One of these people will not be back for Season 3! Credit: Bob D’Amico/ABC
Well guys, this is it. The two-hour (!) finale of season 2. What did you think? Were you surprised to see who died? How about those last 10 seconds? Let’s get right to recapping…
We pick up where we left off last week, with the city in darkness. Nolan, Aidan and Amanda are trying to figure out what to do. Elsewhere, Charlotte tells Daniel she doesn’t want their parents to know she’s with child.
Victoria visits Jack at the Stowaway and he tells her about the laptop that has all the evidence to incriminate Conrad, not realizing that Amanda had tossed it into the ocean. Victoria, of course, already knows that this laptop exists, but she plays dumb.
Nolan realizes that by draining the Amanda Clarke Foundation’s account, they were led right into the Falcon’s trap, which set off Carrion. Aidan’s fingerprints are all over the bank account withdrawal, which means the Initiative will try to pinpoint him as the next David Clarke. Amanda won’t have any of this.
Victoria and Jack search Grayson Manor for the laptop and find a gun instead. That’ll come in handy later. He also finds a file CLEARLY LABELED “Jack Porter” and is all like, what is this? Oh, just Conrad keeping records on everyone, Victoria says, adding that there’s one for Amanda too that he can have since she doesn’t “need it anymore” (yowch). Jack tells Victoria that he’s gonna turn the leverage tape recording in the press.
Declan is still trapped in a bank with that bitch Regina. He notices that she’s got that liplock she had with Charlotte outside the club downloaded onto her phone, which he finds totes creepy. She’s not too pleased with him and when the lights come on a few seconds later, plants the money they nabbed from the ATM in his pocket (but how did he not notice? This show, I swear…)
Charlotte and Daniel make it back to Conrad’s campaign HQ. Conrad tells Daniel to shut down Grayson Global and then be back for his 4 p.m. speech. But Daniel wants to make sure Aidan is blamed for the blackout first. Back at their mansion, Victoria, now in on Jack’s secret, tells Conrad about Jack’s plan to sabotage his upcoming speech, and oh yeah, Ashley is in on the plan too.
Amanda and Nolan head to Takeda’s house — they need his words of wisdom — but when they get there, all they find is his lifeless body. Oh no! Amanda has a flashback to very early in their mentoring relationship, and back in the present, she loses it. She tries to piece together how it happened — the murderer must have gained Takeda’s trust and used a certain type of sword to produce the wound he has. While Amanda tries to figure it out, they come across … Takeda’s personal revenge box! Inside is a photo of a very pretty Asian woman and a man who kind of looks like Aidan. Amanda and Nolan surmise that this man is Takeda’s killer, and Aidan — or Amanda — could be next.
I can’t figure out which is more unrealistic: Victoria DISPOSING OF HER FILES OUT BACK (girl, get a shredder) or finding Charlotte’s positive pregnancy test AT THE VERY TOP OF THE TRASH HEAP. Anyway, that happened. At Conrad’s HQ, Regina tells Charlotte that Declan beat her up. He also has the bail money on him, but Charlotte doesn’t believe him when he says it was planted by Regina. Meanwhile, Victoria heads to Daniel’s office, while news is breaking that the blackout originated in Tehran and Bahrain (twoplaces where Aidan had recently done deals). She thinks it’s Amanda who’s pregnant, but Daniel has to tell her it’s not Amanda’s test. Victoria is horrified.
Conrad tells Ashley to block Jack from the upcoming speech, but of course she’s texting Jack all this immediately after. Conrad sees this all go down. Jack, looking at Amanda’s file, wants to know why she hightailed it to Japan last year.
Aidan asks Amanda to disappear with him — he’s got bags packed and passports ready to go. Just then she sees the marks on his arm and realizes it was he who killed Takeda. Aidan, who Amanda has now pinned against a wall, tries to explain that it was Takeda’s fiancé on that plane, and that he had a revenge mission of his own. He only killed Takeda to protect her and to get her to stop her mission. Amanda is pissed that Aidan knew this the whole time and didn’t tell her. She advises him to run as the cops are likely now onto him.
At Grayson Global, an IT guy lets Daniel know the servers are gonna be down for awhile. Amanda is there visiting (she has a real knack for compartmentalizing her life, honestly.) She’s hugging Daniel when she realizes that that IT guy is none other than the guy who Takeda circled on the picture in his revenge box. Trouble looms!
A Porter has reached the campaign, much to Conrad’s fury, but it’s just Declan. Victoria tells him that Charlotte’s pregnant — whoops, cat’s out of the bag! She adds that if he ever comes near her again, his “ability to procreate will be a distant memory.” At this time, sneaky Conrad texts Jack from Ashley’s phone saying that she has the computer and to meet at Grayson Global. Bad idea! More on that in a few.
Aidan tells Nolan he killed Takeda but did it for Amanda. He says he was a fool for thinking she’d walk for love. Nolan tells him that she did once before — for Jack. The whole Japan thing was for Jack. Aaw, man, poor Aidan.
Regina is trying to drive a wedge between Declan and Charlotte, but Declan is trying to maintain that it’s Regina, not he, who’s crazy. He’s actually really happy about the baby. It works. Charlotte chooses Declan.
Nolan and Amanda do some sleuthing on the fake IT guy and find out it’s an assassin named Gregor Hoffman. Jack calls, needing Nolan’s help for Conrad’s computer password, and Amanda’s all like, “Whaaa? I threw that into the ocean months ago!” They realize Jack’s walking into a trap by going to GG and rush out to try to stop him. Too late; he gets in the building. At Conrad’s speech, Conrad gives the IT guy/assassin in the crowd a nod of approval. Just then, everyone’s phone flashes with a message that says “Long live David Clarke.” And THEN, a bomb goes off across the street, at Grayson Global.
To further his good-guy image, Conrad is first on the scene (how nice of him). Amanda goes inside frantically looking for Jack. She hears some groans and we see some fidgeting legs and assumes Jack is hurt but alive. Turns out it’s not Jack — he got Nolan’s messages just in time. But a) who was hurt in the building? And b) how did Nolan know the building was gonna explode? Jack wants answers. Nolan lies and says he stumbled upon the whole plan when he was helping Victoria find Patrick. Jack then confronts Ashley — he thinks she is lying to him, but she swears she never sent that text. Jack realizes that Conrad is playing him — and also that Conrad knew about the explosion in advance.
Turns out it was poor Declan in the bombed building. Ashley tells Jack. Amanda will help Jack visit his brother in the hospital. He realizes now he has to start trusting her again (and the whole godmother thing is back on, by the way).
At the hospital, Jack sneaks in pretending to be a male nurse (Amanda’s years in juvie taught her how to sneak into places.) Declan tells Jack about Charlotte’s pregnancy. It’s sweet. Later, Charlotte visits Declan and he tells her everything is gonna be fine.
Back at Amanda’s, Aidan is waiting on the porch. He tries to apologize again but it’s no use to Amanda. He knows she won’t walk away for him. He leaves a key for a villa in Capri that they once talked about. He says that hopefully one day she’ll change her mind and that he hopes she gets what she’s looking for—”no one has ever deserved it more than you.” They share a final embrace and then that’s it — Aidan is officially on the lam. Later, Amanda is upset that Nolan told Aidan about her jetting off to Japan for Jack. But Nolan didn’t realize it was a secret. She acknowledges that Jack deserves better. Speaking of … where is Jack? Nolan and Amanda have one of those “I thought he was with you!” moments. We’ll get there…
Conrad and Daniel go through the rubble and Daniel is losing it because he realizes the family is now penniless thanks to Aidan. Nonsense, Conrad says, because they still have the Grayson name, and they will rebuild (he’s awfully optimistic). Daniel says he’s leaving to start a new life in Paris, but that doesn’t sit well with Conrad. As they continue talking Conrad admits he was behind the bombing, and that it was a great success in fact because nobody died and they’ll still be able to profit. He adds that by telling him to get away from Grayson Global, Daniel now owes him, and it’s time to pay up—first by being at daddy’s speech later that day.
Declan actually is a lot worse than we thought — he needs heart surgery. At the Graysons, Amanda shows up uninvited (again) and has a little chat with Victoria. Victoria says she will never be convinced that Amanda is marrying Daniel for love and that one day she’ll tire of the charade. She says the two of them share a trait — voracity — and that if she harms her kids Amanda will suffer big-time. Meanwhile, on the news, we see that Aidan has been arrested at the Canadian border. Aidan, haven’t you ever watched TV? Don’t flee to Canada! You’ll definitely get caught! Silly boy.
Conrad admits to Victoria that the Initiative — if that’s what you want to call it, though Conrad says there really is no such group — is behind the bombings. You see, they’re a group of wealthy businesspeople who profit off of fear. In the wake of terror, the public’s spending goes up. If Conrad played God, so to speak, and orchestrated disasters, he could profit off of them. He had accepted Helen’s proposal awhile back to join her efforts, with the promise that their money would triple if he did. Well, Victoria is disgusted, to say the least. They have a little physical altercation before Victoria pulls a Kate Winslet and spits on him.
Oh no, this part really got me down, you guys. Jack visits Declan but he’s not there — it’s just Nolan, in tears, with a recorded message of love from Declan. Declan’s dead, Nolan tells Jack. His aorta ruptured. Poor Jack, hasn’t he been through enough? Good God, I can only hope he’s happy at the end of this series. Anyone else really sad to see Declan go? Admittedly,it makes sense to drop him as opposed to sayConrad or Aidan, but still. I’m sad! And so is Jack.First,he is crying, devastated, but then his sadness quickly turns to rage — he’s got another reason to want to kill Conrad. He goes back to the Grayson manor and steals that gun he and Victoria came across earlier in the episode. Nolan calls Amanda and has him try to stop Jack. When Jack gets his hands on the gun at Grayson Manor, Victoria is there. He points the gun at her — she even asks him to shoot, I think she’s gonna done with life right about now — but he won’t pull the trigger. No, he wants her to have a miserable life instead. Victoria goes to deliver the bad news about Declan to a sleeping Charlotte, but she chickens out.
Aidan gets out of jail, and Nolan gets arrested for the bombing instead. Daniel heads to Amanda’s house, and Amanda isn’t there, but Aidan is. Aidan tells Daniel he knows everything is on the Graysons’ hands. They fight, and Aidan spares Daniel, but does call for him to break off his re-engagement to Amanda.
In police questioning, Nolan is asked who released Carrion and why. Nolan mentions the Falcon but it was she who brought them to Nolan instead. Then, we get another shocker: video of Padma taken before her death, admitting that she was part of the Initiative and saying that Nolan was the mastermind behind all of this. So she was bad all along I guess? This was sad. Poor Nolan.
Oh yeah, Conrad becomes governor. Victoria decides to stay home for the acceptance speech (there’s only so far you can go to support your husband, she told Amanda earlier), and while she’s home, she gets a knock on her door — a shadowy figure by the name of … Patrick! Guess we’ll see where that goes next season.
So Victoria’s not at the acceptance speech, but Daniel is, concealing a wound he got during his fight with Aidan. Also there is Jack, in a totally not obvious disguise (newspaper boy hat + glasses … hmmm). He’s ready to shoot Conrad, all John Wilkes Booth style. Amanda is also there, trying to stop Jack. She reaches him just before he’s about to pull the trigger and tries to get him to stop. This isn’t about her, he tells her, but she says he shouldn’t have to pay for her decisions. What decisions? I think you knew all along, she tells Jack, as Amanda flashbacks conveniently start to appear in his mind. Suddenly, I can’t believe it, she tells Jack that she’s really Amanda. Damn, it’s about time.
But before we can really have a chance to let this sink in, the two-hour finale is complete. We will just have to wait until September to see how this all plays out. Until then, happy summer, and stay away from the Hamptons!
