In the art of war if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the approaching battles. But if you know only yourself and not your enemy, for every victory, there will also be defeat.   – The Art of War, Sun Tzu  (well, kinda)

As Amanda is researching her former foster family, and from all appearances, they’ve turned out to be a motley crew,  Aiden expresses his concern over Eli’s intentions.   She brushes him off,  telling him that he might be a problem but she just can’t hurt him.  Aiden tells her that, since he’s been on the board at Grayson Global, Daniel’s been icing him out, leaving him with no new information.  Amanda calls Daniel, but he pretends to be talking to a Mr. Taylor – the walls of Grayson Global have eyes and ears everywhere and Daniel is looking over his shoulder as if zombies are breathing down his neck.  He suggests that the two of them meet for lunch the next day, away from everyone.

Victoria is ready to get the Amanda Clarke Foundation (ACF) up and running and holds a breakfast meeting with Eli, but Amanda walks in, at Eli’s invitation, and Victoria reluctantly allows her to join them.    Eli would like the foundation to help the foster home where he and Amanda lived by donating some money to Mrs. Hayward, their foster mother.   Ashley thinks it’s a great idea, that it might help Conrad’s bid for the governor’s office as his polling numbers are hovering in the single digits.    Even though he scoffed at the numbers, telling Ashley that they must be polling the hoi polloi on their rotary phones, he figures, what the heck – let’s do it.   Eli and Amanda have a rather angry exchange afterwards, but Eli tells her that he hasn’t forgotten what the bitch – Mrs. Hayward – did to them and that she even kept letters that David Clarke had written out of the hands of her daughter.  Amanda had no idea that her father was reaching out to her and that knowing about the letters could have changed what she did from that point on.

Nolan, with Aiden’s help, is arranging the exchange of the Carrion program from Padma to The Initative.   Aiden is picking out the best vantage point for his sniper rifle.    Nolan asks him if this is his plan, to shoot people, and Aiden says that no, he’d be shooting terrorists.   Aiden also tells Nolan that, after the exchange is made, Padma will have to disappear, just like Amanda did – new identity and all.  Nolan has a tiny turtle figurine with a flashcard that can track the program after Padma hands it off.  All of Nolan’s gadgets – whale-cams, turtle tracking devices, etc. –  can be found by going to the gift section at the National Wildlife Foundation’s website.

Jack is trying to find Kenny Ryan armed with the boat registration that Nolan gave him, but he’s running into nothing but dead-ends.   Declan tells his brother that he thinks he has a way of reaching him and goes off to school.  Amanda walks in to check on Jack and he assures her, with his fingers crossed behind his back, that he’s going to concentrate on his son, Carl and not worry about the Graysons.   Declan, finally, does something useful and bumps his former partner in crime, Trey, making off with Trey’s cellphone.   Scrolling through the contacts, he finds Kenny Ryan’s number.   Good job, Declan.  You’re safe from my red Sharpie for another week.

Amanda and Eli pay a visit to Mrs. Hayward’s house to tell her the good news about the ACF.   Amanda asks Mrs. H. if she has any personal items belonging to Amanda Clarke, but Mrs. H. says  no, she doesn’t because everything was lost in the fire.  Eli asks her for a tour of the place while Amanda wanders off to do a little snooping.  When she reaches the basement, she pushes a bookshelf aside to reveal the kiddie dungeon and, in a flashback, we see Mrs. H. throwing young Amanda inside for a time out or two or three.   Mrs. H. tells the young girl that no parents will ever want her.   Little Amanda breaks out into a tearful version of “It’s A Hardknock Life” while behind the bars of the baby dungeon.   (Sorry, wrong show)   Eli, now that he’s alone with Mrs. H., tells her about the kind of money the Graysons and the ACF have – the opportunities for both of them are endless.  She’s so grateful for his help, and can’t thank him enough. 

The three of them go to see Victoria who tells Mrs. H. about the check for $250,000 she’s about to receive from the ACF which will be presented at a press conference the next day.

Declan has made it back to The Stowaway with Trey’s pilfered cell phone and he’s been sending texts to Kenny Ryan, making him think that they’re from Trey.   Conrad and Ashley waltz in to ask for Jack’s help with his campaign.  They’d like to use Jack to tell all of the poor men to vote for the rich man.  Ashley says that Jack will be their very own “Joe the Plumber”.  Yeah, that should sell him on the idea.  He just says that he’ll think about it.

Amanda and Daniel are having their arranges lunch date and he tells her that Aiden is going to be the fall guy for Grayson Global.  Just then, she gets a call from Aiden, telling her that the Carrion exchange program has been moved up and it’s going to happen a half hour earlier.  Nolan and Padma are having some touching final moments as he tells her that she’ll be going away after the exchange.  She says she love him.  He says he loves her, too.  I say I love Nolan but I’m going to reserve comment about Padma until I know her better.   While Padma waits for Trask in an alley,  Aiden and Nolan have found  just the right roof for shooting people.

Nolan’ s having a panic attack, and Aiden says that he better stop breathing so heavily – he’s messing with his sniper mojo.  Nolan, in true Nolan fashion,  says, “Sorry, Lee Harvey but I get a little nervous when I’m about to kill people.”  A black SUV pulls down the alley and Trask gets out.  Padma hands him the Carrion program and wants to see her father.   Aiden’s trigger finger is going crazy, but Nolan tells him to hold off until they see Padma’s father.   Trask hands the program to someone inside the SUV, then takes the woman to the back of it, and she’s whisked away. Aiden can’t get a good shot at it and Nolan wants to jump off the rooftop.

The Graysons are holding their press conference and Victoria is extolling the virtues of Mrs. Hayward and her foster home.  Then Eli steps to the microphone and describes Mrs. H. in an entirely different way – more like the Hayward House of Horrors.  He tells the crowd that she used punishment like a weapon, withholding food and water, leaving all of her foster kids begging for gruel.   Eli’s even brought a group of her former foster children, now adults, to back up what he’s saying.  Well, Mrs. H. isn’t about to take that without a fight, so she lets loose with a little story of her own about Eli and how he burned the house down, not Amanda Clarke, but blamed the girl for it anyway.    Victoria, who doesn’t care for being played for a fool or humiliated in front of everybody, tells Eli that he’s through.  He can’t be a part of the ACF and he certainly isn’t welcome at Grayson Manor.   So there.   Amanda’s livid and asks Eli if he has any idea what that did to her.  If he’d owned up to the fire, she’d never have gone to juvie and her life would probably have changed for the better.   She tells him to leave and not even think about her exposing her real identity.

Kenny Ryan is sitting at the school, waiting for Trey – or so he thinks.  Instead, Jack  meets up with him and the two of them have a conversation about the Graysons, more specifically, Conrad.   Kenny says that he doesn’t own the boat, wasn’t the one who rescued Jack and that his brother was acting alone.   He does tell Jack  that Nate taped his meetings with Conrad and Jack may find something interesting on them.   When Jack hears the tapes, Declan says that Conrad came pretty close to ordering Nate to kill Jack – pretty close, just not in so many words.   With that, Jack decides to take Conrad up on his offer to help with the campaign and the two men shake on it.

Eli is back at The Hayward House and Mrs. H. tells him that it’s a good thing Amanda died before she found out he was the one who set the fire.  He says she’s right, that he owes Amanda and that’s why he’s at the house now.   Amanda gets a call from Eli who tells her where he is and that he’s making things right.  Mrs H. is now peering out from behind those bars.

Nolan is going crazy on Aiden, telling him how he just put innocent people in danger by letting the most dangerous program in the world fall into the hands of the most dangerous people in the world.  He also suggests that perhaps Aiden should find another line of work.  Can’t say that I blame him.   Padma has been taken to a building where she can hear her father behind a locked door.  Trask, however, tells her to have a seat, and proceeds to make another video of her, for some future use.   Aiden and Nolan finally find the building, thanks to the turtle, but no one’s there.  Nolan gets a text message with an apology about losing one’s head.  They spot a box on a table – and don’t tell me you didn’t think, for at least a second, that there might be more than a finger in there –  inside is the poor turtle’s head.

Amanda is at home, with her Infinity box and puts an X through a picture of Mrs. H.  Eli’s at the door, and he tells Amanda that Mrs. H. sold all of David Clarke’s letters to some guy.   He hands her and envelope with a confession.  When Amanda asks about Mrs. H., Eli simply says that she’ll live.  Eli asks for her forgiveness and Amanda says that what’s done is done but then she thanks him.   Amanda reads the confession and goes off to visit Mason Treadwell in prison – probably the only safe place to be around these folks.   Mason tries to play coy until Amanda reminds him that she holds the key to his release.  No, he doesn’t have the letters she’s looking for because they were reduced to ash when Amanda burned down his house, but he does know what they said.  He then proceeds to tell her about another poor young girl who had to give up her baby to a foster home – yep, Victoria Grayson.   She’s got another son out there somewhere.  Mason asks Amanda if she’s going to exploit this with her usual flair.  Amanda says, “You can’t even begin to imagine”, then wipes away a bit of saliva that fell while she savored the moment and envisioned all sorts of revengey things.   Daniel’s secretary hands him an envelope and when he opens it, he finds a picture of him and Amanda taken during what was supposed to be their secret lunch date.  The envelope also contains two bullets and we see Victoria, at home, closing the cover of a box of bullets, with two missing.

So now we have to wait and wonder who Victoria’s son is and who’s the baby daddy.   We’ve lost Padma to The Initatitive, along with her father.   Jack’s gone off the deep end and is learning all about keeping your enemies closer, especially when you think your close friends aren’t there anymore.   Nolan’s techy skills have been outdone by a bird of prey and Amanda has a little more to use in her war against the Graysons.   Next week there’s going to be a masquerade party at Grayson Manor – should be fun.

Programming note:  Don’t kill the messenger but I checked the schedule for the last few episodes and it looks like ABC is going to put Revenge on yet another hiatus during April – most of April, in fact.  Following next week’s episode, the show will return on April 28th with the 2 hour season finale  scheduled for May 12th.   If you’re looking for something to watch in the meantime, “Mad Men” starts its’ new season on April 7th, “Game of Thrones” returns next week, and PBS is airing a new Masterpiece Classic “Mr. Selfridge”, also beginning next week.  Now, if the networks could just figure out a way to fill every other night the way the do Sundays…

Empress