Revenge - Recap: Now I've Got You In My Space

Emily (Emily VanCamp) is finally reaping what she's sown, recognizing that by pursuing a course of vengeance so steadily over the past three years, she may have sacrificed any chance of making a worthwhile connection with one of the only blood relatives she has left to her, Charlotte (Christa B. Allen). Hell, it actually goes a step further, as one could argue that Emily's actions have helped shape Charlotte into the One-Woman Hot Mess Express she's become. Even though Nolan (Gabriel Mann) warns Emily about the risks of continuing on the path of vengeance, Emily doesn't recognize it until it's too late. She admits to Charlotte that she's the real Amanda Clarke, and even shows her their father's Infinity box and all its contents, but none of it is enough to move Charlotte. She lures Emily to the Stowaway, bludgeons her, sets the bar on fire, and leaves her for dead. It's a physical, literal manifestation of Emily's misdeeds coming back to burn her. "Disclosure" suggests that finding closure is easier said than done, particularly when disclosure of the truth brings up so much bad blood.

Credit: ABC

Of course, while I enjoyed the episode, I don't think there's a character in the history of network television that I've ever wanted to spend less time with than Charlotte. It's virtually impossible to feel any sympathy for her whatsoever, which is really saying something when you consider what she goes through this week. For one, Gideon cheats on her with a woman who laughs at the online video of Conrad verbally disowning Charlotte. She then pleads with Daniel (Josh Bowman) for help, but when Daniel learns she spent the rent check he gave her last week in order to continue partying with Gideon, he essentially cuts her off. Feeling lonely and despondent, Charlotte tries to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of the hotel, only to be rescued by Emily, Jack (Nick Wechsler) and his superior officer/partner Ben (Brian Hallisay) -- the same Ben who happens to have a pretty serious crush on Emily, judging by how he refuses to shut the hell up about her when he's around Jack. But the episode doesn't linger on that possibility, as this basically becomes The Charlotte Grayson Show -- to an unfortunate degree.

In addition to pouting over her brother's refusal to provide for her financially, Charlotte pulls out a vial of drugs, contemplating dipping back into narcotics use to escape the pain of a bad breakup. But it's not even like it was really a relationship anyway, and even if it were, I'd consider being free of Gideon something worth celebrating. But alas, Charlotte doesn't seem to realize that Gideon isn't worth the tears. Instead, she beats herself up over a breakup with the Lil' LeMarchal, whose Avan Jogia haircut isn't snowing anybody. The dude's a creep who only wanted to use Charlotte as a "money machine," and her failure to see through a character so transparently evil is a black mark on her own character. Worse, she goes on an angsty rampage, shattering the Infinity box after Emily reveals her true relationship to her. By the end of the episode, it almost wasn't that surprising when she lured Emily to the Stowaway, since something clearly had to give. But it was hard to know what Charlotte was actually going to do until she did it, so I can't say I was actually expecting her to knock Emily upside the head and leave her for dead inside a burning bar (she even tells a worried stranger that there's no one else inside, lest anyone actually try to save Emily from the fate Charlotte feels she deserves).

Credit: ABC

That said, while Charlotte has always been a troubled character, this is the closest she's come to actually being useful in a narrative sense. Her angst towards Emily is palpable, and while she ends up coming across like a petulant child most of the time, I think that's the point of the character. She's so far removed from actually understanding what it means to be an adult that I wouldn't be surprised if we were inexplicably told the character was still in high school. I mean, she's not; but at this point, she might as well be. She's written with the same flighty inconsistency of a cheerleader who just got dumped by the captain of the football team. Hell, she's written like someone who has no idea how she even made it this far in life in the first place. It's a profoundly obnoxious characterization, as befitting the history of a Grayson child, since Charlotte is clearly entitled, and is experiencing failure and hardship on a grand scale. For the first time, she feels truly alone. Yet the character still somehow manages to be tremendously off-putting, and I'm not sure how much of that grating quality is Allen's fault or the writing team's. Either way, Charlotte is just such a chore of a character, I'm surprised the show took this much time before finally making her into an outright villain. This entire episode was a long time in coming, and honestly, I can only hope it's followed by her departure. Or at least a tweaking of the character. If Charlotte is going to stick around forever, she can't be "Mini Version of Victoria Grayson Except Not as Smart or as Talented at Crime or as Snark/Fun." She needs to be a separate person, a separate character who can exist on her own. Unfortunately, Charlotte isn't independently interesting. In fact, she hardly registers as interesting at all, beyond how her antics affect the characters we actually care about, such as Emily or Jack or Nolan. And there's no damn way Emily Thorne is getting killed by freaking Charlotte.

That said, even if the Charlotte threat gets neutralized, it's still bad news for Ems: Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) has found the perfect revenge to exact on Emily, and it fell right into her lap. She's going to turn Emily's own father against her, as we discover that David Clarke (James Tupper) doesn't know Emily Thorne's true identity. He assumes Amanda Clarke died on The Amanda last year. This is why he abducted Victoria, to ascertain what her role was in his incarceration, and to try and make a life with her and Charlotte if she proved to be innocent of the conspiracy against him. It's this storyline that delivers some of the best moments of the episode, as Victoria tearfully admits to David that she did betray him, and that she never stopped regretting it. However, she doesn't take the time to actually correct David's assumption that his daughter is dead, instead finding a way to use his lack of knowledge to her own advantage, in a moment that is stunningly well-acted by Stowe. She goes from tears over her misfortune (losing Pascal, committed to a mental hospital, losing Charlotte's love) to revealing that Emily Thorne is the cause of it all. Stowe's face literally shifts in the blink of an eye, from sadness to stoic anger. She essentially convinces David, on the spot, that Emily is the cause of all her misery, and that she must be taken care of. And she's able to do this because David is apparently a guy who loves being played like a fiddle, as he not only confesses his role in Conrad's murder, but also tells Victoria that he would do anything for her and Charlotte. In essence, he's setting himself up to be the fall guy. AGAIN. It's a story that relies less on Victoria's cunning than on David's stupidity, but it's still an interesting narrative direction to explore regardless, as father is unknowingly pit against daughter, with the weight of all the secrets and years between them hanging overhead. There will almost certainly be a reunion between Emily and David, and my only hope is that it doesn't take the entire season to arrive.

Credit: ABC

But even with all of the issues I didn't care for in our two main storylines this week, they're both far more interesting than the tiresome business with Gideon, who attempts to arrange a business meeting with a wealthy entrepreneur, only to have Daniel sabotage the meeting by having a "drug dealer" interrupt to ask Gideon for her cut. The deal is blown, and Gideon fumes to Margaux (Karine Vanasse), demanding that she fire Daniel and help get another meeting with the businessman, or else he'll reveal the photo of Daniel and the dead redhead in bed together. Realizing that Gideon had the woman killed all in order to frame Daniel, Margaux sets a plan of her own into action, planting drugs in Gideon's bags, which are then discovered as he attempts to board a plane. Gideon is going away to prison for an undetermined amount of time, and Margaux and Daniel decide to take their partnership to the sexual level, because why not? I'm sure it probably all sounded far more interesting on paper, but anything having to do with the LeMarchals is just a total snoozefest to me. Emily and Victoria-centric storylines are where it's at, as those two women carry the show in a way that nothing else around them could possibly hope to.

"Disclosure" is a solid follow-up to the season premiere, as Revenge appears to be using Season 4 as an opportunity to explore the consequences of revenge, from the collateral damage to the ruined lives, from the endless cycle of vindictiveness to the loss of second chances. Revenge is a dirty game, but there's always someone who's going to play it. And as long as they do, the cycle is likely to continue -- back and forth, until one side is destroyed completely. It's only a matter of figuring out which side that will be.