The mid-season finale of Scandal makes all of the other episodes look tame by comparison. All of the pieces have been set up throughout the season, and in this episode they all comes together with lightning fast speed.
Mama Pope returns, Cyrus gets engaged, Quinn and Charlie bang, fight then bang some more, Olivia almost kills her dad, Olivia decides between Jake and Fitz, Jake strips down to his underwear and, oh yeah, the vice president’s truly evil master plan is revealed. It’s going to be a long wait, especially for Olivia, wherever she is.
Rowan’s Kill Cards
Rowan is gone, but Fitz stumble upon Olivia’s mom in the B-613 hole. She thinks Olivia will watch out for her, but Olivia tells Fitz to charge her with treason and murder.
Though Rowan is gone, his presence still looms and his many agents are cleaning up the mess. To do this, there are a number of Kill Cards with the faces and names of people who need to die. One such person is Jake, but Jake is bad-ass enough to take out anyone trying to assassinate him.
Quinn warns Charlie about the Kill Cards, which leads to car sex and, later, even more sex. Unfortunately, Quinn finds a Kill Card of her in Charlie’s stuff. He was maybe probably going to kill her after sleeping with her once last time, but instead it leads to a knock-down, drag-out fight.
But once they calm down, they work out their issues and Charlie offers a truce by giving her some B-613 documents because he’s the guy Rowan put in charge of stealing them. Quinn hands the documents to Huck, who gies them to his wife to prove that he’s really a spy.
Olivia Shoots Her Dad
Jake takes a road trip to find Rowan, but he’s just hanging out in Olivia’s apartment. When she comes home, there’s a very intense conversation between father and daughter, compelled by Papa Pope pulling out a gun. They both give speeches about how the other is incapable of love. Olivia grabs the gun from the table and points it at her dad. And after a while, she pulls the trigger.
But the gun isn’t loaded. However, Papa Pope is very upset that she actually pulled the trigger and was willing to kill him, something he never thought would happen. Disappointed, he leaves her once again.
Olivia goes to see her mom to find out where Rowan might’ve gone, but Mama Pope is even worse than Papa Pope, telling Olivia that she’s just like her father.
However, this seems to have freed Olivia. In her apartment she’s drunk and throwing a dance party with Jake. She tells him that she wants Vermont with Fitz AND the sun with Jake. So she’s not choosing either one of them, she’s choosing herself. I’m pretty sure that means she wants to keep hooking up with both of them.
Jake is fine with it and makes out with Olivia, going into the bedroom to strip down and get some pillows so they can do it on the cold, hard piano. But when he returns to the living room, Olivia is suddenly gone. More on that later.
Cyrus Beene’s Sexcapades
RNC chairwoman Elizabeth North leaks the photos of Cyrus and the male prostitute to the press. Olivia immediately goes to work.
Olivia has a powwow with the White House where all of the annoying secrets of the season finally come out into the open. Of particular note is that Mellie hears that Elizabeth is sleeping with Andrew Nichols, who she is also having an affair with. Fitz agrees to fight for Cyrus. Olivia hatches a plan to have Cyrus marry Michael to cover up the nastiness, but Cyrus believes in the sanctity of gay marriage and refuses.
Cyrus also acts nobly in his professional life, falling on his sword and forcing Fitz to accept his resignation. But then Olivia gives Cyrus a pep talk by calling him a “bitch baby” about a thousand times, and suddenly Cyrus is engaged to Michael and back working as the Chief of Staff. Apparently Scandal exists in a world where the American public fully supports a Republican White House Chief of Staff gay marrying a male prostitute.
Elsewhere, David Rosen questions Abby on the record about the cover-up with Cyrus, during which he learns that she’s sleeping with Leo Bergen (which was not a one-time thing).
The Vice President’s Master Plan
Quinn fills in Olivia on the Vice President meeting with Elizabeth North and Kubiak. OPA learns that the three also met the night Caitlin was killed at the law firm, so Quinn sneaks in to find out what it’s all about.
It seems Jeremy Winslow’s firm represents West Angola’s U.S. interests, and the big master plan for the vice president and the head of the Republican National Committee is to try and start a war between the U.S. and West Angola.
The episode ends with the vice president meeting with Fitz, who has refused to go to war with West Angola despite that car bomb that almost killed Andrew (which he totally knew about). So now Andrew has resorted to drastic measures to force Fitz to go to war by targeting the one and only thing the president truly cares about.
Yup, the vice president has kidnapped the president’s mistress in order to force the U.S. to go to war. Wow, that sentence sounds absolutely ridiculous when you think about it.
Scandal returns in 10 weeks, which is roughly how long it will take Huck’s wife to read all of those boxes of B-613 documents he dropped off at her house.
(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.
