As the sun rises over the Hamptons, Emily tells us that it’s not just our choices, but our commitment to those choices that defines who we are. If that’s true, then I guess that makes Emily a horrible, awful, terrible human being. But this is Revenge, so we already knew that, didn’t we?

Emily (Emily VanCamp) has once again pulled Nolan (Gabriel Mann) into her circle of lies trust. She plays him the video we ended on last time, of her father David Clarke (James Tupper) confessing to Mason Treadwell that he believes Charlotte (Christa B. Allen) to be his biological daughter, although he has no proof, and Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) never told him Charlotte was his. Emily wonders why Daddy didn’t write to her in his journal about possible half-sister, and Nolan thinks it’s because he wanted to be sure. Either way, half-sister or not, Emily plans to use the video to a) blow up the Grayson divorce, and b) convince Victoria that Fauxmanda (Margarita Levieva) torched the house to hide the theft of the tapes. Nolan voices his concerns about what this will do to Jack, and what about “poor puppy dog Daniel?” But Emily is focused. Nothing is going to stop her from ruining Victoria Grayson’s life as fast and hard as she possibly can.

Jack (Nick Wechsler) and Amanda are back from their Summer 2011 tour of Atlantic City (where they seem to have lost all $500 of that tip money), and Emily catches up with them at the docks. She pulls Amanda aside to warn her that Victoria thinks Amanda burned down Treadwell’s house, and tells her to leave town to keep herself safe. But Amanda ain’t having it. She tells Emily she can take care of herself, and Jack. While Emily is warning Amanda, Declan (Connor Paolo) is having breakfast with Charlotte and Conrad (Henry Czerny). Conrad has offered to pay for Declan to attend Charlotte’s private school in the fall. In fact, he’s already paid the tuition, all Declan has to do is pass the entrance exams. Daddy would do anything for his little princess, and as she beams at him from across the table with the kind of gratitude only daddy’s girls can muster, of course now is the time when a certain little video is delivered to Conrad.

Later, at their divorce playdate, Conrad shows Victoria the video. It’s a crushing blow, and as she watches David Clarke talk about how he thinks Victoria naming the baby Charlotte was a secret message meant for him (Charlotte was the name of his favorite aunt? They couldn’t think of a better connection to make there? Seriously? Why not his mother? Or his dead sister? His favorite aunt? I mean, what?), you can tell by the look on her face that she knows it. And that, at least for now, she can’t think of a way to worm herself out of this situation. “And if Charlotte isn’t mine,” he tells her, “I can assure you that the only way you’re going to keep this from the media is to walk away from this sham of a marriage with whatever I deign to give you.”

Both Graysons are falling apart. Victoria is desperately trying to salvage the situation, and Conrad is about to collapse into a heaving puddle of former-father goo as he takes some hair from Charlotte’s brush for the paternity test. At Chez Grayson, Victoria’s lawyer, Huntley (James McCaffrey), is super angry (at least, he acts that way) that she breached the disclosure contract by not telling him about Charlotte’s possible paternity. Victoria feigns innocence, saying that she told him that she had an affair and that was enough, but it’s total bull and she knows it. Determined to regain at least some control over the situation, she has Huntley invite Amanda up the hill for tea, which is a euphemism for being gored by the horns of a raging bull. Victoria entraps a dolled-up Amanda with strawberries and cream. Amanda Clarke, as it turns out, is allergic to strawberries, and oh how Victoria remembers that time so long ago when young Amanda had to be rushed to the emergency room and her father was out of his mind with worry. Fauxmanda tries to cover by saying she “grew out of it,” and she licks the serving spoon just to piss Victoria off, but Victoria just raises her evil lips in a smile. After some more harassment, Amanda stomps out of Chez Grayson, but she has helpfully left her DNA all over the spoon. As she slams her way out, Victoria’s moment of slight triumph is ruined as Huntley tells her the preliminary DNA results are back: Conrad is not Charlotte’s father.

So: good news for Conrad, yes? (At least, on the divorce front, not so much on the father side of things.) He’s sure this news means Victoria will do everything he asks and accept whatever terms she is given. At their next playdate, Conrad takes a very quiet Victoria into his study for some alone time, which in this show either means sex or threats. This time it’s the latter. “Here are your options, and they are limited,” he says. Either take what I offer or become known as the woman who had an affair with the most hated man in America. Victoria’s brain nearly combusts with the helplessness of it all. Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) overhears everything from the patio. Later, Conrad — at first refusing to look at her at all, and then only with this awful look in his eyes — tells Charlotte that she has to move back in with her mother, and he won’t give her a good reason. You can tell he’s very upset, but I’m not sure how upset. Has he cut off all emotion ties to Charlotte because he doesn’t feel she’s his anymore? Or does he still love her, but kicks her out anyway because he has to in order to get what he wants in the divorce (which is still a beyond crappy thing to do to a kid you’ve raised her whole life)? See, Conrad has commitment to his cause, the feelings of his “daughter” be damned.

Fresh from eavesdropping, Ashley wanders into the poolhouse only to find Daniel staring at the ginormous rock he’s about to give Emily. Her jaw kind of drops and she totters away on her giant black heels like she’s just been hit in the face with a sledgehammer. This is not Ashley’s day. But it is Daniel’s. As a storm comes on, he takes Emily to the place they first met — when she “accidentally” spilled her drink on his expensive shirt — and tells her that she’s the only person he’s ever been able to be himself around, that she makes him feel safe and warm, and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. As the rains starts pouring down, Daniel gets down on one knee and busts out The Rock. It is honestly the most giant, ridiculous ring I have ever seen. Emily shakes and cries and says yes, and as they kiss passionately in the rain — their umbrella forgotten on the ground — all I can think about is just how shot on the beach this guy is going to be in about a month’s time. See, Emily has commitment to her cause, and stomping all over Daniel doesn’t seem to be a problem for her. Neither, may I add, is pretending to be madly in love with him. She makes it look easy. (Even later: the two tumble in to Chez Grayson from the rain and Victoria’s head turns in circles and her eyes bug out when she sees The Rock. This is REALLY not her day, folks.) (Conrad’s reaction isn’t much better. He waxes poetical at Daniel about how much you love your wife at first and then how you learn that all women are scheming bitches, and that’s just life, son. So yeah, your trust fund, HAVE FUN. Oh, also, you might want to ask your mother about this THING shes been keeping from you, no big deal, it’s only going to, like, RUIN OUR LIVES. The best part about this is that he’s totally right – about Emily, at least.) (Parentheses are fun.)

A distraught Charlotte comes to Emily’s house looking for Daniel — who is busy getting waxed poetical at – and she’s so very upset. She tells Emily that her dad kicked her out, and she doesn’t know what she did — and this is the real punch in the nuts – how he’s never looked at her like that before. “Like what?” says Emily. “Like he looks at my mother.” And then, she too sees The Rock, but she’s happy for E&D. “You have no idea how badly I’ve always wanted a sister,” she says, folding her tiny beautifully coifed self into Emily’s arms, and it is just really sad and adorable. And it’s all Emily’s fault. Emily Thorne, you complete pirate hooker. Look what you’ve done. (Yeah, she knows it, look at her face.) Meanwhile, at Chez Grayson, Huntley lies to Victoria about Amanda really being Amanda, telling her that Fauxmanda’s DNA is a match with Charlotte’s. Naturally, she fires him. (Again, unknowingly correct response, because dude is totally working for Emily. Victoria is like this secret ninja who can sense all these lies happening around her, and they set all of her senses tingling, but she can’t figure out precisely what’s going on, so she just lashes out at the first schlub who comes along. It is weirdly effective.)

Ashley is drowning her sorrows over at the Stowaway with Nolan, and Jack overhears. I’ve been ignoring my bestie, Emily, ALL SUMMER because I’ve been too busy following Victoria around like a dog and licking her shoes all the time, and then getting weird creepy boyfriends who are secretly gay and secretly mentally ill and also secretly con men, and now Emily is getting married — JACKPOT — and I’ve got diddly squat. I AM SO SAD ABOUT ME. Probably all Jack heard was “Emily” and “married,” but it’s enough. Poor guy. Meanwhile, some strange guy tries to hit on Amanda, but she turns him down. Anyway it doesn’t matter because all he needed to know was where she was living — upstairs — which she kindly told him like the fool she is. So later, when the strange guy breaks in Amanda and Jack’s place and steals the tapes (that Emily planted that morning, BTW), Jack catches him, and he beats the everliving snot out of Jack. The collateral damage here is almost absurd at this point. Sure, Victoria and Conrad have sat on some thorns, but it’s Daniel and Charlotte and now Jack, who are feeling the real consequences. And Nolan has had enough.

He rushes at Emily like a Nolan shaped hurricane and slaps her in the face with his fury. And it is like a slap, the way the news about Jack hits her. He’s still the one thing she cares about in all this — she even told Huntley the lawyer that Jack was to be spared in all of this — and he’s the one she’s hurt the most. Nolan tells her she needs to rethink her life, because what what WHAT ARE YOU DOING. (Nolan could be Sassy Gay Friend, yes?) Even Huntley is done with her. They meet under the docks, and he tells her that he can’t be a part of this kind of violence. She blames him, says Jack was off limits, but it wasn’t his fault really, and she knows it. Moreover, he’s the only reason her secret wasn’t discovered when Victoria checked Amanda Clarke’s DNA: he swapped the samples. Overcome with guilt, Emily visits an unconscious Jack. She runs her finger along his hand, and it’s like the only time I can be sure that this is the REAL Emily.

Downstairs, Emily finally FINALLY tells Amanda the truth about why she’s in the Hamptons, about what the Graysons did to her father, and to her. It seems unreal that Amanda would volunteer to switch identities with Emily NOT knowing that David Clarke was innocent, but that’s what happened. You know, I like this Amanda girl. She’s out of control and wild and kind of a murderer, but she’s there, you know? She loves Emily like a sister — if only Emily felt the same way. (Or, again, maybe she does, it’s just that her friendship with Amanda is collateral damage when weighed against her commitment to revenge.) The combination of Jack’s injuries — which Amanda believes to be her fault — and the truth she’s just heard from Emily convinces her to leave the Hamptons, much to Emily’s relief. She realizes just how much Victoria hates “Amanda” and how dangerous it is for her to be there under that name. Speaking of Victoria, she does probably the second worst thing she’s ever done in her life when Daniel asks about “the secret” she’s been keeping. She tells him that Charlotte’s father is David Clarke, and that Charlotte doesn’t know. And then AND THEN she heavily HEAVILY implies (never actually says it) that David Clarke RAPED HER. (!) What the?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF THESE PEOPLE.

Morning on the beach. Nolan and Emily sit on the dunes, the wind blowing their hair. She tells him Amanda is gone, and she tells him he was right, that she wants to minimize the fallout from her actions, and maybe there’s a better way to destroy Victoria other than marrying her son. She needs to regroup, she says. Nolan’s whole body sags in relief. Girl is finally thinking clearly. In the meantime, regrouping or not, the fallout continues falling. Jack is devastated by Amanda’s goodbye note, in which she says that bad things follow her everywhere, and she wants to get clear before he really gets hurt. (A lone video tape lies under Jack’s bed. The thief missed it?) As Charlotte comes back Chez Grayson, shoes in hand, we flash back to the night of David Clarke’s arrest. Victoria holds a positive pregnancy test as she looks off her balcony at the flashing lights and marauding cops still on the Clarke premises. She hides it in the planter as Conrad approaches. “What we did was despicable,” she says. “But necessary,” he answers. But why? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. Anyway, in the eternal dance of the adulterous knocked up woman, Victoria sleeps with her estranged husband so he won’t think she’s a cheating ho when the baby pops out just slightly less than nine months later.

Present day: Victoria again stands on her balcony, watching as Emily approaches Daniel, who is sitting on the porch swing looking tormented. Emily, who has steeled herself to give back The Rock,  listens as Daniel tells her about Charlotte’s paternity, as he turns a love-child into a rape-child. As she listens to her fiance parrot his mother’s intentions from out of his hurt puppy-dog mouth, perverting her father’s good name in yet another horrible way, Emily’s face tightens in anger and determination. ”How about a June wedding?” she asks. Just like that, game on. Screw Daniel, screw Charlotte, screw Jack. Screw everybody everywhere. Girl is committed in so many ways.

Tags: abc, ashley madekwe, christa b. allen, commitment, connor paolo, emily vancamp, gabriel mann, henry czerny, james mccaffrey, james tupper, joshua bowman, madeleine stowe, margarita levieva, nick wechsler, revenge