Revenge recap 1 x 14: ‘Perception’

This week’s offering of Revenge showed some serious cracks in Emily’s (Emily VanCamp) insatiable plight for the downfall of her enemies. Is our heroine’s once sure-footing slipping out from under her?

Let’s take a closer look after the jump:

The more astute of our readers will notice I’m subbing in for Cinephilactic this week, but thankfully, last night’s episode offered considerable juice for me to talk about.

This week we get introduced to Grandpa Grayson, played by the absolutely wonderful William Devane. Despite being the Grayson patriarch, Devane’s presence brings an exuberant energy that elevates the rest of the actors considerably. A perfect example of this comes near the tail end of the episode when he has an explosive exchange with Conrad (Henry Czerny) at the foot of the stairs at Grayson manor. Phew, I think I needed a cigarette after witnessing such a display of testosterone. This scene gives the catty women of Revenge a run for their money. I really hope this isn’t the last we seen of Devane.

But jumping back to the beginning of the episode, we learn that Emily and Daniel’s (Joshua Bowman) wedding plans are going full force ahead as we follow a bunch a really expensive-looking invitations to their engagement party float around the Hamptons. I was actually glad we got a good number of close-ups of these babies because I’m sure they set the props budget back a significant amount. I mean- satin boxes and Swarovski crystals? When they said these people had money, they weren’t kidding.

The engagement party is aptly named the “Fire and Ice Ball” and we finally get a reference to the huge party on the beach that opened the series (and a subtle reminder that we’re shortly going to revisit the shooting we witnessed 14 episodes ago). News of the party flushes out the Senior Grayson who wants to have a dinner at Chez Grayson to meet Daniel’s betrothed.

Nolan (Gabriel Mann) also gets an invite which prompts him to call dear old Em and ask her why her whole REVENGE scheme is still a go despite promising to take a breather after Jack’s beat down. She confesses that she’s even more ravenous for the Grayson downfall when she heard that Daniel thinks her pops David Clarke (James Tupper) raped Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) vs. having a consensual affair. Emily also doesn’t seem to care a lick about saving half-sister Charlotte (Christa B. Allen) from the news that Conrad isn’t her real father.

The plot thickens as Jack (Nick Wechsler) gets one of the invites as well. He tosses it (poorly) in the trashcan (let’s blame his broken ribs). I guess the crystals weren’t exactly his thing. Of course, he misses and it falls to the ground. As he reaches down (slowly) to retrieve it, he notices a MiniDV tape under the bed (as Nolan describes “Dinosaur technology”) that the thief who beat him up neglected to take. It’s labelled “Interview with Amanda Clarke”. SHOCKING! Actually, I don’t really understand why this is so shocking, because Amanda is interviewed as a 10 year old and it serves as no threat to reveal the real Amanda/Emily.

Regardless, it prompts Jack to leave another voice message to his dearly departed Faux-manda (Margarita Levieva). Except this time, Emily intercepts the message activates what I like to call “controlled panic mode”. Again, I don’t quite understand why, but…shrug. She arranges a meeting with Faux-manda, who apparently is NOT in Paris, or somewhere equally as far away as we initially thought – but merely hauled up in a motel (Isn’t that convenient?) Emily thinks it’s imperative that Jack NOT view the interview tape, so she recruits Faux-manda to get the tape back from Jack before he figures out how to watch it.

To make a long story short – Jack ends up confronting Faux-manda, angry, but still declaring his love for her. With some help from Nolan, Jack ends up viewing the tape which prompts him to visit the Graysons during their family dinner. And finally, the fireworks happen. Jack pretty much accuses Victoria of being a huge bitch because she left that poor little Amanda to fend for herself after David Clarke’s imprisonment. BOOM! This prompts Conrad to jump in on the stoning of Victoria by revealing that Charlotte isn’t his biological daughter. KA-POW! Charlotte is of course, devastated. But Daniel jumps in saying that David Clarke is a rapist, only to be shot down by Victoria’s silence, essentially confirming that nope- she’s an adulterer and not a rape victim. BLAMMO! Yet another charming Grayson family dinner. When will these people learn that a nice dinner here is never going to go smoothly?

But the big reveal comes in the episode’s final scene. Before Jack’s little outburst at Chez Grayson, he goes to Faux-manda’s motel to tell her that he loves her and he doesn’t care if she went all arsonist on him. The fire starts rising within Faux-manda and she basically calls up Emily to say “Screw you, I’m going back to Jack and I’m sick of being your pawn.” This is confirmed as Emily comes home to find her infinity box o’ REVENGE has been stolen (GASP) from its secret hiding place. Left behind is an RSVP card for the aforementioned ‘Fire and Ice Ball’ indicating (in BRIGHT RED sharpie) that Miss Emily Throne will, indeed, be in attendance. Obviously, Faux-manda’s the one who left this little souvenir (I mean, the bright red sharpie might as well have been in red crayon it was that obvious).  The episode closes as we finally see our usually calm  cool and collected heroine, kinda freaking out.

And scene.

So what did you think viewers? Do you think the cray cray in Emily is going to reveal itself, or will she get a handle on everything as she has in the past? Let us know in the comments section below!