After last week's episode which could be called a political stunt. Scandal returned to relatively normal transmission with an episode which was a marked improvement on recent weeks.
Written by Mark Fish and directed by Alison Liddi-Brown, "The Testimony of Diego Muñoz" produced its fair share of laughs as Susan Ross was announced as the new Vice President, while the B613 storyline progressed in a surprising way.
Let's leave those two for later though, and begin with Olivia Pope, who returned to a more familiar rhythm this week, but demonstrated that the scars of her kidnapping ordeal still have a lot of healing to do.
Around 3 minutes in, we saw Olivia in her apartment, slumped against a wall, swigging wine from a bottle, and wielding a handgun. Flashbacks to her ordeal were scattered throughout this scene, and in further scenes later in the episode.
These flashbacks were, in a nutshell, excellent. They brought back the terror Olivia went through in a raw, unfiltered way. The midseason premiere and following episode seem like they screened a long time ago, but it didn't take much to stir those memories up once more.
It took a desperate phone call from Cyrus to snap Olivia out of it, but that call didn't get very far when Olivia heard a commotion coming from the hallway. Said commotion was caused by a property manager quarreling with an old lady named Rose, who, it turned out, was somewhat more than lifelong friends with Lois Moore, the woman whose apartment was commandeered by Olivia's kidnappers. Suddenly Olivia had a new lease of life, and headed into OPA where she was greeted by her bewildered employees, Quinn and Huck, and wasted no time assigning them the task of locating Lois's body.
With Quinn and Huck coming up empty, and knowing what really happened all along, Olivia put Rose's mind at ease, telling her that Lois was found dead on a park bench, succumbing to a brain aneurysm. I think it's fair to say that even if Lois had been found, Olivia would still have kept the truth from Rose.
Back to the laughable Susan Ross. Ross was rushed into the Vice Presidency's role, and her first speech was an absolute shocker, but very funny to watch. Artemis Pebdani nailed the role throughout the episode. It goes without saying that "the laugh" was hilarious. Jimmy Kimmel's cameo was a nice surprise - though it was a matter of when, not if he was going to make an appearance on the series given the regular cast bookings on most Thursday nights.
The turmoil Ross caused was the perfect way to reconnect Fitz and Olivia once again. Olivia was convinced by Abby to help prep Ross for her future public appearances, culminating in a visit to the Oval. Arguing about the next step required for making Ross's position official, Olivia stepped into the argument between Fitz, Cyrus and Abby, and set the record straight on what she thought the issue was. Olivia was highly critical of Fitz's actions in West Angola, even though she knew she was strong-armed by former VP, Andrew, who was the man behind Olivia's abduction. As Fitz stood over Olivia and said to her "you know why I did it," you could see the pain in his eyes, and how he sensed Olivia's somewhat unimpressed, ungrateful thoughts toward the whole thing. Needless to say there's still a few bridges to build yet.
Ross's days are clearly numbered, however. Comic relief combined with an enormous lack of skill and experience never ends well, so enjoy it while you can.
The biggest event of the night in my opinion was the expanding of the B613 storyline. David Rosen was given a rude wake-up call by his personal assistant when she announced a woman was waiting outside to see him concerning a claim that her husband once worked for a super secret spy agency outside the jurisdiction of the government. The woman in question turned out to be Kim, Huck's wife, and she had files to prove it. For the first time, we learned Huck's real name was the same name featured in the title of the episode, Diego Muñoz. In a panic, Rosen shot over to OPA where he confronted Huck and Jake about what he had just learned, and the secret was subsequently revealed.
Later on, Kim and Huck faced off. Furious at his wife for insisting that he testify to Rosen about his time in the agency, but having to go along with it, the plan Rosen and Jake formed with Huck was to deny anything. However in the room and on the record, Huck recanted that stance and unloaded it all. Guillermo Diaz was truly outstanding in this scene. Huck recounted the routine carried out constantly while in 'the hole' to keep himself sane. Again, flashbacks were used masterfully here. Both his wife and Rosen were stunned at what they heard. We the viewers have never seen what 'the hole' was like beyond brief glimpses in previous episodes, but honestly, nothing except words could portray in such vivid, terrifying detail what Huck - and possibly Jake - went through.
The outcome from this moment is that Kim knows far more about her husband than she ever did, and the potential for Huck and his wife, and their son, to become a more regular presence on the series is something I'm all for. David Rosen, on the other hand, has a new source of motivation to press further with the investigation into B613, against Jake's suggestion to shut it all down. Time will tell whether that means Rosen's head moves closer and closer to the B613 guillotine.
In all, this episode had a good deal of progression on multiple fronts. With Olivia's PTSD seeing some airtime, along with the fantastic flashbacks, watching her recover will be interesting to watch, though I do hope it doesn't get dragged out to far. The prospects with Huck and David Rosen's next actions will also be something worth seeing.
Thanks for reading! You can check out Scandal's ratings on my TV ratings website, www.seriesmonitor.com/scandal. As always, your thoughts and theories are most welcome in the comments below.
