Seems like every day there’s a new party at the Graysons’, amirite?
This episode’s big occasion is an investor recruitment party, and Daniel (now working alongside his father) is up against Tyler to reel in the most dough from new prospects. More on that later.
Lydia is becoming more and more cognizant as the days go on, and she now remembers that, oh yeah, Victoria actually hates her and isn’t really the nurturing caretaker she’d like Lydia to believe she is. See, Victoria keeps her cooped up in bed all day, feeding her pills and keeping her without a phone — all very evil-stepmother-type behavior.
Speaking of phones, the cops find Frank’s on the Graysons’ property, which leads to another duel between Mr. and Mrs. G.: Victoria thinks he had something to do with Frank’s murder, but Conrad adamantly denies it.
Meanwhile, real-Emily is still in the picture, as she didn’t end up taking the flight to Paris that fake-Em pushed on her. Nope, instead she’s been cozying up with Jack, fake-Em’s real love. Real-Em tells fake-Em she’s “tired of running” and plans to stay, which doesn’t please fake-Em too much, especially since fake-Em is aware that real-Em knows all about Jack Porter thanks to the girls’ life story exchange in Juvie (yes, it’s quite confusing).
The subplot between Nolan and Tyler keeps getting juicier. But first, a question: Why does Nolan use such superfluous language when he speaks? Can’t he formulate sentences like the rest of us? It often takes me some time to figure out what he’s trying to say, which is a total distraction when I’m trying to pay attention to what’s happening in the scene. Does anyone else have this problem? Maybe just me. Moving on. I totally forgot that Nolan and Tyler made out that one time until this episode. Tyler and Nolan find themselves alone again (guess they’re getting close) and Nolan sets up his camera to spy on him. When he plays back the tape, he sees that Tyler found Lydia’s Grayson-takedown speech and also hacked into his computer, doing a search for David Clarke. Nolan freaks, thinking Tyler’s onto them, but fake-Em convinces Nolan to invest with Tyler to keep him on his team.
At the party, Tyler and Nolan agree on the investment, and seal it with a steamy kiss, which Ashley witnesses. Nothing like walking in on your boyfriend with another man, right Ash? Yikes. Meanwhile, fake-Em joins Daniel as he’s speaking with a Japanese man and his interpreter, and the man is blown away to hear fake-Em introduce herself in Japanese. Or at least we think. The two take some alone time to because he’s “tired of his translator,” and we learn that this dude is totally in on the whole revenge plot, bringing with him to the table stereotypical Japanese proverbs like “you must be as smart as the viper in the viper’s nest,” or something like that. At the end of the episode, in a flashback, we see fake-Em call him with the news that she’s ready to continue her training. He tells her she must come to Japan.
Back to the Nolan-Tyler lip-lock: Tyler explains to Ashley that it’s all about the game, and that she really needs to up her game against fake-Em. She’s into the idea, and starts raising questions about fake-Em in the mind of Victoria. Victoria invites Ashley to brunch the next day to discuss further. Catty bitches always stay together. After the party, Victoria and Conrad have another showdown, this time over Lydia: Conrad’s sent her to recover elsewhere, out of Mrs. G.’s watch, because Lydia confided to him all of Victoria’s sneaky possessiveness.
And Victoria’s chokehold extends all the way over the throat of (literally and figuratively) poor Declan when she finds him at the Stowaway and offers to pay him however much he wants to stop dating her daughter. We’re led to believe he took her up on the offer, until the end of the episode where we find out that the two are still together, even though Victoria thinks she broke them up. True love!
Real-Em and Jack share a passionate, straight-outta-“Titanic” kiss aboard the Amanda boat, and this new conniver we have on our hands tells Jack she’s really Amanda Clarke, back and ready to come home. Jack’s bowled over, it’s all tears and happiness, and he takes her to fake-Em’s house to show her the porch swing her dad built. Fake-Em plays along, but she’s really pissed that real-Em’s stealing her true love. As we all know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned: We can only imagine how this love triangle is gonna mess with things further.
