headquarters, and presents him with two tickets to Paris – where she’s planning on whisking him away for their wedding in two weeks’ time, and to live thereafter. (At least, that’s what he thinks.) And so Daniel has everything he wants: the woman of his dreams making an informed effort to get him as far away from his parents as possible – plus, a good reason to fire Emily’s ex. After calling in Takeda for a meeting last week, Daniel’s received Aiden’s background check, revealing the relation to his father, Trevor Matthis – the baggage claim handler accused of putting a bomb on the flight that David Clarke was charged with bombing, and with which Grayson Global has a “complicated history.” Wanting to keep the company image intact, Daniel fires Aiden on the spot.
Conrad: While the news of Daniel and Emily’s re-engagement distresses Victoria, Conrad couldn’t be happier; he reckons it’ll be great news for the polls. And it is. His votes steadily increase – and in two days, a campaign coordinator announces, Conrad will indeed be governor of New York. Sigh.
Jack and Victoria: Still trying to figure out Conrad’s connection to Mrs. Stoddard (the current governor’s wife, who Jack last saw Conrad getting into a car with), Jack goes directly to Grayson Manor to meet with Victoria and show her the photo. Victoria doesn’t let her ice-queen veneer down, however, and coolly says that she’ll look into it (which she does: it turns out that Stoddard was feeding Conrad information on her husband’s campaign, since she doesn’t want him to win another term for health-related reasons). Also suspecting that something’s up with Jack and Emily, Victoria gamely uses the opportunity to comment on the “chill” she spotted between them as they bumped into each other at Grayson Manor before their meeting. She also casually drops into their conversation that he was the reason for Emily and Daniel’s break-up. And when Jack talks to Ashley about this later, she confesses that when she saw him and Emily kissing last season, she told Daniel. This is a small victory for Jack, but it’s potentially a crucial one since it could lead to winning Emily’s affections in the future. Still, Victoria’s onto him, and as Emily later warns him, he should be careful. Of course, sweet, trusting Jack is all too quick to give Victoria, visiting the Stowaway for a nightcap, what she wants. When she tells him to be straight with her, and asks why he wants to sabotage her husband’s campaign, he plays her the evidence and she listens with relish.
Aiden: Though he gets fired from his job this week, and his cover is blown (by none other than his revenge teacher, Takeda), Aiden takes it upon himself to use his administrator code for one last hurrah at Grayson Global, enlisting Nolan’s tech savvy (on a visit to see Edith at Rikers Island, he manages to figure out the Falcon’s passcode for Carrion), to drain funds from the Amanda Clarke Foundation, where the Graysons are hiding illicit money. Aiden’s also the victor of another, more detrimental battle – a sword fight.
LOSERS
Takeda: As Takeda challenges him to a duel, Aiden proves that he still has a fighter’s spirit, losing his weapon but somehow still managing to win — by snapping Takeda’s sword in two, and driving the man into one of those pieces, leaving him to die. Takeda’s death registers on a whole other meta-revenge level.
Emily: She’s back in with the Graysons, whether Victoria likes it or not. And yet while her revenge plan is more or less on track, things aren’t going well for Emily. With Aiden’s cover blown, she worries about her own. When she has an angry conversation with Takeda (that is, before her boyfriend has thrust a blade through his body), he warns her that the Initiative have a second strike planned; “they will do what they always do,” he says: they’ll cause fear and create chaos. (Well, that’s specific.) In any case, there’s that – whatever it is – for Emily to contend with. And then Jack appears on her doorstep, to tell her that he knows that he was the reason that her engagement to Daniel broke the first time. As she struggles to explain why she can’t explain, she’s evidently heartbroken. But she promises that one day she’ll tell him everything. Still, Jack’s understandably frustrated with her inability to be honest and just can’t fathom the fact that she would get engaged to Daniel knowing what his family did to Amanda.
Victoria: OK, so we picked her as a winner, but sometimes you win some and you lose some, and this week, Victoria won some and lost some. Worst of all, that wretched Emily Thorne is back in the Grayson fold, and planning on taking her favorite child, Daniel, to Paris, a particularly sore place for Victoria given that this was where she went to art school as a teen after abandoning her son. Speaking of which, she has a pile of letters to sift through from wannabe Graysons claiming to be her son – and in a bit of premature sibling rivalry, Daniel’s bitter about it. (Though as Nolan discovers, on his visit with the Falcon, we know that Victoria actually paid off her son Patrick with $5 million some years ago.) She’ll also be disappointed when she finds out that Charlotte got arrested while out partying with her new friend Regina. But she’ll be even more distressed to learn that Charlotte has repeated her by getting pregnant.
New York City’s energy systems: As Carrion is activated at the end of the episode, the whole city shuts down. Under the blackout, who knows what horror the Initiative is capable of wreaking? And since Takeda, the only one who may have known more about what exactly they were planning on, has conveniently died, we’re left – along with the rest of the Revengers – in the dark. With hope, in next week’s finale, we’ll begin to see the light.