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"Revenge has been a bit of a mixed bag in its second season, but with the winter break behind us, it seems like as good a time as any for a fresh start. Certainly, some of the characters are feeling that way, though &amp;#039;Power&amp;#039; was itself a little inconsistent. There were definitely good parts of the episode; for example, Victoria is keen to work with Emily to convince Daniel to give up the Grayson Global crown. It&amp;#039;s a little unclear how, exactly, she planned to do this - it&amp;#039;s tied in with Judge Barnes and his wife (a campaigner against unjust verdicts), who are coming to stay in some kind of attempt to rehabilitate Conrad - but I&amp;#039;m used by now to just accepting what Revenge tells me and going with it.  Nevertheless, Victoria and Emily are a perfect coupling on Revenge, so it&amp;#039;s a joy to see them together (I practically squealed when they shook hands). And Emily jumps at the chance as she has her sights on Judge Barnes himself - he just happened to be the judge involved in her father&amp;#039;s trial, and she has a letter from an anonymous person that was sent to her dad, suggesting jury tampering had taken place. In a welcome sign that Revenge is returning to Emily&amp;#039;s main mission, Judge Barnes is clearly the next man on her list, and she uses Victoria&amp;#039;s invitation to dinner to try to wheedle out some information - namely about the clerk, who was killed in an apparent subway accident three days after the mysterious letter was sent. Yeah, start stroking your chin now. But it&amp;#039;s a fun twist when Emily notices some real tension between Barnes and Patricia; a moment when he grips her hand in an apparent show of marital love has a sick edge of violence to it, and Emily&amp;#039;s puzzled face is a joy to behold.   True, she finds it unbelievably easy to convince Patricia to out her husband at the big benefit, but that in itself is a magnificent scene; Patricia reads the letter to a completely silent crowd, flagging up a real sense of horror, and then strips to show the bruises inflicted by her husband (who&amp;#039;d been about to become the next Supreme Court judge - talk about bad timing). It&amp;#039;s a great moment - and even more intriguing as Patricia reveals that the jury was tampered with in the David Clarke trial. If this leads to a new examination of the case, it will be huge - and Emily&amp;#039;s involvement would be thrilling, too. Incidentally, I liked that Emily was wrong about the clerk - what else will she get wrong in the future? But of course, Emily is not only manipulating Victoria for her own ends. She&amp;#039;s got Daniel wrapped round her little finger, too; perhaps the best moment of the episode comes when she stages a break-up (a &amp;quot;fake-up&amp;quot;, as Nolan calls it) with Aiden at the restaurant where Daniel is eating (cleverly making the argument about her relationship with Daniel). The moment as she walks away, a smile creeping on to her face at her success, is thrilling - it&amp;#039;s not Claire Danes in Homeland, like, but it is definitely enjoyable.  Like Homeland, though, you&amp;#039;re never quite sure where Emily stands. It&amp;#039;s entirely believable that she&amp;#039;s still interested in Daniel, but on the other hand, it&amp;#039;s also credible that she&amp;#039;s all for Aiden. The episode begins and ends with the two men in her life - we get a sexy, oceanside fight-turned-love-in with Aiden on the beach as the episode opens, and we close with Emily accepting a philanthropic job offer from Daniel and sealing the deal with a kiss.  It&amp;#039;s difficult to tell how Aiden feels, watching this - the fact that the instalment closes on his face seems to suggest he&amp;#039;s Not Okay with it. But it seems that Emily is playing everyone, as her Daniel smooch comes only after she&amp;#039;s noticed that Victoria is watching from Grayson Manor. Emily&amp;#039;s motivations and plans will surely become clear shortly, but for now everyone - even Aiden - is in the dark. The rest of the episode is less successful, though it&amp;#039;s always entertaining when shady Helen from the Initiative shows up. She&amp;#039;s trying to get Daniel to do her dirty work, now, dropping hints about hidden money in Grayson Global and suggesting that Nolan&amp;#039;s attempts to track it down will lead him to some kind of goldmine (again, it&amp;#039;s far too difficult to understand what the hell she&amp;#039;s talking about - you just have to let it wash over you).  It&amp;#039;s hard to care too much about the fate of Grayson Global, and I continue to be disappointed with how underused Nolan has been this season (in the moments that he speaks with Emily, his silky languor is shown in all its glory, but that just makes me miss their partnership even more). And the less said about Marco&amp;#039;s sudden attempt to reunite with him the better - what&amp;#039;s that all about? Mind you, Nolan does get the peachiest line of the episode: &amp;quot;Bros before hoes only works when you&amp;#039;re not still in love with the ho, bro.&amp;quot; And it seems that he has some kind of &amp;quot;cyber plutonium&amp;quot; which Marco wants him to pursue - apparently, Nolan decided not to go forward with it in the past. I&amp;#039;m sure we&amp;#039;ll find out what&amp;#039;s involved there soon enough. The Initiative stuff is fun when Aiden gets involved, though; Nolan tracks down security footage from the investor&amp;#039;s lunch and the pair lip-read Helen to find out who she&amp;#039;s calling and the password she&amp;#039;s using. When she gets through, Helen automatically knows it&amp;#039;s Aiden. Well, this is frankly bonkers, but it does lead to a meeting between Helen and Aiden in - where else? - a deserted parking lot. While there, Helen lets slip that Aiden&amp;#039;s beloved sister could still be alive - it seems that she may be using him in the future. If this pits Aiden and Emily against each other, with differing motivations, that&amp;#039;s all to the good. If it just leads to more vaguely threatening encounters, it&amp;#039;ll be disappointing.  Unfortunately, I could still care less about the Stowaway and the Porters - a shame, given that Jack used to be enjoyable. Even the Ryans have lost the soapy charm they&amp;#039;d begun to display in the last episode. This time, Declan discovers drugs in a big bag of coffee beans and he and Jack arrange for the police to raid the bar. Unfortunately, Nate realises something&amp;#039;s afoot when he treads on a rogue bean (really) and stashes the drugs in the boat, instead. So Declan&amp;#039;s in trouble when the police come, though Jack obviously takes the fall for him, because he&amp;#039;s a ridiculous martyr. The only slight glimmer of intrigue I gained from this storyline was that Kenny certainly seems to be the nicer brother, talking to Declan in an almost conciliatory way before Nate shows up. If he could be swayed, and persuaded to turn on his bro, that could be entertaining enough, though I don&amp;#039;t hold out much hope for this right now. Overall, the episode was an entertaining hour of television - it was a joy to see that Emily&amp;#039;s back to her best, crossing out Judge Barnes&amp;#039;s face in red marker pen in a tiny moment that made me grin. Revenge still has its problems, but it feels like the writers are doing their best to get it back on track - whether they manage remains to be seen. What did you think of the episode? Leave your comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/revenge/review/a449075/revenge-power-recap/>