Following last week's poorly timed filler. Scandal resumed somewhat normalized transmission last night for its eighteenth hour of the season. While it delivered a couple of unexpected twists, storyline clashes ran riot, making it darn hard to follow what was actually happening.
"Honor Thy Father" was written by Severiano Canales and directed by Jeannot Szwarc. The episode opening was good. Inside David Rosen's office, him and Jake Ballard were discussing immunity deals allowing the latter to testify about the happenings inside the super secret agency without costing him his own freedom.
Fans were promised an episode where Jake went nuts, basically. This was delivered promptly, with Jake slamming the immunity strategy and putting David in an arm lock to prove the point.
With Jake no longer on board, other former B613 agents were recruited to testify. They were an interesting bunch with varying backgrounds, but I'm not going to waste my writing time - and your reading time - to delve further, because the three agents were promptly dispatched by David's secretary, herself a B613 agent, albeit more loyal to the cause. In a decent action scene, Charlie, who had left for supplies, returned to the safe house to find his new friends obliterated, but with Jake remaining at the scene. The ensuing fight was fairly decent as far as altercations on television go, but both men made it out alive.
Oblivious (or so we thought) to the underground war, Olivia, aided by Quinn and Huck at times, sought to exonerate the father of a congressman who had been wrongfully convicted of murder. Congressman Reid had been campaigning for many years alongside his blossoming career to have his father freed, and with the execution date edging closer, turned to Olivia for help.
For me, this case stank straight away. It wasn't exactly a giant leap to say "the son did it" very early on, so from then on from my perspective, the case didn't mean much at all. Filled with the guilt of being the murderer himself, Congressman Reid was doing his best to pin the crime on someone else, therefore securing his own freedom in addition to that of his father, who was more than happy to die for the crime anyway.
Nevertheless, it kept Olivia occupied, and while the end outcome was correct in the eyes of the law, it lacked the 'pull at the heartstrings' factor that prior procedural cases have had.
Worse was still to come though, because the folks that lead the free world also needed their existence justified. That came via the introduction of Mellie's half sister, Harmony. The stupid name had me immediately concerned, and rightfully so because all we saw was a whole lot of catfighting between the pair, with Fitz the obvious mediator who was left to deal with the mess. Predictably, with Fitz having done his job, they parted ways somewhat amicably, with the threatening skeletons Harmony has in her closet at least temporarily dampened.
While the B613 arc is well on its way to becoming excessive and annoying, at least some progress was made, and a couple of nice twists were introduced, but the utter waste of time that was Harmony's introduction was a real black mark in my book, and took valuable time away from more important and interesting areas. In the end, Jake became the good guy once more - having never actually been bad to begin with. His words "we're the good guys, but you won't always be able to tell", summed it up perfectly.
With Rowan Pope returning in the final scene of the hour, it's abundantly clear that B613 was down, but definitely not out, and will most likely be the subject of the final four episodes of the season. If none of them have Harmony in them, then they're already guaranteed to be better than last night's effort.
Thanks as always for reading. Don't forget to share your thoughts and theories in the comments below, especially in relation to Harmony! Scandal returns in a fortnight, but you can check out all its ratings on my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com/scandal.
