Here’s Nolan’s nautical suit (complete with turtleneck!) that I was telling you about.
Credit: Richard Cartwright/ABC
“If I’m gonna tell it then I gotta tell it all/Damn near cried when I got that phone call/I’m so throwed and I don’t know what to do/But to give you part 2 of my confessions.”
You know what Usher and Conrad have in common, dontcha? They both got some confessin’ to do.
We open with Conrad asleep soundly in his bed. Charlotte visits and decides to pull a letter-opener on him. “This is for my father,” she tells him before promptly stabbing him in the stomach.
Of course, it was all a dream! I used to read Word Up magazine. Anyway. Conrad awakes from his nightmare to a visit from Amanda, who comes under the guise of company but really is there to swipe a pill canister from him. He continues his speech from last week about wanting to repent, and she urges him to make amends with his family because family’s all you really got in this world.
Elsewhere, Aidan tells Victoria he can likely have her fortune restored pretty quickly. Oh, he also tells her he was sleeping with Ems after she promised her hand in marriage to Daniel.
We learn early in the episode that this week’s big “Revenge” party is Nolan’s housewarming fete. We know this because he’s trying to book dolphins for people to swim with in his pool/moat/path to the ocean, whatever body of water is outside his house. Amanda is in this scene with Nolan, and she tells him Conrad is her sole focus these days (she’s hoping to off him pretty soon), and that punishing Father Paul last week was the wrong move. For once, she admits her failure.
Over in their shiny new Montauk offices, Daniel and Margot spar over whether or not to feature Nolan on the cover of the first issue. She wants it; he wants nothing to do with it. She also wants to get on his housewarming party guest list to scope him out.
And in Father Paul’s church, the priest is having a tough time living with the sins he committed with the Graysons in his past. He’s talking to a brother about it, who tells him to “look inward.” He decides to hit the confessional. Except of course it’s not a priest on the other side of the booth, it’s Amanda! Listen, she tells him, we both know you took down David Clarke. I’ll clear your name if you get Conrad to confess.
Interestingly, she doesn’t tell him that she’s really Amanda, I guess to keep the wedding thing still going, but she does say that Amanda Clarke is a good friend of hers. She leaves a manila envelope with that old Grayson Global company photo in it for him — I guess to be like, I mean business? Readers, was there another reason for this I missed?
So Charlotte and Margot are suddenly friends (uhh, how did that happen?) and they visit the Stowaway, where Charlotte introduces Margot to Jack. Margot, seeing the invite to Nolan’s bash behind the bar, successfully worms her way into the party as Jack’s date. Back in Grayson land, Victoria’s trying to convince Daniel he really doesn’t know his bride-to-be — did he know, for instance, that she bought Nolan’s house, with an extra $10 million she happened to have lying around? Or that she was still sleeping with Aidan after they got engaged? Daniel’s not buying any of it.
This next outfit of Nolan’s might have been his most ridiculous yet: At a swanky pool club, he’s in a white hat, vest and tight black trunks. As my roommate quipped, “no gay man would want a vest tan,” so maybe Nolan is straight after all. Anyways, he’s talking loudly about his big fete when another gentleman at the club — who happens to be Patrick — tells him to keep it down. The two go back and forth, and Nolan invites him to his party as a means of forgiveness. Just then, Patrick tells a waiter he’s on the Graysons’ tab, thereby exposing his identity to Nolan. Whoops, Nolan’s not supposed to be tight with Patrick, and he just accidentally invited him to his party.
Amanda returns home to Daniel, who is super suspicious of her now. He calls her out on Nolan’s house and Aidan and she of course comes up with some lies about each. Daniel leaves and Nolan enters — he’s wearing a sort of “Free Nolan” shirt with his own mugshot on it — and tells Amanda about his run-in with Patrick. They’ll keep their distance from him because they still don’t really know him yet.
Charlotte cares about Jack and just wants him to be happy again, so she did what a girl who only knows love through displays of wealth does best: She hired a tailor to make a house call and hook Jack up with a new suit. Back at Grayson Manor, Amanda interrupts a pleasant lunch between Patrick and Victoria to hand-deliver Victoria an invite to Nolan’s party. Victoria, thinking it was a wedding invite, tells Emz she surely should be able to afford postage — just another Victoria quip that brought a smile to my face. Just to twist the knife a little further, Amanda tells Patrick that Nolan’s looking forward to seeing him. Victoria’s all like “stay away from that man!” and Patrick’s embarrassed.
Amanda visits Conrad again and starts talking about… the Bible? She says her dad used to read it to her and she always loved the Old Testament (sure, Amanda, all kids love reading the Bible) because sinners got punished.
Conrad’s of the opinion that sinners can be redeemed, and Amanda’s like, no, you have to pay for your consequences… but I wasn’t talking about you, j/k! Just then Father Paul comes aknockin’. Ah, yes, Conrad’s been waiting for him.
Lorde’s “Royals” is playing at Nolan’s housewarming because this is “Revenge” and they gotta keep up the kids these days, that’s all I’m saying. Nolan is wearing some hideous nautical suit, complete with a gold cummerbund and a jacket that looks like it came out of Forever 21. Margot promptly asks Nolan to be her cover star, he’s totes flattered, but Daniel’s peeved that she did the asking in the first place. But they’re not the only ones at this party, of course!
Jack got a nice cream-colored suit from the tailor, and Amanda tries to chat him up at the bar but he still pretty much hates her. She tells him about her August wedding date and he’s like, nope, you’re still a horrible person.
Just then Margot pulls him away. They have a flirty little swim in Nolan’s body of water (whatever it is), which is equipped with giant inflatable swans for this party.
Back in Conrad’s room, he and Father Paul talk about confessing. Conrad at first doesn’t want to, because he’s gonna die soon anyway. But Father Paul is able to convince him that by clearing David Clarke’s name, he’d be giving Charlotte her father back, and a chance to start over. He’d leave a savior. Now that’s something Conrad can get behind.
Back at the party, Amanda’s a little jealous to see Margot and Jack together. Charlotte, also at the party, yells at Amanda for caring for her asshole father and accuses her of becoming more and more a Grayson before her big doe eyes.
Suddenly, you know that moment when you’re having a great time at a party and then your ex shows up with your worst enemy on his arm? No? Well just imagine what that would be like for a second, because that’s probably how Amanda felt when she saw Aidan walk in with Victoria. Oh, yikes, this won’t be pretty. Aidan and Amanda start a bit of a war in front of everyone. Amanda gets kinda loud in this fight, and ends the charade by announcing to all the guests that the Graysons are bankrupt. (Insert gasps, champagne glasses dropping, crickets, etc.) Good time for a commercial break, no?
Daniel and Amanda stroll on the beach — she’s still got to defend herself to him, because he’s totally suspicious of her behavior with Aidan. She tells Daniel she chose him, not Aidan.
Nolan and his gold cummerbund chat with Patrick after the party ends (which Patrick didn’t even make it to, looks like). Patrick doesn’t want to get up in his parents’ histrionics, he tells Nolan (glad to see he inherited Vicky’s vocabulary). IMO, though, the best part was when Patrick complimented Nolan on the swans.
Amanda reaches Father Paul, and he tells her the good news: No, not that Jesus will come again, but that Conrad is about to confess, and if he doesn’t, he (Fr. Paul) will. He’s feeling totes remorseful about screwing over her life and framing her dad. She says she forgives him, and he says she needs to move on before she loses herself, ending with a holy “peace be with you.”
Back at their office, Daniel and Margot fight once more over the cover story, her in French because she’s a French actress looking to use her foreign language skills on American TV most likely. She’s super-eager to get the real story here, since Daniel is so hell-bent on not publishing something.
On the other side of the tracks (the Stoweaway), Amanda once again tries to make good with Jack, but he just sees every move she makes — like getting Jack to talk to Charlotte about the bomb — as manipulation. Jack’s tired of it!
You know the Graysons are the talk of the town because their bankruptcy is on Page 6. Who did Sunil have to call to get a mock Page 6 made up? Anyway, Aidan’s hanging with Victoria, who’s reading the paper, and he tells her he goofed: Amanda doesn’t have their money after all, he realized. But Victoria’s OK with this revelation, because she still thinks their instincts about Emz are right. “We’re gonna destroy that little bitch,” she tells him in a fit of sass.
Daniel is installing an alarm system in their house because he just can’t trust her at all (why are they still together then?) He also shows Amanda her own gun, which he found, and tells her that he shot Aidan.
Conrad rises and shines and is feeling good — it’s time to confess! Victoria’s not too happy about this. “So your psychosis has progressed!” she tells him. Conrad wants to prove he’s capable of redeeming his family, but Victoria takes it as he’s a selfish coward who hasn’t thought about the ramifications. She slaps him, drawing blood — the claws are out! Conrad’s not listening though — he leaves with Father Paul in his flashy little red car.
Twist time! Amanda’s on the beach and Aidan visits. Victoria took the bait, he tells her… meaning AMANDA AND AIDAN HAVE BEEN WORKING TOGETHER THIS WHOLE TIME! Fooled me, Sunil. They share a tender moment where he shows her his scar from where he got shot by Daniel, but they can’t really get too intimate, probably for fear they’ll get caught.
Amanda drives away, muttering some more stuff about confession, when, oh my gosh, there’s the flashy little red car, ON FIRE! Yikes. This is bad. Father Paul is on the ground, dead, and Conrad is alive, walking, but not in such good shape. How did his happen? Will Conrad still confess? Hopefully we’ll get some answers next week, and see more of Nolan in nautical outfits.
Til then, I give this one a B-, because it was your standard “Revenge” fare, not really leading us anywhere. But Nolan’s wardrobe gets an A.
