Revenge has always been about deception and trickery; after all, the entire premise is about a girl pretending to be someone else so she can get vengeance for her father. “Sabotage” delivers an extra dose of deception as several of the characters celebrate Halloween early by impersonating someone they aren’t. The episode sets up several crazy storylines that promise the rest of season 2 will be full of broken hearts and bones.

Emily Will Eventually Kiss Everyone On This Show

Hopefully, Emily is investing PowerPoint software so she can keep track of all her personas. She is currently playing the role of girlfriend for two guys: Aiden and Daniel. We’re supposed to believe the Daniel relationship is strictly strategy to get close to the Initiative, but there are a few too many close-up shots of Emily’s pained face. We may have a legit love triangle coming up, unless Aiden decides to make things easy by getting killed while trying to save his sister. Of course, there is always the chance Emily decides Jack is her soul mate again, and so we have ourselves a love square.

Fun with Ski Masks and Hand Guns

Emily’s big performance is saved for the evil Initiative’s Helen Crowley. Helen is tricked into believing some other secret organization is after her, when Emily ties her up and spooks her out with a scary Saw/Scream voice and a ski mask. Maybe Helen now believes the Initiative is being stalked by horror movie watching snowboarders. 

It does look like the pretend shoot-out has motivated Helen into action. We’re likely to start seeing some new layers to the evil super group and possibly even be introduced to their competition. All this movement is right before Sweeps Months — what a coincidence — but the exciting part is that we may start finding out exactly why David Clarke was framed. Or we’ll just learn about a whole new batch of bad guys that Emily can either act out an action movie for or, if they don’t like that, she can dance all over their faces. Either direction is bound to be fairly entertaining.

Padme’s Deception

Padme turns out to not be the world’s greatest girlfriend. It sucks that she is completely using Nolan, but I should have known since Revenge law demands that if a relationship is going well then something horrible must quickly follow. Obviously, the big Padme reveal at the end isn’t all that shocking, because the episode spends a little too much trying to convince us that Marco was behind revealing the Carrie Ann project to Daniel. It looks like Marco has turned out to not be such a slimy guy, but then again, in this show it will likely be revealed he is Padme’s evil twin brother.

Conrad Does a Good Deed?

Following the theme of pretend, Conrad plays the role of a halfway decent human for once. Of course, he likely bails out Jack to help his new political aspirations. Conrad will assuredly be back to being the face-punchable human he always is by next week. Conrad’s role playing is credited to the returning Ashley, which I’m sure will make Daniel ecstatic. At some point, there will be major revelation of exactly what Ashley is trying to achieve, because it must be more than just being the personal assistant to every Grayson family member. Why would you willingly work so closely with that family? And after Conrad, there is only Charlotte left for Ashley to work for; maybe she can help do her nails or something.

Welcome Back to Crazy, Amanda

Conrad’s noble act isn’t enough to save his watch, which Amanda pawns off for a gun. A gun that I’m sure will eventually kill somebody, but maybe it won’t end up being the current intended target, Nate. I’m still predicting that it will either be Nate or Kenny that turns out to be the corpse floating in the boat wreckage. It should be interesting to see what happens when Nate and Amanda finally clash, because I’m betting on everyone’s favorite nutcase with a heart of gold.

Gasp! Victoria Flirts with Someone Who Isn’t Her Husband

Our final pretender on Revenge this week is Victoria, because we always have to talk about Victoria.  This week, she is acting like she has a crush on some rich guy named Jason. I have to admit the storyline doesn’t really captivate my attention. I’m not sure exactly what she is hatching, but she makes one wondrously devious smile when Jason finally makes a phone call to his boss. I’m sure it is all part of a plan to protect Daniel and harm the Initiative.

The interesting thing is that “mortal enemies” Victoria and Emily really are out for the same goal now.  They both want to sneak into the Initiative and cause the empire to crumble.  So, can we finally get the Emily and Victoria super team that was teases at the start of this season?         

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(Image courtesy of ABC)

Chris Spicer

Contributing Writer, BuddyTV