Revenge - Recap: To Kill A Mocking Girl

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So it turns out that Emily's big plan for her August 8 wedding to Daniel is to frame Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) for her murder. This immediately contextualizes the flashforward we saw in the season premiere, as Emily's shooting is apparently staged (though I wouldn't put it past the show to fake us out again and having it be a real shooting by the time we get to that point in the story. Again, this is Revenge, where the entire trajectory of a story can change at the drop of a hat. It's exhilarating stuff). It's easy to imagine how the people within this universe would suspect Victoria of the murder, assuming Emily could pull off the con of faking her own death in the first place, since everyone is at least partially aware of the enmity between Victoria and Emily. In essence, it wouldn't be that big of a stretch for The Hamptonites to believe that Victoria shot this mocking girl that's been a fly in her ointment since day one. It's an interesting, borderline elegant plan from Emily. And we learn all this when she reveals the information to Nolan and Jack. It's not exactly something Emily seemed to want to do, but it was something Emily had to do to win their trust back, as she's been so mired in her own self-absorbed quest for revenge that she's neglected just how adversely her scheming has affected these men she considers two of the most important people in her life.

It's a moment that is remarkably self-aware for Emily, and an act that stalls her gradual slide towards anti-hero status. Sure, it's all in the final minutes of the episode, but it's the most effective scene simply for how it strips away Emily's artifice and gets to the girl underneath. She admits she isn't good at expressing herself to others, and VanCamp's performance illustrates the truth of the statement. She can play a facade like nobody's business, but when she's actually called upon to be real, to drop the mask and speak from one human being to another, she faces complications. The story is a natural extension of the character, since Emily is in the unique position where forging real relationships is actually a detriment to her. She can't be the best possible friend to these people, because they're all assets to her -- at least until the mission is done. And, as she reveals, once the mission is done, their friendships are functionally over as well, as Emily will have to disappear off the face of the Earth and never contact them again if the plan to fake her own death is going to work. And that's a fairly huge "if".

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Yet while the closing scene was my favorite, there were plenty of other staggeringly good scenes this week. Jack and Nolan's friendship hasn't been explored much over the past season, yet that exploration comes back to the fore here, as Nolan is so miffed at Emily telling him he can no longer see Patrick (Justin Hartley), that he angrily confesses to Jack that he, too, knows that Emily Thorne is really Amanda Clarke. This sends Jack into a rage, and he confronts Nolan to see how long he's known the truth, at which point Nolan declares that there's never been a point where he didn't know. Jack astutely questions why Nolan feels the need to still defend Emily, even knowing what kind of person she's slowly becoming. As Nolan explains, it's not simply about the promise he made to David Clarke to watch over Emily, but about the wounded little girl he still sees deep down in her that compels him to protect her, even against someone with cause to be angry, such as Jack. Nolan tells Jack that if their friendship has to end, they will at least have parted in truth. However, in the episode's most poignant moment, Jack affirms to Nolan that he's still his friend, prompting Nolan to give him a relieved, jubilant hug. It's a moment rivaled only by Nolan's later admission to Emily that all he ever wanted from her was friendship. This was a terrific episode for Gabriel Mann, actually.

And Nick Wechsler, for that matter. Jack breaks things off with Patrick on Nolan's behalf, since Nolan would pretty much fall to pieces if he had to be the one to say goodbye himself. Jack promises Nolan that he won't let Patrick get hurt by the breakup, and so he orchestrates Patrick's departure from town, telling Conrad (Henry Czerny) that it was Patrick who'd actually cut his breaks. Victoria learns that Conrad knows the truth, and sends Patrick away for fear of his safety, touchingly telling him to obey his mother when he tries to argue against leaving her alone with a dangerous man like Conrad. Patrick is one of the more interesting recurring characters the show has had, since it's almost inconceivable to think he's actually being genuine with everyone. The immediate inclination is to suspect he has a secret agenda, yet nothing we've seen in the episodes would bear that theory out. He's never been anything but straight up with Nolan, and with Victoria. Hell, he admits he cut the brakes to protect her, revealing to the audience that he wasn't actually put up to the crime by Victoria. It's somewhat disappointing to be losing Patrick so soon, even if only for a short while, since it's so rare for a character on this show to be exactly who he says he is. It's refreshing as hell, and instantly makes him more interesting than he might otherwise have been, if he had simply just been a con man or something similarly cliched.

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Much of the rest of the episode deals with Grayson odds and ends. Conrad tries to sell Grayson Manor only to have his plans foiled by Emily, who swaps out the property records with documents forged to make it seem as though the Graysons are losing valuable beachfront space to the encroaching ocean levels. In essence, Grayson Manor can't be sold, and I'm genuinely intrigued by what Emily's endgame is here. Perhaps she really does want to buy it, and she wasn't simply making the offer as a salve to Conrad's ego? Although I don't know what purpose buying Grayson Manor would serve. But I guess she needs newer places to make out with Aiden (Barry Sloane), who spends a lot of time daydreaming out loud about the beach overseas that he and Emily are going to go to when this is all over, which guarantees, from a foreshadowing perspective, that the beach dream isn't happening for them. But the flames of romance don't exist solely between Emily and Aiden. There's also the spark of something more between Daniel and Sara, the girl he nearly paralyzed in his youth. His attempts to make amends for what he did to her are endearing, even while it's understandable why Sara doesn't want to hear any of it. It's clear that this is yet another wrench into Emily's plans of marriage, as Sara is a threat given the chemistry she and Daniel still have after all these years, yet I imagine it'll take more for that romance to get going than Daniel's pleas for forgiveness.

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"Dissolution" maintains the soap opera aesthetic of previous episodes, while moving the season arc forward in substantial fashion. The plot can easily change direction at a moment's notice if it, say, makes more sense for Daniel to fall in love with Sara, or if it makes more narrative sense to have Emily question whether or not she actually trusts Aiden. I'm not necessarily saying any of those things will happen, but it's the show's unpredictability, even while presenting itself as a series that invites prediction, that makes it so completely gripping.