Bonjour mes amies de REVENGE.

I am so prepared for all the beautiful people of this show to be back on my TV every week.

Because.

SERIOUSLY.

(Minus Declan. He can go to hell. And obviously minus Madeleine Stowe. OR SO WE THINK.)

Also, the show is pretty good.

And the season two premiere, “Destiny,” definitely did not disappoint. The pace of the episode hurdled the plot forward, in a way that actually shocked me, and this premiere mirrored the season one premiere in ways that really called out just how much had changed between all of the characters in one short year.

So at the top of the episode, we’ve fast-forwarded to Labor Day Weekend of this year. There are divers and helicopters, whom I suppose are the Coast Guard. The divers find a photo of the Porter men. AND THERE IS A BODY AND IF IT’S JACK OMG I WON’T EVEN BE ABLE TO DEAL. But of course the show doesn’t reveal WHO the body is, because there has to be something to be fearful of the entire season. However we definitely know that at Labor Day, the Amanda sinks. And there is a body.

Then we time travel to three months earlier because this shows does not respect normal timelines in that it wants us to visit the past and then further in the past.

In general, I was really, really pleased with this episode. Not only was Queen Bee V revealed to be NOT DEAD (I was about 38% shocked, as it happened pretty late in the episode, so kudos, Show!), but Daniel and Ashley are together (more on that in a bit), Conrad is trying to gain control of Charlotte’s inheritance by keeping her in rehab, Jack isn’t in love with Amily, the bar can’t pass a health inspection, and Declan actually didn’t annoy me. Also, Victoria is still evil and working with the White Haired Assassin, and also kept Emanda from her mother.

So on the whole, YES.

Now onto the specifics, in case you’re a person who likes those.

EMANDA & NOLAN

Emanda went to Japan for training in how to be drowned. Oh, nope, just kidding, it’s apparently some weird method of unlocking repressed memories. Just as Emanda is about to recover some great memory of her mother, she is “rescued” by the White Sensei-in-Training. Emanda is PISSED about being rescued, as she was on the verge of remembrance. She then vows to all the Senseis involves that if they had anything to do with keeping her mother from her, then they better watch their backs and throats and general mortality.

Onto Nolan! OMG NOLAN BOXING. And his haircut is nice. I definitely approve.

Emanda is playing nice with Nolan this season because she knows that she needs him, and she immediately divulges that she spent the summer in Japan training and that Takeda was indeed behind Amily’s return in an attempt to help Emanda. He mentions that he needs a place to stay for the summer, but Emanda is not at all into the idea of having a roomie.

As Emanda scrolls through her Google Reader of Revenge, she learns that Angel of Mercy Hospital closed, which is the hospital where her mother was kept. Emanda and Nolan head over to it to search records to Emanda’s madre. Emanda has flashbacks of being in the hospital and seeing her mother restrained in a hospital bed. She heads into that room and the restraint has the infinity symbol etched into it, which is a nice little detail.

THE GRAYSONS

So, Dashley. I just. Ugh. I think I pulled for them to get together at the end of last season, but I’ve changed my mind. I actually like Daniel (this probably has to do A LOT with the fact that Joshua Bowman and Emily VanCamp are actually dating, and I do like them together.) and I think that he is such a lost soul and is so easily manipulated by his awful family that Emanda was good for him, even though she was basically manipulating for her own means too. So, really, Daniel is just the victim here. But, we’ll see what happens, right? And also, this whole Dashley sitaution frees up Emanda to be with Jack, and it gives Ashley something to do and perhaps the chance to be the new bitch on the block. So, it makes a lot of sense from a writing perspective. And maybe I’ll come around.

Ashley has an assistant with good hair who says things like, “You’re so boss-some.” Maybe she’ll die soon.

Conrad expects Daniel to invest all of his trust fund as well as his share of his inheritance from V in the Grayson company. Because Conrad is an asshole who doesn’t want anyone to be happy.

Our dear Charlotte has been in rehab and has been sober for 60 days. There’s talk of her being transitioned to out-patient care and she’s adamant about attending V’s memorial service since she missed her mother’s funeral. And, y’all, the woman was a nasty, heinous bitch toward her daughter most of the time, but missing your mom’s funeral is probably something that one is just okay with. Even if you mostly hated your mother.

THE PORTERS

Oh hey shirtless Jack. You might be slightly better than flannel-wearing Jack. However, you need a haircut. Also Jack’s been living on the Amanda and seems to be avoiding Amily. And everyone else for that matter. But really, can you blame him?

Speaking of, ugh preggers Amily.

Declan informs us all that The Stowaway didn’t pass health inspection due to water damage blah blah blah. Jack has to fix it, so hopefully we’ll have more shirtless scenes.

Nolan stops by to say hey to his good friend Jack.  Amily tells Nolan that she really wants to see Emanda. Of course she does.

EVENT OF THE WEEK: V’s Memorial Service

This event is basically identical to the Memorial Day party that Victoria held in season one for purposes that I’m sure are very purposeful.

Daniel broods and drinks and sees Emanda, who is wearing red to a memorial service. I’m pretty sure that’s not okay? But I’m too lazy to check a manners book, so I’ll let it stand because she looks hot. Daniel is obviously still upset that Emanda kissed Jack, which no one else is upset about.

Ashley is not excited to see Emanda. But she still says she really missed her, which is obvs a lie. Daniel seizes the moment to act like a jackass when Emanda is nothing but cordial to him, but I won’t blame him too much since I’m sure that having your heart broken by Emanda isn’t something that one would easily get over.

Charlotte is allowed to attend the the memorial even though her rehab doctor person is still waiting to get her blood test of the week back. Conrad proposes once she’s out that they spend the summer in the city. Charlotte says she wants to sell the beach house, or have Daniel buy out her half. Whichever. Ah, to be rich.

When the time finally comes, Ashley gives the eulogy. This basically infuriates Charlotte, who then takes the mic, and proceeds to call her mother a woman of many contradictions and a person who had deep secrets, which isn’t necessarily the nicest thing to say about your mother at her eulogy. But I guess it *is* important to speak the truth. Then Charlotte talks about herself, because she’s a recovering addict, and therefore everything is about her.

Immediately after her portion of the eulogy, Charlotte’s blood work comes back positive for hydrocodone. This makes absolutely no sense to me since Charlotte is in an in-patient facility and would probably not have the means to access pills unless someone in the facility was giving them to her, but no one else seems to have that thought. Charlotte starts yelling that Conrad did it and that he blew up the plane. Then she runs to Emanda and whispers something in her ear. This something happens to be that a) V is still alive, and b) where she’s staying. OH CHARLOTTE, YOU SECRETIVE LITTLE WENCH, YOU.

VICTORIA IS ALIVE, Y’ALL. 

And this is where we learn about the fact that Conrad is trying to get control of Charlotte’s inheritance and is paying her doctor person to keep her there. But V is actually the person who tells Emanda all of that, which SHOCKS me considering how much V hates/doesn’t trust Emanda. Emanda points out that if Conrad knew V was alive, Charlotte wouldn’t have an inheritance to be taken away. But V insists she has to stay dead because the government is keeping her safe while they build a case against Conrad.

Then V calls Charlotte, but the counselor finds Charlotte’s burner phone and sees that the number calling is a blocked one. He uses the blocked number against her and makes it seem as if she’s been contacting a drug dealer. This part seems sort of deliberate on V’s part to me, and I wonder if maybe she wants to keep Charlotte somewhere that is at least sort of safe so that nothing happens to her. I’m going to go with that, even though it’s well-intentioned and probably not something V would naturally do.

Anyway, the doctor tells Conrad everything about the burner phone and the false positive with Charlotte’s blood test, because he is, indeed, on Conrad’s payroll.

Emanda tells Nolan that V is alive. Yay for transparency! Emanda naturally wants to get a camera (CLAM CAM) into V’s place, also wants Nolan to run a background check on Charlotte’s doctor so that she has a reason to go back to V’s secret government-sanctioned hide-out.

As Emanda and Nolan are creating a game plan, JACK shows up.

Emanda looks positively thrilled to see him. She goes out on the porch with him, and he says “We haven’t had a chance to talk since, you know, Sammy died.” GODDAMMIT, SHOW. Then Jack apologizes for kissing Emanda and swears he didn’t know Amily was preggers. Emanda reminds Jack that Amily’s had a troubled life and asks if he knows for sure that the baby is his. Way to plant that seed, Emanda!

But we have to get back to the Serious Shit of the episode, so Emanda goes to see V and tells her that her suspicions about Charlotte’s doctor are correct. V points out that she doesn’t deserve kindness or cooperation from Emanda, and Emanda very sincerely says that she’s just so happy that she’s alive because she’s the best actress ever. And probably also because Emanda doesn’t want V to think that perhaps there is a clam cam hiding in her apartment. But also I guess because now she can pump V for information about her mother.

 

See?

 Other Things

“All that it’s missing is flesh-eating zombies.” Nolan, re: the closed hospital. And he’s right.

Jack: “If I could go back in time…”

Emanda: “But you can’t. We can’t.”

So that was the very solid first episode! I hope you all are as excited about season two as I am! Please do leave thoughts and theories and fangirling/fanboying and links to shirtless GIFS and such in comments.