Well, this is disappointing. No, not the episode. My lede. I had a great little gimmick all ready to go centered the color red and the several red herrings that occurred in this episode.
Well, look who has egg on his face when he does a bit of research and finds out that what he thinks is a red herring is actually the literary device called Deus ex Machina. Whoopsies! Lede shot.
Anyways... There where three main uses of that Deus ex Machina device in this season opener. The biggest of these was Nolan getting out of jail. Apparently, he had put fail-safes into Carion to ferret out the Initiative. Seems like a lot of worry would have gone out of the end of last season if the writers had planned on using that out before the summer, but what do I know??? I just pay really close attention to the show to blog about it...
Victoria's first son, Patrick, was a Deus ex Machina from left field. From the pitcher's mound (to continue the baseball analogy), however, he is tall, handsome (I assume, I'm not really qualified to judge other men's handsomeness), and quite muscular. He was an odd character for the show, though. His cheerful disposition and brightening of Victoria's mood seemed out of place for a show that dwells on constant scheming and the dark arts of revenge.
The final of the three major Deus ex Machina is Aiden's return at the end of the episode, and all we are told is that he is seeking to destroy Emily. This should throw a sizable (and might I add, quite intriguing) monkey wrench into Emily's plan's to destroy the Grayson's by the end of the summer. Especially, since he just might tell the Graysons who Emily really is...
Now THAT could be a plot device that really moves the drama forward.