” A person’s true identity can often be difficult to discern, even to themselves, causing one to question their character, their calling, their very existence. For most, time gives clarity. For others, these questions remain unanswered. For an identify can not be fully defined when it is a guarded secret.”

Amanda’s getting dressed after spending the night with the boyfriend who suits her purposes at the moment, Daniel, but she has to leave because she’s worried about Nolan, who’s getting out of jail later that day.   Conrad and Victoria are starting the day with their usual breakfast argument.  She’s handing him her rock-solid, indisputable proof that she terminated her pregnancy, and he’s concerned about his upcoming interview on “Nightline”, while Amanda listens in on them.

Ashley is hanging around The Stowaway with her new co-conspirator, Jack.  She’s got Conrad’s official schedule but three of the meetings are a little hinky, so she and Jack go on a spy mission in a parking garage and find the candidate for governor driving off with the sitting governor’s wife.   Oh, good!  What’s a political campaign without some juicy sex scandal?

Amanda picks up Nolan outside the police station and they head back to her place to figure out how to find the Falcon.   Nolan’s not all that confident that they can find out who he is.  The Falcon’s been underground for 20 years and nobody even knows what he looks like.   Amanda really needs to find the hacker and pleads with Nolan to help her, so Nolan says “then let’s take the bastard down.”    Nolan manages to hack into some records from the hospital where Victoria did or didn’t have an abortion or deliver her long-lost first son.  Realizing that the Falcon’s Achilles’ heel is his ego, Nolan decides to “blow his motherboard” by sending Victoria some fake information and calling out the Falcon as sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.   And he’s got just the right thing to push Lady Grayson over the edge.  Nolan sends an email to her with forged hospital records.   Well, it works.  Just as Victoria is having a moment of regret over her baby boy, during a flashback, the email arrives and she gets on the phone and reads the Falcon the riot act.  The predator says it’s impossible but Victoria wants to know who leaked the information.

Amanda stops by The Stowaway to, once again, make nice-nice with Jack, but he’s still in a foul mood.  He doesn’t want anything to do with her.  Besides, he’s got Ashley now and the former pole dancer/gentlemen’s escort/Graysons’ double-dealing, whipping girl is taking care of baby Carl.  Yep, when you’re looking for good childcare, Ashley is the first person who comes to mind.  Then again, Jack’s lost his mind, so it probably makes sense to him.   Jack hustles Amanda out the door, telling her that he and the baby are okay – and, to finish her off,  he says that Amanda won’t be baby Carl’s godmother anymore.   Just so long as he doesn’t name Ashley as her replacement, I’m good with it.

Charlotte and Declan are considering their college careers and should be studying for the SATs – but who cares.  Do we care, really?  Charlotte meets up with the girl she clocked at the masquerade ball and the two girls talk about, of all things, suicide.   Oh my, nothing like teenage angst and pondering the meaning of life and death.  Anyway, now that they’ve bonded, the girls decide to skip class and meet up for coffee, then make plans to go out on the town that night.

Nolan notices that someone is trying to access Victoria’s hospital records, then realizes that it’s the Falcon.  The two computer wizards DM one another and set up a meeting at an arcade. The Falcon tells Nolan that he should be prepared to defend his title.   When he arrives at the arcade, he goes over to a game called Street Fighter and there’s the Falcon, sitting right in front of him, only it’s not a he.  It’s a young woman and she’s ready to take on Nolan in a video game challenge.   If she loses, she has to do what Nolan wants her to do, but if he loses, well, Nolan says he won’t lose, so there’s no other option, really.    Of course, he kicks her little hacker butt and tells her that she now has to live up to their agreement.

Daniel has a meeting at his office with Mr. Takeda to tell him all about the trouble that Aiden’s cause.   Aiden just happens to wander in, and, speaking in Japanese, he and the Revenge school headmaster make a date for drinks later.   At a bar, Takeda and Aiden discuss the whole mess, especially Aiden’s sister and Amanda’s revenge plans.  Takeda wants Aiden to go back to Japan, but Aiden tells him that Takeda’s path has taken them nowhere.  Amanda is going to get her revenge, which will mean absolutely nothing, but it’s what she wants to do, so he’ll help her and there’s nothing Takeda can say that’ll change his mind.  So there – grasshopper has spoken.

Charlotte and her friend have gone off to the city to have a little fun at a nighclub.  Declan calls Charlotte because she was supposed to help him study for their SATs.  She blows him off, telling him that she can;t get away because of the “Nightline” interview”.  Then she gets out of the car, tosses around the Grayson name – once a Clarke, always a Grayson –  to get to the head of the line, poses for the paparazzi and makes an all-around fool out of herself.

Grayson Manor is jam-packed with a film crew, “Nightline” reporter Juju Chang – a real ABC news person – and everybody else, whether they have anything to do with the campaign or not.   Amanda lifts Juju’s tablet and enters some information into it while no one’s looking,  and the games begin.  Daniel and Amanda go first, and the poet turned CEO blindsides his girlfriend by professing his undying love and expressing his hopes that she’ll make his name her own.  Amanda, caught off-guard, recovers enough to tell the reporter that she can think of no greater honor than to become  a Grayson.   Juju loves it, calling them the new John-John and Caroline.  Victoria is trying to keep her lunch down.

Which brings us to the main event.   Conrad wants to talk about his campaign, but Juju wants to know about Victoria’s baby.    At first, Conrad is surprised by the question and tells her that his wife had an abortion but might have done things differently under better circumstances.  Juju says that no, that’s not what she means. She wants to hear about Patrick, the infant who Victoria abandoned in order to take an art scholarship in Paris.    Victoria admits that the story is true.  She did?  That’s a first.  She gets up and leaves the room.   The Falcon calls Nolan and she’s furious.  She wants to know how he did it.  How did her get the information about Victoria?  Nolan tells her to look at the drive on her computer.  He then calls her “Edith” and watches as the FBI haull her off to jail.   Nolan explains to Amanda that the Falcon – Edith Wi – was on the Grayson’s payroll and was, in large part, responsible for David Clarke’s betrayal by the Graysons.  He tells Amanda that she can cross Edith off her list but she tells him to do it, for Padma.

Daniel wanders over to Amanda’s and proposes to her again.  He hands her the ring and tells her to put it on when she’s ready.  Conrad is telling his wife that if she’s thinking about jumping off the balcony, he’ll be happy to help.  He’s concerned about his reputation but she’s concerned about her first son, and how the media is going to hunt him down and make his life a living hell.

Declan sees a picture of Charlotte, at the club, kissing her girlfriend.   More teenage angst results.   I hope he does well on his SATs and gets accepted to UCLA.   Jack comes in and tells Declan that he’s using Ashley to his advantage.  I imagine that means that she’s going to get him insider stuff on Conrad, but all he’s done so far is perfect his angry scowl.   Maybe that’s how he’s going to do it.  He’s going to kill Conrad with his icy stare.  Ashley is running right back to Conrad and she’s showing him the pictures Jack took of Conrad and the governor’s wife.   She’s showing him how she’s still on his side and he says “welcome back”.

Nolan is in his office, doodling on a picture of Falcon/Edith and enjoying his moment as “Bruce frickin’ Lee”,  when Victoria walks in.  She wants him to help her find her son, Patrick.  Strange bedfellows, indeed.   Aiden wants to know what Amanda is going to do about Daniel, as in, when everything’s done and the Graysons have paid for what they did to her father, then what happens.  She says that she’ll be with him.  He replies that then she should just marry the SOB, and take them down, once and for all.

Executive producer and Revenge creator, Mike Kelley, will be leaving the show at the end of this season, to be replaced by another producer and writer, Sunil Nayar.   A difficult, but reportedly, mutual decision was made, but it sounds like it was more on the difficult side and not all that mutual.   What I’ve read is that Kelley wanted shorter seasons, with fewer episodes – he suggested 13 – but ABCs’ executives preferred to stay with the September to May schedule and the 22 episode plan.  This might explain why there were so many hiatuses as well as storylines that went nowhere and had nothing to do with the original premise – because very few TV executives have any idea what the viewers want.  And what we want is red Sharpies, hoodies and revenge, without breaks in the action.

Empress