It’s the moment everyone’s been waiting for as Emily finds out that David is alive, but the reunion is going to have to wait just a bit longer. Again. Yes, in the fourth episode of Revenge season 4, Emily does see her father, but what happens next is not at all what she wants.
Meanwhile, Louise tries once again to get to Victoria and is perfectly fine trying to get information from Daniel, Victoria tries to make amends with her children and David has to answer questions about where he’s been in a very public way.
Ben even manages to get a chance to insist that he doesn’t want to ask Emily out and he would if he did. “I’m just trying to uncomplicate things with her,” Jack says when his partner remarks that he feels like Jack would have a problem with him asking her out. Ben, you’re going to have to do a lot better than “I know you’re not a damsel in distress. Hey, I remember everything I’ve heard about you and I know you were in juvie” to win over Emily. Or anyone.
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Emily, Say Hello to Your Father (or Not)
While Emily wants to stay police-free, Nolan is firmly against that, even suggesting they call in “police-adjacent” Jack. “There was a man in your room with a knife, and he was not after your vintage Cartier. He wanted blood,” he argues, not willing to give Charlotte any more “spins” on the “murder wheel” just because she’s her sister. “I’m not going to turn my back on her again,” Emily vows, but Nolan calls the police anyway.
David returns to the cabin moments after Victoria, who is so determined to make sure everything goes according to her plan that I can’t believe her for one minute that she means it when she tells him, “All I want is the life you promised me years ago,” because it seems that every other scene, she’s either professing her love for David or Pascal. When she leaves to head into the city once again, he takes a few minutes to flog himself with a chain before heading to a store and getting arrested after he tries to shoplift. Ben recognizes him as a potential suspect in the break-in, but for now, he’s a John Doe because apparently no one in the entire precinct has ever seen anything about David Clarke on the news or online.
Nick is the one who preps the lineup, and that means he’s the first one to recognize David, but he can’t tell Emily because of procedure. That means all he can do is watch as she sees that her father is alive through the glass, and this leads to Emily being maybe the most emotional and most shaken up she’s ever been since coming to the Hamptons. She says she doesn’t recognize anyone, and Nolan arrives at the station in time to see her run outside. He too is in shock when she tells him, and Jack joins them with confirmation that his prints came back.
Understandably, Emily wants to see her father, but once the FBI arrives, not even Jack can try to get her a few minutes. Asking to see him to get answers for her “friend” gets her nowhere, and obviously declaring that she’s in fact Amanda would just open up a whole new can of worms. All she can do is go home and wait.
She admits to Nolan that after she lost her father, she just wanted to see him one more time, and when there are news reports that he’s free and will be making a public statement, she insists on going to see him, even as Nolan argues that they deserve more than what they’d get with a public reunion. “We deserved more 20 years ago,” she replies. “I can’t wait one more day.”
When she gets there and sees Victoria and Charlotte at his side during the press conference, she realizes that Victoria got to him first. It’s so heartbreaking to watch for Emily. Everyone agrees that Emily VanCamp deserves a standing ovation for this episode, right?
Hey, World, David Clarke is Alive
After David’s prints come back from the Department of Justice, Chief Alvarez brings Victoria in to give her the heads-up before the story breaks. She immediately wants to know what David has said, but he’s not speaking. Alvarez even suggests that Victoria was the intended target of the break-in since it was her house. Given everything, it’s absurd.
An FBI agent questions David, who refuses the lawyer Victoria hires for him because he “just wants to tell the truth.” What is this “truth”? Well, he says that he was framed, taken from his daughter and stabbed in prison, but didn’t die. That, we know. It’s the rest of what he says that honestly has me questioning if he’s telling the truth or lying. He says that Conrad faked his death and locked him away for years. He was tortured, and when he got the chance, he ran. He’s surprised that Conrad is dead and his name has been cleared.
Once alone with Victoria, he tells her that while he was locked away, he analyzed everything, including her. He remembers how she told him to let her take care of things when he wanted to leave a few weeks before his arrest, and she told him the same thing that morning. He refuses to be anyone’s prisoner anymore, not even hers, and he walks away after she tells him that he still needs her and she’ll always need him.
However, when he steps in front of the media as “the new symbol of hope and courage,” he has Victoria and Charlotte stand next to him. He says he prayed for this freedom and never imagined the support he’s getting from the public. He knows exactly what to say to the media, which makes me wonder how much of his “return” he has planned.
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Victoria Fails to Fix Her Relationships with Her Children
This is not the week for Victoria trying to fix things with her children. First, she finds Charlotte in the city and confronts her about returning to bad habits. When she asks why she’s going down that road again, Charlotte asks the very legitimate question, “Are you seriously asking that?” Say what you will about how you feel about Charlotte, but I have to applaud her for how she’s handling Victoria’s deception lately. She’s angry that Victoria made meeting her father all about Emily, but Victoria says she just wants to see her happy. “The Grayson mantra: lie and deny,” Charlotte says. She doesn’t want her controlling her relationship with her father, and while she stands with her mother and David in front of the media, she lets Victoria know she’s there for David, not her.
Victoria also approaches Daniel and tells him that she’s going to fix failing both him and Charlotte. Then she lies and tells him that the money she’s offering him for financial support was Conrad’s because she doesn’t know that Margaux already told him she gave her a loan. Daniel calls her out on it and even comments that she and Margaux are not family, the silver lining in her fiance’s death. “I’m the patriarch of this family. I’ll say what I want,” he declares before warning her to stay away from him, Charlotte and Margaux.
Daniel’s Attempt at a Fresh Start
Meanwhile, completely detached from everyone else except for watching the news at the end, Daniel is seeing taking on Louise as a client and helping her expand her portfolio as the perfect start to his own wealth management firm. He’s starting his life over from scratch, and he needs this to work. But will starting his life over make me care at all about him? I’m going to say probably not because every moment spent with him and Louise feels like just a moment wasted that can be used to show more of Emily and David.
After failing to win Victoria over with a glass of $20,000 champagne, which is “more than lovely,” as she tells the waiter, Louise tries to get information about Victoria out of Daniel by claiming that she should know something personal about him so she knows if she can trust him. “It says a lot about a man’s character how he gets along with his mother,” she explains. He tells her that he doesn’t have the best relationship with his mother (understatement much?), she talks about trying to hex her mother into loving her as a kid and he tries to win her over with his business talk. In return, she asks him to put sunscreen on her back.
Thanks to Louise’s business, Daniel does manage to get back into his penthouse, and Louise stops by to celebrate with the same champagne she sent to Victoria earlier. Daniel questions it, but she spouts off this whole “Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous” spiel that has me rolling my eyes so hard. Luckily for her, it works because this is Daniel.
Oh, and unsurprisingly (because this is Revenge and it’s how these people work), Margaux’s “loan” to Victoria doesn’t come without some sort of benefit for her. As she tells Daniel, not only does she think her father actually loved her, but now, Victoria owes her.
What did you think of Emily finding out David is alive? Does Daniel’s “fresh start” make you want to see any more of him? Do you believe David’s story about evil, evil Conrad? It is Conrad, so anything’s possible, but I’m not the only one who doesn’t fully trust David, right?
Revenge season 4 airs Sundays at 10pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
If it’s on TV — especially if it’s a procedural or superhero show — chances are Meredith watches it. She has a love for all things fiction, starting from a young age with ER and The X-Files on the small screen and the Nancy Drew books. Arrow kicked off the Arrowverse and her true passion for all things heroes. She’s enjoyed getting into the minds of serial killers since Criminal Minds, so it should be no surprise that her latest obsession is Prodigal Son.
