Revenge Essentials: 'Grief' Recap

Are the morally ambiguous denizens of the Hamptons finally done with revenging? In the twisted penultimate episode of "Revenge," everyone explicitly stated his or her wants: Transparency. Trust. Forgiveness. But the heart wants what the mind denies, and all they got was more blackmail, shame, lies, and videotapes. (And even a death.)

It's nightfall and lovely revenger Emily Thorne looks distressed as she furiously digs a deep hole on the beach. It's a grave. But for whom?

Flashback to 36 hours earlier: In the snowy Hamptons, Emily watches a video from a hidden cam inside Conrad's office. Surprisingly, the mysterious man known only as "the white-haired man" -- who Emily believes is responsible for her father's death -- waltzes right into the office.

'You look like a demonic succubus.'

As usual, there's a lot of spying going on, and we find that Emily has been videotaping her fiancée, sweet Daniel (who's become less and less sweet as the series rolls on). She takes a memory card out of a fake George Orwell biography. (We're also guessing that the copy of Terry McMillan's "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" is fake.)

At the Graysons' posh NYC apartment, Victoria waltzes in wearing a slinky red dress, to which Conrad says, "You look like a demonic succubus." She's looking for evidence that will put Conrad in jail for David Clarke's murder. But Conrad's presumed-dead mistress Lydia shows up wearing a slinky robe and drinking Scotch. Victoria loses focus -- and also this round.

But later, she’s up for Round 2 when she questions the fake De Kooning painting in the foyer. Ever the cunning woman, she rips it open and finds what she's looking for: a bundle of tapes that serve as evidence to destroy Conrad.

'This is getting kinkier and creepier by the moment.'

Emily wants Nolan to email a copy of the Daniel footage to Conrad so she can pin it on the white-haired man and get Conrad to think he's spying on the Graysons. "This is getting kinkier and creepier by the moment," snarks her partner in crime. She assures him that he doesn't know what she's capable of. Nolan knows she's a "certified sociopath," but she isn't capable of murder, is she?

Planning to kill the white-haired man, Emily dresses in black, loads her gun, and demands that Nolan give her the white-haired man's address. She means business. But when she rings the doorbell of the house, Aunt Carol appears out of nowhere and Emily realizes Nolan intentionally gave her the wrong address to foil her murderous plans. Oops.

Angry and distraught, Emily heads back to her childhood Hamptons home, where she finds Sammy the dog lying on her porch and covered in dirt. Jack rushes over, and they both lay Sammy by the fireplace. We see a montage of young Jack and Emily and her dad goofing off with Sammy at the beach. Tears are flowing. I think everyone can agree that pet deaths are the saddest thing ever.

Things take a turn: Emily and Jack kiss passionately with nothing but the fire lighting up their faces. But wait! Ashley is outside peeking through the window, and she sees everything.

'Mom, what have you done now?'

Back at Grayson manor, it’s the Grayson family counseling session and passive-aggressiveness is alive and well. Conrad and Victoria give a prime example of their "spectacular failure of a marriage" and go at it in front of their kids. Charlotte exclaims, "Mom, what have you done now?" This isn't good for the already depressed Charlotte, who we last see standing on a street corner buying drugs.

Later, in a surprisingly selfless move, Victoria hands over the found evidence to Daniel and explains that she hadn't turned it in yet because it would incriminate both her and Conrad. "What you choose to do with it is entirely up to you," she solemnly says. Yet Daniel immediately calls Conrad and betrays his own mother. Victoria, heartbroken, hears everything. So Daniel really is a Grayson.

Meanwhile, Nolan's at home watching a live-stream -- he installed a hidden cam inside the white-haired man's house. Everything is all gravy until he notices one of the clocks in the background -- it says 8:20 p.m., and from the look on Nolan's face, the time is clearly not 8:20 p.m. Uh-oh. We find out the white-haired man followed Nolan to his house. He chokes him and Nolan falls to the ground.

So now the question is: Sammy's gone and if Nolan's gone, too, what are we going to do now?