Weekly Hamptons Revenge Recap — Season 3, Episode 14: “Payback”

After what seems like forever, Revenge is back with new episodes.

Will Emily get to the bottom of her blackouts? Will Patrick and Nolan get back together and/or break up within the span of one episode? Will the show’s new timeslot actually fix the sagging ratings? Only one way to find out — here’s our recap for Season 3, Episode 14: “Payback”…

Emily gets an MRI. The doctor tells her she’s got some brain swelling, which could explain her blackouts.

Morning in the Hamptons: Conrad visits Victoria at Grayson Manor. The two exchange barbs before a maid rushes in and tells Queen Vic that there’s been a fire at her gallery.

HAMPTONS AUTHENTICITY ALERT: Here, we see Victoria reading the Hamptons Daily newspaper (scroll down for picture). Neither this, nor any daily Hamptons paper, exist. Why wouldn’t they use a copy of Dan’s Papers here? Get with it, ABC. How I Met Your Mother and Royal Pains both reference the region’s most iconic weekly…

In Montauk, as they look at a modest house to move into together, Jack doesn’t want to talk to Margaux about her new contract with Conrad. Jack wonders if the house is too small for Margaux’s tastes, but she assures him she moved to the States for a new life.

Charlotte meets up with Daniel on the beach — he’s practicing his golf swing — and reminds him that tomorrow is her birthday, which he totally forgot. Uh, Danny, considering you secretly buried a body on Charlotte’s birthday last year, you’d think you’d remember this year. Charlotte asks Daniel for a job at Voulez but he reminds the viewers that he no longer works there and suggests she go to her father. He also promises to throw her a grand birthday party.

Victoria rushes into her gallery, which is charred, and Patrick admits that he burnt it down to lure his rapist daddy Jimmy as a contractor so he can kill him (not quite seeing the logic there). Victoria is stunned.

Emily gets confirmation from Nolan via hotel surveillance footage that she didn’t sleep with Conrad; he just left her at the South Fork Inn after she drank all night. Emily then gets a call from Conrad’s ex Stevie Grayson (who we met at the end of Episode 13) and is stunned to learn she called Stevie to help with her divorce.

Daniel asks Emily where she went the night before. She reminds him that he manhandled her, and he rolls his eyes. Meanwhile, Margaux walks into Daniel’s former place of employment to find Conrad holding a creative meeting. She breaks it up and warns him to stay away from daily business, and he drops a sinister comment about her father really being in charge.

Stevie and Emily meet at the Stowaway. Emily tries to piece together their apparent phone call from the night before, and learns that she confessed to being in love with another man, and that Daniel sexing Sara in their house is grounds for annulment. Stevie is disappointed when Emily backpedals and says she still loves Daniel; after the surprisingly level-headed lawyer leaves, Emily “blacks out” again and, in her altered state, goes to see…

Aiden! She maniacally tries to seduce the Bond wannabe, but he and Niko are on the way to carrying out their fake “Avenge Takeda” mission. Aiden heads to the car, asks Niko if they’ve got everything, and Niko attacks him and shoves him into her trunk. When Aiden wakes up, he’s tied up and Niko reads him the riot act. Aiden tries to explain that it wasn’t a murder so much as a “battle,” but Niko will have none of it and tells him her master plan: lure Emily to save Aiden and kill her. This is so not going to end well.

Conrad greets Stevie at the South Fork Inn: “We’re neighbors!” he gleefully exclaims. She wants nothing to do with him and accuses him of putting Emily up to calling her so she would come to the Hamptons, which he doesn’t deny. Conrad asks Stevie to help with his divorce with Victoria and presents her with a package that will supposedly give Victoria her comeuppance, but Stevie refuses.

Patrick “helps” Jimmy work at the gallery. Patrick turns the fuses off so Jimmy can work on the wiring and starts casually asking about Jimmy’s life. Jimmy divulges that he has a son he only gets to see twice a month, and then admits to having a long lost son he never knew. Patrick, who was about to switch the fuses and electrocute his daddy, suddenly gets puppy dog eyes and wonders if maybe there’s more to the story.

Stevie and Victoria run into each other at a nameless clothing store that nobody at Dan’s has ever seen (must be a popup), and Victoria tries to insult her before walking off, noting it’s her daughter’s birthday. “The daughter you had with David Clarke?” Stevie replies. Victoria suggests that Stevie has fallen off the wagon — she’s apparently a recovering alcoholic — but Stevie interrupts. After admitting that Victoria won Conrad and the Grayson life, Stevie points out that she still can’t have what she’s got: happiness.

Nolan finds Emily asleep at the beach house and points out that during the blackouts, Emily seems to act on her true feelings. Emily blacks out again and when she wakes up, Charlotte is blowing out her candles at her birthday party. Conrad pulls Ems aside and tells her that he’s got a room reserved for her at the South Fork Inn in case Daniel gets violent again. Margaux tries to make nice with Daniel, who’s still sore about being booted from Voulez, and asks if he knows anything about her father’s dealings with Conrad. Her suspicions are piqued when Daniel mentions a prior investment between their dads.

Victoria spots Jimmy chatting up Charlotte. Jimmy explains that he came by to get the new color scheme approved and didn’t know there was a party, then gets in real close and calls her out on her intense stares, assuming she’s lusting for him. Must be the whole “sexier timeslot” thing.

Nolan shows Emily footage of her blackout, noting that she “hulked out” on his cell phone and went nuts. She apologizes, but after seeing a sheath on the counter, realizes that SHE PLANTED TAKEDA’S KATANA during a blackout! Emily rushes to help her true love, which is just what Niko wanted. Negotiations turn south when Niko notes that Takeda trained them both and Emily points out that she was his favorite. After a ridiculous ninja anime-style brawl, Emily goes to kill Niko but Aiden stops her and delivers the pointless moral of this pointless side story: that murder won’t bring Takeda back.

Stevie has some water at the Stowaway and meets Jack. She seems unusually interested in him and mentions that she knew his father, Carl. After seeing Jack’s baby, Stevie cancels her flight back to California. Peculiar, no? Obvious? Maybe.

Victoria confronts Patrick at the gallery and the two argue about Jimmy, who walks in at just the right moment. He has, by now, deduced that Victoria is indeed Vicky Harper and Patrick is their kid. Jimmy denies raping her, giving the requisite “you wanted it” speech that television rapists often spew. Things escalate when Jimmy grabs her arm. Patrick goes to stop him, but daddy dearest elbows him in the gut, forcing Patrick to hit back and knock Jimmy’s head against the metal tool table. He immediately tells Victoria to call an ambulance, but she remembers all Jimmy’s done to her, gets down on the floor and whispers to her dying rapist his signature phrase (that we’ve only heard once before but is still supposed to be chilling and powerful): “Relax, honey.”

Aiden and Emily debrief after the Niko incident. Emily reveals her blackouts to Aiden, who’s skeptical, and she tells him she can’t give him any of the things he deserves: a child, a happy life… Aiden cuts her off and tells her he never needed any of those things (what super spy does?). Later, Emily gets confirmation that the brain swelling is not causing the blackouts. Nolan comforts Emily when she admits that she may be suffering from the same mental illness that plagues her mother, Kara.

Back at Grayson Manor, Charlotte thanks Daniel for the party, and he asks her to spy on Conrad at Voulez. Victoria tells Patrick that the coroner has attributed Jimmy’s death to an accidental ladder fall. “What is wrong with us?” Patrick asks, echoing the viewers’ thoughts. Patrick isn’t sure he can move on.

The next morning, Stevie interrupts Victoria and Conrad’s divorce proceedings with an announcement: Stevie actually owns Grayson Manor thanks to a clause in her divorce from Conrad! Victoria is told to vacate by the end of the week, but Conrad’s smirk is cut off when Stevie tells him what a terrible person he is and that they’re not partners.

Later, Stevie goes back to the Stowaway where she delivers to Jack the most ludicrous, leftfield (and fun) twist of the entire season: “Jack… I’m your mother.”

Closing Thoughts
Wow, this was quite an episode. I’m not quite sure what the point of the Niko subplot was, other than giving Emily VanCamp some action scenes to prepare her for her role in Captain America: Winter Soldier, but I’m glad it’s over. Stevie Grayson is a compelling addition to the cast— hopefully she’ll stay around. But the escalating antics of Patrick and Victoria are starting to remind me of Bates Motel. And a final thought: Does Victoria realize that this is the second year in a row that she’s killed/help cover up a murder on Charlotte’s birthday?

Theories
Since we’re apparently not getting any takedowns in the near future, what with Emily going cray cray and all, I thought I’d give some left-field theories. Let’s see if any come true!

1. Margaux’s father is one of the people who framed David Clarke, giving Emily a new takedown.
2. Patrick spirals out of control and ends up trying to kill his mother.