Revenge season 2 premiere recap: The bitch is back

How sweet it is to have Emily’s stunning red dresses, Victoria’s backstabbing bitchiness, and Nolan’s snappy one-liners back on my TV screen. Revenge returned Sunday night with a thrilling hour of trademark drama and intrigue. The episode opened by panning over bits of wreckage in the ocean not from Victoria’s plane, but instead Jack’s boat. Similar to the beginning of last season, this is a glimpse three months into the future, although considerably more vague than Daniel getting shot at his engagement party. So where are we in the present?

Emily has been training and building sexual tension.

Since we left off last season, Emily has resumed training with Takeda, her hardcore Japanese vengeance mentor. When we catch up with her, Emily is tied to a pole in the Ocean as the tide comes in, supposedly trying to free herself before it overwhelms her. As it turns out, though, she isn’t trying to get free – she’s getting near enough to drowning to unlock memories of her mother, who she learned last season may still be alive. Um, I’m pretty sure there are some hypnotherapists who could help you out with that, but ok. I get that you have to do things just a little more badass than the rest of us.

She has memories of playing with her mother in the ocean and visiting her in a mental hospital. Before she finds what she’s looking for, though, a new striking young lad by the name of Aiden “saves” her and she gets all mad and pins him up against a wall with that “I don’t know whether to kill you or frak you” look. Apparently there’s some history there. Not gonna lie – I like the idea of a love interest for Emily who knows exactly who she is. As much as I love Daniel and sometimes Jack, there’s always that big question mark of what they will do when they find out the truth. As a naive, pampered rich boy and good, solid everyman respectively, their characters will have to change a lot for me to believe they would want to be with Emily if they knew just how deceitful and manipulative she is.

Emily decides she needs to go back to the Hamptons to investigate what happened to her mother, and this makes Takeda very unhappy. Because he wants her to continue to pursue revenge or because he had something to do with her mother’s disappearance? Either way, Aiden volunteers to keep tabs on her and Takeda makes a vague threat if Aiden can’t get her back on the vengeance track.

Nolan has been developing a six-pack.

Our favorite tech genius gazillionaire is back and just as clingy and obsessed with Emily as ever – but now with 90% more abs! Apparently Nolan has been spending his time learning various martial arts, boxing, and generally getting hotter. When he finds out Emily is returning to the Hamptons he invites himself to live with her, having sold his giant mansion. I guess he doesn’t want the constant reminders of almost dying and banging a sociopath and stuff.

Emily brings Nolan along when she investigates the creepy, now-abandoned mental ward where her mother was held. She has traumatic flashbacks of visiting her mother there and seeing her strapped down and sedated. Nolan is there to lighten the mood with jokes about flesh-eating zombies. I love you, Hot Nolan.

The other two points of Emily’s love triangle have been brooding.

In this premiere, both Jack and Daniel (Jack…Daniel…s! I’ve never noticed that before!) have been reduced to depressive borderline alcoholics (how appropriate!) and spending their days whining.

First of all, Jack. I wish that I could like Jack, I do. But if his weird obsession with his girlfriend from age 12 wasn’t enough to annoy me at the start of last season, his insistence on “staying with” preggo Amanda but actually ignoring her and making it clear he resents her puts it right over the edge. I know that you’re sad because you really like Emily, but like, be with Amanda for the baby or don’t. I mean, Amanda is completely psychopathic and now has training from a Japanese revenge ninja, but you don’t know that. Jack and Emily do have a scene together near the end when Jack hears from Nolan that she’s back in town. She takes the opportunity to plant doubt in Jack’s mind about whether he’s the father of Amanda’s baby so that he can look like even more of an ass when he confronts Amanda about it.

Daniel’s depression is a little less nausea-inducing since his mom is dead and his fiance cheated on him, either of which would probably be enough to make me spend my time acting like a bratty teenager and dating my ex-fiance’s ex-best friend just because she’s there. Yeah, Daniel is now dating Ashley, who is greedily loving her new position of power in the Grayson empire. When Emily runs into them much awkwardness ensues.

Speaking of Jack and Daniel, their younger siblings continue to be infinitely more awesome than they will ever be. Declan has taken on the role of the adult, doing his best to go to school and look after the bar, and basically trying to talk some sense into his older brother. When we catch up with Charlotte, she has pretty much recovered from her drug abusing ways in rehab. More interestingly, she projects an air of confidence and cold calm that reminds me a bit of Emily herself.

Victoria has been dead…NOT!

When Emily returns to the Hamptons, she brings flowers to her secret half-sister. Apparently she has also been sending Charlotte postcards, a rare glimpse into a side of Emily that has some kind of warm, human-like feelings. Charlotte invites Emily to the fundraiser event Victoria usually throws, now being held as a memorial to her. Emily brings Nolan to the event and they are really the greatest ever. They down drinks together to avoid rolling their eyes at Ashley’s glee and Nolan wonders about Victoria, “do you think she’s somewhere looking…up at us?”

For some reason Conrad Grayson chooses this event to have Charlotte’s rehab therapist (bought and paid for by Conrad, of course) tell her that her drug test came back positive and drag her away. Charlotte loses her cool and yells about Conrad trying to keep her quiet, although it turns out his true intention is to have her declared crazy so he can control her inheritance. Conrad, has anyone told you lately that you’re a bastard? Charlotte whispers a mysterious secret in Emily’s ear before she is taken back to rehab.

The secret?

Victoria is alive! DUN DUN DUN.

Yeah, I wasn’t really surprised either. Of course they weren’t going to kill off Victoria, the perfect manipulative bitch to foil Emily. Charlotte reveals Victoria’s location and Emily pays her a visit, ultimately hoping that Victoria will be able to lead her to her mother. Victoria is hanging out in a secret cabin and claims that she is being protected by the government while they build a case against Conrad for taking down her plane. Of course, she’s making shit up and in cahoots with the man who killed Emily’s father. Thanks to the clam cam (aka this year’s whale cam) Emily plants in Victoria’s cabin, she knows that Victoria plans to take her out as well.

Looks like this season has been set up to be just as much wicked fun as the last, with a new focus on finding out what happened to the real Amanda’s mother. What did you guys think? Are you as excited as I am to be back in the Hamptons?