The Foster Parent Trap

S02E17

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It's about time the stakes were raised a bit. Though it seemed a bit contrived when Eli arrived on the scene as sort of an adversary to Emanda, he reveals his true intention. He wants to continue his guardian relationship with Ems, and to get revenge against their awful foster mother Meredith Hayward. When they were kids, Meredith would abuse them and pocket all government assistance money. Eli's plan involves leveraging his co-chair position with the Amanda Clarke Foundation to offer Meredith a donation to keep her foster home from foreclosure and draw her out into the public before destroying her.

Eli gets Meredith to agree to the whole thing by making her believe they are in league together to milk the Graysons for more money. Emanda's interest in all of this is that Meredith was in possession of some lost letters from David Clarke that were stashed away somewhere in the foster home. I mean... aren't countless journal entries and everything in the infinity x infinity box already enough, Ems? Jeez. At the press conference to announce the ACF's donation to Meredith, Eli publicly outs her for the abuse. It's not nearly as spectacular as the spousal abuse press conference, but Eli gets lots of points for throwing away all of the street cred he so quickly built up with Victoria just for this takedown. She kicks him out of the fold immediately, and there's also some more collateral damage dealt out by Meredith. She reveals to the press conference that it was Eli who lit the fire that sent little Amanda Clarke to juvie. Emanda's devastated to hear that, but Eli makes it up to her by confronting Meredith at her home and torturing her to find out where David Clarke's letters ended up. What else are foster brothers for?

While all of this is going on, Nolan and Aiden are left to fend for themselves in a more dire situation. Padma returns from hiding with proof that her father is still alive. An exchange is arranged with Initiative -- Carrion for Padma's father. Aiden and Nolan think they've prepared well for the meeting, bugging the flash drive housing Carrion and setting up with a sniper rifle on a rooftop that has a good vantage point for the meeting spot. Things naturally go wrong. Padma's father isn't brought to the meet up, and Padma gets kidnapped. Now, the only lead they have to go on is an encrypted text message from the Initiative, meaning that Padma's life rests on a head-to-head hacker duel between Nolan and the Falcon -- the only coder in the world better than Nolan. It's hardly ideal.

On the Grayson front, it really says a lot about Daniel and how slow he is that everyone expects him to confide his troubles and secrets to Emanda. Ems knows it. His parents know it. And the Initiative probably knows it. Dan does a pretty subpar job of pretending he's talking to a "Mr. Taylor" when he takes calls from Emanda about arranging a lunch meeting. When they do meet face-to-face, Dan tips her off to Aiden's imminent fate as the fall guy for his parents. Later, Dan gets an anonymous package with a candid photo of his meeting with Ems and two bullets that seem to be from the Initiative, but they're really from his mother, who wants to stop the leaking of information from Daniel. That's just family business, I guess.

Jack's still digging for information on what happened to him because what else is he going to do? Not like he has a baby to be raising or anything. He can't turn up any leads on Kenny Ryan's whereabouts, but Declan has a solution. He jacks a phone from Trey, the guy he did those silly house burglaries with, and poses as Trey to lure Kenny into a meeting with Jack. He and Jack agree to work together to hold Conrad responsible for the deaths of Amily and Nate. That will be slightly easier with the help of some audio recordings he has that Nate made from all of his meeting with Conrad. All Jack needs now is proof that they had a contractual agreement to kill him and Ams. He can probably find that by getting closer to Conrad. Lucky for him, Conrad wants exactly that. He asks Jack to become his "Joe the plumber" on his gubernatorial campaign trail. Jack accepts. This should be good.

So... about those David Clarke letters Ems wanted from Meredith -- it turns out she sold them to Mason Treadwell. Emanda goes to talk to him at the prison where he's serving his life sentence or whatever, and demands the letters. The problem with that is they went up in smoke that one time she burned down Mason's house. That's an instance where revenge can bite you in the butt. But really the physical letters aren't what matters; it's what was said in them. Mason reveals to Emanda that the reason David was so worried about her being in a foster home is that he witnessed first-hand how it affected someone close to him to give up a child to one of those homes. That person was Victoria. She gave up her first-born son. And yet another random character gets introduced. Can't we just make what we've got better, please? Daniel and Dec could be better. And then there's Ashley... I'm only saying.

-- Pablo G. is some guy who lives in Austin, Texas. He used to co-host TWoP's original "Trailers Without Pity" with his brother Omar G. Check out their webcomic Space Monkeys! and follow Pablo's writing at Pablog. Follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.

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We're back in the bleakness of Amanda's foster home when she and Eli were kids. Amanda reads in the dark with a flashlight from "The Society Connection" for probably the hundredth time. Emanda voice-over: "In the art of war, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the approaching battles." When she's reached her limit of disgust, she pulls out a big, red marker and marks an "X" over her father's head in one of the photos of them together. Someone opens the door to the bedroom, startling Amanda. She accidentally drops her book to the floor and pretends she was asleep under the covers. It's just little Eli. Amanda's surprised to see him because he was adopted by some family. He just says that they made a pact to always stick together, as he holds his hand up for Amanda to take it in hers to show solidarity. VO: "But if you know only yourself and not your enemy..." Flash to present day at Casa Emily where Ems sits in front of her laptop reading news articles from when she was in foster care. "...For every victory, there will also be defeat."

Aiden walks in, noticing that Ems doesn't seem to be acting too urgently on their Falcon lead. Nolan's on that, she says. Instead she's worried she's found out that Eli has been in contact with their foster mother Meredith Hayward, who was a horrible lady who took in kids nobody wanted so she could collect checks. All of the kids she cared for have become either drug addicts, prostitutes or are dead. That's better than raising a brat, though, isn't it? Aiden doesn't like the emotional toll this is taking on Ems. He thinks she just needs to get rid of Eli. She will, but she won't hurt him. Emanda changes the subject to Grayson Global. Nothing's really happening there ever since Aiden got his seat on the board. They both know Daniel will only confide in her, so she picks up her phone.

Daniel answers as if he's talking to a Mr. Taylor. Emanda immediately gets the hint that he's covering his tracks and facilitates a fake conversation while still arranging a real meeting for lunch tomorrow. When they hang up, Daniel asks Grace to make a reservation under the name "Taylor." Even Grace thinks something's weird about that since the name "Grayson" would get a better table. Dan's like, "Uh... uh...," and blames the paparazzi for him wanting to stay low in public. Lady Gaga must've been the last thing to play on his iPod, I guess.

As if by telepathy, at Grayson Manor Conrad is mid-conversation with Victoria about Daniel's penchant for confiding too much in the girls he dates. Grudgingly, Victoria agrees that it would be bad if Dan revealed recent events to Ems, but she also thinks Emanda could be a good enough diversion to keep him relatively quiet. Ashley intercepts Conrad to tell him his polling numbers suck. That shouldn't surprise anyone, nor should it be surprising that people seemed to like him better right after the seemingly vulnerable press conference for Amily's death. Eli enters the dining area to hijack the conversation because he has some thoughts on how he can further both their causes. Just after he finished that thought, Ems walks in. Victoria protests as best as she can about this being a private meeting in her usual way of trying to box Ems out, but she just wasn't informed that Eli invited Emanda. Womp womp. Ems shoots Victoria a grin before sitting down to hear Eli's plan to support his former foster mother through the Amanda Clarke Foundation. The Graysons are easily sold on the idea because it will look great for both Conrad's campaign and the foundation. Conrad tells Eli to run with the idea, so he's off to go see Ms. Hayward. Seeing an opportunity, Emanda asks to go with him so she can see where Amanda Clarke grew up. Eli's cool with it. That was easy.

At his office at Nolcorp, Nolan types away at his keyboard in his Carrion terminal. He's surprised to see Padma, who's supposed to be in hiding. Her father's still alive, she says urgently, before handing over a flash drive. Nolan plugs it in and queues up a video of her father in custody. He's unkempt with a beard and dirty shirt, but most importantly, he's got today's newspaper. He implores Padma to meet him tomorrow at noon with Carrion and nobody/nothing else or they will both be killed. Nolan asks for the flash drive with Carrion on it from Padma's safe deposit box so he can make some adjustments to the drive itself. He promises her he won't let anything happen to her. That always turns out well.

Ems and Eli come bursting through the backdoor curtains at Casa Emily like they've probably been arguing the whole way there. Emanda asks what his endgame is, not buying that he is just looking out for the interests of the foundation. Eli: "You act like you don't remember what that bitch did to us." FLASHBACK: Meredith leads a screaming Amanda by the ear to a big metal door that leads to what looks like a coal bin. She shuts Amanda in there. /FLASHBACK. Ems remembers just fine, but something she doesn't remember is that Meredith had a stash of letters from David Clarke addressed to Emanda. Eli pulls one out from his coat pocket, and hands it over. He only managed to get his hands on one letter, but he wants to help Emanda get the rest of them because he once promised to look after her. Eli's going to do this with or without her help. Emanda: "Fine. But we do it my way."

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At the safe haven house, Ems questions Nolan for never telling her about her father's letters. He says that there wasn't anything in them that wasn't in the journals David left for her when he didn't get responses from the letters. Still, Emanda thinks that just knowing her father was reaching out to her could've changed the course of events. It's just one of those things where you can't ever be sure what might've been. Maybe Ems would've never gone to Japan to train for an unforgiving life of cold, hard revenge devoid of love and the things we all take for granted. Maybe. Nolan's a little perturbed that Emanda's about to leave with Eli to go see Meredith when they have the Carrion/Padma's father crisis on their hands. There's not much she can do really, but leave Nolan in the capable, British hands of Aiden and leave with the promise that she'll be there when the time comes.

Aiden's busy on a laptop when Nolan brings over Carrion, which is in a flash drive shaped like a tortoise (naturally). The head of the tortoise has a tracking device in it, and Aiden regards this as less than cute and unnecessary since he has already scoped out a rooftop vantage point of where the exchange is supposed to go down. He thinks he'll easily be able to take out the Initiative's guys. Nolan: "The plan is to... shoot people?" Aiden: "Not people, Nolan. Terrorists." That's just going to lead to more danger for Padma and her father, Nolan thinks, but the truth of the matter, which hasn't been revealed to Nolan is that Padma is going to have to disappear. Aiden actually very gracefully and empathetically breaks the bad news to Nolan. "Emily has already found their new identities and a location. I'm sorry, Nolan, but the only way to save Padma is to, um... let her go." But if you set her free and she comes back to you, it's meant to be.

At the Stowaway, Dec comes home from school to find Jack asleep in a rocking chair because he's not already boring enough. There are papers scattered on the floor in front of Jack since he's been tirelessly searching for Kenny Ryan with no luck. Jack's very frustrated, but Declan has an idea. Before he can share it, Ems knocks on the bedroom door. Dec excuses himself to go back to class, giving his brother privacy. Jack hasn't been answering or returning Ems' phone calls, so she assumes he's been consumed with going after Conrad. He brushes off the notion and puts on his smarmy fake face to try and convince Emanda that he's focused right now on the baby. It's hard to tell if Ems is buying it, but I doubt it. She still commends Jack on making the right choice. It's what Amanda would've wanted, she says, apart from probably flavored ChapStick or something equally tacky.

Declan and Charlotte walk together on their prep school campus with Charlie droning on and on about Eli and the Amanda Clarke Foundation. Dec's preoccupied with his brother's situation and isn't really listening or thinking about what Charlotte's saying. He agrees to allow Eli to use the Stowaway for the announcement of the foundation's partnership with Meredith because he's distracted when he spots Trey, the guy who originally brought him in contact with Kenny. When Dec and Charlotte part ways, Declan walks toward Trey and pretends to accidentally bump into him so he can pickpocket Trey's phone. That's what years of being greasy gets you -- +1 sneak. Dec checks the phone's contacts and finds Kenny's number, and we find that Declan wears a huge ring on his thumb for some reason.

Nolan has brought Padma into a room at Nolcorp to break the news to her that she'll be going away without him. He assures her that she'll have plenty of money and nothing to worry about, but Padma doesn't care about any of that. She doesn't want to fly off somewhere and never see Nolan again. She tells him she loves him. "And I love you, too... so much. Hey... this isn't the way things end for us. Someday, you'll be sitting on a beach somewhere and you'll find out that the Initiative was exposed and the threat is gone," Nolan comforts her. "You better be walking down that beach ten seconds later," Padma manages a smile. Nolan: "I'll be running." OK, fine. That's finally some decent love writing for these two.

Ems and Eli arrive in the suburbs at Meredith's foster home. Emanda's got her hair done up in a bun and has on giant sunglasses in hopes she won't be recognized. She tells Eli that they have to leave at the first sign of recognition. They get past introductions in the driveway with Meredith seeming to accept Ems as Emily Thorne. Once inside, Ms. Hayward explains that she'll lose her home without full payment by the end of the month. Emanda assures her that won't be an issue, with Eli adding they will be presenting Meredith with a check at a press conference tomorrow. Ems asks if there are any personal items of Amanda's left in the house, but they supposedly all burned up in the fire. Sensing they're at an impasse for their plot, Eli speaks up that he'd like for Meredith to introduce him to some of the current foster kids, and Emanda excuses herself to go make a fake phone call so she can have a look around. Once they're alone, Eli's tone changes to be more sinister as he tells Meredith that they can milk the Graysons for lots of money, and he's not helping her out of the goodness of his heart. He expects a 60 percent kickback from these donations.

Down in the basement, Ems finds the makeshift playroom. The only real question being raised here is whether Emanda wore her unfortunate trench coat on purpose for this semi-sleuthing. Acting mostly on memory rather than instinct, Ems heads for a shelf unit and slides it aside, which reveals that it was blocking the large iron door that leads to the coal bin. She cracks open the door. FLASHBACK: We see another instance of Amanda being shut in the room. Meredith peers through the slats in the door to say, "No parent will ever want you." /FLASHBACK. Ems is brought back from her daydream by Eli's voice calling out her name as a warning from upstairs. Before Meredith and Eli can get down into the basement, Emanda puts the shelf back and pulls out her phone to fake the end of a conversation. Ems commends Meredith on what she's been able to build in this home, which garners excitement and the question of whether she's passed inspection. Emanda: "With flying colors."

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Grayson Manor. Meredith receives an introduction to Victoria, courtesy of Eli and Emanda. Some smoke blown up Victoria's skirt about how special Eli and Amanda were to Meredith generates a "no she didn't" glance between Ems and Eli. Before they can all even get settled into the parlor, Victoria asks the obvious question: Why would Meredith be interested in a foundation for a girl who set fire to her home? Eli fields that question with some bullshit about how they can't fault Amanda for having such a troubled childhood. Meredith says she's long since forgiven her. Victoria's sold. She'll be giving Meredith her first check this afternoon. Ms. Hayward is surprised to hear there'll be more money coming. $250,000 annually, to be exact. Meredith calls Victoria "a godsend." God's like, "What?"

At the Stowaway, Dec fills in Jack on what he's been up to. He's managed to get Kenny chatting by text, who thinks he's Trey, and arranged a meeting at the school. Jack can now go and confront Kenny. On his way out, he spots Conrad and Ashley, who are there to make their big announcement for the foundation. Dec's a bit embarrassed to admit to his brother he sort of told them they could do that. Unsuccessfully, Jack tries to sneak past them, but Ashley stops him to say that they would like him to take on a more official role for Conrad's campaign. Basically, they want him to be their "Joe the Plumber." Jack breaks it down into what it really is. "You want me to convince the poor guy to vote for the rich guy." He says he'll think about it.

Emanda meets Daniel for lunch at a small, dark restaurant. He's entirely grateful for her coming to see him, and tells her how much it means to him to be able to confide in her again. A nice little touch here: Ems is interrupted while asking if Daniel has found a solution to his problem by a waiter bringing him another drink. Dan breaks the news to Emanda that the Initiative is setting up Aiden as their fall guy because of his new position on the board, but he assures her he won't let them target her. Emanda has to excuse herself because her phone rings. Cut to Aiden and Nolan scrambling as Aiden reports to Emanda that the time for the exchange with the Initiative has changed. There's no way now that Emanda can make it in time. Nolan and Aiden have no choice but to execute the plan on their own.

Up on the rooftop looking down on the alley where the meeting is to take place, Aiden has Padma in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. He asks Nolan, who's trying to set up audio surveillance, to quit breathing so hard. Nolan's sorry that he can't calm down when he's about to be involved in killing people. Aiden doesn't see the problem since Nolan won't be pulling the trigger, and they will be clean shots that will only be taken when they make contact with Padma's father. A black SUV rolls up to where Padma is standing in the alley. Trask gets out and demands Carrion. Without asking to see her father first, she hands it over. Trask walks to the back of the SUV and hands it to someone in the backseat to authenticate it, the whole time his head in Aiden's crosshairs. When Trask gets a gloved thumbs up on the authentication, Padma runs over to demand her father's release. Trask beckons her to the rear of the SUV. At this point, both Aiden and Nolan lose visual/audio on what's happening except for Padma screaming. Aiden gets one last good look at a clean shot on Trask, but Nolan stops him from taking it because Padma's father isn't there. The SUV drives off with Padma. Nolan: "What have we done?"

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Trask flips the fluorescent lights of a nondescript room with a video camera set up in the center on a tripod. Padma stands in the doorway, looking on, and has to see where this is going. Is the Initiative just a kidnappers-for-hire business? Isn't that kind of a brilliant racket? You kidnap one family member, then kidnap another when they come to pay the random, rinse and repeat. Padma asks to see her father. Trask points her to a nearby door. She runs over to it and can hear her father, but the door's locked. Trask will let her see him, but only after she takes a seat in front of the camera. We cut to the viewfinder of the camera recording a video of Padma that looks almost exactly like her father's random video. If the Initiative is smart, they'll use Padma to get Nolan so he can complete Carrion, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if the inefficient Initiative demands Declan so they can complete their grease particle cannon.

Out on the prep school campus, Kenny sits around waiting to meet Trey. He's so startled when Jack shows up that he stands right up like he's about to run, but Jack looks so determined he doesn't even try. Jack: "Don't tempt me. You and I are gonna talk now."

Stowaway. Setup is almost finished for the press conference when Charlotte walks in with Eli and Declan. She's really excited for this. Eli excuses himself to go great someone he recognizes, which leads us across the scene and passes us off to Conrad and Victoria. They're even surprised by the great turnout to the event. Conrad hopes it'll lead them to the governor's mansion.

Jack's in midinterrogation at the school campus, insisting that Kenny is lying about being the one who rescued him because he has physical proof that he owns that boat. Kenny responds with just as much conviction that he doesn't own any boat. He figures it must've been Conrad who was behind all of this. Why would Kenny be involved in his own brother's death? Jack appeals to Kenny's original desire for vengeance and relates it to his own quest for vindication about Amily. That's enough to get Kenny to reveal that Nate was keeping audio recordings of all the meetings he had with Conrad. Jack demands to hear them.

Press conference. Victoria outlines the issue with underfunding for foster care programs to the room. She goes on to announce the foundation's maiden outreach and introduces Eli. His speech begins, "From 1996 to 1999, I lived at Ms. Hayward's house with several other children including Amanda Clarke. Those were the darkest days of my life." A murmur shifts through the room. Eli details all of the abuse -- being denied food, water and being stuffed in the coal bin. During all of this, Meredith keeps a plastic smile on her face and denies it all. Then, Eli introduces the other faces of Hayward House. About a dozen people around Eli's age stand up in the crowd, bearing the same psychological scars as Eli. Meredith reaches her boiling point, snatching the microphone to turn the spotlight around on Eli. She goads him to tell the story of how he framed Amanda for burning down the house. Emanda, who's been watching from the back of the room, winces with pain. FLASHBACK: Eli lights a match and tosses it to the floor, causing flames to ignite. /FLASHBACK. Meredith: "I should've let you burn." She walks away, leaving Eli a bit shell-shocked with Emanda staring back at him from the crowd.

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Outside of the Stowaway, Eli walks out with Victoria who's livid. He tries to spin the outcome as something that could paint Victoria as a hero, but she doesn't see it that way right now. She thinks the foundation's credibility has been ruined, and she wants Eli gone. Victoria walks away, allowing Emanda to ask Eli if the allegation of arson is true. He admits to relighting the fire Amanda had attempted, but he was only trying to get in her trouble to keep her from being adopted. Ems asks if he has any idea what that fire did to her life. It's odd for Ems to be spending so much time dwelling on details of the past that have very little to do with her father as opposed to looking forward with her plans. Eli claims he's just trying to make it up to her and make things right between them. He walks off with the promise that she'll see the truth of his intentions.

In the dead of night, Nolan and Aiden break into a building where their tracking device has led them. It's an empty room with a table in the middle. Nolan's phone goes off with a text from a blocked number. "Sorry about your friend, Nolan. It's a terrible thing to lose one's... head." They look over to the table, which has a human head-sized cardboard box sitting atop of it. Nolan can't bear to look as Aiden creeps up to it with his flashlight. Inside the box is the tortoise head with the tracking device. Thus concludes the least suspenseful scene ever made. Aiden states the obvious. The Initiative was a step ahead of them. Nolan: "And now we've given our enemy the most unimaginably dangerous program known to man, and put two innocent people's lives in unimaginable danger. You really should consider another line of work." We were all thinking it, Nolan. We were all thinking it.

Jack plays back audio for Declan from Nate's meeting with Conrad where he indirectly ordered a hit on the Porters. Dec asks about the leverage mentioned in the audio. It seems Jack never told Declan about the laptop and Amily's crusade against the Graysons. Declan thinks they have all the evidence they need now to go to the police, but Jack says they can't trust the police. Plus, they need to find some sort of proof that money exchanged hands between Conrad and Nate. But how can Jack get close enough to Conrad to find such proof? Hmm... It's not like Conrad requested his close company during a political campaign or anything.

Eli enters Hayward House where Meredith sits alone in the dark with a liquor bottle and a glass. They took all the foster kids and will be opening an investigation. Eli's unapologetic, so Meredith tries to throw guilt in his face over what he did to Amanda, saying she wishes his sister were still alive to know what he did. Eli says he's going to make it up to Amanda, and that's why he's there. He unbutton his suit coat, causing Meredith to turn to him in fear.

In the dark of Casa Emily, Nolan timidly enters the front door and finds an equally withdrawn Emanda. Before he can say anything, she explains that she would've been there if she could've been, but Nolan brushes that off since the Initiative would've been a step ahead of them anyway. Nolan's freaking out, so Ems tries to bring him back down to earth. She tells him that he just needs to get on his computer and start decrypting the text message he received, and when they track them down, they will save Padma and make them pay. Emanda's phone rings with a call from Eli that she plans to ignore, but Nolan tells her to answer it. He has work to do. Ems answer the phone less than friendly, but quickly changes her tone when she hears Meredith's cries in the background to be let out of the coal bin. Eli tells Ems that he's doing what he promised. He's going to get those letters back.

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Casa Emily. Ems has the infinity x infinity box out and her big, red marker. She marks an "X" on the face of Meredith in a photo of her, Amanda and Eli. Does it still count as a takedown if someone else did most of the work? There's a knock at the door. Emanda steps out on the porch to greet Eli. He has a letter of confession from Meredith because she sold off David's letters to someone years ago. Eli asks if he's forgiven, but Emanda stops short of absolving him. She does thank him before he leaves, though.

Jack enters Conrad's office at Grayson Manor. After Conrad shoos off Ashley, Jack accepts Conrad's "Joe the Plumber" offer with a big, fake grin. Conrad couldn't be happier. But the real winner... is America.

Aiden checks in on Nolan at his office at Nolcorp. Nolan's feverishly hacking away to find out what he can about that text message. It was spoofed through a computer rather than a phone and bounced through a few SMS servers, but Nolan was able to trace Falcon's signature in it. This proves Falcon is now working for the Initiative rather than just the Graysons. That's bad news for Nolan. It means that the people holding his girlfriend captive are protected by the one man on the planet who can maybe outcode him. This is gonna be some Tron shit.

At Grayson Global, Daniel tries calling Ems, but gets her voicemail. He starts leaving a message for Mr. Taylor, but gets interrupted by Grace with an urgent package. It's a manila envelope with a photo inside of him and Ems at their 'secret' lunch meeting. Two bullets accompany the photo. Cut to Victoria closing her jewelry case, which has a box of bullets in it with two missing. That's good parenting.

Ems waits at the glass telephones in a prison until Mason Treadwell takes a seat across from her. Emanda wastes no time asking for David's letters. The problem with that is they were destroyed when she burned down Mason's house last summer. Obviously, Mason read the letters, though. Ems wants to know what was in them. She has to remind Mason that only she has the power to free him from prison and to help him complete his book he's writing about her entire saga. Mason spills that Ems' father was worried about her being in foster care because he met someone else who had given up a child and saw the toll it took on her. That person was Victoria Grayson. Her first-born son was given up. Mason: "I imagine you'll exploit this fresh little morsel with your usual flair." Ems: "You can't even begin to imagine."