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This week, Emily experiences her last slice of heaven, possibly ever, as Nolan manages to sneak in and visit her as a candy striper (so he says) and Ems tells him she's done seeking revenge. She simply wants a normal, happy life, but we all know she can't actually have that.
Aidan, however, is angling for that life too and asks last week's new Australian friend Niko to help him sneak Emily out of the hospital. He hints at being involved with Ems — a shock to Niko, who he dated and ditched in Tokyo (and that was before he murdered her father, Takaeda, and let it be blamed on "burglars").
Instead of helping Aidan sneak Ems out, Niko offers to help Victoria make sure that the doctors release Emily to Grayson Manor instead of a rehabilitation facility for the rest of her recovery. Of course, Victoria's intentions are suspicious, but Niko seems fully aware of that.
At the manor, Victoria plays doting mother-in-law, keeping the paparazzi out and swearing Emily's "a Grayson now." And while Emily's sworn off revenge, she's not an idiot. She pretends that she still remembers nothing after her wedding vows, keeping the card of Daniel's guilt as close to her chest as possible.
Luckily, Niko is there to help — sort of. She reveals her identity as Takaeda's daughter to Emily, but when she learns that Emily is actually engaged to Aidan and not just his most recent romantic conquest, she turns colder and tells Emily she's safer in the "eye of the storm."
Meanwhile, Daniel has gone full bad-guy-in-an-'80s-movie. He's constantly stewing; he somehow garners no suspicion when he tells Margaux to publicly accuse Lydia of shooting Emily in Voulez; and he's harassing the woman he didn't actually drive to suicide. Sarah says she fell in the bathtub while drunk just before Daniel earns himself a nice shiner from Jack; he wears it proudly for the rest of the episode. Finally, he manages to get Sarah to listen long enough to tell her about Emily's fake pregnancy, to which Sarah replies with open arms and insults for Emily — both of which are understandable because she's blind enough to believe Daniel when he swears he didn't try to murder someone. The rube.
Back at the house, Victoria delivers a satisfying blow to her daughter-in-law: the gunshot wound made her barren — which also means her plan for normalcy is shot to hell. This lights a fire under Emily and she kicks her plan back into gear: Niko tells Ems about Victoria's infinity box heist, so Emily has Nolan swap the contents for articles and photos the Graysons and false bank statements. Patrick triumphantly "tricks" Nolan and returns with a box of false evidence that makes Emily nothing more than a gold digger — but a gold digger in love who says she plans to stay put with the Graysons.
, Emily calls a press conference to say her memory is back and names Lydia as her attacker instead of Daniel — her bargaining chip for staying in the family. This throws just about everyone's plans into the fire — including Margaux, who let Jack convince her not to publish her story because he knows the shooter is Daniel. Emily's semblance of a life, however, is the real victim.
Furious that her shot at a future family was stolen from her by her husband, Emily actually cuts the symbol of her dream life out of her real one and breaks up with Aidan, sending him into Niko's waiting arms. She's now fully committed to a life of revenge because she believes she does not actually have the ability to have a real life. Nolan is oddly supportive of this — though he did just have another lover betray him, so revenge is kind of all he's got. Aidan is furious. Victoria is, dare I say it, intrigued. Daniel looks as if he's just been sentenced to hell on Earth. And to be fair, the guy did just shoot his wife. Twice. He kind of deserves whatever Ems has in store for his petulant ass.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!This week, Emily experiences her last slice of heaven, possibly ever, as Nolan manages to sneak in and visit her as a candy striper (so he says) and Ems tells him she’s done seeking revenge. She simply wants a normal, happy life, because she’s just relived the pain she’s experienced by having to remember her life all over again. Unfortunately, Revenge wouldn’t really work with a happy Emily, she we all know she can’t actually have what she wants.
Aidan’s also angling for a happy ending. He’s agreed not to harm Daniel for trying to kill Emily, but he is still hoping to sneak her out of the hospital. He enlists Niko, the Australian doctor who kissed him last week, to help him, only she’s a little less than willing when she realizes that Aidan and Emily are romantically linked. Go figure.
Meanwhile, Daniel is determined to take back his life, so he visits Sarah at the Stowaway and apologizes for driving her to kill herself, but then comes the satisfying shocker: Sarah wasn’t cliché enough to try to kill herself over a guy. She was drunk and slipped and fell into the tub. And because that’s enough for one heart-broken person to bear, Jack comes barreling in, prepared to throw the could-be murdered out of his bar. When Daniel won’t go, Jack finally lets his anger out and punches Daniel in the face. It gives Danny a black eye he sports proudly for the rest of the episode.
But while he’s worrying about Sarah, Daniel’s mother is putting a plan into action. The doctor says Emily can be discharged to a rehabilitation center, but Victoria suggests that Emily be released to the Graysons instead. Quite suspiciously, Niko pops in to volunteer her nursing services.
Once Emily is settled in the house, she wakes up to Victoria’s borderline sociopath hospitality. V’s insistent that Emily is an official Grayson now and that they family is rallying to protect her from her potential attacker (falsely accused Lydia) and the paparazzi. Emily tells her she would prefer to recoup in the beach house with her husband, but that’s clearly not an option. Victoria leaves Emily alone with her husband, who’s managed to wipe that grimace off his face long enough to kiss her on the forehead and tell her to get some rest.
And while Emily’s helpless in the issue of her recoup locale -- even Daniel can’t convince Victoria to let her go -- she’s not helpless when it comes to playing the Graysons. She’s telling them that she still hasn’t recovered all of her memory, though she knows Daniel is the one who shot her. But for now, that seems to be the only scheme Emily is working.
With most of his worries lifted (thanks to Lydia being accused of shooting Emily), Daniel returns to work to finish up Voulez’s first issue. Margaux has apparently already put together new story for the issue that places all the evidence against Lydia on display without accusing her outright -- you know, that pesky thing called journalistic integrity. Daniel shoves his weight around and demands that Margaux go bolder with the story; he says it’s to sell magazines, but it’s also to help save his lying ass.
Unbeknownst to the tormented mogul, his mother has an even bigger plan in store: beyond the phase one house arrest. For phase two she needs her darling son Patrick, whose love life she just ruined. First, she tells Patrick that Daniel shot Emily. What’s an evil game plan without transparency for one’s minions? But it’s not enough. Patrick is still furious with her for manipulating him: he had to break up with Nolan because he lied, but she’s been lying about Daniel’s guilt. Not cool, Mama V.
But because Patrick is still desperately seeking Mommy’s approval, he takes on the responsibility of retrieving Emily’s infinity box, which he told Victoria about last week. She offered to hire someone to steal it, but before she can even lift the phone, Patrick is on the beach, making a date with a very reluctant Nolan. Damn that trusting, dapper gentleman.
While Victoria is busy scheming, Charlotte breaks the house rules and brings Jack by to see Emily, but if anyone asks, he’s only there to bring Carl by. While she’s playing with baby Carl and talking to Jack, she realizes just how much she wants a normal life with a normal family. This time, that desire really has outgrown her desire for revenge. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how that resolve dissolves.
And that resolve lasts a while. When Niko tells Emily she overheard Victoria talking to Patrick about stealing Emily’s box, Emily is unperturbed. She’s convinced that she already lost and all she wants to do is start her life as Aidan’s wife, but where Niko was supportive, she turns rather rapidly cold. She knew Aidan was with Emily, but she had no idea they were engaged. She channels this rage into supposed motivational techniques. She punches Emily in her wound and says she can’t believe that her father, Takaeda, abandoned her to train this woman who would give up so easily. (To be fair, "easily" is a relative term, lady.) That punch is the only help Niko is willing to give the woman who stole her father and her boyfriend and just like that, she’s out.
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Victoria, however, is able to do what Niko cannot. She comes into Emily’s room later that night to deliver some bad news. Because of the location of the gunshot wounds, Emily’s reproductive organs have been ruined: Daniel has robbed her of her ability to have children because he was angry that she wasn’t actually having children. When Victoria finally leaves and stops her not-so-subtle gloating, Emily is completely devastated. The normalcy she’d been looking for has been ripped from her completely.
More trouble is coming her way, though, as Patrick visits Nolan and does his best to get the part-time candy striper drunk. At one point, Patrick realizes that Nolan has been drinking water and questions him. Nolan says that after everything they’ve been through, he thought it was suspicious that Patrick was trying so hard to get him drunk. Even if Patrick wasn’t after the infinity box, this would feel a little unsavory. Patrick seems very understanding, but as soon as Nolan seems to soften, Patrick hits him over the head with a trinket and makes off with the box and it seems there will never be a day where Nolan will choose a lover who won’t betray him.
Daniel doesn’t have much better taste, if we’re being honest. Emily has her reasons, but she is completely playing him. Danny tries to remedy his bad decisions by visiting Sarah once more, this time with a little more information. He tells her about Emily’s fake pregnancy. He lies to her face about shooting Emily and says the only reason he’s still with her is so that he doesn’t look guilty. This seems to work on the hopelessly in love lady and she calls Ems a “psycho” and welcomes Daniel into her arms. It’s quite sad that they might be one of the more normal love connections on this show.
Finally, we get to Victoria’s triumphant infinity box reveal and it’s a doozy. Nolan has clearly swapped the contents of the box, turning it from a revenge kit for the spawn of David Clarke to a creepy scrap book about the Graysons with a side of falsified bank documents that make Emily appear to be a pauper. Emily has set herself up as the ladder-climbing schemer, but from the satisfied look on her face, this is exactly what she wanted.
Later, Ems calls a press conference without consulting the Graysons. Reporters flood their home as Emily stands on the balcony doing her best Victoria impression and stating that she’s recovered the memory from the night of the shooting. She publicly accuses Lydia, and while the press runs with it, the Graysons know she’s pulling a scheme. Still, that doesn’t help Margaux, who pulled her Lydia-skewering story after Jack told her Daniel did it. Now that Emily has blamed Lydia, Margaux and Voulez look lazy and unprepared.
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But it is (sort of) working out for Emily. The conference ensures that her revenge plan is back on, but that means she has a loose end to tie off: Aidan. Now that she can’t have the normal life he begged for the two of them to have together (children are off the table) she’s married to revenge rather than love. He seems more angry than sad and it drives him right into Niko’s impatiently waiting arms.
All that’s left to consider is what Emily plans to do with her latest coup. Her statement solidifies the Grayson plan to keep Daniel out of jail for attempting to commit murder, but it would be very easy for her to recant that statement and say she was pressure to make an accusation by the Graysons -- a notoriously manipulative family. In exchange for keeping her statement intact, Emily wants to continue to be a Grayson. She says she loves Daniel with all the venom of a snake striking its prey and says that she’s willing to forgive him and figure out how to move on. Apparently, Emily’s new revenge role is the insane gold-digger and Emily Van Camp’s perhaps a little too good at that.
Victoria seems amused by this option, reflecting on the fact that she’s stuck in her own loveless marriage, and leaves the "happy" couple to discuss it. All Daniel can manage is "you’re crazy" and "screw you," because he’s finally got Sarah back and Emily is determined to take his happiness away from him just as took hers away.
Sure, it’s a little heavy-handed and Emily’s thirst for revenge might just make her a certifiable basket case, but something had to put her back on a track for dastardly deeds. You can’t call a show Revenge and have it be about a hot British guy and his new wife living on a beach somewhere while Victoria pouts on her balcony.
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