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Last night's episode of Scandal was much better than last week's effort. Finally, we saw a shift in states of living from Mellie Grant, and there were plenty of powerful moments involving Jake.
Zahir McGhee wrote the episode which was directed by Jeannot Szwarc. "An Innocent Man" opened its hour with a dream sequence in which Olivia was being cared for by her two main men. This was a really nicely constructed scene, and set the stage for things to come.
Former President Edward Cooper had carked it, and the nation was in mourning. Fitz didn't even get a look in, with a properly dressed, clean shaven, and odour-free Mellie taking it upon herself to prepare a state funeral. Former First Lady Betsy Cooper was hilarious throughout, and gave Mellie plenty of things to think about, especially considering her husband, had a sex drive not too dissimilar to her own wife. Betsy later revealed that all the good things that her husband had been credited for actually originated from her, and were pushed through by her, while her husband was preoccupied with more pleasurable activities. While this made for a good laugh last night, its repercussions via Mellie talking to the media in the closing moments will have an impact further down the track, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
While all this was happening, Fitz, Olivia and Jake were all preoccupied with the latter. Olivia was pressing hard for answers last week, and this week she had her wish to see Jake granted. Jake revealed the number and password to an offshore bank account, but didn't proclaim his innocence to Olivia like I thought he would. This took me by surprise. Effectively, Olivia left the cell leaning more prominently towards Jake's guilt, rather than his innocence.
Olivia's night was kept busier still when she opted to fight for President Cooper's convicted assassin, Leonard Francis Carnahan. This was a beautifully worked, yet brief arc which saw Carnahan use Cooper's death as an opportunity to have his guilt proven, though Olivia was led to believe the opposite. It's rare to see Olivia beaten, but she was hit out of the park with Carnahan's play, but not before she had the White House and Abby scrambling under media pressure to have Cooper's body autopsied and the bullet recovered. In the end, Carnahan beat Olivia and the White House.
Fitz and Jake had some good moments too, but finally, Rowan was put in his place by Fitz when he demanded Jake receive a fair trial and execution. This played out beautifully, with one of the final scenes of the episode showing Fitz telling Jake he had had him moved to a supermax prison, his decision making aided earlier with Olivia putting her relationship with Fitz on the line. Things can only proceed in three ways from here, with the first option being he is moved to the supermax prison and isn't seen again for a period. The second direction would be for Rowan to eliminate him, and the third would be for Jake to escape captivity, kill Rowan, and free Maya. Which option would you rather see?
In other smaller storyline segments, Abby finally stood up to Fitz over an issue when she demanded he reconsider Jake's predicament, and allow Olivia to see him. Abby also stuck it to Cyrus when she revealed to him that she knew of his purchase of a second cellphone, alluding to his relationship, though she did get the gender wrong. Elizabeth and Michael changed things up too - a power struggle is surely brewing. And finally, Huck playing with his son online was really cool. This was typical Huck, and it's great to see him happy.
And finally, Quinn discovers Olivia is being hunted. What's going to happen with that? And Olivia crossing Rowan. Was that satisfying to see or what!
Thanks for reading! It's hard to believe there's only 2 episodes to go in the season, Check out next week's episode promo here and press release here. You can view all of Scandal's ratings on my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com/scandal. Don't forget to share your thoughts and theories, and answers to those questions, in the comments below!
Jimmy.
