Episode Report Card 97 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT To Double Infinity and Beyond
By Kelsea Stahler | Season 3 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.29.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We've just arrived back in the Hamptons, yet it already feels like Revenge is preparing to say farewell. Season 3 with the usual flash-forward: Emily with gunshot wounds, floating in the ocean in her wedding gown. But how did we get here? That's always the question, isn't it?
After six months of the Graysons' willing estrangement (Charlotte even went all the way to Europe to escape her Grayson side), they're back together for the annual Grayson Memorial Day party. Somehow, Victoria is unperturbed by Emily hosting this year, and by most things in general. It appears that her sudden inability to strike fear in most beating hearts is gone because she's got herself a handsome little stable boy, but he's her estranged son Patrick, who's got a problem with projecting sexual tension with relatives. Charlotte's not too happy about his sudden return, and after she confronts him (with more inappropriate sexual tension), he decides it's time to return to the city to painting (be still, Victoria's heart). However, Patrick is far too CW-attractive to stay gone for long, so he'll be back and Charlotte will get to use her new Joan Jett-meets-the-Devil Wears Prada look to threaten him some more.
Meanwhile, Conrad is so certain he's killing this whole Governor thing that he's already preparing himself for a presidential bid. This means upping his security at the party where Daniel, the unemployed wonder, rendezvous with Margaux, an “old friend” who clearly wants to get in his pants. The party takes a dramatic turn (and I'm talking about the part where Conrad stands on a podium to talk about a terrible painting of himself) when Nolan crashes the party in a parachute to get past Conrad's security. Emily slips Conrad the poison Nolan sneaked in, sending Connie to the hospital where Em's doctor friend treats him and diagnoses him Huntington's Disease, a fatal neurodegenerative genetic disorder. Daniel tells reporters his father is suffering from dehydration, but the diagnosis has already been leaked -- a present from sneaky Emily. Conrad will have to step down as Governor, but by episode's end, he's telling Victoria that neither of them are going anywhere. Could Conrad already know his diagnosis was BS?
Hopefully, his sense of confidence didn't come from Ashley, who was just banished. After Ashley threatened to expose Jack's assassination plot at Conrad's acceptance speech, Emily set her up to take the fall for the diagnosis leak and she and Victoria sent Ashley back to small-town England with nothing more than her forked tail between her legs.
But what about Emily's many suitors? Jack has been on the road since Emily told him she's Amanda; Aidan is nothing more than a stain on Daniel's shirt; and Daniel's just waiting for Emily to set a wedding date. She stops hesitating after Jack returns and tells her he completely understands her need for revenge, kisses her with the passion of two TV seasons, and tells her he doesn't want her anymore. Then later he tells her to finish the revenge job and leave the Hamptons forever. With that, Emily decides to marry Daniel on August 8th, or duh, double infinity. She's planning to take Victoria down at the wedding, but there's just one small issue: that image of Emily's watery future.
And in the episode's final moments, we get a likely erroneous clue as to who might pull the fateful trigger: Aidan. Daniel didn't kill him and now he plans to team up with Victoria to take Emily down for all the "wrong" she's done to him. Aside from the fact she didn't follow Aidan to exile, what did Emily do to deserve this? Why, handsome assassin? WHY?
Of course, knowing Revenge, we can take comfort in the fact that the show never gives us the real culprit this early on. Let us not count evil exes before they hatch, my friends.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Aww, would ya look at that? Emily gets married to Daniel, the guy she doesn’t love, after all. The Season 3 premiere of Revenge opens on Emily in a wedding gown on a yacht and it’s all twinkly lights and champagne until someone approaches, prompting her to apologize right before being shot and falling into the ocean. And that humdinger is this season’s unsolvable flash-forward mystery, Revenge fans.
Back in present day Manhattan, Emily is sunning herself at her penthouse pool, considerably more prepared to throw Victoria’s annual Memorial Day party than she is to set a wedding date. We learn the Graysons have scattered to the ends of the emotional Earth. Victoria has closed herself off with a mysterious, CW-pretty stable boy; Charlotte has spent the last sixth months in Europe after losing Declan and conveniently losing their unborn child; Daniel is unemployed and living off of Emily’s millions; and Conrad is floating in own egotistical universe in which his eyes are "arctic pools" and six months as governor earns him enough clout to run for president. So, nothing’s terribly different.
While the Graysons, sans their millions, pretend to have problems, Nolan has just solved his. He’s released from prison figuring out a way to trace the Carion cyber attack back to the Falcon and the Initiative. His first whiffs of the real world upon his release from prison? The knowledge that Nolcorp is belly-up, and the fact that Emily revealed her true identity to Jack. Moved by her interaction with Jack, Emily decides it’s time to cut Nolan out of her revenge plot for his own safety, but of course, Nolan is a David Clarke disciple and has no plans to back off now. Even if his time as cyber sidekick will have to go the way of Nolcorp for now (eccentric billionaire stunts only from now on). Together, they cackle that this Memorial Day party will be the last one the Graysons ever attend, but we all know such hubris can only mean one thing: it’s all going to go awry.
After picking up Nolan, Emily is off to stare at the Stowaway, which Jack packed up and left after her confession. He’s not back, but Ashley is and the conniving, yet well-dressed Brit has a ploy to get Emily’s millions in light of Conrad’s inability to pay for her silence regarding the bombing at Grayson Global. Ashley wants an invite to the Memorial Day party, Emily’s high-powered business contacts, and a few easy introductions or she’ll reveal Jack’s failed plan to assassinate Conrad during his gubernatorial acceptance speech. Great threat -- go ahead and dangle the fate of a man who’s no longer around for a crime he almost committed. Top notch plan, Ash.