'Revenge' recap: 'Bait'

After a month-long break, Revenge is back. Tonight’s episode finds our two favorite women, Victoria and Emily, taking a break from attacking each other to deal with other wars. Victoria finally learns why Natalie Waters (Gina Torres) has come to the Hamptons, while Emily handles Margaux’s latest attack on her life. It’s all very Revenge, but in a way that’s missing the it factor that made Revenge so addictive and engrossing in its first season. But, hey I’ll take anything that comes close to filling the Gossip Girl-style hole in my heart. More importantly, it seems as though the show is staging an Everwood reunion, which is the best news ever. Okay I lied, the most important part of the episode is obviously Jack’s confession of love to Emily, but we’ll get to that soon enough.

Margaux vs. Emily

Tonight’s episode picks up the morning after Nolan and Louise’s wedding reception and we find Emily and Ben together in bed. Emily brings up the subject of her messy past, but Ben shuts her down saying that they don’t need to talk about it. He says that his life was very boring until she came into it. Because this is Revenge, we know this isn’t the case and he definitely has some skeletons of the Stevie Wonder variety that will certainly become a factor in this season’s plot.

Elsewhere, Margaux is carefully plotting her take-down on Emily Thorne. Her P.I. is upset that she’s holding off on releasing the tape of Jack and Emily discussing Kate’s death. All in due time Margaux assures him. Thankfully, Nolan has a mole inside Margaux’s company in the form of her personal assistant Simone, who informs Nolan that Margaux is planning something. Eventually his informant sends him the incriminating video, which sends Emily and Nolan into battle mode—and this is unfortunate for Louise, who was looking forward to honeymooning in Italy with her new husband.

Four seasons in and we know how this story is going to go. Margaux thinks she has the upperhand, but in the end it turns out she doesn’t. After finding out that Simone gave Nolan the tape, Margaux calls the FBI in and they wait for Emily to break into her company’s server room to destroy the video file, which is stored on an air gapped computer. No surprise, Emily is many steps ahead and Louise, pretending to have gotten lost looking for her Soul Cycle class, is the one who shows up that night. Earlier in the episode, Nolan noted Louise’s disappointment at having to postpone their honeymoon and decided to let her in on part of their plan. It’s no matter for Margaux, however, because she has the video evidence to convince the FBI of Emily’s crimes. Oh wait, she doesn’t because her computer magically crashes when she goes to show them the video. Nolan embedded a device meant to erase the computer in a toy bracelet that Baby Carl gave Margaux when she met with Jack.

NEXT: Emily really drives the revenge point home with Margaux

Just to make sure her she’s made a point, Emily pays Margaux a visit to let her know that while she may not be invincible, she is more than capable of withstanding whatever a revenge amateur like Margaux might throw at her.

And so ends the latest battle between Emily and Margaux. It’s Emily 2, Margaux 0. However, the season’s nowhere near finished, so we know that Margaux will eventually emerge as a mildly credible threat to Emily’s life. The first hint of this comes at the end of the episode when Margaux uses blackmail to enlist Ben in her cause. If Ben doesn’t help her, she will tell some bad people where Ben’s ex-wife April, who appears to be played by Everwood/Chuck vet Sarah Lancaster, is hiding. See, those skeletons I was talking about.

Meanwhile, Jack pays Emily a visit and confesses his love to her in an extremely long-overdue scene. All you Jack-Emily shippers will probably share in Jack’s heartbreak: Emily responds with “I can’t. I’m sorry” because we don’t know if this is the last season they have a messy history. Jack finally knows Emily’s real identity and there are no secrets between them, so her rejection makes so much sense (it doesn’t).

Victoria vs. Natalie

Congrats to Revenge for finding someone who is not Emily VanCamp who rival Madeleine Stowe’s stage presence in Gina Torres.

You remember that death in the Grayson family? Well, it wasn’t Charlotte. Edward “Teddy” Grayson, Conrad’s father, passed away. Victoria is initially excited by the news because she shared a “special bond” with him and was confident he left her a hefty amount of cash in his will. However, this isn’t the case and all she’s left are two incontinent dogs and their Burberry beds. Teddy left all his money to his wife Natalie Waters (Gina Torres).

In a tension-filled scene, Natalie reveals that she came to the Hamptons to see what kind of person Victoria was because toward the end of Teddy’s life, he thought the very worst of Victoria. That’s why he wrote her out of the will. When it comes to money, Victoria doesn’t play mess around and decides to contest the will. Her usual lawyer turns down the case, however, because Victoria can’t afford to pay her. Lucky for her, Lyman Ellis, looking for money for his congressional campaign offers his services. Lyman digs up that Natalie started out as Teddy’s private nurse after being fired from a hospital because she swindled another patient out of money. She married Teddy soon after she started working for him. Now it’s time for Lyman and Victoria to dismantle Natalie’s story, fabricating evidence if need be.

EXTRAS:

Natalie sells David Clarke a boat and the two develop a connection. Looks like she has found her newest ally in her war against Victoria.
“We’re sort of like superheroes.” —Nolan explaining that he and Emily do good things for people who deserve it and bad things to those who don’t.
“Well sure, you were poor.” —Victoria’s response to Natalie explaining that Teddy showed her kindness at a bad stage in her life.

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