By Pablo G
Very quickly, we find out the RSVP card last episode was a bit of misdirection. Amily hasn't laid a trap for Emanda. It's actually Tyler, fresh out of a hospital for the criminally insane, who is out for revenge. He makes it very clear he plans to show up at the Fire & Ice Ball to score some vindication against Daniel and Emanda. Amily does factor into this because Tyler has managed to somehow track her down and kidnap her, using her as a hostage in case Emanda tries to cancel the engagement party. In the time leading up to the party, Tyler starts planting seeds of doubt in Amily's head about Emanda having always been her competition for Jack, and makes sure to fulfill every kidnapper cliché there is. The Stockholm Syndrome conditioning confuses Amily long enough to get her to help Tyler when Emanda gets the drop on him as they meet to exchange money for the infinity x infinity box.
Despite being coaxed by Tyler into examining the evidence within the infinity x infinity box that supports Emanda was using Amily, she eventually chooses to make a break for it and escapes Tyler's grasp. She absorbs a gunshot and heads straight for Jack, who has been offered an opportunity to get his life back on track by being part of a project in Haiti. Amily catches him just as he's getting ready to leave and is ready to set sail with him when Jack offhandedly mentions that Emanda was always in Amily's corner when it came to the two of them being together. This causes Amily to realize she owes it to Emanda to stop Tyler, so she immediately leaves just as Jack realizes Amily has been wounded. He gives chase and they both end up at the beach right after Tyler and Daniel face-off. Amily finds the body, and Jack doesn't hesitate to tell her to run away before assuming responsibility for moving the body, assuming Amily was the killer. Jack is entirely one of those boyfriends who's too good of a boyfriend for his own good.
Daniel was down on the beach because he and Emanda had argued about Dan wanting to elope to Paris to get away from all the lies and secrets of his family. Emanda dragged her feet about this because it probably doesn't serve her plan to poetically run away with Daniel, and Satoshi Takeda mysteriously has returned to town claiming he is poised to set the plan "back on the righteous path." From this point we relive the Fire & Ice Ball as seen in the pilot. Daniel is nowhere to be found as his mother makes her speech, Nolan and Emanda are nervous, Dec and Charlotte go out to strip on the beach and encounter the body being moved by Jack.
There are some things different from the pilot, though. Namely, Daniel wasn't the one who got snuffed. It was Tyler! We've been given the old switcheroo. What makes it work is that Charlotte had started drinking out of depression about finding out David Clarke was her father, and taking Oxycodone she found in Jack's medicine cabinet at the Stowaway, so she easily could've been confused when she found the body and ran back to the party screaming that it was her brother. When it's revealed that the body is Tyler's, Daniel comes stumbling onto the beach covered in blood and disoriented. Victoria is so relieved to have her son that she bursts with relief and reverts to her maternal instinct, telling Daniel not to say a word when it seems like he might utter words of guilt in his daze. Emanda's plan has gone completely off the rails, and Takeda has absconded with Amily, seeming as if he might prefer her as a protégé. Revengin' ain't easy.
-- Pablo G. is some guy who lives in Austin, Texas. He co-hosts TWoP's original "Trailers Without Pity" with his brother Omar G. Check him out at The YES and NO and Pablog and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.