Madeleine Stowe, Emily VanCamp, Joshua Bowman and a few other stars of the ABC drama sound off on the trajectory of the sophomore season and the next episode's Twitter-inspired bombshell.

If you caught Sunday's episode of ABC's Revenge, you likely saw the promo for this weekend's winter finale.

Among other things, the ninth episode of the sophomore season pushes Daniel (Josh Bowman) further away from the rest of the characters when his bid to seize control of Grayson Global comes to a vote, and Ashley (Ashley Madekwe) is discovered to have engaged in some unseemly behavior with her boyfriend's father.

Madekwe explained the origins of the twist during a Screen Actors Guild panel discussion in Los Angeles for the ABC drama, moderated by The Hollywood Reporter.

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"I kept telling [creator Mike Kelley] that whatever we were doing, for some reason, the audience thought that Conrad [Henry Czerny] and I were having an affair," said Madekwe, noting that people picked up on the nonexistent storyline very early in the series. "We weren't. It was never written. It was never played that way."

Apparently Madekwe's Twitter followers never relented in their accusations that her character was sleeping her boss' husband. So she kept telling her showrunner.

"I kept badgering him -- 'They think it's happening anyways, so we might as well give them what they want,' " she said. "And once we get to episode nine, he's like: 'You know what? You did have sex once, and we're going to shoot a sex tape.' My Twitter followers made that happen. They made me a whore."

Although he's not yet in possession of that information, Daniel already is in bit of a dark place -- especially compared to the lovesick pawn he played for much of the first season.

"I've definitely preferred how my character has been this season," said Bowman. "He's matured a lot. He's got much more of a sense of what's going on -- granted he still doesn't know who Emily Thorne really is and probably never will."

His co-stars Madeleine Stowe and Emily VanCamp also were quick to note that there's always a learning curve in the second season of a drama like Revenge.

"This particular season has been difficult because you have a bit of sophomore-itis," said Stowe. "It's difficult to keep all of the balls in the air. You have to kind of pivot and move and roll with it."

"With a show like this, there are so many moving parts," added VanCamp, whose own character has also seen a bit of an evolution. "Sometimes we catch things as actors because we're living with these characters. I think [the writers] are really grateful for that."

Many of the new elements to the story come to a head Sunday, with Revenge still set to solve much of the drama glimpsed in the season opener around episode 14 (number 12 is in production). That includes the identity of the dead body only teased in the wreckage of Jack's [Nick Wechsler] doomed boat. Stowe, whose Victoria Grayson started the season missing in action and presumed dead, says she takes her onscreen mortality very seriously despite her headlining status.

"If my character is killed off, there will be good reason for it," she said. "And I'll leave feeling very satisfied. If she stays, the story has to be strong. You have to service the story as strongly as possible."

Revenge offers its last story of 2012, "Revelations," at 9 p.m. Sunday on ABC.

Email: Michael.OConnell@THR.com; Twitter: @MikeyLikesTV