Revenge -- Genesis

It's New Year's Eve and Amanda is thinking back to how it all began. It was ten years ago this night that Amanda began her plan to make them all pay. And it was a man's death, not her father's, that set her on her path of revenge.

Eight months have passed since David Clarke's death. Nolan is tailing Amanda trying to keep her out of trouble and trying to get her to read the journals. She hasn't yet. She sees no point in reading them. Her father will still be dead. Meanwhile, Conrad gets a card that says, "Shame, David Clarke." I thought it was Amanda who sent it, while Conrad decides to throw a New Year's Eve party and invite all the co-conspirators who helped to frame David Clarke and see which one of them sent the card to him. Victoria doesn't want any part of this party, but Conrad points out if the truth comes out she'll go to prison for the rest of her life, so she relents.

Amanda comes to the Hampton's to the Stowaway where she sees Jack with his girlfriend. It was good to see he had a girlfriend and wasn't waiting all those years as a monk waiting for the return of Amanda Clarke. Amanda makes sure Jack never sees her face. Jack also has a run-in with Nolan when he catches him flirting with his girlfriend. Later, his girlfriend kisses Nolan and Jack punches him. Nolan also has business dealings with Jack's father, where he tries to give back the property he bought, but Jack's father says he doesn't have the money to buy it back.

Amanda goes and snoops around the now empty beach house. While she's there, Victoria shows up and recalls the first time she met David Clarke. Conrad shows up and taunts her about still being in love with David and says they're unloading the beach house.

Thanks to Jack's girlfriend, Amanda is able to get a catering job up at the Grayson's party. It doesn't take long for her to realize that the motley crew gathered for the party are all the people that participated in the framing of her father. And it's quite a soulless bunch. It's almost like a party with all the damned souls in hell. Not one seems to possess a conscience for an innocent man going to prison and dying because of them. Save one: Roger Halsted.

He requests to Amanda that he be seated away from the rest of the soulless ghouls at the party. Conrad immediately suspects it was Roger who sent that card to him and sics Frank on his tail. Seeing he's the only one who seems to possess a conscience, Amanda reveals her true identity to him. Later, he slips her a letter, telling her he'll help her expose them all, but right after that he's hauled away by Frank. The next time Amanda sees Halsted he's laying in a tub full of water fully-clothed a victim of an apparent suicide, minus a suicide note. Victoria immediately suspects Conrad and Frank murdered him, as does Amanda.

Amanda returns to the beach house devastated and calls Nolan. It's Roger's death that convinces her to seek revenge against them. That they'll kill whomever they feel is a threat to them and that they need to be stopped. She vows somehow she will stop them and make them all pay.

The New Year's Eve party was also the beginning of Conrad's affair with Lydia. He offers to let her and her husband have the beach house, since they expressed interest in it, earlier, and she thanks him by spreading her legs for him. She was the one who made the first move. Afterwards Loathsome Lydia has a nice chat with her BFF Victoria and takes her hand, that was just all over Victoria's husband, and you hope she at least washed her hands afterwards. Victoria admits she wanted to hang on to the beach house because it was the last piece of David she had left and she'll be thrilled to have her BFF living so close to her.

Later, Victoria realizes who sent Conrad that card that had him worried someone was going to crack and expose him. It was Mason Treadwell, hoping to stir up trouble for a book he's writing and was hoping for some new material to present itself. Little did the man guess his little ploy worked and a murder was committed under his nose. A murder that wouldn't have happened if not for him sending Conrad that card. Not that I'm sure it would have bothered Treadwell. Once these people sold their souls to Conrad nothing seemed to bother them unless it involved their own hides being in danger.

Mason Treadwell was also the one who gave Victoria the picture of David taken a few hours before his murder.

So it was Roger Halsted's murder that set Amanda down her path of revenge against all these people. Of course, you might also credit both Nolan and Mason Treadwell, as well. Amanda might never have finally read her father's journals if Nolan hadn't kept pushing her to do it. And if Mason Treadwell hadn't sent Conrad that note the party would never happened and she wouldn't have seen close-up and in person just how soulless all these people are. So like with the framing of David Clarke, each one played a part in the genesis of Amanda vowing to get revenge on them all and to make them all pay.

I don't know if I really felt this episode was truly necessary. It was kind of a filler episode, but Wednesday night seemed to be Filler Episode Wednesday as Criminal Minds had a similar filler episode. I guess the biggest shock the episode held for me was how Gabriel Mann was able to look so much younger than he normally does as Nolan. Like him better with the dark blonde hair. It really takes years off of him. And the most interesting line spoken had to be Conrad's comment about Victoria; she helped frame a man but she was still in love with him.