Don’t miss out on this Revenge recap of the episode “Doubt.”

joshua bowman

Poor Daniel (Josh Bowman) is sitting not-so-pretty in his cell in Rikers maximum security prison.  He writes a letter to fiancée Emily (Emily VanCamp) admitting there are things that happened the night of the murder that he doesn’t fully understand.  He hopes she will still be there by his side when the truth comes to light.  As Emily reads this letter, one can’t help but think that perhaps she should have been the one writing the letter to Daniel because, as we all know, she is the one who knows the truth and I wonder if he will still be sticking by her when he finds out the truth.

So, we know Takeda (Hiroyuki Sanada) is the one who killed Tyler (Ashton Holmes) and he’s got Amanda (Margarita Levieva).  Emily assures us that Amanda is safe, which is a relief to me because, to be honest, when Takeda told Emily that he has Amanda, I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.  She admits to Nolan (Gabriel Mann) that Takeda was right – she let her emotions get in the way and lost her focus.  I am rubbing my hands with glee as she says this – time to take somebody down!

But before we get to more red magic markers, there is still a rich boy sitting in a prison cell accused of doing something he didn’t do (OK technically he did shoot Tyler but he didn’t deliver the kill shot, so he is still good in my eyes).  Mommy Dearest, Queen of the Hamptons, Victoria Grayson (Madeleine Stowe) continues to push Charlotte (Christa B. Allen) and Declan (Connor Paolo) to provide a description of the hooded figure they saw hovering over Tyler’s body on the beach the night of the engagement party.  Note, we are now trying to say “hooded figure” as opposed to “hooded man” because Victoria is trying to pin this on Amanda.

Despite the fact that Charlotte and Declan both said it was too dark that night to be able to provide more than “I saw a man in a hoodie” to the sketch artist, Victoria continues to persist.  When their defense attorney, Brooks (Courtney B. Vance), informs the Graysons that they’ve had no luck finding Amanda and that they need another viable suspect, Victoria barely bats an eye before she decides Jack Porter (Nick Wechsler) is the perfect alternative.  Little does she know just how right she is in identifying Jack as the man in the hoodie!

As I wrote after “Scandal”, if I was Jack, I’d be wondering why the heck I kept the blood-stained hoodie in my apartment right about now.  But Jack has other things on his mind, namely, the missing Amanda and what the five million dollars in a Canadian bank account is all about.  He enlists the one man he knows with the computer savvy to help him find out – Nolan.  When Nolan tells Emily this, she decides it is best to get Jack out of town by telling him that Amanda is in Montreal.

Emily, meanwhile, tries to deflect Victoria’s attention from Jack and, instead, points to Mason Treadwell (Roger Bart) as a better suspect who holds the Graysons responsible for burning down his house.  After all, the Graysons would not win any friends by accusing “one of Montauk’s favorite sons” of a heinous crime without any solid proof.  At this, Conrad (Henry Czerny) admits to Victoria that Emily may just be Grayson material after all.

Emily visits Daniel in prison.  He looks tired – well, I imagine sleeping on a hard bunk in a prison cell is no comparison to the 1000 thread count sheets he is accustomed to, but you understand.  Despite all that is happening to him, Daniel is glad that at least his mother and fiancée are finally getting along and working together to help him.  Oh, if only he knew the scheming that they have been busy with while he’s been incarcerated.

Victoria will stop at nothing to get her son out of jail.  To this end, she contacts the thug who she had paid to steal the Treadwell tapes from Jack’s apartment, and who assaulted him in the process, to “send a message” to an inmate at Rikers.  Apparently, the United States Postal Service isn’t the right people to deliver the message because what Victoria has in mind is more along the lines of “oh, Daniel, watch your back in a prison shower!”  How many points do we give her for motherly love?

Nolan pays Treadwell a little visit, telling him about Daniel’s arrest and subtly drops in that the Graysons believe their son is being framed.  Treadwell knows all too well how the Graysons know all about framing innocent people, and agrees to “help”  the Graysons tell their side of the story.  Of course, this being 2012, only a live blog will suffice for instant reporting to get the scandal-hungry population up-to-the-minute news on the investigation and the trial.  To this end, the ever-helpful Ashley (Ashley Medekwe) has set up a domain name, thetreadwellreport.com (yes, it works so go check it out!), where he can provide news and updates as they become available.

Treadwell’s first port of call is to The Stowaway.  He shows Jack a copy of the sketch of the hooded man that makes him the prime suspect in Tyler’s murder.  He tells Jack the Graysons will make him take the fall unless he gives up Amanda, to which Jack replies with a direct “get the hell out of my bar”.  Declan overhears the conversation and is determined to save his brother.  He chases Treadwell down and tells him Charlotte is trying to sell out his family to save her own brother, then proceeds to explain that Charlotte was high as a kite the night of the murder, making whatever testimony she provides unreliable.  Surprisingly, Treadwell visits Charlotte first, advising her to give up the pills and that she doesn’t have to end up like the rest of her family.  But that isn’t going to stop him from spilling the beans on her addiction.

Now cut to a different bar – this one in New York.  Victoria is meeting the man she hired to beat up Daniel in prison.  Emily, of course, has followed her and is quick to snap photos with her trusty smartphone (which obviously has amazing resolution on the lens to capture photos in extreme low light) of the pay-off and of the man.  After the man leaves, as does Emily, Victoria is left sitting at the bar alone, looking a little tired, no doubt from all the stresses of her scheming and plotting.

The bartender approaches and calls her “Vicki Harper” – her maiden name and obviously one of familiarity – and brings her a drink that is paid for by a mystery man sitting at the other side of the bar.  Next thing we know, the Queen of the Hamptons is being slammed against the wall by the mystery man – but not in the way that Daniel was being slammed against the wall.  Turns out the mystery man is no stranger at all – he is Dominick Wright (James Purefoy), a painter from Victoria’s past who she was in love with before she married Conrad.  I have to say, I wondered what was in the thought process when they shot this scene that made them decide Victoria should keep her pearls on during sex…?

But back to the story…it turns out Conrad has been trying to contact Victoria all night to let her know that the judge upheld their request to place Daniel under house arrest in light of his attack (is it really that simple?) so bail is paid at a cool ten million bucks in exchange for Daniel wearing a tracking anklet.  For the average person, house arrest might be restrictive, but keep in mind the Grayson Manor is probably bigger than the entire Rikers Island Correctional Facility.

While Mason is updating his blog with the story of Charlotte’s pill-popping ways, he gets an IM (that’s instant message) from “Anonymous” telling him to look in his desk drawer.  When he opens it he finds the David Clarke interview tapes he thought had been lost when his house burned down.  “Anonymous” then tells him he should talk to Victoria because she is the one who stole the tapes.

Even with Daniel back at home, the Graysons have no cause for celebration just yet, as The Treadwell Report on Charlotte’s drug addiction catches on quickly.  Brooks tells Victoria that she is no longer a reliable witness.  Charlotte, upon finding out that her boyfriend offered Treadwell a tell-all story, accuses Declan of betraying her and tells him that he is just another “puppet in the Grayson Family Play”.  Victoria confronts her daughter and accuses her of sending Daniel to life imprisonment.  Poor Charlotte reminds her mother that her father was a mass murderer and half-sister an arsonist, so the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Well, she does have a point there!  It is rare that we see Victoria truly lose her temper but she delivers a slap that Charlotte would not be quick to forget.

But Victoria is not done with the story.  She pays Treadwell a visit and accuses him of betraying her (wow are we done with all the accusations of betrayal yet?).  He tells her he is tired of spreading her lies.  When she threatens him he tells her that he knows she’s the one who burned down his house and has the tapes she stole from him.  She defends herself, saying that it is Amanda Clarke who burned down his house but Treadwell refuses to budge and returns the threat that if she doesn’t leave Amanda alone, he will make sure she burns at the stake.  It is good to see that he does have a conscience after all.

As Jack leaves for Montreal to look for Amanda, leaving Nolan to look after Declan, Emily, disguised as a brunette, returns to the bar in New York, sidles up to Victoria’s thug, and starts chatting to him about the latest news on the TV about the Graysons.  He tells her he has done some work for the family and that they are not all that they seem.  Brunette Emily offers to buy him a drink for every bull he tells that she believes.  Of course, her smartphone also comes in handy here as she presses the record button to record the conversation.  It’s so funny the things a man will say to show off to a pretty girl.  If only he knew what would be coming to him at the end.

While his fiancée is busy seeking revenge for his prison assault, Daniel has a heart-to-heart with his mother, apologizing for the troubles he has brought on the family.  It doesn’t take long before Victoria decides to take another stab at trying to bring doubt in his mind about Emily being a possible suspect.  Yes, a flicker of doubt, but it is not enough to cause Daniel to abandon his true love.  He tells Victoria that if she goes after Emily he will confess to the murder just to make sure she is kept out of jail.

And as “Doubt” draws to a close where nobody seems to be answering their cell phones (except for Victoria), we discover the secret about the mysterious Dominick Wright –  once upon a time a much loved painter in the New York art circles until he was linked to an art forgery scandal, leading to a drug addiction that brought about his downfall.  Conrad reminds Victoria that whoever she is having an affair with, she should be discreet to avoid further attention and scandal on the family.

And finally, just so we never forget that Emily Thorne is not a girl to be trifled with, she delivers a nice beating of her own on Victoria’s thug, to pay him back for his assault on Jack and Daniel.  At the very end, she copies his key – one can only dream of what more delicious secrets that key will unlock!

Written by Valerie Leung. Find her on Twitter @Valshopaholic

Photos courtesy of ABC.

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