Episode Report Card Kelsea Stahler: B+ | 52 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT She Wants It All or Nothing At All
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 3 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.12.2014
With most of his worries lifted (thanks to Lydia being accused of shooting Emily), Daniel returns to work to finish up Voulez’s first issue. Margaux has apparently already put together new story for the issue that places all the evidence against Lydia on display without accusing her outright -- you know, that pesky thing called journalistic integrity. Daniel shoves his weight around and demands that Margaux go bolder with the story; he says it’s to sell magazines, but it’s also to help save his lying ass.
Unbeknownst to the tormented mogul, his mother has an even bigger plan in store: beyond the phase one house arrest. For phase two she needs her darling son Patrick, whose love life she just ruined. First, she tells Patrick that Daniel shot Emily. What’s an evil game plan without transparency for one’s minions? But it’s not enough. Patrick is still furious with her for manipulating him: he had to break up with Nolan because he lied, but she’s been lying about Daniel’s guilt. Not cool, Mama V.
But because Patrick is still desperately seeking Mommy’s approval, he takes on the responsibility of retrieving Emily’s infinity box, which he told Victoria about last week. She offered to hire someone to steal it, but before she can even lift the phone, Patrick is on the beach, making a date with a very reluctant Nolan. Damn that trusting, dapper gentleman.
While Victoria is busy scheming, Charlotte breaks the house rules and brings Jack by to see Emily, but if anyone asks, he’s only there to bring Carl by. While she’s playing with baby Carl and talking to Jack, she realizes just how much she wants a normal life with a normal family. This time, that desire really has outgrown her desire for revenge. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how that resolve dissolves.
And that resolve lasts a while. When Niko tells Emily she overheard Victoria talking to Patrick about stealing Emily’s box, Emily is unperturbed. She’s convinced that she already lost and all she wants to do is start her life as Aidan’s wife, but where Niko was supportive, she turns rather rapidly cold. She knew Aidan was with Emily, but she had no idea they were engaged. She channels this rage into supposed motivational techniques. She punches Emily in her wound and says she can’t believe that her father, Takaeda, abandoned her to train this woman who would give up so easily. (To be fair, "easily" is a relative term, lady.) That punch is the only help Niko is willing to give the woman who stole her father and her boyfriend and just like that, she’s out.