Jimmy doesn’t last long on “Revenge.”
Credit: ABC/Richard Cartwright
Welcome back, “Revenge” fans! Been awhile, huh? Well, it’s good to know that the drama never slows down for these elite Hamptons folks. Tonight’s all about payback, which is kind of another word for “Revenge,” so I’m not very impressed with the writers’ creativity thus far. Here’s hoping we only go up from here…
The show opens with Amanda getting an MRI—remember how she was blacking out last season? The doctor says she’s basically fine but that talking to a therapist will help.
Things are going well for Margot and Jack (nice haicut Nick Weschler, btw): The two are house-hunting. But things are not going well for Victoria. She’s called to the gallery because of the fire Patrick started last season, but it’s really a ruse Patrick developed to get his birth father, Jimmy Brennan, who’s a contractor, on the scene. Victoria sees him and freaks out.
Charlotte finds Daniel on the beach, hitting golf balls into the ocean like any other rich kid would do. She didn’t get into design school, wahh! And Daniel forgot her birthday’s coming up, double wahh! Not so fast though, he’s going to throw her an epic birthday party.
Amanda visits Nolan. Aidan’s clothes are there. He’s ready to move out, but she doesn’t want to say bye to him. Instead, she wants to see the South Fork Inn security footage she requested Nolan set up the night before (but doesn’t remember asking for apparently). Blackout Amanda! The footage shows her “colluding with Conrad,” as Aidan puts it (man, he really does get the most mellifluous lines), but Amanda tries to play off this weird behavior as a result of her head injury. Just then, the phone rings. An LA number, who could that be? Huh! It’s Stevie Grayson, Conrad’s first wife, who you’ll recall was flying into town at the end of the last episode. Well, who knew she’s a divorce attorney? She tells Amanda she’s ready to process hers. So Amanda must have told the first Mrs. G that she wants out of her marriage while she was in her weird blurry state the night before.
I can’t figure out who is more pissed by Jimmy’s arrival at the gallery—Victoria or Patrick. Patrick because he found out he is a child of rape and wants to kill his father. Victoria because he raped her. Regardless, Patrick wants him there so he can lure him into a death trap, but Victoria wants him gone.
At Voulez, Conrad holds a creative meeting (Margot sold him Daniel’s stake in the company, you might remember). Margot is mad that Conrad is taking control of things without consulting her. He all of a sudden wants to become buddy-buddy with Margot’s dad, Pasquale, but Margot can’t figure out why. Red flag or red herring? Time will (hopefully) tell.
So a very professionally dressed Amanda meets with divorce lawyer Stevie Grayson, who says she used to go to the Stoweaway all the time years ago. Huh. Anyways, she pulls out the papers but Amanda hesitates. She’s not ready to sign yet. Stevie tries to jog Amanda’s memory about her saying the night before at the Stoweaway that she loved another man, but Amanda’s like, what, that’s not true! But Mrs. Grayson says the look of love you have is not the look you have for the man you married. Suddenly, blackout! We cut to Aidan (with a mustache), and she’s putting some heavy moves on him to no avail. He runs away outside and Niko comes up from behind with a tranquilzer gun. Once he’s out, Niko tosses him into the trunk of her car and brings him to her house, where she ties him up. Why’s she doing this? To avenge her father, Takeda. She found the sword that killed her father, and it belonged to Aidan. Womp womp. And when Amanda shows up? She’ll kill her too.
Conrad visits Stevie at the South Fork. He wants to make amends, but she’s not buying it. She’s happy now. Back at the gallery, Jimmy and Patrick are having bro-talk. Patrick is trying really hard not to be like HEY I’M YOUR KID, instead teasing info out of Jimmy. What does he learn? That Jimmy has regrets, and that Jimmy has a son he doesn’t really know (wonder who that is?!). Patrick goes from wanting to kill his old man to feeling sorry for him.
Stevie and Victoria bump into each other at a clothing store, where Victoria’s shopping for Charlotte’s birthday party (the fete of the evening, in typical “Revenge” fashion). They have a wickedly devilish spar with lines like “you’ve certainly made paternity quite a hobby” and digs at Stevie’s inebriation. Ultimaetly, the war of words boils down to Stevie telling Victoria that she always wants what she (Stevie) has—down to the dress Victoria is admiring on the rack, which Stevie is currently wearing. Burn!
Amanda’s passed out on her bench out front, where Nolan finds her. It’s happened again! This time, Amanda almost told a stranger the truth about still loving Aidan. Could it be that blackout Amanda tells the truth? Or not quite: her next blackout is really a flash-forward, to Charlotte’s birthday party. So could blackout Amanda predicts the future? Has premonitions? Is Amanda psychic? Creepy!
Cut to Amanda at Charlotte’s bday, everything as predicted. Charlotte’s 19, can you believe it? She even got some random singer to perform for her! Charlotte gets the ultimate silver-spoon birthday gift: an internship at Daddy’s magazine! Meanwhile, Daniel spies Amanda talking with Conrad and wonders what’s up with them, err, colluding (man I just love that word and will find as many reasons as possible to use it).
Margot and Daniel have a little spat at the party (they’re not on the best terms after Conrad fired his own son); she wants to know about Conrad’s relationship with her father—they haven’t been in toch in years, why now all of a sudden? Meanwhile, Jimmy shows up at the party, unbeknownst to Victoria (also, he comes in his ratty work clothes, which is so not Hamptons chic). He catches her looking at him in a weird way and thinks she’s hitting on him. Oh, if you only knew, Jimmy!
Nolan and Amanda watch some video footage of her being crazy. She realizes that Aidan’s in bad hands when she discovers his sword sheath left at her house, but not the sword. Nolan makes the connection that she planted it for Niko to find. Eep! Now she will know that he killed her father. Off Amanda goes to try to save Aidan. She gets to her house, where she finds Aidan all tied up in a (quite lovely) candlelit room. They get into a girlfight, and Amanda could totally stab Niko in the neck with the sword, but Aidan convinces her not to.
Mrs. G heads back to the Stoweaway, where she converses with Jack. She tells him she knew his father. Little Carl gets dropped off by the babysitter—he’s getting so big! When Jack takes Carl up to bed, Mrs. Grayson calls her assistant and instructs her to cancel her flight back to LA and to get her Conrad’s cell number.
Victoria is angry with Patrick for letting Jimmy come to her house. She really wants him to fire him, but Patrick says he doesn’t have to, and maybe he’s not a monster anymore. Suddenly, there’s the man of the hour—Jimmy has forgotten his tool belt, and happens to overhear everything. It’s a war of words between Jimmy and Victoria, he-said, she-said, and as Jimmy goes in toward Victoria Patrick swipes him and he hits the concrete, blood pouring out of his skull. Patrick’s like, crap—call an ambulance, but Victoria has flashbacks about how he started his rapes—with the words “relax, honey.” When she sees Jimmy dying, she kneels next to him and says “relax, honey.” Wow, payback’s a bitch!
Aidan thanks Mandy for saving her life. When he asks her about the sword-planting, she blames her mental state and says it wasn’t really her. She goes into a sob story about how she can’t give him a family and a normal life, and he’s like, uhhh I never asked for any of that? He tells her to get out before she does something else she’ll regret.
Ah, the final 10 or so minutes. Daniel enlists Charlotte to find out what’s up between their dad and Amanda. And the cops rule Jimmy’s death an accident, which makes Victoria very happy—now they can move on. But Patrick can’t move on that easily. Mrs. Grayson revisits Victoria and Conrad’s home, but not to have them both sign their divorce papers—it turns out she is the rightful co-owner of the property, not Victoria, because she was still married to Conrad when they moved in (or something like that. Legal speak, ya know). She tells her she wants Victoria out by end of week. And in Amanda news, the doctor tells her that her brain’s anomaly isn’t causing her blackouts. It looks like she’s inherited something from her mother that’s causing her to do this. Now that she’s going after the wrong people (trying to hurt Aidan, working with Conrad), she knows she’s in trouble.
In Jack news, it looks like he’s gonna get the house he and Margot went in on. She can’t celebrate with him because she has to go to Paris—she wants to see why he’s all of a sudden so into seeing Conrad. She goes, and Mrs. G. comes back. She wants to hear his Conrad stories that he alluded to the day before, but he says it’s none of her business. Actually, it is, she counters—I’M YOUR MOTHER! Boom! Didn’t see that coming, did you? I didn’t. I mean, I guess it makes sense, we’ve never met Jack’s mother before (has anyone ever wondered about her?). So this means that Daniel and Jack are half-brothers? Yikes! Will Daniel ever find that out? We’re just at the beginning of this string of episodes, so we’ll see what happens next week!
