Revenge - Ambush - Review: "It's you"

Holy F*ck. That’s really all I could muster up to say after watching “Ambush.” Wow, it was just, wow. And that’s almost where I stopped this review, isn’t it enough? But seriously, I loved it, like I haven’t loved an episode in a long time, and who wouldn’t? “Ambush” had to be the best episode of Revenge’s fourth season. Because A, Bi-Polar Charlotte is no more, (Collective happy dance!) and B, they stopped stalling, and so much happened.

The season, thus far, has been bound on shattering the illusion we’ve made up of David Clarke, based on the flashbacks, we've been witnessing through the eyes of a nine year old, grieving her father, or through the explanations on paper of a man, stuck between four concrete walls, wishing to make her understand it all. This illusion, of the loving father and friend, is no more. In “Ambush” it’s Nolan, Emily and Jack’s turn to come to the realisation, that the man from their memories is gone, or buried so deep inside he can’t even see the light anymore. They're finally on the same page as us, and it’s much easier to root for the character choices when they are.

David Clark is a different person, not necessarily a good one, and coming to terms with something like this, it can never be easy, especially for Emily, who’s hung onto those illusions for so long, so dearly. We could feel her desperation culminating throughout the episode, until finally, it got to be too much to hold for her.

David Clark is a murderer. He killed Conrad Grayson. Emily’s done a lot of things, most of them probably with questionable morals, but she’s never done that, never took a life, no matter how much they deserved it, or how much easier it would be, but her father, he’s father’s a killer, but she won’t let him get caught, not after all she did to clear his name. The Conrad Murder case is still unsolved, for now, but Jack and Ben are on the case, and Ben seems to be closing in, but that, she can’t have, not until she gets the answers she desperately seeks, an explanation on his whereabouts. He’s using the silo as an alibi, and that she can understand, can understand the last 6 months, but for the rest, she’s still in the dark, as are the rest of us. It yields one question for Emily to dwell on, if he wasn’t imprisoned, where has he been all her life?

David’s still in the clear, still off the suspect list, for now, but the double infinity craving on the wood panel could be his downfall, because if he left this behind, who knows what else could possibly link him to the place. She’s taking care of it, again. Emily, after a little B & E, found the murder weapon, in her father’s floor panes (like father, like daughter). She uses it to paint a scene for Jack and Ben to find, the man from last week’s episode her patsy as she plants the knife in his apartment amongst the Grayson clippings, giving her more time to figure out, what the hell he’s up too. Maybe this way, with the police on it, we’ll get answers as to who exactly this person was, and why he wanted David Clarke so badly, he was willing to kidnap his daughter.

Speaking of murderers, Louise, not the most stable person on the show, right now. It’s been clear for a while now, but this week, she pulled it up a notch as the voices in her head told her how much better Margaux was than her. Do you guys think she killed her mother? Locking the steam room and cranking up the heat, Louise tries to kill Margaux. But hey, people on Revenge, are pretty hard to kill. The woman, in a pretty intense moment, finds the strength to crash the glass door and get free.

At least Margaux and Daniel aren’t as stupid as I thought, they know it’s Louise, but unfortunately for Danny-boy, Louise has something over him. Though, now that Margaux dumped Daniel by dumping her drink on him, this leverage is pretty much defunct, will she go on to someone else, somewhere else? Highly unlikely, she wants Victoria to be her new mommy. Louise is really crazy, seeing people that aren’t there, but I don’t think there’s more to her story than just being plain wacko. She isn’t connected to any of this, the conspiracy, or I highly doubt it. What do you think?

David Clarke is an ignorant*sshole. Nolan’s still trying to mend his broken heart, his friend, the closest person he had to a father, humiliated him on live national television. He tracked him down to his house only to punch him in the nose. You don’t just get over something like that, and the news trucks and twitter trends aren’t helping. He’s learning the hard way that David Clarke isn’t the man they thought they knew. He can’t sleep, but at least him and Emily aren’t fighting anymore. Jack stands up for Nolan, and maybe David starts to understand there is more to the Nolan story, and that maybe he didn’t deserve it, but not enough to apologize, not enough to acknowledge what he did was wrong.

“I thought I was safe here, apparently not. Time to find another Batcave.” – Nolan

He retracts to a safe heaven, to the country club, where media isn’t allowed and he can finally have some peace. Louise reminds him that he’s rich, filthy stinking rich, and that he can buy whatever he feels like. So when closing time is up, and he doesn’t want to leave the cocoon of non-media, his sanctuary, he buys the place, just because he can, just because he's Nolan Ross.

David Clarke didn’t recognise his own daughter. That’s a hard blow. David, in an attempt to know more about his daughter and her friends, decides to pay Emily Thorne a visit, ambushing her as she’s about to leave. He’s her father, so you’d think he’d recognize her despite the years, despite the time, and so does Amanda. But he doesn’t and to top it off, he lies to her, and she sends him off, still capable of holding it in while he’s there, but it’s not okay, and she’s not okay with that, and neither is Nolan. With this impromptu meet, the image of her loving father scatters even more, because after all she’s done for him, keeping his memory alive all those years, he doesn’t recognise her, doesn’t remember her, the real her and that hurts, that hurts me, hurts Emily, hurts Nolan, hurts everyone.

“All this time I spend honoring his memory and he doesn’t even have one of me. Who the hell is he Nolan?” - Emily

No one really knows who David Clarke is. I’m not even sure he knows it himself at this point. Nolan and Emily conspire together to break into the bank, and hopefully find some of these answers in David’s safety box. Thanks to technology, all of it is possible. Emily finds a key, and the Nolan finds the lock it’s linked too, seems unlikely, but if anyone can, it’s Nolan Ross. They make a really great duo, our favorite insomniac Besties. The only difficulty is, they need to be perfectly timed, 7 minutes is all Nolan can get Emily to break in, and it seems to be easy-peezy, until Daniel gets in the mix.

Charlotte, put it out there in “Damage” that Emily really isn’t Emily, but is Amanda, and Daniel’s finally in on it, but he doesn’t want to be, or does he? He doesn’t want to seem to be on Emily’s side in this, but he certainly isn’t on his mother’s, because he believes Emily’s claims that Victoria betrayed David Clark. He has a guy track her down, (loved that line about not being able to track her down on his own!) and he ambushes her in the elevator of the bank. Since the hatred wedding of season 3, I have loved their relationship and the scenes they have together, always entertaining. In the elevator it was the way he can’t, or won’t stop talking when Emily just wants him to stop. And call me out on it if you wish, but the Amanda Revelation seems to have Danny nostalgic of the time they were together, stirred up some old feelings. He seems to be seeing her more fondly. And it makes me nostalgic too. His request though, couldn’t be weirder, because if you want to be kept out of it, then just stay out of it. I knew he wouldn’t go all psycho, like Charlotte did, but still, he almost normal, so un-grayson-like.

“You did that to yourself. Maybe there was a time when the feelings were real, where we could have had a real relationship, but the moment you aligned yourself with your father it was all over. Now, something real, that’s what you were looking for. There that was real.” - Emily

David Clarke is whipped. That they haven’t discovered yet, but it’ll happen soon enough my friends. There wasn’t much I disliked about this episode, but David being played by Victoria, yet again, is getting kind of old, and frankly, on my nerves. Seriously, how stupid is he? We were painted the image of a man we’re never got to meet, and there better be an explanation for it. His journals, they talk about trust and not giving it away too freely, yet Victoria’s playing him, and he can’t even see it, and it pains me to see it.

I found the quiet satisfaction in seeing someone else sitting in Victoria’s throne, living in her things, because she’s now living in the Emily’s beach house, and always will be Emily’s beach house, and that’s just all kinds of wrong.

David Clarke could have come for her. And that’s the final nail in the coffin for Emily, he could have come for her. What she finds in the safety deposit box is worse than she imagined, because it means he could have been there for her, but he wasn’t, and when he tought her to be strong, he was a coward. She confronts him in a scene so emotionally charged, as Emily finally explodes, blows up and the composed exterior breaks like it’s made of glass. Because that's just too much for anyone to process. Have I said already, how much I absolutely love Emily VanCamp? The way she brings this character to life, I just, I have no words. I must have watched the last 2 minutes 20 times, honestly.

“Amanda, it’s you.” - David

Finally, we’re getting the father daughter reunion we’ve been waiting for. At least, we better be! But now, it’s out in the open and I’m really looking forward to how they’ll continue with this. The only thing that bugged me is that he needed the tattoo in order to truly realise she was Amanda, but at least now he knows.

I absolutely loved the way Emily commanded Victoria away, so she can finally talk to her father. And when Victoria is asked to go, she goes, no joke. Because when she is asked to leave, she decides to take the car and physically leave the beach house. You better run!!! There’s a storm outside, and when reaching for the handle, she gets electrocuted, badly. A power line is what? 2000V? Is the war over? Of course it isn’t!

My gosh, I can't wait for next week!