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"Revenge has struggled to keep its various storylines in motion this season; taking a step back from Emily&amp;#039;s mission to avenge her father has often felt like a bad decision, leaving us with muddled plots that are difficult to care about. Fortunately, &amp;#039;Collusion&amp;#039; felt like a step forward, as things finally seem to be falling into place. It seems silly that I should be grateful for any kind of development, but right now I&amp;#039;m taking what I can get. The show is always best when things are piling on top of Emily, forcing her to change her approaches and tactics on a whim, which is what happened here (although this was by no means a season one-level instalment, just a little better than we&amp;#039;ve seen so far.)  Emily is juggling all manner of problems - her real relationship with Aiden, her fake one with Daniel, her promise to Victoria and her attempts to bring down the Initiative. Everything comes to a head in &amp;#039;Collusion&amp;#039;, as Daniel invites her to Los Angeles to help him pin down Stonehaven (and beat Jason Prosser.) What Emily is not expecting is for Victoria to show up with precisely the opposite intention in mind - and questioning why Emily isn&amp;#039;t following her orders to stop Daniel from acquiring the company. Meanwhile, Aiden - already struggling with his jealousy about Emily&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;faux beau&amp;quot; (as Nolan brilliantly puts it) - has his loyalty tested when Helen shows him a video of his sister Colleen, alive and apparently dosing up on heroin. In order to save her, he&amp;#039;s ordered to murder Victoria within the next 24 hours, which sees him too arrive in Los Angeles. I&amp;#039;m sure season one Emily would have had few qualms with this, but right now she needs Victoria - for what is not clear, but we&amp;#039;re just told to accept it. Perhaps her feelings for Daniel are doing a little bit of creep?  Either way, Aiden and Emily are now pitted against each other - finally, their loyalties are being tested as they both have different goals. Emily wins this battle, jumping up on Aiden as he&amp;#039;s about to pull the trigger on Vic (because there has to be some tension, right?) She persuades him that the Initiative want Daniel focused on Stonehaven, which won&amp;#039;t happen if his mom&amp;#039;s murdered. So Aiden steps down, but comes to regret it when he receives a new video, apparently showing Colleen dying. Nice. To be fair, one of the highlights of the episode comes as Aiden confronts Emily about this - her scheming and plans and mission have finally had a real impact on her, genuinely destroying perhaps one of the only people she truly cares about. Coming after an earlier scene in which she had stolen some real time with Aiden on the beach, it&amp;#039;s hard to see his fury and her desperation to appease him. And without Aiden - because surely he won&amp;#039;t be keen to help her any more? - she could be in serious trouble.  Elsewhere, Emily is forced to choose between her agreements with Daniel and Victoria; she chooses Daniel, helping him to beat Jason to the acquisition with the intent that it will help her get closer to the Initiative. But this screws over Victoria in more ways than one - she&amp;#039;s already slept with Jason to force him to stick with his attempts to take over Stonehaven, so when he loses he&amp;#039;s very angry with her. Victoria later confronts Emily in a disappointingly tepid encounter, though hopefully their rivalry will intensify shortly. Mind you, Emily isn&amp;#039;t one to leave things to chance, so she does go to tell Daniel about her secret pact with Victoria (making it clear she found it difficult to follow through, and so on.) It&amp;#039;s an obvious attempt to poison Daniel against his mother, though he claims that he already knew and was testing Emily. We&amp;#039;ll see.  But the real news is that Stonehaven is a disaster relief company; this falls into place as Nolan finally explains to Emily what &amp;#039;Carrion&amp;#039; is - basically, it could shut down the power in New York quickly. I know, thrilling. But it does explain why the Initiative was so keen to acquire a company devoted to disaster relief. And more importantly, Nolan puts the pieces together and realises that Padma is working against him, searching for Carrion.  We know that it&amp;#039;s incomplete - Nolan&amp;#039;s kept the final coding a secret - but on Emily&amp;#039;s advice he plays her right back and plants the code, so that she can pass it on to the Initiative. This is interesting enough in theory, though Padma&amp;#039;s still a little bland. Still, I&amp;#039;m optimistic that this development signals that the show&amp;#039;s actually going somewhere, and the more Nolan I get on my screen the better (his disappointment that the key to his possible new home is too &amp;quot;pedestrian&amp;quot; was typically enjoyable.)  Unfortunately, the Stowaway storyline is still completely yawnsome. Jack finally agrees that Conrad can help him, screwing over his dad&amp;#039;s mate Matt Duncan in the process (there&amp;#039;s the requisite amount of martyrdom and handwringing before he gives up and just goes for it). Kenny Ryan follows through on his apparent misgivings by selling his part of the bar to Conrad, though Nate is furious and goes to see the Grayson patriarch himself, explaining his plans to redevelop the docks. Conrad is ridiculously quickly won over, so just when we thought this whole thing had been put to bed, we have to prepare ourselves for yet more rumbling on. Thanks, Revenge.  The most disappointing thing about Revenge&amp;#039;s recent slump is that there still are reminders of how good the show can be. It&amp;#039;s impossible not to smile when Ashley and Victoria come face to face, for example, trading insults and cold glares. Aiden&amp;#039;s horror at what Emily may have cost him is thrilling, and could have seriously interesting consequences. And there are still wry moments, with everyone completely and utterly failing to give a monkey&amp;#039;s about Charlotte&amp;#039;s birthday (prompting her to change her name to Charlotte Clarke); Conrad deliberately flapping his newspaper to annoy Victoria; and Emily urging Nolan to help her: &amp;quot;Say yes and I&amp;#039;ll buy you a house.&amp;quot; (I mean, I need new friends.) But Revenge&amp;#039;s second season has been hobbled by dull storylines, which are often difficult to follow or invest in. While this episode was by no means one of the show&amp;#039;s most entertaining, it does offer some hope that things are finally beginning to fall into place - it needs to happen soon, and Emily needs to get back on track, or the series could be facing some real problems. What did you think about this episode of Revenge? Leave your comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/revenge/review/a452469/revenge-collusion-recap/>