When I first found out tonight’s “Revenge” was Thanksgiving-themed, I was like, “way to be a week off, ABC, Thanksgiving has come and gone!” But those sly writers framed tonight’s episode as a flashback to 2006, so it works.
So it’s November 2006 and Amanda’s visiting Aidan at the bar he works at (and keeps a hilarious Russian accent at). She’s after a man named Sergi, who Aidan says is in the VIP area.
At the Graysons’, Daniel’s having a rough go at Harvard, and Victoria’s excited to have Conrad and Daniel for Thanksgiving. That is, until she gets a surprise visit from her mother (who—great casting alert—sounds JUST like Victoria). It turns out Victoria and her mother have been estranged for 35 years, and Daniel arranged the little Thanksgiving reunion. Oh and by the way, Mother has invited her companion Ben over for the big day—that’s OK, right Victoria? In typical Victoria fashion, she’s not too happy. We’re then taken to a flashback where Victoria’s mother is warning her that when her boytoy Thomas visits later she wants Victoria to back off because they need the money—she’s jealous that men find her so beautiful. Predictably, when Thomas arrives for dinner he blatantly hits on Victoria and we got a look at his wedding ring.
Meanwhile, back in that club, Russian sex trafficker Sergi has his eyes set on…Ashley, A PROSTITUTE! Whaaa? Yeah, she’s hustling for money to pay her rent, but she swears she really wants to work in a gallery. Amanda offers her money in exchange for help: She needs Ashley to find out what Dimitri’s up to text her the info. She takes the money and runs, never to return to that club, per Amanda’s wishes.
At the Stowaway, Jack just bought the Amanda boat, and Jack’s dad Carl (so THAT’S why Jack and Amanda’s baby is named as such) needs the bar for Thanksgiving, even though that goes against the original plan he and Jack had. He’s up to no good, as we’ll find out later.
Amanda meets with Takeda, who’s given her this mission to take down Sergi and his pimp, Dimitri. It’s a slight interruption before she starts on her whole Grayson takedown. Takeda has her working on this to find one missing girl, Colleen, who Dimitri had kidnapped. Once she gets the info Takeda requires from Dimitri, she can start on her Grayson revenge.
Over to Nolcorp, where Nolan calls a Thanksgiving meeting (kind of a jerky move, even if it is to tell everyone they’re going public). We’re introduced to Marco Romero, the CFO.
Back at the Graysons, Daniel doesn’t want to major in business—he wants to do poetry! Conrad is so supportive of him following his dream—that seems odd, but let’s go with it for now. Daniel asks Conrad to read some of his stuff and Conrad said he would be honored. Meanwhile, Victoria’s mom, Marion, implores her daughter not to run this special night with Ben, whom she genuinely cares for.
Andddd back to the club (are you dizzy yet?), where Amanda tells Sergi that Ashley can’t make it. When he offers her $3,000 to take her spot, she agrees. She’s got her earpiece to Takeda, though, so this is all part of the plan. She tells Takeda about the situation—there’s a Russian militia in this club!—and he says he’ll get there. Before long, there’s gunfire—it’s Aidan, and he knows who these people are: They killed his sister…Colleen! Don’t you love how everyone is connected on this show? Anyway, the militia go after Aidan, but Amanda doesn’t want to see him die—he helped her before. Ah, even six years ago, she was easily distracted by a pretty boy. Girl’s got a weakness.
And we swing back to Nolcorp, where we learn that Marco and Nolan are lovers. There’s a cute gift exchange and that’s it for now.
At the Graysons, Ben and Marion are telling Victoria about how they met on a cruise. Victoria mentions that it all sounds so perfect, almost like it was set up. Marion’s peeved—she genuinely fell for the dude, OK? Victoria and Marion get some alone time and Victoria asks if staying with her previous husband Maxwell for 30+ years was worth it. Marion says she wouldn’t change a thing and that Victoria landed on her feet with an impressive husband and beautiful children. Little does she know how those words are gonna come back to haunt her later in the episode.
Jack visits his dad in the Stowaway and is a little creeped to see he’s got a gun—and oh my God, whoa, what’s that, a fire! The guy who did it comes in asking for his cash—it looks like they’re business partners—and Jack speaks on behalf of his dad, who would rather take the reins himself. Might I add that this was another brilliant casting job by the folks at ABC, because did anyone notice how Declan’s voice is pretty much identical to his father’s on the show?
Alright, so Aidan’s locked up at this club, being held hostage by the Russian mafia, so Amanda (naturally) climbs through the vents to free him. She wants to know what he knows about the downed flight that her dad was blamed for, and he says it happened a week after Colleen vanished. Amanda knows there’s some connection here. We then learn that Aidan’s dad was a baggage handler, who likely ended up unknowingly planting the bomb on the plane, and thus his dad was used just like hers.
Back at Nolcorp, Marco wants to know why half a billion dollars is missing from their account. Nolan failed to mention that, oh yeah, he gave the money to the convicted terrorist’s daughter, and that he believes all the conspiracy theories saying he’s innocent. Well, this doesn’t sit too well with Marco, whom Nolan promptly dumps and fires. Double burn. Sad!
At dinner, Victoria, charming hostess with the mostess, asks Ben if he’d like to hear the story of how Victoria got kicked out when she was 15. Marion tries to stop her but Ben wants to hear it. In a flashback, we see that Thomas, Marion’s lover from earlier in life, told Victoria he wouldn’t marry her. She blames Victoria and calls him a pervert for being attracted to her. He’s all like “you’re crazy, lady,” and then she shoots him! Victoria is wailing and Marion orders her to shoot him in the chest: They’ll tell the cops he attacked them and they had to defend themselves—no judge would ever question it. So she does it.
Back to the present, we learn that Victoria was in fact never convicted, but she was sent to a psych ward, and when she got out, her mother didn’t want her when she saw her new boytoy Maxwell creep into her room. At dinner, Marion says she should have listened to Victoria’s father and aborted her when he advised it. Ouch! How could Victoria, Marion wants to know—now she’s got nowhere to go, Ben was her last hope! Oh well, Victoria says she’s confident she’ll land on her feet. And oh, what a pity, not one of the myriad rooms at Grayson Manor are available for Marion to stay in. But she’ll land on her feet, Victoria’s convinced! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Aidan and Amanda escape from the club, and Aidan kills Dimitri (I think it’s him?) against Amanda’s wishes (“You’ll never know what happened to your sister if you kill him!” Too late.). Takeda has Amanda whisk Aidan away.
AWESOME TWISTS ALERT. During some post-turkey alone time, Conrad tells Victoria a) he’s having some publishing houses send out fake rejection letters to Daniel so he’ll give up on his poetry dreams, because the poems he was writing implied the Graysons’ illicit behavior, and b) that he wired the money over to Ben, who thanked him for giving him “the role of a lifetime.” WHAT! Turns out they did arrange Marion and Ben’s little meeting on a cruise ship (and Marion’s unfortunate ending) after all. This show, I tell ya. Those were some great twists.
OK, I’m a little confused about this Stowaway subplot, so if any of you can explain it better, please feel free to do so below! From what I interpret now: Jack and Declan’s dad went to give their business partner the cash he demanded, and then, out of the blue, this other friend of theirs came and shot the partner, Mr. Ryan…whose sons (maybe?) are now working with Jack and Dec!! Jack awakens at the gunshot, but his dad tells him it was just the engine sputtering out.
The final scene before our shift back to the present is of Aidan and Amanda connecting over their family members’ tragic ends, and Aidan wanting in on the work of Amanda’s sensei. Now, back in the present, they’re cuddling in bed, and Aidan’s like, who would have guessed this is where we’d be six years later?
In the mini-scenes “Revenge” loves to end on, tonight shows us Declan and Kenny bonding over blue-label booze, which the elder proprietors discussed earlier in the episode, and Daniel calling Marco and telling him he has a business proposition for him. Marco’s all ears. Then, we see Conrad and Victoria agreeing that they can’t let Daniel take over Grayson Global (“maybe he should have been a poet after all”) and Amanda showing Aidan her revenge box. He asks about the infinity symbol, and the episode ends with her saying it means a journey without end. So does this mean that any hopes we had of her leading a happy life are now off the table? Let me know what you think!
