And we are back, ladies and gentlemen! I hope you all had a great hiatus. I know I did. These three months were necessary for my recalibration, let me tell ya. But I’m good now (kinda) and I hope that you are, too. Should we go ahead and dive into this midseason premiere? Let’s.
If you’d like a refresher of what happened in the last episode, do read the recap of 509 here. There’s no need for me to walk down memory lane with that one. If you don’t mind, I’d like to remain in the present state of of zen that I’ve finally found myself in. Woosah.
We rejoin our scandalous characters six months after everything went to hell in a handbasket between Olivia and Fitzgerald. Sally Langston welcomes us back to the ‘verse by orating about power and its effect on Washington and the players within its bubble. Her words serve as a foreshadow of what we will see play out in the episode and also harkens back to what has already transpired in the first half of the season.
“Power, my dear lovers of liberty, is the beating heart of our nation’s bosom. The high and mighty members of the political elite feed on it, breed on it; for power is the host, the enormous teat off which this entire town suckles. Oh and you wonder why no one in Washington can get anything done? The hunt for power is all consuming. Everyone always needs more and nobody ever has enough.” -- Sally Langston for The Liberty Report
The scene cuts away to a restaurant where Rowan is having dinner with Olivia. And what is this? Olivia Pope is wearing color! A bold red-orange dress that is a serious departure from anything that we have ever seen her wear before. What does it all mean? Who is this woman?! Her father is drinking their shared signature red wine, but she’s imbibing scotch. And she’s seems comfortable in her “newfound notoriety” (as Rowan calls it) as two women at a nearby table fangirl over her with one of them attempting to surreptitiously snap a photo of Olivia.
Rowan is amused by these antics, but he tells Olivia that she’s overcompensating. She once had the Oval, he says to her. She was essentially the head bitch in charge at 1600 Pennsylvania, but now she’s standing on the outside looking in. She’s away from the power that was once under her control. Rowan beams with pride over what he saw as her greatest achievement. She was running the White House and Fitz was none the wiser. This echoes what Cyrus said to Olivia in 507 about how it was really her running the country and not Fitz. Her immediate reaction was to push back against that accusation, but she later seemed to embrace the reality of her influence after some internal conflict.
Now here she was again several months later hearing the same thing from her father. The Oval was hers and she walked away from it. Olivia tells Rowan that things are better as they are now, but he doesn’t believe her. He believes that she still craves the taste of that power but is pretending otherwise. Instead of confirming Rowan’s suspicions, Olivia tries to foist blame of her departure on Fitz. He tried to turn her into FLOTUS, she says. He made her feel like a prisoner, she adds. Rowan isn’t buying her excuses and she knows it. Olivia stops herself from saying anymore to emulate something that Rowan would say to her in response.
“Go ahead. Say it. That no one can ever cage me unless I let them. That I was in control all along because true power is never lost. Freedom is in my hands.” -- Olivia Pope
Olivia knows her daddy so well. He said words similar words Jake in “Dog Whistle Politics” (504):
“I don’t have to regain my power. Power--true power--is never lost. And freedom? Boy, I am always free. No one will ever cage me.” -- Rowan Pope, “Dog Whistle Politics.”
Fitzgerald can’t make Olivia do anything. If it is happening to Olivia, it’s because she has allowed it to happen. I said as much in my last review. And now here she is trying to play the victim. Tsk.
From the rest of their conversation, it would appear that Olivia hasn’t seen much of Rowan in the past six months. He tells her that he wishes she would come by the house more often, but she says to him that he knows the reason why she can’t. And that reason? Jake Ballard. He’s apparently living with Daddy Pope (yes, let that one sink in, folks) and Olivia is perplexed by the whole thing. Jake hates Rowan, so none of this makes sense to her. To that, Rowan says,, “Jake has come home. So should you.” Um...no.
“… then again, perhaps it is better to fight for the pleasure of ripping the beating heart of power from America’s chest, to hold it in your bloody hands than it is to never have entered the battle at all. After all, to be empty-handed is to be powerless. And in this town powerless means impotent, and who wants to be impotent?” -- Sally Langston, The Liberty Report
Cut over to Olivia emerging from the elevator to find said Jake waiting for her by her apartment door. On her face is this look of disgust, yet it is made clear that Jake’s presence wasn’t unexpected. He tells her that she’s late and that he doesn’t like waiting. Late? Late for what?
Pause and time TF out. What is this? She won’t visit her father because Jake is living with him, yet here she is having a clandestine meeting with him?
Olivia is all bad attitude and tells him that if he doesn’t want to wait, he is free to leave. She turns around and hits the button on the elevator to call up the cab. They stare each other down as if waiting to see who will blink first. Once the elevator doors open and Jake makes to leave, it is Olivia who breaks and jumps on him like a fiend who almost dropped their shot of dope down the toilet.
What transpires next is a tug of war between Olivia and Jake as one tries to wield control over the other. There’s pushing, pulling, snatching, slapping, ripping. I’d have been halfway to O town if it weren’t for the contextual history of their entire relationship robbing me of that pleasure. All I was left with were incestuous vibes.
Interesting that this scene comes in right after Sally talks about how being powerless is akin to being impotent. We have never seen Olivia or Jake display this kind of aggression towards the other before. Olivia herself doesn’t even seem to like the fact that she is engaging with Jake, but that isn’t stopping her from moving forward in their mutual pursuit of physical contact.
While it is true that Olivia turn towards Jake whenever things go south between her and Fitzgerald is previously charter territory, this isn’t your Olivia and Jake of yesteryear. This isn’t the Olivia or the Jake who talked about standing in the proverbial sun. These are two people who are unapologetically DTF with no strings attached. There is something liberating in that honesty and yet neither will acknowledge that they are actually doing it.
Oh and the song that is playing over the scene is absolutely apropos. The song is “Tramp” by Carla Thomas and Otis Redding. My interpretation? Jake is the tramp who may not have all that Olivia is seeking, but he’s got one thing going for him: the sex. He can hang his hat on that and he knows it.
“Oh, sweet Washington. The lines people will cross just to get a bit of power here. The scheming, the planning, the favors bought and sold and stolen. Why, it’s true modern warfare. A bloody, bloody battle. No one emerges unscathed.” -- Sally Langston, The Liberty Report
Following the flash of the title, we come upon Abby who is fast asleep at her place when her phone goes off. It’s Mr. President calling her at two in the morning. Is he calling about something pressing? Did war break out on some other side of the planet? Nope. Fitz wants to talk to her about a whole lot of random things that have absolutely nothing to do with her job as press secretary. At 2AM. Why isn’t this man asleep?
Fitz is trying to rope Abby into attending some function that she is uninterested in, and when asked for a reason for her rejection, she cites Leo as her reason. She lies about him being sick, but Leo isn’t even there with her. Leo’s faux illness doesn’t deter Fitz though. He’ll have Charlotte send over some chicken soup. Since that situation has been handled, he went on to start discussing other matters. At 2AM. Again, why isn’t this man asleep?
Across town, we see Olivia open her door a crack to find Huck is standing on the other side. He’s telling her that they have a client and he asks her if she is going to open the door. Olivia has no intention of doing that, her excuse being that she is in her pajamas.
Now come on. This is Huck, the same guy who has used her spare key to come into her apartment and hop into her bed when she was in said pajamas before. Her explanation doesn’t fly and Huck is suspicious.
Olivia is impatient to get to the reason why Huck came to her in person to tell her about a client instead of just calling her on the phone about it. Huck says that given the usual NSA phone surveillance that goes on, calling about this particular client was a no go. When Olivia remains steadfast in holding the door partially open, Huck perplexed. He asks if she is okay and if there is someone in the apartment with her. He tells her that her not opening the door is weird.
In any case, Huck finally tells Olivia that their client is the head of the NSA and that prompts her to shut the door. Time to get to work. She turns around to find Jake standing behind her, and she is brusque when she orders him to out of her apartment. The chill in the air…
Over at OPA, Olivia is being briefed on who their new client is. Air Force Lieutenant General Diane Peters is her name. Not only is she director of the National Security Agency (NSA), but she is also Chief of the Central Security Service and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command. Those are some big titles which places her in the higher echelons of the U.S. government. She’s got some serious academic and military credentials that show that she is highly intelligent and qualified for the positions that she holds. She is the first woman to fill her position and in Huck’s words, she’s a total badass.
Off Olivia and Huck go to visit the General. Her computer was not attacked by a virus, but by a rootkit. (For the curious, a rootkit is software that allows an unauthorized user to gain control of a computer without being detected. Typically used by hackers.) She noticed via surveillance of her home office that her computer suddenly got out of sleep mode and files started moving all by themselves into some folder. Those files pertain to something called Project Mercury. The General says that she can’t share more since it’s classified, but Huck chimes in with what he’s heard about it from the dark net. The NSA is listening to the phone calls of world leaders, and reading their emails and their text messages. The General is surprised that he knows about it, and she turns to Olivia to say that the compromisation of these files cannot be made public.
Diane remarks that there is just no way that the rootkit could have gotten past her cyber security system. She built the thing herself and it is state of the art. Back at OPA, Huck confirms what the General has stated about the security. It’s impenetrable. From the outside, at least. But the software didn’t come from the outside. It was installed directly onto her home server. That would mean that whoever did the deed would have had to have had access to her home.
And that brings us to William “Billy” Torrence who was a big time mobile apps developer who Diane had just recently registered with the NSA as being her significant other. Her security system hasn’t been tampered with and now Billy has gone MIA. When Olivia presents the General with her suspicion that it is Billy who hacked her, Diane is in denial.
“It’s my job to know people’s secrets, assess threats, predict behavior. … I vetted him. I used every tool at my disposal and that includes Project Mercury. I screened his emails. I listened in on calls. Everything checked out. He checked out! There has got to be another explanation. Billy did not do this.” -- Diane Peters
Ma’am, have you ever heard of B613? If Billy was a part of their clique, it doesn’t matter what type of surveillance program or background-checking tool you used to look into this guy. He will come out smelling fresher than a newly blooming rose. You’ve been had, boo. And everyone seems to know that except for you. The question now is if Billy is a spy or if he’s a whistleblower.
Or if he’s B613. Now don’t give me that look. One can never know.
Following the break, we find Olivia back at her apartment and in bed again with Jake. (Didn’t he go home?) They look to have just finished off another round of bedroom taekwondo (though I suspect that this is the same round from earlier but was shifted around in the editing room). Olivia is sipping water from a ginormous bottle that she refuses to share with Jake when her phone rings. It’s Cyrus Beene. Olivia initially hesitates to answer the phone, but then does. Probably out of morbid curiosity. Cyrus wants her opinion about something, but Olivia isn’t interested in playing ball. The days of them chatting it up as they had in the past are over. She goes to hang up on him when Cyrus screams out that he’s calling on behalf of Abby. At that, Olivia gets out of bed and tells Cyrus that he has 20 seconds.
Cyrus wants to know if Olivia believes that Abby can handle being work wife to the President. Olivia doesn’t understand why Cyrus is even asking her this, especially since he is still present as Chief of Staff. He’s Fitz’s work wife.
Well….he used to be. That boat sailed after Fitz found out about Cyrus working with Rowan behind his back in 422. Cyrus hasn’t been the work wife in a hot minute. Olivia should know that better than anyone. She who came in and essentially became everyone and everything to Fitzgerald. I suppose she figured things had adjusted back to normal in the six months since her departure?
Olivia finally gives Cyrus his answer, confirming that Abby can handle being the work wife. As an addendum to that, she does ask Cyrus to be sure that he wishes to pass the torch on to Abby. This is the Oval office they are talking about. That it is a lot of power to be giving up.
Now did that sound to you as it did to me like Olivia has some regrets of having stepped away from her position as work wife, the one who influenced the President’s agenda? She spoke as one who would know what it was like to had been at the pinnacle, made the decision to climb down from it, but was now missing it.
The following day, Olivia comes in to work and she’s dressed in a black jacket and this gorgeous egg yolk yellow skirt. She strides in and is ready to continue with where they left off with their client’s case when she is interrupted to be informed that Mellie Grant is in her office.
Before I go on, I’d like to know what is going on with the costume department. I adore me some Lyn Paolo. I really, really do, but there is absolutely no reason why Olivia should be in this heavy ass, black peplum military short coat in June! Have you been in the DMV in June? Ain’t nobody wearing anything that thick. And don’t get me started on what Mellie has on. Is she in wool? Are these people hyper anemic? Do their internal thermometers need recalibration? We’ve got to get this right someday, Lyn.
Mellie has apparently come to Olivia because she has written a book! You see, this book is meant to do several things. It is to serve as an open letter to the country, which will include her statement of beliefs and also simultaneously serve as a preemptive strike against nastiness that may come up once she announces her intent to run for the presidency. Why come to Olivia? Because she needs Olivia to run her campaign. And if Olivia is going to run her campaign, it is important that the infamous triangle that they were once involved in gets addressed head on so that it’ll be old news by the time she heads off to meet up with voters in New Hampshire.
Olivia tells her that she isn’t running her campaign, but Mellie is determined to have Olivia read the book. Olivia wants nothing to do with it, but Mellie insists. She drops the manuscript on Olivia’s desk and heads out despite Olivia’s protests.
Over at the White House, Abby is stepping off the podium in the Press Briefing Room when she is waylaid by a reporter by the name of Nelson. He is complaining that Abby hasn’t called on him all week and her refusing to do so hinders his ability to do his job. Abby tells him he’s suffering because of the hit piece that he wrote on the President’s energy plan. Nelson proposes a way to make it up to Abby and he offers her some tidbit about Project Mercury. Abby appears to know what he’s talking about and is rewarded with information of someone from the NSA offering to share stolen documents with his publisher about it. Abby tells Nelson that she’s already on top of the situation and that Nelson is going to have to try harder if he wants to get out of her doghouse.
The second Abby returns to her team, she demands to know what the hell Project Mercury is! Abby had serious game face on with Nelson and he had no clue. She bluffed and was rewarded with one hell of a head’s up. Once her team gets her a folder on what the Project is, she rushes to the Oval to speak to the President. She is in a panic over the matter, but Cyrus is unperturbed. Abby is aghast at his silence. Cyrus was really in the room like he was Marshawn Lynch facing a mob of sports reporters.
Hmph! Why is going on with you, Cyrus?
It is Abby who Fitz turns to ask as to how she intends to shut down something of this enormity, and Abby looks shell shocked as she turned towards Cyrus who offers her no out. If she can’t get help from within the White House, she’ll just have to turn towards her bestie.
Abby gives Olivia a call, looking to know what it is that Olivia knows about Gillian Foster, the top brass at The Post. Olivia tells her that she had once worked with Gillian in the past and that she’s a tough, smart woman who has a tiny chip on her shoulder after inheriting the newspaper from her father. Olivia soon figures out that there is something that the White House is trying to shut down if Abby is asking questions about the Post’s publisher, and she exits her office to write on a notepad “whistleblower” for her team to see.
When Olivia presses Abby about her looking to call in the publisher over a “little national security story”, Abby takes that as her cue to cut off the conversation. They were now entering Chinese wall territory, but Abby has told Olivia enough. They now know that Billy is not a spy, but a whistleblower and that he is set to give the documents he stole to the Post but hasn’t yet. They have to find him before he has the chance to.
Later that evening over at the Residence, we see Fitz scribbling along the margins of some document while sitting out on the Truman Balcony. Coming out to join him there is Jake Ballard who immediately remarks that he needs to get himself a view like the one the Balcony affords. He verbalizes his observation that Fitz is working and that he seems to be doing well. To that Fitz asks Jake if he had expected that he would be drunk and playing Russian roulette with the nation’s nuclear codes. He chuckles when Jake doesn’t deny this. Fitz says to him that he’s good, he has his freedom and he is, according to Abby, “all cylinders.” Haha! Fitz has no idea what she means by that. It is after all OPA lingo. (To fire on all cylinders is to be working at full capacity and being highly effective at it, producing positive results.)
Fitz offers Jake some scotch just as the latter asks why it is that he was called over. Fitz fills him in on the problem that he has with the Post and Project Mercury. Jake is familiar with the Project, likely from his days as Command. If the Post prints the story, the United States can kiss their allies goodbye. This would be a disaster of epic proportions. Jake wants to know how the Post got the story and Fitz tells him that that’s the problem that needs fixing. The only way for something that is in as deep cover as Project Mercury is to have gotten out is if there is a whistleblower at the NSA, so in order to keep this off of the Agency’s radar, Fitz has called in Jake to help handle the situation.
Before Jake agrees to assist on this, he wants to know why it is that Fitz reached out to him. When Fitz says that he needed someone he could trust to handle the matter, Jake remarks that he wasn’t the obvious choice that Fitz could have gone with then. Fitz denies this, but let’s be real. Under ordinary circumstances, if shit weren’t terrible between them, Fitz would have called Olivia in to handle this matter. Jake knows this as well as Fitz does.
When asked if he talks to Olivia, Fitz admits that he does not. His attitude comes off as almost nonchalant as he pours himself a drink and tosses the same question over at Jake, to which Jake also offers the same answer. He doesn’t talk to Olivia either. Verbal exchange isn’t the kind of communication in which Jake finds himself entangled with Olivia, so I suppose he wasn’t exactly lying.
Having settled that, Jake agrees to take on the job. He again marvels over the view from the Balcony and Fitz tells him that there is only one way to get that view, and that is to become President.
Is Shonda about to have Jake make a run for president? Remarking about the view twice in one scene was intentional and it has my eye twitching.
Later that evening, Fitz is back to calling Abby to talk about randomness again. He starts off by asking her if she knew that you could purchase Gettysburger Freedom Fries from the grocery store and microwave them. He tells her with such excitement that he’s having some of them as they speak.
Pause. Fitzgerald is eating Gettysburger? As in fast food Gettysburger? I didn’t even know that he knew that such junk existed. Is this Olivia’s fault? Did she introduce him to this? Is this Fitz’s cry for help? What’s happening here, people?
Upon confirming that she does know that you can get Gettysburger fries from the grocery store, Fitz proceeds to do what he’s been doing for God only knows how long and dives right into talking about things that Abby would much rather be catching sleep over.
The next morning, Abby comes bursting into Cyrus’s office in a huff. She can’t take it anymore. The President is driving her up a wall. She wants to know if Cyrus is intentionally punishing her by leaving her to be the sole recipient of Fitzgerald Grant’s current brand of crazy. He’s got questions and ideas, and wants her to give him the backstory to some TV show. He won’t stop talking to her, and she is exhausted. The man has literally robbed her of sleep. She doesn’t know what to do or how to fix him.
While Abby is ranting on about her troubles, Cyrus is indulging in chocolate truffles and shows no sign of actually giving a damn about her pain. None of this is his problem. She wants to know why it is that he isn’t helping her, and Cyrus is pretty much like: Look, Red. You’re the shiny new object that he wants to play with now. You’re the new work wife. Abby recoils in offense from that idea. Abby doesn’t want to be the work wife, but Cyrus says that that is exactly who she is now. Olivia is gone and so is Mellie. He himself can’t be the work wife because betrayal still sits heavy between he and Fitz, so it now falls to Abby. He advises her to find her own way to manage the situation because he won’t be helping her.
Meanwhile over at OPA, Huck has managed to pinpoint Billy’s cell phone signal. Quinn starts to head for the exit when Marcus starts to follow. Both Huck and Quinn think Marcus should stay behind because the situation could be dangerous. Huck tells Marcus that he’s more of an “office guy”, insinuating that he wouldn’t be able to handle what Quinn would be up against, but Marcus won’t be dissuaded. He’s going with Quinn. Huck is like, oh well. If you die, that’s on you, bruh.
Quinn and Marcus arrive at some abandoned home, but find no sign of Billy. Marcus asks Huck via phone if he’s sure of the location, but he receives a sarcastic response that prompts him to hand the phone over to Quinn so that she could deal with Huck instead. While she’s talking to him, they hear movement coming from further into the home. They think it to be Billy but soon see that it is Jake. He has Billy’s phone in his hand. Both are surprised by his appearance. His presence is inexplicable.
Later that evening back at OPA, Olivia is demanding to know what it was that Jake was doing at that house. He tells her that he was there for the same reason that they were, except that the only difference is that he is working for the President and she was working on behalf of the woman who was “stupid enough to let a traitor into her home.” Olivia is caught off guard by the revelation that Fitz has Jake handling this for the White House, and Jake says that he’s helping out where he can.
Jake is giving her some yarn about Billy, but none of it is computing for Olivia. Why would Billy break into an abandoned home just to leave behind his cell phone instead of tossing into a trash can? Jake has no sensible answer for that and opts instead for some rambling smoke and mirrors that leaves Olivia looking at him like he’s speaking some alien language. She tells him that Billy hasn’t yet done anything with the files that he attained, so it wasn’t too late for them to stop him before they’re released.
Jake was like we? I don’t speak French, madam. There is no we. He won’t be helping her cover up for a client that made a huge mistake. Olivia waves that off and says that people make mistakes all the time. Her client’s only mistake was that she fell for the wrong guy. Jake’s comeback? It’s no wonder that Olivia is so sympathetic to her client’s cause. (I have a feeling we aren’t talking about the client anymore.) Olivia makes another attempt to get him to listen to her, but Jake is done with the conversation. He tells Olivia that she has lost this one and so has her client, and he exits from her office.
Olivia heads over to the General’s home to find men carrying boxes out of her home. Diane informers her that the men are from the office of the Inspector General and that she is officially under investigation. Once inside, Olivia tells Diane that there was a call to the Post found on Billy’s phone. Definitely not what Diane was hoping to hear. She, after all, was convinced that Billy hadn’t done any such thing.
“I’m very good at my job, and they’re going to say that he preyed on my loneliness. I like to think that I’m stronger than that. It’s not easy finding someone when you’re a general. Men find my stars threatening. But not Billy. He looked at me and saw a woman, a partner. At least, that’s what I thought he saw. I guess what he really saw was opportunity.” -- Diane Peters
Damn. That has got to hurt like hell. Here you are believing that you have finally found somebody who sees you and not your influence, not the power that you yield, not the access that you have, only to find out that you were wrong. That person hadn’t been seeing you at all. You were instead something to exploit, a means to an end.
Ironically, Olivia had what Diane believed that she did with Billy, but that all went down the crap chute six months earlier. Womp.
Diane wants to know what will happen know. She suspects that she is going to be fired now. Olivia says to her that investigators will first look to see if Diane has collaborated with Billy, but since she didn’t, she is fine on that front and shouldn’t face any criminal charges. Diane interrupts to ask if maybe Olivia could talk to the President on her behalf. If she is fired by the Commander in Chief, she predicts that she will not only be the first female director of the NSA, she will be the last. Her mistake will be used to hinder the appointment of other women with the excuse that women’s hearts make them weak and thus threats to national security. She will be the justification for the all male candidates that proceed her.
Flash further ahead in the evening over to Olivia’s apartment. Abby is emerges from the elevator and has just knocked on Olivia’s door when her phone rings. It’s the President. Again. Olivia opens the door while Abby tries to find some way to get out of the phone call with her boss. He wants to go over something with her and she tells him that she can’t. She lies about being at the hospital with Leo. At that point Olivia wants to know who she’s talking to and Abby has to shush her so that Fitz doesn’t hear her. Abby tells him that Leo’s flu just got upgraded to pneumonia and that finally succeeds in getting rid of him.
By this point of the episode, even I am frustrated with Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III. Sure he used to call Olivia at odd hours of the night, but it was never anything like this. It didn’t have to be anything like what Abby is experiencing either because he also had Mellie and Cyrus to speak with if he needed to. Poor Abby has had to bear the brunt of the loss of his usual sounding boards, so she’s justified in her snatching a bottle of his good scotch for girl time with her bestie.
Playing over the scene is Roberta Flack’s version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. It is a more mellow, slower version than the Aretha Franklin one that played during Harrison’s funeral in episode 401. It’s perfect for the moment in which we observe Abby kick back with her friend and lay down her burdens. She vents about Leo who isn’t sick at all but off in Texas handling a campaign since he doesn’t see his girlfriend much anyway. Leo wants her to quit her job, but Olivia discourages that even though Abby isn’t actually thinking of quitting. Abby then vents about the stress that Fitz is subjecting her to, and Olivia tells her that him turning to Abby is a good thing. It means that Abby has his ear, but Abby doesn’t seem convinced about the positive aspects of being the new work wife. She’s moving into zero work-life balance territory.
Abby acknowledges the emotional toll that the breakup has had on Fitz, but she is finding it difficult at two in the morning to feel sorry for the “rich, handsome, powerful leader of the free world who got his heart broken and now he’s lonely.” Panning over to Olivia, there seems to be a sadness to her countenance. Or maybe it could be interpreted as empathy? She interrupts Abby to tell her that Fitz is alone, not lonely. He has no one. The last someone that he had was her and now she’s gone.
Olivia goes on to say that she needs to call him on behalf of her client, but she’s hesitant to do so because she believes that it would be unfair to put him in that position. Abby isn’t at all buying that Olivia doesn’t want to call because she is being respectful of his feelings. Abby believes that Olivia doesn’t want to call because she’s terrified that he’ll answer the phone and grant her a favor, which will in turn mean that she’ll owe him a favor, which could then lead to him calling her again and them then ending up right back at square one.
Olivia doesn’t at all deny this and says that if it were Abby or anyone else in her situation, she would tell them to suck it up, stop thinking about themselves and do what is best of their client, but she is having a hard time taking her own advice.
We cut briefly over to Quinn and Charlie who are laying in bed. Quinn is trying to sleep, but Charlie is mulling over the whistleblower situation. He’s got questions, much to Quinn’s annoyance. Charlie says for a whistleblower, Billy is great at disappearing. This comment forces Quinn upright, but his comment gets her to reassessing the situation.
Flash back over to Olivia in her apartment and Abby is now gone. Olivia is sitting in contemplation. She is clearly in conflict over this call that she knows she has to make, but she finally makes her decision and picks up her phone. She gets Charlotte and initially identifies herself as just “Olivia” before adding “Pope.” Can’t assume that Charlotte would automatically assume that it was her calling after so many months of having not, yeah?
When Olivia asks if the President is in, we cut over to the White House to see that Fitz is still hard at work in the Oval. Charlotte comes in to inform Fitz that Olivia was on the phone for him, and Fitz appears stunned by that pronouncement. He sits for a long moment without giving his secretary an answer. He looked as if he was waging some internal battle over whether or not he should take the call. In the end, Charlotte comes back on the line to inform Olivia that the President is unavailable. Welp.
Looks like Olivia had been worried over nothing. I bet she didn’t see that swerve coming. I know that I most certainly did not, and I’ve gotta tell ya that I cackled like a hyena over it. I’m petty.
It’s a brand new day, Olivia. Fitzgerald isn’t sitting by the telephone in desperate wait for the day that you decide to reach out so he can get back to the business of suffocating you. Hey, your words. Not mine.
Early the next day, we see Abby’s phone ringing yet again. This poor woman is fitna kill somebody at this point. She ignores the call, but she knows he’s going to call right back and right on cue, her phone starts ringing again. This time she answers it.
Over at Olivia’s place, we see her getting ready for the day and…she’s changed her bed! Whoa. Are those posts for handcuffs or…? And she’s in this bold red overcoat with a black dress underneath. She sits down to slip her feet into some red pumps. Of course, Jake is present and he, too, is dressing for the day. I mean if Olivia is going to go down the rabbit hole, why only go half way? May as well have the surrogate brother shagging be a nightly routine.
Olivia doesn’t immediately get up from her position, seeming to be in wait for Jake to finish what he was doing and head out of the room before her. She then decides to leave instead and the two of them nearly collide as they head for the door at the same time. She motions for him to precede her, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he stares at her for a moment before taking her left hand into his. I can’t figure if he looked at it to check for the presence of the ring or if he was just contemplating her hand, but he brings it up to lay it against his cheek. Olivia watches him with an enigmatic look and roughly snatches her hand away when he places a kiss to her palm.
There won’t be none of that emotional hogwash happening here. The moment appears to have an effect on her, but she refuses to be pulled in. She continues out of the room and utters the only words that either of them speaks in the entire scene, “Make sure you lock up on your way out. You forgot last time.”
Talk about frigid. And Jake, you’re still attempting to find your way into her heart, aren’t you? I don’t even know why you continue to do this to yourself.
Over at Quinn’s, she’s trying to crack into the Post’s voicemail system so that she can listen to the call that was made to them from the whistleblower. Charlie’s ramblings during the night gave her that idea, but she’s having a hard time cracking the encryption. Charlie then suggest that she use something similar to the rootkit that was used on her client’s computer.
Over at the White House, Fitz is heading over to do a press conference to announce who will replace Diane Peters as NSA director. Abby looked into and vetted the candidate personally and can confirm that his background is clean. He should be able to sail through any nomination hearings. Abby quickly walks Fitz through what he ought to do following his announcement and then leaves him to proceed into the room alone. Before he disappears from sight, he turns around and flashes Abby a smile of appreciation. She returns it and gives him a small nod of encouragement.
We hear Fitz speaking about having asked for and received the resignation of Diane Peters as the scene cuts over to Olivia sitting with Diane. She’s telling her that OPA is available to help Diane transition into the public sector or private life, but Diane says to her that that wasn’t the reason why she hired Olivia. That wasn’t the job that she was asked to do for her. Diane wants to know what the President said when Olivia spoke to him, and Olivia opts to say that the President was unhelpful. Ha! That’s one way of saying that he refused to take your call.
Diane wishes to know who she is being replaced with and Olivia gives her some line about how the President is going to make a list and select from there, and Diane is looking at her like some Johnny come lately. A list? The President isn’t making a gatdamn list! He already has somebody lined up. An old crony of his. “And I thought I was out of the loop,” Diane says as she exits the room. Yikes!
Olivia most definitely had rotten egg residue on her face from that. New territory for a woman who is usually in the know when it comes to whatever is happening within the political bubble, especially when it applies to the White House.
Back at her office, Olivia sits with a troubled look on her face as if she’s trying to figure something out when Quinn bursts into her office. It wasn’t Billy who called the Post. She listened to the voicemail that the newspaper received and compared it to messages that Diane got from Billy. Despite the Post’s caller using a scrambler to mask their voice, that caller and Billy aren’t the same person. Their rhythm and cadences are totally different. She doesn’t know who the caller is, but it’s somebody who was trying to set Billy up.
Ah shiitake mushrooms! Just when they thought they had it all figured out, a monkey wrench gets thrown into the engine. Olivia whips out her phone and dials up Abby to find out who would be replacing Diane at the NSA. We flash over to OPA returning to that abandoned house and Olivia wants to know what room it was that Marcus and Quinn caught Jake emerging from. Marcus points out the hallway and Olivia heads in that direction. They all end up in the kitchen, but there isn’t anything there. Olivia then zones in on the refrigerator and attempts to open it, but can’t. She calls for Huck’s assistance and when he yanks open the door, out falls a dead Billy Torrance. He’s been shot in the head! Jake wasn’t searching for Billy as he claimed that he had been. He was disposing of him.
Oh how Olivia had been played for a fool by her DTF buddy. Ouch.
While that is happening, guess who Fitz is installing as the new director of the NSA? Jake freaking Ballard!! Oh, wait. It’s actually Jacob Hamilton Ballard. Yes, Hamilton. As in Hamilton, the musical.
First of all, what? Second of all, what?! Third of all, what the hell just happened?! Jake is now the director of the NSA?? Fitzgerald, whatchu doing?! This ranks right up there with making Jake head of B613! Mattafact, the NSA is the B613 kin that can walk about in the light!!!
Later that evening, we see Olivia banging on Rowan’s door. Once it is open, she demands to know where Jake is and proceeds into the dining room to find him enjoying dinner. He’s got white and red wine as does Rowan. Olivia is in a snit over what Jake did, accusing him of having set the whole thing up. Billy was nothing but a patsy used to force Diane’s resignation and set Jake up to take her place. Jake doesn’t even pretend to be remorseful about what he did. He says that the world is a safer place with Billy gone and Olivia is stunned. She wants to know why he would say such a thing, and this prompts Rowan to chime in (of course). Olivia is taken aback as she glances from her father to Jake and back again.
Rowan drones on about how Diane was weak because she was mistook a fire breathing dragon for thunder. He goes on to tell Olivia that she can stand there and complain about what they did and give them a lecture on morality or she could do as they have and get herself some real power. And when he says power, he means the kind that she left behind when she severed her relationship with Fitz. 1600 Pennsylvania level power is what he’s talking about. He says to Olivia that she thinks she has that power as she is now, but she doesn’t. He knows that she isn’t satisfied with how things are now because he knows her as well as he knows his….son. (Christ Jesus, make this stop.)
Olivia looks at both men as if they have lost their minds and she is just now realizing how far gone they were. If anything, this ambitious streak from Jake has got to come as a surprise. He’s never before shown himself to be at all interested in acquiring power. Hell, the man seemed content with not having a job. It would appear that Jake has truly fallen back into his role as son to the father, and I’ve got to say that it’s creepy AF. I haven’t a clue as to what Rowan and Jake are up to, but it certainly can’t be anything good. And President Grant has unknowingly placed a fox in his henhouse.
Flash over to Abby who is attempting to sleep, but she’s receiving another one of her nightly calls from the President. He wants to talk about the maneuvering he’ll have to do in order to get Jake confirmed as the new director. Abby tries to end the call, but he keeps talking. Frustrated, Abby tells Fitz to hold on and then proceed to hang up on him. We next see her arrive at the Oval and she lets the man have it! She reminds him that she is the White House Press Secretary and says that she loves her job and would be willing to do anything that she could while on site to assist him with productive matters. Anything else beyond that is not within her job description. She is not his companion animal!!
Off Abby goes to her office because since she’s already there, she may as well get some work done. She calls Cyrus to fill him in on her finally taking a stand and Cyrus congratulates her on the accomplishment. Now it’s Cyrus’s turn to escape a long winded conversation and he cuts if off with, “Reeeeeeed, I’m not interested anymore. Say less words.” LMAOOOO!!!
A cynical part of me wonders if Cyrus was hoping that Abby would finally put her foot down, which would in turn force Fitz back in his direction, but I don’t believe I have enough evidence to support this suspicion. Cyrus isn’t acting like Cyrus, but if he were, this kind of underhanded reverse psychology tactic would be right up his alley.
Over at OPA, Huck and Quinn are working on something together when Marcus comes in to ask if they would like to join him in going to the Gettysburger to get some food. Quinn says that she does, but Huck overrides her and says that they aren’t hungry. Quinn regretfully retracts her earlier statement and silently apologizes to Marcus who then departs alone. Quinn turns to ask Huck why it is that he is treating Marcus the way that he is, and Huck says that it is because Marcus is normal and as such, it is their job to protect him. They can’t be friends with him.
Aww, Huck. That’s actually really sweet in a upside down, round about way. That tactic may end up backfiring on you all though. There isn’t any real way to protect Marcus from your taint as long as he works there with the rest of you. Besides, his normal could end up rubbing off on the rest of you! Y’all could do with a short of something less crazy in your respective existences.
Olivia meanwhile is in her office and what is she drinking? Red wine. She hasn’t had any of it all episode, but she’s back to it after that incident at her father’s house. She has ditched the scotch (Fitz’s drink) for the red wine (Rowan’s drink), which is a tell. Rowan’s words probably recalled her to the embarrassment that she felt when Diane pointed out that Olivia was out of the loop. She had deliberately severed her access to power, but now realizes her folly. She could have saved her client (and Billy) had she had Fitz’s ear, but that bridge lay as an ash pile at the bottom of the ravine. Olivia must build a new bridge that will tap her back into the source.
This is where Mellie Grant comes in. She will likely serve as Olivia’s access point. Olivia calls her over to her office, and when Mellie arrives, she seems to be surprised to have received a call at all. Olivia tells her that she has read the book and that she found it to be smart and well written. Mellie loves the positive affirmations she’s receiving and claims to have written to the book herself, but when Olivia adds that the book was a bore, Mellie’s face falls and she says that there wa a ghostwriters. Hahahahaha!!! (I hate these Scandal writers. LOLOL!!)
Olivia proceeds to tell her all the things that are wrong with the book and says to her that she’s going to have to write something that people want to read, a real book that tells the American people who Mellie is. It has to be truthful. That book will be harder to write, but it’ll also be one that people remember. Mellie says that that is the book that she wants to write, and Olivia says that they can get started on it tomorrow.
Lawd have mercy, Liv was in full Olivia Pope ™ mode and Mellie ate it up. This is the woman who got her ex-husband into the Oval, the woman who gives people the shits when her name is mentioned as their opposition. You’re damn right Mellie was going to do whatever it was that Olivia told her to do because Mellie wants to be a winner, and love her or hate her, Olivia knows how to get people past the finish line.
This is going to be one hell of an alliance. I almost feel sorry for Mellie because this Olivia (as I said earlier) is not your Olivia Pope of yesteryear. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out who this Olivia is, but she certainly doesn’t seem to be someone who is in like with herself right now.
Noted changes: Before I wrap up this recap review, I want to go over some of the changes that are on full display in this episode. The most obvious has to do with Olivia’s clothes. She is now wearing bold colors as opposed to her usual palette of white, black, gray and pastel variations. Despite the bold colors, almost every outfit she wore is accompanied with a black piece.
Aside from her wardrobe, Olivia’s apartment has also undergone a transformation. We first met her new dark sofa at the end of episode 509, but now we see that her apartment has taken on a dark hue. The paint, the curtains, the shutters. Her personal space feels like a cave, cold and uninviting. Is her home a reflection of her emotional state? Is she dark on the inside? The darkened walls do not continue into her bedroom, but she did change her bed to a four poster one.
The colors of her clothes are a projection of strength, of vitality, which stand in stark contrast with her living space. She walking about projecting springtime when she’s really a walking winter: bare, lifeless and cold. She’s performing colors and not living them. Maybe this is what Rowan meant when he accused her of overcompensating.
So what are your interpretations of Olivia’s embrace of color? How do you view her darker apartment? What are your thoughts on her relationship with Jake? Is there more there than meets my eye? And what are your theories as to what Jake and Rowan are up to? What is a potential motive for this NSA move? Does Jake secretly intend to run for POTUS?! What are your predictions for Olivia and Mellie?
Be sure to sound off in the comments with your answers. Don’t forget to include your likes and dislikes from the episode.
I thank you for reading and I’ll see you all next week!
