This week's episode took place mostly in flashback to Thanksgiving 2006, as we learned more about the major malfunctions of the main characters. Aahh ... 2006, when we tried to bring "Sexyback," and told each other "You're Beautiful," and tried not to have a "Bad Day," and used our Happy Feet to crack The DaVinci Code.
See what I did there?
Let's take a look at how 2006 affected our power players.
Nolan
Nolan has called everyone in to NolCorp on Thanksgiving for a special meeting, and leaves it up to "OCD CFO"Marco Romero (E.J. Bonilla, who we're definitely going to be seeing more of) to deliver the big news - NolCorp is going public!
Later, Nolan calls Marco in to his office for a special Thanksgiving dinner of sushi and teasing banter. He says, "It's a little untraditional, but so are we." Marco gives him a gift and tells him, "You're always looking out for everyone else. It's time someone looked out for you." Nolan opens it ... it's a Galaxy Defender, which causes him to have multiple nerdgasms. Marco mentions their first date, so they've obviously been seeing each other for a while.
Marco gets a phone call from accounting, and their Thanksgiving goes from feast to famine immediately. It seems that the Cayman Islands account that Marco set up for Nolan in 2002 was emptied six weeks ago ... to the tune of half a billion dollars of company assets.
Nolan tells him that he didn't keep any of the money, it all went to the daughter of their first investor ... David Clarke That doesn't help matters. Nolan tries to explain about the conspiracy, but Marco calls him insane, saying, "You're choosing a convicted terrorist over me." Nolan says, "No, I'm choosing a man who took me at my word instead of my name. Oh, and you're fired." He starts to cut Marco a check for his share of the company, but Marco says, 'I want no ties with you, or your blood money. Go to hell, Nolan."
Flash forward to now, as Marco gets a late night call from Daniel, who says he has a proposition ... involving NolCorp. Marco says, "I'm listening."
Hey wait a minute. Isn't Padma Nolan's new CFO? You think he would have learned his lesson.
The Graysons
I know i'm in the minority, but I loved the adorably unkempt 2006 Daniel.
Daniel comes home from Harvard for Thanksgiving with a special guest ... Victoria's mother Marion (played by the still-faboo Adrienne Barbeau), who she hasn't seen in 35 years (let's see, if this is 2006, that would have been about 1971, right before Maude started). Victoria can barely disguise her revulsion, but Marion explains that she's there to mend fences, and tells her that her husband Max passed away a year ago. Victoria says, 'I don't know whether to offer you my condolences or congratulations."
Marion (who cannot exist without being kept by a man) explains that her new paramour Ben is a man of means, who unfortunately insists on meeting her family. This gives Victoria the chance to flashback to her childhood, when Marion's then potential-ATM Tom was a little too enraptured by the 15-year-old Victoria. The before dinner conversation consists of Marion explaining how she and Ben met (on a cruise ship after the passing of Max. Their staterooms were next to each other!), and Victoria pretty much accusing her of setting the whole "accidental meeting" up, which ordinarily might be reaching ... but not in this case.
There is small talk at the dinner table, until Marion says, "Vicki was my greatest blessing," and Victoria responds, 'That's not what you said the day you threw me out of the house." Marion wears an expression like she's just been french-kissed by Swamp Thing (hey, I held out as long as I could), and Victoria finally lets go of 35 years of resentment and hatred and asks Ben, 'Would you like to hear the story of our last Thanksgiving?"
Victoria recounts that fateful day when she was 15, and she overheard Marion arguing with Tom. He insists he's not going to marry her, and he never promised to take care of her and the kid. Marion tells him, "Is it because of Victoria? I can send her away! Or is she the reason why you come by at all?" Tom calls her sick, and tells her it's over. He tries to leave, but Marion tries to stop him, and then we hear a gunshot, followed by Marion ordering Victoria "Come here! You just couldn't control yourself, could you? Batting your eyelashes like a little whore!" She gives her the gun and tells her to shoot him in the chest, and that way they can claim self-defense to the police. No jury would ever convict a teen girl for trying to protect her mother.She'll be hailed as a hero! Victoria tearfully complies.
Flash to 2006, and Victoria explains that the Grand Jury did not indict her, but the judge did sentence her to six months confinement at a psychiatric clinic. When she got out, Marion has already met Max, and "one night, she saw him sneak into my room, and the next morning, she threw me to the curb. By the next spring, they were married." Marion calls her a liar, but she sort of loses points by saying, "I should have listened to your deadbeat dad and gotten rid of you before you were born.'' Whoops.
Ben is disgusted and leaves, which means Marion has nowhere to go. Literally, She's broke, with only the fur on her back. Victoria is happy to throw her to the curb.
But in a delicious twist, we find out that Ben was hired by Victoria, and the cruise ship meeting was staged, but not by Marion. It was all part of Victoria's own Reven8e plan to destroy her mother. Take a lesson, Emily, a revenge plot doesn't have to be as convoluted as you've made it out to be.
On a side note, there's a hilarious subplot involving Daniel not wanting to follow in the Grayson footsteps. He wants to be a poet, and his dad offers to contact some publishers he knows about getting his stuff looked at. Conrad has no intention of going through with it, of course, and he tells Victoria that he'll have his publisher friends send courteous rejection letters. There's no way Daniel is escaping from his Grayson destiny. So why is this subplot hilarious?
Daniel as a poet.
Emily and Aiden
Meanwhile, November 2006 is also important for Emily, as it's the first time she meets Aiden and Ashley. She walks into a bar and asks the Russian bartender where she can find someone named Sergei. Hey, wait, that's no Russian bartender, it's Aiden! He tells her that Sergei is in the VIP section, with the "other girls." Russian prostitutes? Is that even a thing? We see Sergei sizing up the girls for the evening, and one of them is a trembling, nervous ... Ashley? He tells her to to go fix her face, and Emily follows her into the ladies room, where through the stalls, they have a conversation about Ashley becoming a hooker-in-training. Ashley blames it on her Art History degree, which is hilarious, and she tells the voice of Emily that she has to pay her rent while looking for a gallery job. The hand of Emily gives her a wad of cash, and tells her to get her ass out of there. But she has to do one thing in return. She has to find out when woman-trafficer bigwig Dmitry is scheduled to arrive, and text the phone number that Emily gives her. Then tell Sergei that she has to leave to buy a new dress ... and never come back.
Well, this is interesting. Does Ashley know it was Emily who was her savior all those years ago? It would seem she has no clue, as she never saw Emily, but Emily certainly knows it was Ashley who was that scared girl in the Russian bar.
Emily meets with Takeda, who has given her this "diversion" from her upcoming plot to take down the Graysons. Emily is assigned to find out what happened to a girl named Colleen, who was one of Dmitry's girls, but disappeared in 1993.
Emily heads back to the bar, where Aiden tries to warn her away, but she tells Sergei that she's filling in for her roommate, who has taken ill. She's taken to meet Dmitry, and when Aiden brings drinks in, he also brandishes a gun, which he points at Dmitry while saying, "This is for Colleen. My sister!" As he shoots, Emily tackles him to the ground, and Dmitry's thugs cart Aiden away.
Dmitry leaves Emily alone (never a good idea), giving her the opportunity to crawl through the ventilation ducts until she comes upon the room where they're taking turns kicking the crap out of Aiden. When they leave, she bursts in, unties him, and finds out that his father worked as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport at the time of the plane bombing, and The Initiative may have used him to plant the device. As they struggle to find a way to escape, Dmitry and his thugs catch them, and cart them through the crowded bar on the way to their doom.
Fortunately, Takeda is in the shadows, and when he give the word, he and Emily put a beatdown on Sergei and the thugs. Dmitry escapes, and is chased into the parking lot by Aiden, who is about to kill him, when Emily intercedes, telling Aiden that if Dmitry dies, he'll never find out what happened to Colleen.
Aiden pulls back, but Dmitry must have a death wish, because he taunts Aiden about his sister, and says, "she probably liked it." That's all Aiden can take, and he puts a number of bullets into Dmitry's back.
Back at Emily's batcave, Aiden tells her he wants to learn from her sensei how to save Colleen. A-ha! So that's why the two were training together. Back in the present day, the two are in bed together, and after Emily is convinced that Aiden won't cut out on her again, she decides to show him all of the contents in the Infinity Box, and everything about the girl she left behind.
The McBorings
Back in 2006, Jack's dad and many other business owners on the pier are being leaned on by a thug to pay protection money. When he refuses, the bar is firebombed, prompting Jack's dad to change his mind. He decides to pay the extortionist, but a fellow business owner shoots the guy dead with Jack's gun. Back in the present day, we learn that Teen Wolf Dad is the thug's son. The end.
I don't know if it was the ever-entertaining presence of Adrienne Barbeau, the realization that Ashley was this close to being a hooker, or Nolan kissing a guy again, but I liked this episode more than any other this season. It seemed like a breath of fresh air after all the mother drama.
What did you think?
