By Pablo G
To start things off, Lydia's body falls a few stories onto the top of a car. Splat! She's dead. How did we get here? Well, Conrad had been continuing his affair with Lydia and Victoria wasn't stupid, for one. Frank shows some loyalty to Queen Victoria and tips her off that Conrad has recently transferred $10 million to Lydia's bank account. The money gives Lydia the opportunity to try and force her way back into Victoria's social circle as well as a gala dedicated to the charity Victoria set up out of guilt to give back to the families of victims of the terrorist airline attack. Lydia also comes back to the Hamptons with a vendetta against Emanda whom she blames for outing her affair to Victoria. By pure luck, Lydia notices Emanda disguised as a server in the background of an old event photo taken of Lydia and Victoria when they were still BFFs. This was also before Emanda changed her name from "Amanda Clarke" to "Emily Thorne," so there's a threat of Lydia discovering her true identity.
Nolan and Emanda happen into a bit of luck of their own. When Emanda began to feel Lydia's threat, she mailed off some of Lydia's effects to her loft and mixed in a few incriminating things like an article about Senator Kingsly's resignation and a copy of Dr. Banks' book signed with a dedication to Lydia. A hidden video camera in a tiny figurine Nolan had planted in Emanda's house was also one of the items she packed to ship to Lydia's. It affords Emanda some warning that Lydia is close to exposing her, so she employs Nolan to break into Lydia's place to make sure she doesn't receive a fax of a hard copy of the employee manifesto for the catering company Lydia requested. That would have gone off without a hitch except Nolan arrives at Lydia's shortly after she's been knocked off the roof of her home by Frank and he's long gone. When Frank had broken into Lydia's place during the gala, he spotted the incriminating things Emanda had sent to her and advises Victoria that Lydia is behind everything and plans to expose the Graysons in front of everyone. Queen Victoria gives Frank the order to "take care of" Lydia. Splat, remember? Nolan is freaked out when he realizes Lydia was murdered just before he arrived, so he checks the recorded footage on the camera and it contains evidence of a struggle between Frank and Lydia just before her murder. Thank goodness for small cameras.
Daniel is going through all sorts of growing pains. The misunderstanding between him and Emanda over their supposed snubbing of each other is quickly sorted out and blamed on Tyler. Daniel standing up to Tyler, who decides to go work for Conrad for the summer, also leads to him standing up to his father about not wanting to follow in his footsteps. This all sounds great, but it results in Conrad freezing Daniel's trust fund. Not so great. Daniel's plan? He asks Jack to be considered for The Stowaway's open bartender position. Jack's going to have to think about that one. It's not all bad for Daniel, though. He finally gets into Emanda's pants.
Off in Teen Land, Charlotte intercepts Conrad's apology gift of a Mercedes intended for Victoria and takes off on a joyride with Dec out of her continued anger at her mother. The joyride is too joyful, though. Char and Dec get pulled over and thrown in jail. Luckily, Daniel bails them both out without a problem. Then everyone goes and gets ice cream or something.
-- Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. He co-hosts TWoP's original "Trailers Without Pity" with his brother Omar G. Check him out at Unp0ssible and Pablog and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.
How did Revenge defy the cancellation gods? This dub from The Morning After may hold a clue: