The four-episode Scandal miniseries “Olivia Gets Kidnapped” comes to an end in this episode. It was a fun and crazy ride while it lasted, and this final installment has a few more big twists. We learn the identity of Olivia’s buyer, and it’s exactly who you probably thought it was going to be after the last episode. However, that doesn’t make it any less cool, even though it seems kind of pointless and random.
Huck promises not to spill any more blood, but he immediately finds a loophole in that promise. Cyrus plots his own coup against the president, Papa Pope comes back for another long-winded monologue and, inexplicably, Abby turns out to be the ultimate hero. No, seriously, Red is almost entirely responsible for saving Olivia Pope’s life.
The Auction, Part 2
It turns out Olivia’s buyer was Iran, but with some well-placed lies in English and Farsi, Olivia manages to confuse Gus and the buyer into turning on each other. They don’t go through with the sale, so Gus still has Olivia.
He gets the auction back online, with OPA bidding as “Marie Wallace,” Mama Pope’s alias. Olivia knows this is her lifeline, but the auction ends with a tie between “Marie” and Russia, each for two billion dollars. Gus asks for Olivia’s advice, and when she suggests going with Marie, Gus decides to punish her by giving her to the buyer she doesn’t want, Russia. Come on, Olivia, that was such an obvious bait-and-switch, she totally should’ve hinted that she wanted to go to Russia.
The Plan to “Rescue” Olivia
The White House has a plan to rescue Olivia once they know her location, but there’s only a 30 percent chance that it will succeed. CIA Director Lowry explains that Olivia knows too much and she’s a liability if she falls into the wrong hands. Fitz, however, refuses to even consider an option that involves taking out Olivia. This is why President Bartlet on The West Wing had the common decency to temporarily resign when his daughter was kidnapped at the end of season 4.
But there’s another pseudo-coup in the works. This time, Cyrus joins forces with the CIA director to secretly execute a plan to take out Olivia to protect the president from his own heart. However, Abby gets wind of the plot and runs to OPA to get their help.
After losing the auction and learning from Abby that the White House is going to kill Olivia, OPA scrambles. Jake seeks advice from Mama Pope who points him in the direction of Papa Pope. Rowan is fishing and delivers one of his trademark monologues about how incredibly boring and predictable it is that, as soon as he’s gone, Olivia is in trouble and needs his help. But he has no daughter anymore, so Jake is out of luck.
The Buyer Is Revealed
Gus brings Olivia to the Russians, with Cyrus watching at the CIA while preparing to bomb everyone. Cyrus is desperate to find a solution that doesn’t involve killing the godmother of his kid, and he gets his wish. When the drone zooms in, he recognizes the buyer.
The buyer is Stephen Finch!
Yes, as I and many others guessed last week, the buyer is Stephen, Olivia’s old senior partner at OPA played by Henry Ian Cusick. He vanished after season 1, allegedly moving to Boston to get married. Many fans saw this coming thanks to the completely random mention of his character in last week’s episode, but it’s still a real WTF moment.
It turns out Abby called him up after Olivia was sold because she knew he had connections in Russia. Score one for Abby! Stephen saves Olivia and sends her back to D.C. She asks him to come back to his old job, but he’s happy with his new life (in a dystopian future on the CW’s The 100).
The Plan to Stop Andrew
Mellie is desperate to keep Andrew from revealing the sordid details of their sex life, so she bullies Elizabeth North into doing it. Lizzie isn’t the best strategic thinker, so she approaches Huck, asking him to kill Andrew for her.
Sadly for her, Jake and Quinn have talked Huck down, with Jake instructing him to keep his inner B-613 beast locked in a cage (instead of relying on Olivia to do it for him) and Quinn makes Huck promise that there will be “no more blood.” He agrees, so he politely refuses Lizzie’s request to assassinate the vice president of the United States.
When the auction is lost, Huck has second thoughts and teams up with Lizzie to drug Andrew and fake a stroke. He promised “no more blood,” but he never said anything about injecting people with dangerous chemicals. The vice president is now severely incapacitated.
Not-So-Happy Ending
Jake, Quinn and Huck take Olivia back to her apartment, which now has about a dozen locks on the door. She just wants to be alone and may be suffering a little PTSD. Once they leave, Fitz arrives. However, it’s not the happy reunion he was hoping for.
Olivia is very disappointed that he went to war for her because it’s not the president she wants him to be, the one she lied and cheated and rigged elections to get into office. She wanted Vermont, but this experience has changed her, so now she breaks up with Fitz. Ouch.
Next time on Scandal: In two weeks, the show returns with a ripped-from-the-headlines episode where Olivia tries to fix racism when a white cop shoots a black kid in D.C.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
