The double crossing is coming in waves now, originating from the Grayson and Thorne beachside manors and radiating outward to engulf everyone in the Hamptons. Emily’s official separation from the Graysons opened up a double-sided door for everyone to deceive everyone; it’s no longer just Emily as the main schemer working undercover. It’s turned into a race to see who can come up with the most successful plot: First one to destroy someone else’s life wins!
Emily’s sights are firmly set on exonerating her father again, which inevitably means the plot of it all gets a little murky. Her latest plan is to figure out how Pascal fits into the narrative and use any knowledge he has about the Graysons to help bring them down. This sets off a complicated trap where she sets out on wooing him using a charity event for his pet cause. It’s all a very nebulous scheme that mostly seems tolerable simply because of the fabulousness of seeing everyone dressed up in Monte Carlo-appropriate clothes to match the theme. Ultimately, she lures him into agreeing to work with her to expose the Graysons secrets, at least right up until she figures out he is double-crossing her himself and working with someone, likely Victoria.
Emily is correct, too—Victoria is working overtime to make sure she figures out exactly why Emily is sticking around town and hanging around their family. It’s especially unfortunate for Emily that her plans involve using Pascal, since Pascal is so easily used by Victoria instead considering his feelings for her. Pascal is buying her dresses and loaning her priceless paintings from the Met. Pascal is suddenly a 16-year-old boy with a crush and an unlimited bank account, despite the show never mentioning him in this context before the last few episodes. No matter, though; it’s convenient and it mostly works, especially when it gives Victoria sufficient ammunition to actually get in the game and play with Emily. It also opens up wonderful possibilities for Emily and Victoria to be pitted against each other yet Victoria not realizing Emily has her number the whole time. That’s a double-cross within a double-cross, and it’s just the kind of twisty thing Revenge does best.
But the double-crossing doesn’t still to Emily and Victoria: Everyone else gets in on the fun as well. The most obvious perpetrator is Conrad, who goes to Stevie with a completely trumped up story about how he’s sorry for what happened in their marriage. How him finding out about Jack hurts him. How his feelings for her were very real. Conrad is convincing enough that it almost rings true at first; to Stevie it rings true completely, making her doubt herself and even her sobriety. But of course Conrad is playing an angle: He just went there to steal the deed to Grayson manor, so he could give it to Pascal to give to Victoria, and then take control of Pascal’s companies. (Note: Can you just steal the deed and then the house is yours? That seems incorrect.)
As for Margaux, she’s both the perpetrator of a double-cross and the victim of one, as she works with Daniel to get Voulez back from her father. The biggest part of Margaux’s character arc throughout the season has been her desire to break free from her father and always failing. Here, Daniel puts in an anonymous tip to an Interpol officer about money laundering, Margaux dangles the continued threat over her father’s head, and then he magically gives her Voulez free and clear. For a plot that informed her for so long, she certainly was able to extricate herself from the situation rather easily.
What Margaux doesn’t realize, and what will likely be her downfall again, is that she’s aligning herself with another Grayson who is turning out to be just as devious as his father: Daniel. Post-wedding Daniel is a (delightfully) nasty piece of business, and he wastes no time here playing on Margaux’s love for Jack, and planting the seeds for her to be suspicious of Jack and Emily’s relationship. It’s a juicy problem for Margaux and Jack to have because Jack knows just how evil the Graysons are, but he can’t tell. He knows just how evil Daniel is in particular, having shot Emily, but he can’t tell. If Jack continues his work with Emily as he stated he wants to, and Margaux works closer and closer with Daniel, Margaux and Jack’s relationship is set to implode from the inside out by the end of the season.
For all the double-crossing happening in this episode, there was one important tidbit revealed about Pascal and his mysterious note about the terrorist attack. In it, he references “TWM.” Nolan uses all his technical savvy to try to find a reference of that in the law firm files, but Aiden returns just in time to crack it wide open. “TWM” is Trevor Warren Mathis, Aiden’s father. What does this mean? As long as no one mentions the word “Initiative,” it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Stray observations:
- What is the deal with Javier? First he creates a super-creepy social media site prototype using Charlotte as the model, and then he hits on Charlotte really blatantly at Emily’s charity event. It figures him telling Charlotte he just got out of prison would make her like him more.
- Charlotte and Daniel are going to work together to take Emily and her friends down? Good luck with that, kids.
- Emily charging her charity event on Daniel’s Black Card was quite amusing.
- Other fun party touches: Emily going “all in” with the engagement ring Daniel gave her, Nolan’s flowered jacket, and Daniel’s pretentious scarf.
- Morgan Fairchild alert! Were there any other recognizable nighttime soap divas in that scene?
- Stevie: “Leave it to Conrad Grayson to make my addiction and unplanned pregnancy about him.”