'Revenge's End-Game

There's only one episode left in this drama's third season and now that ABC has renewed Revenge for Season 4, Emily Thorne has some huge choices to make. The most important of which being how she's going to take down the Victoria Grayson now that Conrad is safely behind bars. But on top of that, Emily's finally going to have to make a decision about her personal life — so will she choose Aiden Mathis, Jack Porter, or neither?

We've spent a lot of time dealing with Emily's various romantic interests over the past three seasons and it doesn't look like that will end anytime soon. The early part of Season 3 was all about her impending marriage to Daniel Grayson and watching Emily do the best she could to keep her fake relationship together. Of all of Emily's "relationships," this one might have been A) the worst and B) the absolutely most difficult to watch because Daniel is just such a complete jerk. But anyway, last week's episode featured an odd moment between the other two men in Emily Thorne's life and it's become blatantly obvious that either during Sunday's finale or sometime in the newly official Season 4, this girl will have to make her choice.

During last week's "Impetus," Aiden and Jack shared an Emily-bonding-moment while they pondered her extreme decision to kidnap and emotionally torture her half-sister Charlotte Grayson. In that moment, Aiden made it seem like he'd let go of Emily and their former engagement and their chemistry and the fact that they belong together. (I know, that was a lot of "and"s, but Aiden really did make it seem like he'd gotten over all of that.) To which Jack didn't really respond — I mean, his baby momma just died a few months ago and he just broke up with Margaux like, five minutes ago. So I wasn't really expecting him to be like, "YES! My time has come."

But it turns out that Aiden was lying completely through his teeth. At the end of the episode, Aiden more or less tells Emily that he still believes that they belong together — even though she broke off their engagement — and that they're the only people in the world who understand one another. Great points made by Aiden and his accent doesn't hurt either. But why would he bother lying to Jack? Because he sees Emily falter in her confidence when Jack's around to beat everyone over the head with his morality? Something just isn't right with that — actually, there's something not right with both of these relationships. So who should Emily Thorne choose?

On the one hand we have Aiden, who knows what Emily's been through and relates to her on more than a romantic level, but who keeps trying to change her. He's tried proposing, he's suggested she give up her entire scheme and run off with him, and he's started asking "Now what?" now that she succeeded in taking down Conrad. Basically, Aiden's waiting for the day when he can put that big, fat rock back on Emily's finger and make her his doting wife. Now, he hasn't come out to say just that, but as much as he preaches his "acceptance" of her lifestyle and that he understands her better than anyone else could, Aiden wants Emily to leave this all behind just as much as Jack does.

But, these two are fire. When they're together, regardless of their various dysfunctions, they're amazing. Emily and Aiden have an intense and flirtatious chemistry and they are a pretty great team. I mean, it definitely takes a great guy to still love you and want to marry you after watching you trick some other guy into marrying you, right? So, in that respect, Aiden works for Emily — he works to understand her and he puts her goals ahead of his desire for marriage and real relationship. And, heck, it doesn't hurt that they're both unbelievably good looking.

Then there's Jack Porter — good, moral, reliable, old-fashioned Jack Porter, who's Emily's first love and a guy she might actually change for. The worst thing about Jack is that he calls Emily out for basically being a terrible, rotten bitch to people who don't deserve it — like Charlotte. He also gets on her case for just going out of her way to hurt people in general, which, I guess isn't such a bad reason for him to harp on her. It's just that he doesn't seem to have any interest in getting to know Emily Thorne, only condemning her for not being the little girl he met on the beach anymore. And that's just not cool.

It's fine to disagree with Emily's more-or-less criminal and at times immoral behavior, but it's not fine to tell her how she should and shouldn't feel about her father's unlawful death. She was scarred for her life and even though Jack's lost Declan and Amanda, he'll never be able to understand that — because he refuses to try to find out. By the way, let me just point out that these two have serious chemistry issues ever since Emily revealed that she's actually Amanda Clarke — mostly because Jack is always judging Emily and because she's always trying to "protect" him.

So, who does she choose? Neither of these men fully, 100 percent support Emily in her quest for complete revenge for David Clarke's death. But let's just say she does succeed and is left with the freedom to choose the path for the rest of her life — which of these men should be the one? Personally, I'm partial to Aiden because he gets her and she gets him and if they're settled down, I'm certain that it'd be a fulfillment of their destinies. With Jack, Emily has the strong connection to the now-deceased Amanda through Jack's child and might have a real chance at a relationship with Charlotte. So it's a tough call.

In terms of what's best for Emily, once this is all over, getting out of the Hamptons to start her new life is what she needs. She'll have completed her life's work and it'd be time to move on and perhaps out of the country to try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life and to do that, she'd need Aiden. Jack just wouldn't be able to leave The Stowaway and Charlotte and Stevie and all of the other ties that bind him.

Clearly, the right choice is Aiden, people. But we'll have to wait and see who Emily's brilliant and scheming brain decides to give her heart to.

Images: ABC, blog.screenweek, Whifflegif, Giphy