Courtesy of ABC

Break out the red sharpie and hoodies, kids, because Revenge is back for more…well… REVENGE!

Let’s bitch it out…Did everyone hold their breath and squeal a little at the end of the episode? Yes, folks, the red sharpie of REVENGE! made a guest appearance for the first time in ages as Emily (Emily VanCamp) finally gets back to business.

Hopefully now that 2012 is behind us we can focus once again on the elements that made Revenge such a guilty pleasure: bitching, backstabbing and parties. In many ways ‘Power’ feels like an old-school episode of the series (circa fall 2011): Em hatches a plan, calls in her posse of back-up accomplices, wreaks havoc on some random guest star’s life and then breaks out the Infinity box for some Sharpie action and ponderous voice-over.

In this case, that person is Judge Robert Barnes (Geoff Pierson) who is not only a corrupt (naturally) supreme court nominee, but also a bonafide wife abuser. Unfortunately for him, wife Patricia (Clare Carey) has a platform: a charity dedicated to working with falsely accused people. Naturally she’s a) sympathetic to David Clarke (an unseen James Tupper), b) involved in the David Clarke cover-up and c) able to make a conveniently damaging speech and expose the Judge. It’s all very simple and pat – nearly too easy for Emily – but if this is what it takes to get our girl back in the saddle and back on course, then I’m completely comfortable with that.

Besides, this plan is really subsidiary to the larger overall arc, which is all about getting (real-life) lovahs Emily and Daniel (Joshua Bowman) back together. So that means a publicly staged “fake-up” for Ems and current squeeze/future ex Aiden (Barry Sloane) and then some convenient face-time (and face-suckage) for Em and Daniel. Looks like Aiden’s on the way outs – romantically, at least – since he naturally saw the couple playing “hide the tongue” on the veranda.

Also watching the make-out session via her stalkery p.o.v from the Grayson Casa balcony: Victoria (Madeleine Stowe), who helped to engineer their reconciliation in an effort to worm her way back into her son’s life. Jury’s still out the why. Victoria tells Conrad (Henry Czerny) it’s because Daniel is at risk of an attack from the Initiative, while informing Emily that Daniel is already in over his head running Grayson Global (after 1 day?). The cynical side of me also thinks that it has something to do whoever controls Grayson Global also holds the family purse-strings. All of these are viable options for the Ice Queen to have concerns about!

Courtesy of ABC

Other Observations:

• Gabriel Mann’s Nolan continues to hover around the periphery. There’s a suggestion that the Initiative may actually be after some top-secret code he developed back in his 2006/Marco (E.J. Bonilla) days, but for now the show seems more interested in getting back to the boy-on-boy action in the future. Thankfully there’s no sign – just a mention – of the insufferable Padma (Dilshad Vadsaria)
• The Stowaway gang – Jack (Nick Weschler), Declan (Connor Paolo) and Christa B. Allen’s Charlotte (hey, why not?) – finally clue in that the Ryan boys are no good drug-dealers. You do, however, have to give Nate (Michael Trucco) and Kenny (JR Bourne) some credit: hiding the Colombian (drugs) inside the Colombian (coffee beans)? That’s pretty clever. Naturally an attempted sting goes badly, so poor Jack is in jail, crying crocodile tears because his baby mama and stupidly named child (I refuse to believe any young person names their child Carl) are on the outside
• Henry Cznery: decent bod, but his character’s got a pretty atrocious “my son took over my company” golf-wear wardrobe
• Also terrible: Em’s Fallopian tube pink dress for the benefit. Gross
• The password for Initiative employee Helen’s (Wendy Crewson, looking botoxy) voice-mail is “entry” in Latin? Ugh, secret societies are so pretentious. Does she think she’s a member of the Illuminati or something? Because I did not sign up to review some
• Speaking of the Initiative, do they just go around kidnapping unimportant people’s relatives and keep them alive hoping that they become secret REVENGE ninjas? Because it seems awfully strange that the Initiative took an interest in Aiden’s sister, considering he was a nobody when she was taken back in 2006
• Finally, anyone miss Ashley (Ashley Madewke)? Where has that little trollop gone now that she’s been kicked to the curb? Come back hooker!

Best Lines:

• Emily (to Victoria, commenting on her balcony): “What a lovely view of my beach house.” Snark!
• Nolan (to Aiden, re: Em & Daniel): “Bros before hos only works if he’s not still in love with the ho, bro.” Ah Mr. Ross…so eloquent (and hilarious)
• Nolan (to Marco, re: Daniel): “I’m following the orders of my child-boss.”

Would you say that ‘Power’ proves that Revenge is “back” or have you been enjoying the show’s second season thus far? Are you excited to see Emily and Daniel get back together? What about Marco and Nolan? Would you risk scorning a British assassin like Aiden? And if you were hiding drugs, would you really be so on-the-nose with where you hide them? Hit the comments and chime in!

Revenge airs Sundays at 9pm EST on ABC