On this week’s episode of Revenge, “Forgiveness,” nearly every character we have ever known on the series shows back up and/or was mentioned at some point. It was some serious sensory overload.

The main focus of the episode was the reemergence of Kara Clarke, who just showed up at Grayson Manor. Naturally, V invites Kara to stay with her—which Charlotte thinks is a sign of her mother becoming a compassionate human being—so that she can determine exactly what all Kara knows. V finds Kara’s burner phone and tells Conrad that Kara has obviously been feeding WHA information about the Graysons. So Conrad proposes to V so that they can’t be forced to testify against each other in court. Because that is a normal reaction to learning that your family might be in danger from a dead man?

The other Big Thing of the episode is that Amily is already out of a coma. Kara hangs around and is disappointed when Amily doesn’t remember her. She and Emanda meet in the hospital and it’s exactly as tension-filled as it should be. I mean, how are you supposed to react to “meeting” the woman who is a) your mother you believed to be dead for most of your life,  and b) the woman who literally drowned you when you were five? I thought Emily VanCamp did a good job of balancing the emotions a person would be feeling at that moment—it’s obvious that she’s overwhelmingly angry, but also curious about the person her mother is now.

However, the anger wins out and Emanda advises Amily, who is staying at Emanda’s place until she and Jack figure out where to live, to tell Kara that she can’t be around the behbeh, who is named Carl, which only makes me think of The Walking Dead, and that she’s going to have to leave. But when Kara arrives at Emanda’s, she makes a big, grand speech about how she knows that she has no place in Amily and Carl’s life and does her best to apologize for drowning her child and then agreeing to be “dead.” Emanda cries a whole bunch as she listens outside the door, and Amily tells Kara that she forgives her.

Other Things

• The Stowaway is officially back in business, and Papa Argent is going to be a partner? Something doesn’t feel right about this.
• Emanda tells Amily that Jack is really the father. Amily wants to tell Jack the news, but Emanda tells her that Jack deserves to be happy and that telling him the truth now would just be confusing and overwhelming for him.
• Aiden wore very fancy suits and palled around with Daniel and Ashley all episode, because he’s Takeda’s proxy and is threatening to pull all of his money out of Grayson Global, which would basically bankrupt the company. Daniel tells him to pull the money.
• Padma looks into NolCorp’s relationship with David Clarke and Grayson Global, which triggers all sorts of red flags for Daniel, who knows that NolCorp has never invested with Grayson Global. Emanda hears about the requisition from Daniel, and she immediately tells Nolan.
• Emanda yells at Aiden a lot and pushes him away from her, the way she does with everyone else. He tells her he’s a better partner than enemy. I’m terribly confused about him, but damn does that man rock a suit.
• Mason Treadwell is baaaaaaack. He originally came back to investigate V’s kidnapping and the crock of shit that she fed to Vanity Fair, but when he meets Kara Clarke he knows that there’s a larger story. He ALSO knows that Amily isn’t Amanda. Also also, he’s a very good whistler.
• I’m very interested to see what happens between Kara and Emanda now. That last scene on the beach was extremely well done and I’m really excited about what’s in store for them.
• Additionally, the way Emanda has been pushing everyone away from her—including Nolan—has me very concerned. I understand her pushing Aiden away. There’s a lot of hurt and pain between those two. And I like to think that Emanda cares about Nolan and doesn’t want to see him get hurt. But the fact that she’s essentially alone and is choosing to be alone is worrisome, right?

Quotables

“A shower wouldn’t kill you.”—Emanda to Jack. PRAISE GOD The Stowaway is up to code now. Mostly so that Jack can do laundry and shower.

Emanda: “You never know where or how you’ll meet your true love.”
Kara: “He was my first love. There’s a difference.”

“I just became an uncle. Well, one of those non-uncle uncles, like Cracker or Fester.”—Nolan

So that’s that for this week! If you have thoughts/feelings/concerns/requests/complaints, please do tell me all about it in comments!