It wasn't the most action-packed installment so far, but Revenge Season 4 Episode 3 definitely set up some exposition about each of our characters as we settle into Season 4.

For starters, Victoria is a scheming, conniving, manipulative bitch and Emily is not a superhero. At least according to Nolan she isn't.

Oh, and Jack now has one less job. Thanks, Charlotte.

This episode picked up immediately where Revenge Season 4 Episode 2 ended, with Emily on the floor of the Stowaway, Jack arriving and going inside only to emerge with Emily while Charlotte looks on from the crowd with a serious "DRAT!" face.

Dear Charlotte, it was...a good plan? But maybe you should learn a thing or two about killing people before you actually attempt murder again, okay? 

Or, you know, don't try to kill people. (Ding ding ding! Better choice!)

For a split second last week, Charlotte as villain seemed plausible and interesting. This week undid all of that and made her back into exactly who she's always been. A whiny brat who looks to others to bail her out.

This week she turned to Victoria, after asking absolutely zero questions about her mother's whereabouts for the prior six months. Not a single question. Just a "hey, so you're back. I almost killed someone."

One day Charlotte will realize when she's being used as a pawn, right? Will that day come when Emily and David are reunited and he steps out of psycho? (Soooo, next week?)

Probably, that will make Charlotte go even further off the deep end. 

Victoria's plan for David was to use him as an assassin. If David takes Emily out the same way he did Conrad, then she can just...swoop back into the house that doesn't belong to her where she reigns over the Hamptons from her balcony?

She knew that David wouldn't stay in the cabin when she went to the city to see Margaux about borrowing money. Dollars to donuts she knew he would go to Emily Thorne's house.

What she didn't bank on was the look of remembrance and puzzlement on his face as he stood there over a sleeping Emily, likely having visions of her as a young girl doing the same thing--sleeping--before revenge turned her into who she is right now.

Parents never, ever forget the way their children look when they sleep. Trust me.

He knows that's his daughter. The question is, does Nolan really NOT know that David Clarke is back?

There was a hint of a moment when he told Emily he'd be staying at her house where he gave a look that indicated he's hiding something from Ems.

I have a theory--and it's just that, a theory--that Nolan is hiding the fact that he's known all along David Clarke isn't dead, or at least he's known for a while now. He's too smart and too connected not to have known. But he hasn't told her because...why?

His allegiance is to David and to whomever rescued David from prison? He didn't want Emily to leave her revenge with loose ends untied? Too many people had lost their lives, and livelihoods, for him to let her walk away?

It's just a theory. But if I'm right, what will happen to Emily and Nolan? Nolan and Jack? 

Speaking of Jack, the Stowaway is toast. Literally. Figuratively. It's done. When Jack had to choose between saving Emily or saving his pictures, he chose his living, breathing friend in the present instead of his past. Now he's not sure he even wants to reopen the bar since not opening it would leave more time in his life for the people he cares about.

Wink wink nudge nudge as he sits on the steps inside Emily's house while delivering that line and a photograph of the two of them as children.

Nick Wecshler may not see it or want it, but a relationship between those two is coming. It just is. Especially since Emily keeps shooting down Ben the Cop at every possible opportunity. Though none quite so "ouch" as this:

Ben: I'm a walk in the woods kind of guy, so should you ever want company...
Emily: Okay.
Ben: You're not ever going to want company, are you?
Emily: Probably not.

• Permalink: Probably not.

And last, but not least, Daniel. 

One night in the sack with Margaux has him turning over a new leaf! She makes him want to be a better man. Or something like that.

He wants to make a name for himself independent of his ties to Grayson Global and the downfall of his family. But no one will work with him in the entire city. No one will go near him or even bother to give him a meeting to see what he's all about.

Newsflash, Daniel, if a hot girl sits down next to you at a bar complaining of financial troubles and you're currently struggling to find a job and everything seems too good to be true, it probably is. Especially if that woman is Louise, your mother's one-time roomie in the psych ward.

Louise is absolutely up to no good, and she'll become yet another woman to use Daniel to get at her real enemy...Victoria.

What did you think of Revenge Season 4 Episode 3? Was this one slower than the previous two and did you find that distracting, or just the right speed to gear up for next week's big meeting? Let me know below! Let's talk Revenge!

Don't forget that you can watch Revenge online right here at TV Fanatic if there was something you missed or you want to get caught up.

And here's your first look at Revenge Season 4 Episode 4, "Meteor."

Miranda Wicker was a Staff Writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in 2017. Follow her on Twitter.