In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
The Revenge wedding is finally here, as is the big answer to the "Who Shot Emily" question ABC has been asking for months now. But first, Emily's last mission is getting Victoria to come to the wedding. Because Conrad is so resolute in his endless round of the Opposite Game with Victoria, he helps her by bringing Patrick back to Grayson Manor in exchange for Victoria participating in all wedding activities. Victoria agrees when Patrick says the grown-up equivalent of "aw, gee, Mom—can we all be a family again?"
At the same time, Emily and Co. are walking through their diabolical—and not at all dependent on everyone in the Grayson family acting like robots—plan: While the family is distracted with a slideshow, Emily spills champagne on Victoria so she runs to her state room. Aidan locks her in there while Emily runs upstairs, dribbles her own blood on the deck, fires two fake shots, jumps overboard, and grabs the scuba supplies on a nearby buoy for her escape. Aidan lets Victoria out—her lack of alibi ensured—and meets Emily on the beach without being seen by any of the panicked people on the boat.
When the wedding finally comes, there are cameras everywhere and we spend far too much time watching Victoria give canned statements to the media—we get it, the Graysons are more famous than Beyoncé in Revenge's hubristic alternate reality.
Lydia tries to attend the wedding (fashionably late because she's such a pleasant person), but Aidan shoos her away and reminds her that she just traded outing Emily's cater waiter past for the deed to the beach house. She flees to the South Fork Inn, where Conrad comes to apologize for doubting her love earlier in the episode and she looks over his shoulder at Emily's cater waiter photo like she's Swimfan and the picture is Jesse Bradford.
At the wedding, Daniel is getting wasted on a $1500 dollar bottle of really good scotch, because he's thinking about Sarah. Emily tells him to cool it and then dances with Nolan, who says he'll keep Patrick off the boat so he doesn't stay attached to Victoria like a barnacle and ruin everything. He does and it works perfectly, except for the part where Patrick finds the infinity box.
On the wedding boat, things go awry quickly. Conrad brings Lydia as his date and when Victoria goes to her state room as planned, Lydia follows. Aidan can't lock them in and Lydia gives Victoria the New Year's picture in exchange for Conrad's hand in marriage. Victoria confronts Emily and calls out her fake pregnancy; Emily says she borrowed the move from Victoria, who used it on Conrad. Aidan chloroforms Victoria, but Daniel comes around the bend and shoots Emily because he overheard Victoria. When she falls overboard, he throws the gun after her and goes downstairs to act “normal” while the captain calls out “Man overboard!”
Everyone realizes the missing person is Emily. There's blood on the floor and Victoria is missing—so at least the Victoria looking guilty part still worked out—but you have to wonder how no one on the boat heard the gunshots. Was the slideshow that loud?
On shore, Aidan and Jack are waiting for Emily and time is stretching on with no sign of Emily. Her dress, with blood and bullet holes, washes up on shore and the hunt for Emily begins. That would be a classic cliffhanger if we didn't know that the show can't continue without her and the preview of Jan. 5's episode didn't show us scenes of Emily alive with amnesia—you know, that thing every TV show gives an integral character when they've run out of ideas? Who knows what will happen in the half of the season? Certainly not Emily, because apparently, she doesn't even know who she is. How exciting.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Revenge’s mid-season finale began just like every other wedding episode: With a plot against the bride’s future mother-in-law that somehow involves a sizable vial of blood. Ah, young love.
But first, for some romantic rupturing: Conrad finds Lydia’s journal, handwritten by the local middle school’s brattiest 12-year-old, among their mountains of pre-coital clothing and thinks she’s on a mission to spill all his secrets. Lydia admits that she was working with Margaux, but says that she backed out. (See also: Margaux kicked her to the curb.) Conrad -- the king of instant decisions -- kicks Lydia out, forcing her to leave with nothing but the New Year’s Eve photo of Emily as a cater waiter.
After he breaks Lydia off, Conrad becomes Emily’s mercenary against Victoria, if only because he and V are in a long-term round of The Opposite Game. Emily musters up some glittery tears over the fact that her child may grow up without his or her grandmother, and Conrad vows to help her make her wedding day "perfect." Of course, he also offers up his presence as her replacement father -- a factor that may account for the ease with which she created those effective tears.
Meanwhile, Daniel is at Voulez finishing up a few things before throwing on a tux for the wedding. Ah, the easy plight of the groom. Sarah is there giving an interview on the wedding cake, and apparently something good has come out her ordeal: the publicity is getting her more gigs. Daniel tries to apologize, but she says he can’t fix everything and storms out. Perhaps visiting the love of your life who just dumped you wasn’t such a good idea, girlie.
In order to help out his new "daughter," Conrad brings Patrick back from Manhattan exile. Victoria is ecstatic but soon realizes that Patrick is a carrot leading her to Conrad’s demands. He wants her to attend all wedding-related activities. And for once, Conrad makes a pretty solid point. He’ll support Patrick if Victoria will support her other son on his wedding day. Victoria is resistant because this stubbornness is all she has left, but doe-eyed Patrick begs her to agree to the deal for the sake of the family he just got back. That’d be sweet if we didn’t know he was capable of cutting the brakes on someone’s car because he thinks they’re "mean."
With Victoria’s attendance secured, Emily, Aidan, and Nolan can back to the master plan, so like a villain at the end of a cheesy action movie, he lays it out. They bought a gun in Victoria’s name and got residue on her wedding party bracelet -- the evidence is in place. Once the family gets on the boat to their family honeymoon in Nantucket, they’ll play a slideshow for everyone as a distraction. Emily will spill champagne on Victoria, which will force her to go to her stateroom, where Aidan will temporarily lock her in. Emily will slip out and pour her own blood on the deck, fire two fake shots, jump into the water, and swim to a buoy with scuba gear. Aidan will then let Victoria out, leaving her without an alibi during Emily’s "murder," and without being seen (by a boat of panicking people rattled by gunshots) he’ll escape to meet Emily on the beach. Em and Aidan are sure that Victoria will promptly arrested and that she’ll take down Conrad in her attempt to save her own neck. Wait, is this grand plan really hinging on Victoria doing the Conrad take down? Lazy, revenge-kins. L-A-Z-Y.
Now that her mission is ending, Emily visits Jack to say goodbye because he’s not going to the wedding. They share an emotional moment, but then Emily just has to say that she was with Amanda when she died and Emily promised Amanda that she would take care of Jack and Carl. He’s immediately angry because Emily never told him about this, and he’s pretty keen on picking fights these days. She throws his demand that she leave the Hamptons back in his face, so he says she’s taken everything from him "even this moment!" This is how they leave their epic relationship: with a few barbs neither person really means. Typical Jack and Emily, really.
At the same time, Patrick vows that he’ll stick by Victoria’s side throughout the wedding, which is a problem for Nolan, who’s still very much in love with the tall drink of water. He invites Patrick over, ready to forgive him for a month of ignored text messages and offer up a diplomatic sharing plan for the wedding -- Patrick can be Victoria’s wedding date and then go home with Nolan. There’s just one problem: Patrick has decided that he only has room for one person in his life, and that person is his mother, apparently. Oh really, Pat? The "It’s not you, it’s me: Mommy Edition" excuse?
Before the wedding, Emily is pouring through pictures of her father, she sighs wistfully and prepares to start her new life. Then Lydia shows up with the New Year’s Eve photo. She says that she wants Emily’s house so she can "snag a Grayson" and since Emily is about to disappear, she agrees readily. The problem is that Lydia keeps the image, which means she’s going to better-deal this situation in a few scenes.
In the bridal suite, Emily gets the sisterly moment she’s always hoped for: Charlotte is a doting maid of honor and Emily takes the chance to tell her she loves her. Charlotte replies that she loves her "almost sister," too. And that could have remained a beautiful moment in and of itself, but as soon as Charlotte leaves, Aidan pops in to give Emily her special tracking beacon garter belt. He also makes out with her without being caught yet again. How many times are they really going to get away with this?
Apparently, the Graysons are bigger than Beyoncé, because every reporter is on the scene to capture the "social event of the year" once the wedding begins. Emily makes her way down the aisle, and then the priest asks for objections and no one has one -- though Emily looks at Victoria expectantly. At the same time, Lydia arrives fashionably late because she’s just so pleasant. Aidan stops her with the deed to the beach house and asks her to leave. Aww, but she had the "pretty" bauble on her neck and everything.
1 2 3 4
At the altar, Daniel vows to love Emily and their child (isn’t shot-gun wedding talk a little gauche for a society event?) and Emily says that she’s been waiting for this day since she was a little girl. (Yeah, since the Graysons stole her father away from her.) We get just one last line with a double meaning from the master.
The reception comes quickly, and Daniel and Emily have their first dance to "I Only Have Eyes For You" while Daniel is clearly using his mind’s eye to think of Sarah (he later gives her a drunken call on his cell). He’s also using his mouth to get wasted on a $1500 bottle of Glenlivet 64, a Grayson wedding tradition. Romance apparently goes down a little easier with scotch in these parts.
Nolan cuts in and says that Patrick turned him down to stay glued to "Mommy drearest" but that he’ll make sure Patrick doesn’t get on the boat. He whispers "long live David Clarke," kisses her on the cheek, and texts Patrick about the "Fr. Paul" incident -- i.e. that time Patrick committed murder.
Later, as they smile and cut the cake, Emily tells Daniel that she understands why he did what he did with Sarah. She knows what it means to want closure. After all, she’s about to get a hell of a lot of it. He’s so overwhelmed with her capacity for compassion that he kisses her passionately in front of everyone…though, that could be the scotch talking. But hey, it makes for very pretty pictures…
…pictures that Margaux is editing on-site. I’m no wedding reporter, but this seems a bit over the top, no? Conrad accuses her of using Lydia to spy on him, but she says that she and Lydia are through because Lydia loves Conrad. He rushes over the South Fork Inn where Lydia is hiding to apologize and promise to wife her up. Lydia is thrilled and has no reason to get her old house back from Emily, so she eyes the NYE photo like she’s Swimfan and it’s Jesse Bradford. She’s about to use it for a very different deal.
As Margaux is trying to gather the family for wedding pictures, Victoria is harassing Daniel, insisting that he looks miserable at his own wedding, just in time for Conrad to show up with Lydia in a different brightly colored dress. So much for the "don’t outshine the bride" rule. She promises to give Emily to get "exactly what’s coming" to her (i.e. something involving the photo).
But over at the Stowaway, everyone’s just as miserable. Sarah is so drunk that she confesses to Jack that she fell in love with Daniel weeks before his wedding. She says that she knows Daniel wanted her to forgive him, but she won’t because if she does, then it’s over. Jack stays silent because he knows that he picked a fight with Emily for the same reason. That feeling is enforced tenfold when he calls a cab for Sarah and then finds an envelope from Emily that holds Amanda’s necklace, which she saved from the boat wreckage. It melts his cold, cold heart.
1 2 3 4
At Nolan’s, Patrick finds a few enlightening objects of his own. First, Nolan admits that he only brought up the brake-cutting incident because he wants Patrick to know that he’s willing to protect the people he loves -- and Patrick is one of those people. They reconcile and Nolan trusts him so much that he leaves him alone long enough for Pat to happen upon the Infinity box’s hiding spot: behind his mother’s painting. Well, that can’t be good for romance.
But onto the important event: the boat plot. Right on cue, Emily spills champagne during the slideshow and sends Victoria to her state room. At that moment, a drunk Daniel gets a call from Sarah’s roommate and is informed that Sarah tried to kill herself. While he’s reeling, Lydia follows Victoria downstairs to trade the photo of Emily for Conrad’s affections.
Aidan can’t bar the door since Lydia’s in the room, so Victoria heads upstairs where Emily is setting up the murder scene. Victoria confronts her with the photo and says that she’s been targeting the Graysons for years, but most importantly, she says that Emily isn’t really pregnant. Em doesn’t deny it, but notes that Victoria did the same thing to snag Conrad. As a dramatic demonstration of how desperate Emily is, Victoria throws her evidence-riddled bracelet into the water and tells Em to dive after it. The plot is officially in shambles.
It gets worse when Daniel turns the corner and says he heard everything about the fake pregnancy. Fueled by the fact that Sarah just tried to kill herself, he shoots Emily, watches her fall, throws the gun into the ocean, runs downstairs and starts to act "normal." Apparently no one downstairs heard the gunshot. (How loud is that slideshow?) The crew heard and is sounding the alarm and screaming "Man overboard!” On deck, everyone sees the blood and pieces of Emily’s gown and because Aidan chloroformed Victoria while she was yelling at Emily, the queen bee is missing -- which means Emily might just be able to pin this on her after all.
On the beach, Aidan and Jack are looking for Emily. Her bloody dress washes up on shore and there’s no sign of her, but we know she’s not dead. This episode would be a great shocker of an open ending, but we know the show can’t go on with Ghost Emily and we can see from the preview for Jan. 5 that she ends up in the hospital with amnesia -- you know, that thing soap writers give the main character when they’re out of ideas. There had better be a better twist waiting for us in 2014, Revenge writers.
1 2 3 4