It’s been two weeks since we last saw Emily, er, Amanda, and the plot continues to thicken.
Frank is dead, murdered last week by the real Emily Thorne. Fake-Emily is none too pleased to hear the news, and she sends real-Emily to crash at Nolan’s for safekeeping. While she’s there, she meets Jack, and the two have a bit of a flirtation — she teaches him a devilishly good cocktail, the Black Dahlia, for his new, upscale clientele.
Lydia seems to be recovering nicely — pretty amazing considering that nasty spill she took…out a window. Generously (not), Victoria decides to have her rehabilitate at the Grayson house, and though Lydia’s deep in the throes of amnesia, she has one particular memory she can’t shake: the photo of fake-Emily at the Graysons’ 2003 New Year’s party. Fake-Emily is already onto this, though, and has her jack-of-all-trades Nolan Photoshop her out of the pic, so when Lydia does come across it (with the aid of Victoria) it just makes her feel like she’s really out of it from the accident.
As real-Emily continues to cozy into the posh lifestyle at Nolan’s, he starts to question what’s really going on — those blood stains on her jacket are pretty strange, after all. When Nolan’s bodyguard tips him off to the murder of Frank, Nolan confronts her, and finds Frank’s wallet on her things. Who is this girl? Fake-Emily comes to her defense, saying she’ll ship her off to Paris (naturally, fake-Em’s got a place there) with a fake ID (her mother’s) so she can forget the whole thing happened. They hug it out like sisters, but once again, we see that fake-Em isn’t being totally truthful: In a flashback, we see a fight between the two girls in Juvie, with the warden advising fake-Em to gain real-Em’s trust in order to exact revenge on the people who’ve hurt her. Ah, the pieces are falling into place.
But real-Em, she’s just as sneaky, we start to learn. At the end of the episode, she decides against Paris, instead paying a late-night visit to the bar for some Black Dahlias with Jack. What’s brewing between them?
Tyler continues his conniving, this time getting Ashley on Team Emily Sucks. Tyler’s pissed that Danny has quit bartending to return to his father’s business and steal his thunder. Later, Tyler takes a step far over privacy bounds by piecing together the shredded pieces of Lydia’s Grayson-damaging speech that she was planning to give before the accident. He’s onto the Graysons now.
The cops come to fake-Em’s house to question her and Danny about Frank’s murder, since Frank’s last words to Victoria were “Emily Thorne is not who she appears to be,” or something like that. Fake-Emily maintains her cover, but does tell the gang (including Danny) that she spent time in Juvie…because her foster-father abused her? We learn that Victoria was having Emily investigated, which doesn’t sit too well with Danny — he gets into a big tiff with Victoria, and asks to stay at fake-Emily’s for awhile.
Conrad and Victoria’s relationship is still strained, with Conrad living out of the Grayson house and Victoria changing the locks on him. Nothing like a woman scorned! When he pops by for a visit, Victoria accuses Conrad of murdering Frank, and the two have a little chat about killing Lydia, all within earshot of their amnesiac houseguest (who pretends to be asleep when Victoria checks to see if she heard them — Victoria takes her phone away, just in case). Also pretending to be asleep? Danny, when fake-Emily slips back into bed at night after she activates Frank’s GPS (wouldn’t you know it) right outside Graysons’ house! Treacherous, indeed!
