Aiden takes charge (ABC)

Remember last week, when the episode ended with us thinking Mason was on to Emily and Amanda's personality swap? Wrong! Mason thought Emily and Amanda were lovers. Amazing. In this show, nothing would surprise. 

"Penance", the seventh episode of this season, is all about Kara and Mason Treadwell being put at bay, or at least that's how it seems. 

It begins with Mason showing up at Emily's beautiful Hampton's beach house. He asks her what drew her there, to which she slyly replies, "location!" Exquisite.

Aiden meets Emily at a seaside lunch spot. He is hot as always and wants to comfort Emily, but she is having none of that because she has strategy in mind. She tells him he has 24 hours to position Daniel to take over Grayson Global. She reveals that her mother, Kara, has booked a flight to Colorado Springs. When Aiden apologizes for what has happened with her mother (aka: Kara being crazy and deluded), Emily says it's "probably for the best".

Jennifer Jason Leigh (aka Kara): I am obsessed with your strangeness. Please keep scaring Victoria!  

Jack and Amanda's baby is adorable. Sweet Carl! Hopefully he stays safe and sound. Jack and Amanda discuss her hopes for a fancy wedding. Clearly that will happen at some point. 

Nolan acknowledges to Aiden that Emily is his only friend and asks Aiden what the hell he wants. Aiden suggests that "Emily's fate" sits with Nolan. Nolan shows him the check originally invested in NolCorp by David Clarke and says he will kill Aiden if he ever harms Emily. Aw, Nolan!!

Remember that formerly leather-clad woman from "The Initiative"? Well, her name is apparently Helen. She shows up at a party at Grayson Manor and amazingly is not wearing leather! Always a party at Grayson Manor, no matter the tragedy! 

After his earlier conversation with Emily, Mason reached out to Amanda to tell her side of the juvie story. Amanda's first instinct is to take Mason out, but Em urges her to keep it cool. However, when Amanda views Mason's crazy journalistic vision-board of personal connections to David Clarke, she goes in for the kill with  a crow-bar, just as Emily busts in the door! Minute 31- Emily tells Amanda to leave and "put her family first". (Lest we forget, Amanda did JUST have a baby).

Emily looks at Mason and tells him he's missed the biggest thing that's been under his nose the whole time. "Amanda" isn't really Amanda Clarke... she is. Her secret is out! "Words are exactly the weapon you chose, Mason," Emily says, recounting to him that he was the only person she could trust after her father was arrested and that she believed him when he said he would write the true story.

She sets up Mason to go and speak with Kara and yet he quickly strays off message and divulges to Kara that the Graysons framed her husband. She leaves with Emily freaking out over Mason's ear-piece, telling him that her mother is off her meds and likely to act recklessly.

Kara shows up in the Grayson's house and disables the security cameras. While a preppy investor meeting happens on a garden terrace below, Kara corners Conrad and Victoria in an upstairs bedroom with a drawn gun. Conrad admits to Kara that he framed David.

In a separate scene, detectives arrive at Mason's house and find a distinctly different vision-board of suspects, which frames Mason as the criminal. (Emily and Nolan strike again.)

Emily calls Aiden and tells him her mother is missing and half of the security cameras have been disabled. From his position in Grayson's manor, he vows to fix the situation. Upstairs, Kara holds Conrad and Victoria captive making them wear blindfolds, preparing to execute them when Aiden bursts into the room and covers Kara's mouth with a chloroform rag and drags her out of the manor.

Minute 54 and I want to cry. Emily and Aiden (the latter posing as a federal agent) are helping to turn Kara away, giving her money and a car full of gas to escape the Graysons. She has no idea the woman setting her free, Emily, is her daughter. Does she?

Momentarily, back in Manhattan, Nolan finds Padma in his office and asks her if she would still care about him if he was not the infamous Nolan Ross, but a normal man. She says yes. Aww.

Emily corners Mason in an interrogation room and threatens him that he must admit his involvement in David Clarke's death. She promises that if he cooperates, she will keep him locked up only as long as it takes him to write her story from the day her father was betrayed to the moment she achieves her revenge. Mason agrees.

The episode ends with Victoria drinking in bed. Oh, the pleasures and pain of being a rich con artist.

Oh, and finally on the porch of her Hampton's beach house, Emily and Aiden get it on. THANK GOD.

To watch the trailer for the next episode click below- we get to meet Victoria's leopard-clad mother!! How on earth can I wait two weeks?

P.S. The Neiman Marcus/Target commercials that aired during the episode…brilliant? Ridiculously strange? Thank god I was paying attention or they might have completely thrown me off topic. Thoughts? Comment below.

Reach staff reporter Ashley Riegle here. Follow her on Twitter here.