New York City: 50 Cent is playing on the radio, and we're going to party like it's 2002. Because it is 2002, and Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp) has yet to become Emily Thorne. For the first time in twenty episodes, Revenge opens without an Emily voiceover. This is obviously because Emily only took to voice-overing as a hobby when she realized it paired really well her day job of being a life ruining tornado of angry destruction (the Revenge universe is about five months away from seeing The Avengers, but I bet Emily will love the Hulk as much as the rest of us do).

But in the meantime, it's almost 2003, and young Amanda (sporting long red hair and bangs) is drunking it up in a club with some random guy. She gets so angry at him for hitting on another girl (after she refused his offer to, er, accompany him home) that she follows him into the bathroom and rips off a freaking toilet seat, presumably with which to bash his head in. Amanda Clarke is a mess, ya'll -- a hot, rich mess. And Nolan (Gabriel Mann) is there to pick her up when she's ejected from the club, pre-emptively feeding her hangover with long noodles from an all-night diner. It's been six months since she was released from juvie, and she still hasn't read her father's journals. Nolan wants to make sure she knew the real man her father was and implores her to spend some time with the only legacy her father left her, but Amanda just thinks it's a waste of time.

But it's not just an Emily and Nolan flashback -- we get to see the whole gang: Victoria, Conrad, Jack, tiny baby Declan, even the dearly departed Frank (Max Martini) . . . and EVERYONE has different hair. (If there was a contest for most ridiculous flashback hair, young Jack would win by like 1,000 miles.) The Graysons are gearing up for the New Year's Eve bash to end all New Year's Eve bashes, but they are particularly concerned with finding out who sent them the threatening note with the word SHAME printed in dark black letters against a background of dripping fake blood. The party is the perfect time to do a little Grayson-style sleuthing (which mostly involves Frank stalking around like a giant Neanderthal and threatening the only person his limited intellect can manage to find motive for). All of these people who know their secrets in one place . . .

Something Nolan said to Amanda must have made an impact, as Amanda has made her way to Montauk, first drinking vodka "hold the tonic" tonics in The Stowaway, and then breaking into her old house, which is now secretly owned by The Graysons. Then the show gets trippy and flashes back to New Year's 1992 or 1993, when young Amanda (Emily Alyn Lind) and David (James Tupper) had first moved to the Hamptons to work for Grayson Global. So, a flashback within a flashback. David has to leave Amanda all alone to socialize at the Grayson's New Year's party, but at least she has her brand new Ariel doll from "Uncle Bill" (the return of Bill Harmon to the show, played by Matthew Glave, who Emily vanquished way back in the second episode) to keep her company. Sidenote: I TOTALLY had that Ariel doll. Actually, I had like, twenty Ariel dolls. Man, I miss the 90s. The memories rushing back to Amanda are enough to push her into doing what she came here to do, which is to read her dad's journals. Then she's apparently overcome by curiosity, because she sneaks on over to the Grayson's to do some pointless spying, and watchdog Frank comes out, as if his senses alerted him to the fact that, dude, you're totally going to die in ten years from this sneaky Emily/Amanda hybrid chick, so you better watch out.

"Because you're still in love with him."

New Year's Eve, 2002: Enter Lydia (Amber Valletta) and Michael, back from their Revenge exile and at the peak of their friendship with the Graysons. Lydia makes noise about being able to find a place to buy in the Hamptons soon, and Victoria's (Madeleine Stowe) face sours slightly when she mentions having put an offer on the Clarke's old home. So while Frank and Conrad (Henry Czerny) are off having secret meetings about how they're going to track down the wiseguy who sent them the SHAME note and basically put a bullet in him, Victoria sneaks over to the beach house to wallow in her own stupidity. As Amanda did earlier, Victoria flashes back to New Year's 1992, which as it turns out is the night she first met David Clarke. He's pretty normal around her, not being a naturally adulterous or unhappy sort of person, but you can tell that she's into him from minute one, especially when she gets a whiff of his nice-guy personality. 2002 Victoria recalls the memory with pain, but I think she might actually be a masochist, so let's not worry about it too much. Plus, D. Clarke is dead and it's partially her fault, so who gives a flying fig about Victoria? NOT ME! Conrad interrupts V's pity fest, telling her it's time to sell the beach house. When she asks him why, he says, "Because you're still in love with him."

Amanda, of course, overhears all of this from where she's hiding in the shadows. She's there because she found a well-timed opportunity earlier at The Stowaway from young Jack's bartender girlfriend, Ky, about a catering gig at the Grayson's New Year's party. But I guess she couldn't resist a wallow in the old house, either. (P.S. The look on Amanda's face when she saw Jack (a yummy but stupidly wigged Nick Wechsler) for the first time was priceless, and my little shipper heart skipped a beat. I want them so very badly to make out very, very soon.)

"I would make sure that everyone know about it, that these people got what they deserved."

Cater-waiter Amanda stalks the New Year's party in secret, taking note of all the names from her father's journals as she sets the fancy, laid tables with namecards. Her father is dead, and these people are alive, wallowing in their own filth. Senator Kingsley (Yancey Arias), Dr. Michelle Banks (Amy Landecker), Bill Harmon . . . Amanda especially freaks out when she sees Mason Treadwell (Roger Bart), the man who once vowed to help exonerate her father and tell the truth, but who she now knows traded the truth in for fame and wealth, betraying the promise he once made to an innocent, powerless little girl. The only person there who she thinks might have been on her father's side is Roger Halsted (John Billingsley), who expresses disgust at sitting near "these people," and retreats with a bottle of the Grayson's finest scotch into the poolhouse. Amanda follows him, confessing her identity, and asks for confirmation of everything she read in her father's journals. He reluctantly gives it to her, but when she asks for his help, it quickly becomes apparent that the ten year's since the crash and the trial have been spent wallowing in his own guilt (everyone is wallowing in this episode! Also, I just really, really like that word). All the same, with one conversation, the first inklings of the storm that will eventually become Hurricane Emily are born.

"It's perverse, don't you think? Destroy a man you love and then weep for him eternally?"

The party is officially on, but Queen V isn't really into it. She's feeling sentimental, and wanders off to feel sorry for herself in private, with cognac. She closes her eyes and remembers that New Year's party ten years before, when David Clarke walked in on her alone in that same office, and she told him with her eyes that she was ready to be his. My favorite part of this exchange is when she compliments him for having "feelings," unlike a certain man she is married to . . . HINT HINT, DAVID CLARKE, DO ME. So while V is pity partying in 2002, Frank is stomping around gathering "intelligence" on the guests and trying to figure out who wrote that note. You guys, I forgot how dumb Frank is. He locks onto Roger Halsted like a big, menacing dope. Conrad, meanwhile, is conversing with Lydia, but conversing quickly turns into "conversing," when she confesses her feelings for him and then they totally do it. But not before ragging on Victoria and her perverse behavior. Lydia: "She's in quite a state." Conrad: "Yeah, a state of suspended animation." It's kind of weird that the Lydia/Conrad affair started this early -- it surprises me that something that seemingly shallow could last ten years. And I know image is important to Conrad, but good God, man, just divorce your wife already! But maybe he needs to stay married to her in order to control her . . . as we will probably learn next week when Victoria inevitably takes her own revenge on Conrad for forcing her to help frame the love of her life.

Over at the Stowaway, Nolan realizes his buying of four family homes in the area (eventually to become the Nolan Super Mansion) has forced the Porters to live above their bar, and goes to make nice with Jack's dad. He offers to cancel the deal, but Jack's dad confesses that if he does, they'll be ruined. He didn't want to tell Declan and Jack, but their mom has left them and he can no longer afford for them to live in their own house. Nolan's attachment to present day Jack makes even more sense in the light of this revelation. Not only does he feel responsible for the Porters financially, but I think the Porter family represents something important to him, something he doesn't have in his own life.

"That house was the only thing of David I had left."

Queen V and Conrad ring in 2003 with a toast, and Conrad ambushes Victoria in front of all their guests with his unilateral decision to sell the beach house to Loverpants Lydia (who had just snuck down the stairs in the back of the frame, an action noted and understood by Amanda). Victoria takes the news like a champ, but later, she confesses to her "best friend" Lydia that she's happy Lydia will be nearby, but, "That house was the only thing of David I had left." Except she's totally lying because REMEMBER CHARLOTTE? Perhaps statements like this are the reason Lydia feels no guilt for sleeping with dear Victoria's husband.

In the kitchen, Amanda finds a note that Roger had snuck into her pocket while pretending to fall down drunk. We don't see what the note says yet, but while she's reading it, she sees Conrad and Frank being shifty outside and goes to check on Roger, just in case. Sure enough, she finds Roger dead in the bathtub, having apparently slit his wrists from SUICIDE FRICKIN' A. But we know, and Amanda knows, that this wasn't suicide. Amanda has a note in her pocket to prove it.

"The hell I won't."

2003 starts off with a bang, and a dead body found in the poolhouse. I'm sure Frank and Conrad are very proud of themselves, but V smiles to herself when she guesses rightly that it was Mason Treadwell who wrote the SHAME note, and not out of any malice or intent to actually expose the Graysons and their secrets, but simply to shake up more juicy material for his latest book. Queen V tells Mason that he's despicable, and he goes, "Gee, thanks -- high praise coming from you." ZING.

Amanda has retreated to the beach house, and makes the first of what will be many phone calls to Nolan, only this time she's in hysterical tears as first she tells him what happened to Roger, and then as she tells him she's going to make these people pay. She traces the infinity symbol on the stair post with her finger as Nolan tells her she'll never get close enough to get that kind of total revenge. "The hell I won't," she says. And of course, even if it didn't start out with a voiceover, no episode of Revenge would be completely without an episode ending voiceover montage, except this time it's Roger's voice from beyond the grave. His disembodied voice reads aloud the note he left for Emily. He tells her he wants to help her, to make up for not helping her father all those years before, as we see Amanda getting the infinity symbol tattooed on her wrist as a constant reminder of her life's mission. And then suddenly it's 2011 again, almost 2012, as Daniel (Joshua Bowman) beckons present day Emily to the ageless Queen Victoria's New Year's Eve party. Roger's voice finishes reading his final words as Emily looks up at Daniel, a determined look in her eyes.

When David Clarke died, I don't think he envisioned a world in which his daughter was so destructive and determined a force, but in "Legacy," the show is setting itself up for its final two episodes with a look back. Roger was talking about the god Janus earlier in the hour, the god of beginnings and transitions, the god with two faces, one always looking back and the other looking forward. He's the perfect symbold for this episode, as the show sets itself up to transition into its second season, as we mull over three separate New Year's Eves. January was named after Janus, after all. What also becomes apparent in this episode is that everyone on Revenge is particularly good at looking back, one might even call it obsessing, but no one is very good at looking forward. They are all doomed to dwell on past events, either for the sake of vengeance, or because they just can't let it go. But the day these characters stop living in the past is the day we no longer have a show, so by all means, guys, keep on wallowing.

Next week: Kissing, please? Oh, pretty please.