There"s a high-stakes poker game on some yacht that"s a huge deal and is by invitation only. Tripp tells Nick that Elder is going to be there, and it was Dutch that got him invited. Speaking of whom, the report on the plane crash comes in, and it"s clean -- no evidence of foul play. This leaves Nick casting about for some direction until Elder meets with him and reports that he and Dutch were angling to make Manhattan a better place, and the poker game was part of the plan. Pursuant to that, he wants Nick to convince Tripp to throw Darling Plaza, a building heavy on nostalgia for the Darling parents, into the poker pile. When Nick"s reluctant, Elder tells him that the report on the plane crash was a fake, and if Nick helps him, Elder will get him the real thing, so Nick does in fact give that a shot. At the game, Nick is persistent and finally convinces a very reluctant Tripp to stake Darling Plaza, and Elder wins the hand. Tripp and Letitia are initially both most displeased with Nick, but Tripp quickly becomes philosophical about the whole thing. He also tells Nick that he wants him to run the empire one day -- and we learn via flashback that Nick and Tripp set Elder up to get Nick into Elder"s confidence. Elder gives Nick the report, which fingers Norman Exley, but when Nick learns that Exley is dead, the plot thickens.
Nick is supposedly getting Jeremy a job, but Jeremy"s not a fan of any of the multitude of Darling-owned businesses, so he ends up settling for being a valet. Jeremy"s first day on the job results in him crashing a car and surreptitiously replacing it. Thrifty! Jeremy also tries to get a date with the woman whose car he totals, but chooses not to rely on his name to do so and gets shot down as a result.
Karen and Freddy go to get their marriage license, only to find that Karen is still legally married to her third husband, as he never signed the divorce papers. He"s apparently a sexy anthropologist, and Karen is basically afraid to face him alone because he"s so hot. Her fears end up being founded, as she jumps into bed with Sebastian, who afterward implies that their marriage didn"t work out because she was in love with Nick. This leads to Letitia and Karen having a fight about three-party marriages, and then Karen decides to push up her wedding to Freddy and shares an interesting moment with Letitia in the process.
Finally, Carmelita is back, and she"s tired of being Patrick"s secret; she points out that they"ve never even kissed in the street. When a drunken Patrick obliges her, though, someone in a passing cab snaps their picture. But it turns out Tripp hired him to make a point, and he offers Carmelita a large amount of money to walk away and not endanger Patrick"s political career. Carmelita flat-out turns him down, though, and tells Patrick about the payoff attempt to boot. Patrick tells Tripp in no uncertain terms that he"s done with him -- and just might mean it this time, as he ends up meeting with Elder. DUN!