How many of you are still reeling from what happened in this episode of Scandal? Man, “Thwack” still has me looking about like this:
This episode was an amazing piece of political theater from the top down. Zahir McGhee and Tony Goldwyn are one hell of a writer-director combo, and Kerry Washington? Don't even get me started. The cast and crew really did their thing. Again.
Before I get to the recap/review of this episode, I want to summarize in brief some things that have happened in previous seasons because I believe that doing so will provide context to what transpired in this episode, which will in turn (hopefully) bring some understanding as to how it is that Olivia got to this point.
The unraveling of Olivia Pope began with the reintroduction of her father in her life (unbeknownst to her at the time) in S2. From that moment on, Olivia learned previously unknown truths about her family (S3), which then had her putting herself through all kinds of mental gymnastics in an attempt to have it all make some kind of sense to her. Rowan started out as the bad guy only to end up being seen as the good guy who had been right all along about Maya, her mother. This flip required that Maya go from being the victim of Rowan to being the inflicter of harm. Good guy, bad guy. Both of parents could not be bad at the same time.
By the end of S3, Olivia trusted her father enough to allow him to whisk her out of Washington. Her return to town in S4 brought with it the realization that Rowan was not good after all, and this led to the resumption of the cat and mouse game that the two had previously been engaged in. Right as Olivia decided that she had had enough and was going to leave her father well enough alone (409), she gets kidnapped.
Following her rescue (413), we watched as Olivia sought ways to regain the sense of control that she had lost during her captivity. She fell back on her usual mechanisms of coping when she is experiencing emotional turmoil, which involved her throwing herself headlong back into work and engaging in sex. Olivia hid what she was experiencing from those who love her, but they knew that she was going through something. They also knew that they couldn’t help her through it.
On the surface, Olivia seemed to be doing fine. She was making things happen again. She was back to wanting to take down B613. Her devotion to the cause eventually forced “Rowan” to commit suicide. B613 was destroyed and her father was behind bars for embezzling from the government.
Despite this and the other good that she managed to do, Olivia was still privately battling demons. She had recurring nightmares of her ordeal that prominently featured her running towards a set of red doors, the very doors that she had fought so hard to reach. The doors that she had killed one of her captors and knocked out another just to get to and through. These moments were juxtaposed with ones from her past with Fitz and in particular of the moment when she tossed at him the ring that he had given her. She had believed that getting through those doors would lead to her freedom just as she had believed that cutting ties with Fitz would do the same. Neither did.
What we next saw was Olivia embracing the happiness that she believed she deserved. The dragon that was Rowan was slayed, so that meant that Olivia was now free to do as she pleased, and what she wanted at that moment was to be with Fitz.
As it turned out, Olivia’s foray into a life with Fitz was premature and lacked sound grounding in reality. Her DC-modified version of Vermont could only work as long as their relationship stayed between them and under the radar. The eventual exposure of their secret led to the infiltration of their sacred bubble by outside influences, including her father.
Olivia soon began to feel constrained by the demands that was required of her by the circus that came to surrounded everything. She was no longer the one driving the car of her own life, and so in an attempt to regain control, Olivia resorted to extreme things: freeing Rowan, terminating a pregnancy that Fitz knew nothing about and then setting fire to their relationship.
And now here we are in the back half of S5. With the fantasy of what it would be like to be with Fitzgerald (while he was still in the White House, at least) destroyed, Olivia turned to embrace her father. He may be the thing that bumps in the night, but he’s a known quantity. He’s constant.
Since then, Olivia has found herself caught between her old self and the self that has manifested since she decided to try on her father’s coat for size. She will stress the necessity of doing good and remaining in the light to others (Abby, Fitzgerald) while embracing the dark and the selfish disregard that comes with it for herself (Rowan, Jake). She time and again draws distinctions between herself and her father, using this as a way to keep in place the small gulf that she believes separates her actions from that of her father. Olivia drew that line again early in this episode, only to find that she is as capable of monstrosity as Rowan and Jake are.
Houston, We Have A Problem
The episode kicks off with the return of Lillian Forrester aka Thirst Basket. I had wondered where she had slithered off to. One moment she is blowing her hot breath on Fitzgerald, the next she was M.I.A. Trying to shield her identity from spying eyes, Lillian emerges from her car with her head wrapped in a scarf and slips on some sunshades. She looks about first before proceeding to her intended destination. As the camera pans over, we see that Ethan is keeping an eye on her in a car from a distance.
With information sent to her from Ethan, Abby is in the Oval breaking the news to Fitz that his some time jump off is pregnant! Abby is going on about how she wouldn’t “shoot from the hip” regarding something of this magnitude, but that’s exactly what she was doing. She put together a bunch of circumstantial evidence and jumped to the conclusion that Lillian was visiting the medical plaza to see one of the several OB/GYNs that had a practice there. Almost immediately, her theory is proven wrong. Lillian isn’t pregnant at all. (Did y’all catch the relief that overcame Fitzgerald at that update? LOL!) It turns out that a pregnancy would have been the least of their worries.
Flip over to OPA, and we see Olivia strategizing with Mellie. The first thing I notice is that the two women are in the same exact color: navy blue. I’m guessing that this was done to visually present them as a pair, a team? Anyway, Mellie is excited by her latest poll numbers. She is back up by 8 points. Olivia tells her that she needs to stop celebrating and focus on getting all the votes that she can. She tells Mellie that she is going to have to get Latinos, a task that Mellie finds to be ridiculous should Francisco Vargas become the nominee for the Democrats. Olivia replies by pointing out that this thinking is short-sighted and doesn’t take into account the fact that Latinos are diverse and do not vote as one block. There are many socially conservative Latinos who would consider Vargas to be too liberal, and so Mellie has to be the answer for them.
“I don’t want to be one of those candidates that tries to speak Spanish and accidently calls someone a crocodile.” -- Mellie Grant
LMAO! That would have been a hoot.
Olivia tells her that she is never to speak Spanish to anybody. What Mellie will do is stress that she is for immigration reform, and as a mother, she is also for families. In addition to this, Mellie is going to have to cozy up to Cardinal Suarez, a high ranking Catholic priest. Mellie doesn’t think this will work given that she is divorced and stood for 16 hours on behalf of Planned Parenthood. No way Suarez would agree to a meeting.
Before Olivia can respond to this, her phone starts to ring and it’s Abby. There was a situation that needed to be handled.
Sent into action, Olivia and her goons arrive on the scene. As Lillian departs from the room she was visiting, Olivia slips in and we soon see who it is that was being visited. Former Vice President Andrew Nichols! Ut oh.
Andrew starts off by telling Olivia that she looks good, healthy, a clear reference to the state that she had been in when he had her held captive. He adds that he, too, feels good about being able to speak again, especially since he has so much to say. When asked about what it is that he has already shared, Andrew says that he told Lillian about how the President went to war for his mistress. Olivia asked him if he also shared the fact that he was the one who had orchestrated the kidnapping, and Andrew replies that he kept his name out of it. Of course, he did.
At this point, Olivia looks troubled as she asks him why it is that he’s doing this. Andrew says that it is because of his present state of living, him having to now pee out of a tube and crap in a bag that hangs from his chair, but Olivia puts that blame on him. She tells him that he has to now do all of that because of the shrapnel that got lodged in his brain following the terrorist attack that he staged.
Ohhhh. Olivia wouldn’t have known how Andrew really ended up in his present state, would she? When that explosion went off, she was deep into trying to take down her father, and what truly happened occurred while she was captive. Andrew was quick to let her know that his stroke was caused by her friends paying some goon to jam a needle into his neck. Olivia is in denial of this, but he assures her that what he is saying is true. He adds that because of what they did to him, he is going to make them pay for it.
But, um, uh, Andrew? You actually brought this all on yourself, but I’m just let you roll along.
Olivia warns him that this isn’t the way he wants to go about doing this because this time around, he won’t just be up against Fitz and Cyrus and Mellie, but he will also be up against her, the very person that he left for dead. Andrew doesn’t at all look intimidated by this fact and Olivia takes that as her cue to leave.
That evening, all the affected parties gathered together in the White House kitchen. Olivia, Fitz, Cyrus, Mellie, Elizabeth, David and Abby. They are trying to figure out how they can stop what Andrew is planning. [The scene is reminiscent of the strategy session that happened when Billy Chambers was on the verge of spilling the beans about Defiance (ep 222).]
Abby is at a loss as to why Andrew would be wanting to do this, given the fact that he is presently viewed as an American hero and Olivia tells her that it is because somebody jammed a needle in his neck. When Fitz asks the group if anyone wants to admit to being the one responsible for that, Mellie is first to deny involvement, followed immediately by Elizabeth.
Really, y’all? You’re both going to stand there and lie?
While the others are trying to figure out a plan, Cyrus is having a grand ole time at the expense of the others, laughing at their discomfiture. He apologizes when called on it the first time, but when he’s back at it a second time, Mellie says to him that she doesn’t understand how he is deriving any pleasure from this since should any of this come out, he is going to jail like the rest of them. Except he’s not. It’s at that moment that Fitz breaks to them the deal that he struck with Cyrus that granted the latter immunity to any and all crimes that he committed on the Administration’s behalf.
Everyone else present is incredulous, but what can they do? Mellie tells Cyrus that since he has no stake in what happens, he is free to go, but he decides to stay. He may not have any skin in the situation, but he’s still a member of their little club.
After some silence, Elizabeth speaks up and says that there is one way out of this situation that she knows that they all thinking but just won’t say, and Fitz tells her that they aren’t going to kill Andrew. (But Fitz, that would be the most effective way to….nevermind.) Elizabeth even had the nerve to ask why they couldn’t.
Foreshadow #1.
Abby was aghast. They aren’t killing Andrew because they aren’t animals, she tells Elizabeth, and Olivia chimes in to say that doing such a thing is wrong. Elizabeth scoffs at this and reminds Olivia that Andrew had Olivia kidnapped, to which Olivia responds that killing him would make them no better than he is. Elizabeth’s sarcastic rejoinder is that they will therefore all end up in jail, but at least they’d all be good people because they didn’t take out Andrew. LOL!
Now they were back to square one, trying to figure out what to do. After a moment, Abby kicks into action and tells Mellie that she needs to talk to Andrew. Elizabeth protests that this strategy isn’t going to work and asks if the meeting is now Abby’s and Abby replies that it is. Haha! She then excuses David from the meeting, and once he is gone, she tells Fitz that all evidence related to the kidnapping has to be destroyed. Lillian can’t publish a story without corroborating evidence.
Fitz gives Abby a subtle nod in agreement to this plan. Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Olivia’s eyes shift from Fitz and then to Abby. Did I detect a bit of green in that moment for Olivia? Was it as jarring for you as it was for me to see Olivia be a participant in such a consequential meeting but not be the one driving it? She had no answers here. She was as helpless as everyone else.
Once Abby shared with them the strategy that they were going to follow, everyone made for the door. Olivia is stopped by Fitz as she is walking past and he thanks her for coming when he called, but Olivia tells him that she wasn’t there because he called. She was there because Abby did. Daaaaaaaaayum. What’s gotten under your weave, Liv? The man can’t win for trying. Sheesh.
Working to Rectify the Situation
Back at her apartment, Olivia is lying in bed wide awake. The only sound heard is the chirping of crickets. That is until the beginning of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” starts to play from somewhere within the apartment. Hearing this, Olivia gets up out of bed to investigate. As she is walking towards her living room, she starts to hallucinate that she is walking towards the red door that kept her locked inside. She comes to a sudden stop at that flash and then sets forward again when the image disappears. When she starts moving again, she again sees the door. This time, she is running towards it. The flashes happen over and over, and she has to shake herself out of them as she finally makes it into her living room and to her dining area. There is her record player player with LPs scattered across the table, the dust jacket for “Songs in the Key of Life” album sitting on top of the others and its record spinning in the player.
Olivia is looking about at the set up in confusion when a hand comes from behind her and covers her mouth. This throws her immediately awake and we discover that she was merely dreaming. Her experiencing her PTSD dreams again is not a good sign at all.
While recovering from her nightmare, something clears up in Olivia’s mind, and we learn what when we next see her stomping her way into the OPA conference room. She has realized that it was Huck who was responsible for putting Andrew in that coma. His lack of response to her accusation was confirmation to his guilt and even Quinn had no idea. Olivia tells him that on the off chance that he intends to finish off what he started, that he is not to do so. Huck tightly nods in agreement.
When Olivia hears Marcus entering the room, she straightens up from a sitting Huck to turn towards Marcus. Everyone’s sudden awkward silence prompts Marcus to ask what it is that he missed. Instead of answering his question, Olivia asks him if he was able to get in touch with Cardinal Suarez. Marcus tells her that he had left to messages for him, and Olivia orders him to go leave Suarez another. (Yeah, real subtle with trying to push him out of the room, Liv.)
Once Marcus exits, Olivia turns back to Huck and Quinn and tells them that they have to destroy any evidence relating to the war in West Angola and anything that would link Andrew and Mellie. Everything must disappear.
Later we see Huck heading for his car in the parking garage when Elizabeth North approaches him. Asked as to what it was that she wanted, Elizabeth tells Huck where Andrew is staying. She holds out the information for him, but she tells him that killing isn’t something that he does anymore. Elizabeth points out that Huck said the same thing to her before, but he tells her that this time he means it.
Huck proceeds away from her, but Elizabeth isn’t done. She’s desperate as she’s telling him that Andrew is threatening everybody: the President, Mellie, herself, Susan. Huck doesn’t give a damn about any of the people she mentioned and Elizabeth is quick to pivot the focal point to Olivia. Huck cares about her, after all. Andrew was the man who kidnapped Olivia and sold her!! Huck orders Elizabeth to shut her trap, and when he approaches her, she takes a big step back. She knows first hand how dangerous Huck can be, but he wasn’t trying to hurt her. I just wanted the packet that she had been offering to him earlier. He snatches it from her hand before walking away.
Next we see Mellie coming to visit Andrew at the rehab facility. This woman hadn’t bothered to see him in over a year. The last time she visited was when he was in a stroked out coma and she told him then that he brought this whole thing on himself (ep 413). Now here she was as obvious as ever as to why she was coming by now. Andrew tells her not to insult his intelligence by pretending as if threat to out them all isn’t the reason why she has visited. Mellie decides that she’s going to offer him some truth and tells him that he broke her heart when he opted for power (Fitz) over of love (herself).
Andrew apologizes for hurting her and says that he really did care about her. She tells him that she felt the same way, too, and still does. She goes on to say to him that his recovery is a gift from God that has happened not so that he can get back at Fitzgerald (and the rest of them) but so that the two of them could have a second chance. Now Mellie…
When he calls to her with affection, kisses her palm and then places it on his chest, Mellie believes that she has gotten through to him. He’s gazing up at her adoringly and she smiles at him. That is until he starts to move her hand south. Realizing what he was doing, she snatches her hand away. Andrew questions her hesitation and says to her that he thought that she wanted them to start over. He tells her that things down below is still functional. (TMI, bro.)
Mellie wasn’t prepared for this part of the conversation for she is left without anything to say in response to him. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Andrew knows that he disgusts her and he lets her know that he feels the same way out her. Angrily, Mellie storms out of the room. Mission Unaccomplished.
Meeting up with Olivia later in her office, Mellie is going on and on about how terrible this whole thing is going to be for her. Andrew revealing that she had an affair with him will make a meeting with Suarez moot. What man looking to become the next Pope would come forward to endorse an adulteress? Olivia hopes up out of her chair to tell Mellie to calm down and that nothing has come out yet. This sets Mellie off yet again.
As she is rambling, Olivia is having a PTSD moment where she is flashing back to her nightmare from the night before where she was running towards that red door. Interestingly, Mellie is wearing red in this scene and saying things that perfectly align with what Olivia had experienced while in captivity: the living in a constant state of agony, the not knowing if her life was going to end in five weeks or five minutes.
Having had enough, Olivia yells at Mellie to STFU and sit her ass down! Olivia says that she will fix the situation as she always does, but she is going to need Mellie in the meantime to keep it together. Finally Mellie shuts her trap and goes to sit down, but Olivia is still standing in place as if frozen in mid action. The anxiety that Olivia is experiencing right then is on full display with the rapid eye movements and hyperventilation. Yikes.
With Mellie having failed in her assignment to convince Andrew to sideline his plans, Olivia turns to Rowan and by extension Jake. She relays to Rowan directly what her dilemma is and says that she can have people follow Lillian and even hack into her computer, but what she really needs to know is what she currently has, who she’s working with and talking to. It is at this point that Jake speaks up to say that it must be good that Olivia has a friend in the NSA as he is shoving more food into his mouth.
What is going on with Jake and all this food anyway?
Olivia chuckles sarcastically at this comment and tells him that “friend” is putting it strongly. Rowan interjects then to say that they will do what she has requested, and then he turns to Jake and tells him to listen in on Lillian. Jake nods in acceptance of this task before turning to Olivia to instruct her to thank him. Olivia scoffs at this and then directs her thank you to Rowan.
Ugh! This unholy alliance is on my last nerve. Every time Jake opens his mouth to speak, this is what I feel like doing to him:
I told y’all that last week was an aberration.
As Olivia gets up to leave, Rowan tells her that when this plan of hers fails, she is going to be left with only one option. It so happens to be the same option that Elizabeth North brought up earlier. (See where this is all leading?) Olivia responds by telling him that she isn’t like him, that in her world, the rule is that when someone is in your way, you out think them not kill them. Doing things that way isn’t who she is.
She starts for the exit, but before she is completely out of the dining room, Rowan says to Jake that Olivia speaks as if her world is different from the one that they are in and that it seems like she has forgotten that they are her family. He then addresses her directly and says that they will do as she wishes them to, but when the bag of tricks that she uses in “her world” runs out of the options that allows her to sleep at night and yet leaves Andrew alive, she can’t later say to him that he hadn’t warned her.
Foreshadow #2.
We flash over to Andrew where he has just been left alone by his nurse and he is soon visited upon by Huck. He immediately recognizes him as the goon who caused his stroke and reaches for his call button in panic, but he’s not fast enough. Huck covers his mouth and jabs the needle into the side of his neck as he tells him, “No more talking.” Ut oh.
The next time we see Andrew, he is passed out in his chair in the White House bunker. When Abby accesses the door, we see that Andrew is there with Huck and Olivia. Abby initially freaks and remarks about how she was told that Andrew wasn’t dead, and Huck tells her that he’s merely passed out. Olivia then adds that they had no choice but to resort to this because Elizabeth had reached out to Huck to have him kill Andrew for her.
Soon, Andrew comes to and he freaks out when he finds Huck standing next to him. Looking about, he notes Olivia’s presence and then Abby’s. He questions where he is and asks if he is at the White House. Abby clarifies that they are under the White House. Olivia tells him that there are people trying to kill him, but Andrew counters by saying that the only person who tried to kill him is Huck. To that, Huck tells him that he wasn’t trying to kill him. After all, he knows how to kill people. Haha!
Olivia shuts Huck down and then takes a seat next to Andrew as she tells him that she doesn’t think that he appreciates the fact that him wanting to talk has set unleashed forces that are now looking to kill him. She adds that they are there because they are trying to protect him. If he doesn’t want their protection, she will “wheel him out to Lafayette Park right now.” Heh.
Andrew is silent for a moment before he asks Olivia what it is that she wants. She proceeds to ask him how much it will take for him to drop the story, but Andrew says to her that this isn’t about money. Olivia remarks that this is something that people always say until they hear the right amount. Abby says to him that they know that he is in debt and has been even before his present situation. Add to the fact that he no longer has any real earning potential, he is in desperate need to cash. In response to this, Andrew says to Abby that he is writing a book, but Olivia says to him that no one wants to read his book. He is after all the guy who tried to overthrow the United States government and the same person who had her kidnapped. Andrew, she tells him, is far from a sympathetic character. She again asks him for how much it will take to shut him up and he says $10 million.
Olivia laughs at the absurdity of his request and attempts to barter down to something lower, but is unsuccessful. Andrew tells her that it’s $10 million and that Olivia will have to represent him during his book deal. He even has a book name! Andrew Nichols: Battle Scars of an American Hero.
Hole up. Say what?
I think it may have been around this point that my live tweets took a turn and I actively started advocating for this man’s death. Here Olivia was trying to do everything that she can to reach some agreement that would be favorable to all parties, and Andrew decides that the best thing for him was to remain a dick. The woman he had kidnapped in his plot to take over the Oval was going to serve as his representative. I tell ya. It takes a special kind of privilege for a minimally functioning person to sit in the midst of people who could easily snuff out his life and make these outrageous demands. A real special kind.
Olivia turns to Abby to get her take on his demands, and at her nod in agreement, Olivia turns to Andrew and also nods.
Listen. That couldn’t have been me. If I had been in Olivia’s shoes, there’d be no way in hell that I would be saving that man from the people trying to kill him. No way in hot hell.
The next morning, Olivia shows up at OPA and Marcus is waiting for her in the conference room. Upon her entry, he asks her where she has been and says that he has been trying to reach her. She blames his inability to get her on spotty cell service and Marcus wonders aloud as to why he even bothers to ask. (LOL!) He points out that Cardinal Suarez is in her office waiting for her and Olivia turns towards her office to find the Cardinal and another official sitting in her office and have been for the past 25 minutes.
It turns out that Marcus was trying to reach her for good reason, but all Olivia offered in response to this is “Oh.” Marcus sarcastically echoes her and she scoffs at him before proceeding into her office.
What exactly is it about Marcus that rubs Olivia the wrong way? She doesn’t seem to have any patience to offer him, even after she had said to Quinn in 514 that Quinn needs to do better in welcoming Marcus into the fold. The thing is, Olivia isn’t at all practicing what she is preaching. Marcus is still treated like the leper in the group. I wonder if it is because he reminds Olivia of the person that she once was. Do the values that he embodies (integrity, honesty, doing good) cause Olivia to recoil in shame? Unlike the others that Olivia has surrounded herself with, Marcus isn’t dark or twisty. The guy still has morals and his ugly isn’t worse than hers. She can’t stand as a morally superior alternative to him because in this dynamic, she is the Rowan to his Olivia.
She did look lovely in that canary yellow coat. Too bad yellow represents cowardice.
Meanwhile over at The DC Times, Lillian is seen speaking with a group. The paper’s editorial board maybe? She’s telling them that Andrew is on the record and would be willing to sit for additional interviews. As she says to them that everything that she has has been double sourced, the camera shifts to a framed newspaper article with the headline “Nixon Taped Talks, Phone Calls” and in the corner of the frame is a bug. The scene flashes over to Rowan and Jake having breakfast and listening in on Lillian’s conversation.
Later that night, the group reassembles in the White House kitchen. Olivia is informing them all that they are now out of options and are left with having to meet Andrew’s demands. Fitz doesn’t believe that this is a good idea and Olivia agrees with him, but Lillian is publishing her story in less than 48 hours. It may be a bad idea, but it is the “best bad idea” that they have since the last idea that they had didn’t work.
When it is revealed to the group how much it is that Andrew is demanding, everyone goes silent in shock. Elizabeth is first to say that she is in for her fair share and Cyrus offers that his fair share is one dollar as he pulls one out of his wallet and places it on the table.
Why is Cyrus even there? LOL!
Fitz now asks how it is that they know that Andrew won’t talk even after he is paid and Abby tells him that they won’t hand over the money until Andrew signs a nondisclosure agreement. It is at this point that Elizabeth suddenly bursts out that she will contribute $5 million. David is like, WTF! You have that kind of change sitting around?! Elizabeth’s response: “I’ve been a Republican my whole life.” HA!
Abby then says that Olivia won’t be paying her kidnapper, and herself and David have no money (to which Cyrus points out that it is because they are Democrats. LOL!!!), so that leaves Fitz and Mellie. Mellie straight up says no and states that it actually leaves him because she doesn’t have $5 million sitting around. Unlike him, she goes on, she didn’t grow up on some estate in Santa Barbara. Fitz corrects her by pointing out that she does in fact have $5 million, reminding her of the money that she received upon their divorce. Because he framed it as him giving her the money, Mellie is quick to snap back that she didn’t get anything that she didn’t earn.
Here we go.
Elizabeth interjects then to say that they just need to get this matter handled and Mellie maintains that she isn’t paying anything. When Olivia tries to get her to see reason, she yells that she has paid enough!
Of course, Mellie has. They are all in this sitch together but everyone else is going to have to do the heavy lifting on this one. Not Mellie. Nevermind that she failed in her assigned task to woo Andrew away from his intended mission.
I’m still trying to figure out why it is that Olivia has hitched her horse to such a selfish, unlikable person.
With Mellie refusing to contribute anything to the pot, Elizabeth asks the group what it is that they are to do now. Olivia starts to share what she thinks when Fitz cuts her off by turning to Abby for her opinion instead.
Whoo wee! That curve by Fitz was like a rapier straight to Olivia’s heart. After the rebuff she gave him at the end of their first meeting, I don’t know what she was expecting. His move burned her to her core. Abby was now the person that Fitz turned to for advice and when she gave it, he listened. That person had at one time been her. Ouch.
And did y’all peep the look that she leveled at the back of Abby’s head? If looks could kill, Abby would be nothing but a pile of cremated ash. Somebody was mad.
The next day, Olivia is in the bunker with Abby, Huck and Andrew, and she’s telling the latter that he will get his $10 million, but he will first have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Abby tells him that he is also going to have to call Lillian Forrester and recant his story. Andrew responds by saying that he wants the money first, then he’ll comply with their request.
Olivia stares at him for a moment before turning to Abby to determine how she wanted to go about this. Abby is, after all, the one who called her in to handle the situation so it is her call. When Abby nods her agreement to his terms, Olivia instructs Huck to make the transfer. Huck turns to Olivia with a look that says…
LOLOLOL!!! While his opposition to this directive was a futile effort, I have to say that I am loving defiant Huck.
Once the money was transferred, Olivia tells Abby to dial Lillian, but right as Abby does so and holds out the phone for Andrew, he pipes up to say that he’s changed his mind. The $10 million isn’t going to be enough. He says that they ought to make it $20 billion.
This man had the nerve to add that he wants warm apple pie and would also like a horse. He doesn’t want the horse so he can ride it. Nah. He wants it so that he can watch Olivia and Abby clean out the stables.
Woooooooow. You know what? Andrew is long past his expiration date. Olivia and co need to quit playing and just off this mofo. Forget negotiating with him. He’s beyond reason. Nothing they do will satisfy him.
His words prompt Olivia to jump out of her chair as she experiences flashes of her dream again, but she is snapped back to the present when Abby warns Andrew to be careful with he says. Andrew knows that he has them on the hook and he taunts their powerlessness in the moment, telling them that he is deriving great satisfaction from the distress that he sees on their faces.
What Wheelchair Andy doesn’t know is that the woman he kidnapped is on the verge of snapping. As he continues to talk, Olivia stands with her arms folded across her chest, images of her running down the grimy hallway assailing her while her favorite Stevie Wonder track serves as soundtrack. Poor thing won’t ever be able to listen to “Songs in the Key of Life” ever again. This is a tragedy.
Pushed Against the Wall
Now completely out of options, Abby is in the Oval with Fitz and trying to come up with something that could potentially keep Andrew quiet. Fitz is staring out the window (he hasn’t done that in a while) as Abby is talking, and he points out that what she is proposing will only be good for 6 months. After a moment’s silence, Fitz remarks because it is he who picked Andrew as his VP, he is going to be the one to take the fall for their current predicament.
As a flabbergasted Abby stares on, Fitz tells her that he’s going to admit to being the one who faked Andrew’s assassination to gin up public support for the war and that the investigation that David will head up will confirm everything that he just said. Him doing this will ensure that nothing comes out about Olivia or the kidnapping and would protect everyone else who was involved. No one else will be held responsible for what happened but himself, as it should be.
Fitz says that this should be enough for Andrew because then Andrew would come out looking like a hero and Fitz would go down. Abby wants to argue with Fitz about his plan, but he doesn’t want to hear anything of it. He has already made up his mind. He orders her to go make the deal with Andrew.
Fitzgerald, what are you doing, sir? I’m usually your cheerleader for doing the right thing and whatever, but this is crazy!!
Later that evening (a lot of days are passing in this one episode), Abby goes to Olivia’s place and fills her in on what Fitz intends to do. Olivia doesn’t immediately have a response to what she’s just been told and Abby is in desperate need for a plan that isn’t the one that Fitz has asked her to carry out. If she follows through with her given instructions, Fitz would be killing his political career, so she needs Olivia to come back to the White House and do whatever it is that she normally does with Fitz to get him to see reason. From her point of view, Fitz opting to go this route is weak.
Abby, what exactly is your definition of “weak”? Doing something of this caliber to protect others is not weak. Recognizing and then working to rectify a situation that is directly tied to a decision that you made against contrary advice is not weak. If anything, it is the upstanding thing to do. I may not believe that all of the people he will be sacrificing himself for is worth the hit he’s willing to take, but the move is selfless. It’s a far more decent one than anyone else has bothered to offer.
Anyway, Olivia feels that what he’s doing isn’t weak either, but I think that this is pretty much our only point of agreement because what she says next just leaves me scratching my head. She says to Abby that finally he’s stepping up and being president, taking responsibility for what happened on his watch. (Okay, I’m still with you, Liv.) Then she adds that as a leader, he is taking a hit for the team. For her, for Mellie, for Cyrus. She puts the body count that has accumulated in pursuit of getting him to the Oval on him. All the hits they took, all the bad things that they did. It’s all on him.
Um, Olivia, what? This is a bunch of crazy talk. It’s the moment when you realize that Olivia really has lost it. She’s close to full on madness right now. Fitz is to blame for everything that they independently chose to do on his behalf?! Ohhhkay.
Olivia here is sounding so very similar to how she was when she went off on Fitz at the end of 413. She made no logical sense then and she certainly doesn’t make any here. This girl is out here sounding like Mellie. Deflect, deflect, deflect. None of this stuff is on me. It’s all on him.
How did we get here, Livvie?
Meanwhile, Abby is hearing all of this and has to set her glass of wine down. She was probably wondering where her friend was and who the pod person was that was standing in on her behalf. This version of Olivia that is excited that Fitz was going to sacrifice himself for the “team” wasn’t at all the version Abby was expecting, and she remarks about how everything has gone topsy turvy by saying, “Someone has turned the world inside out, and I’m looking at the seams and the tags and it’s all wrong.” Haha! Soooo very wrong.
Abby says to Olivia if Fitz goes forward with this, she is going to end up an associate professor at some college in Indiana (Indiana shade), but Olivia says to her that she won’t have to go to Indiana. After all, Abby is smart and talented. She will be able to rebound, and Abby wants to know what it is that Olivia believes that she can rebound to. Abby points out that she is a big dog, a White House monster and then asks what is the point of her being a monster when she has no teeth.
In response to this, Olivia patronizingly taps Abby on the leg and says to her that she was never a monster, that she’s just Abby. Then she adds insult to injury by saying that if all else fails, Abby could always come back to work for her at OPA.
Olivia may not even realize this, but she just called Abby weak and incapable of actually doing the things that are required of true monsters. I cringed as she uttered her words and I knew that Abby would take them as an insult. How could she not? The truly terrible part was Olivia saying to Abby that she could always return to being her underling at OPA. How demeaning is that?
The following morning, Abby meets up with Andrew all alone in the bunker.
Meanwhile, over at OPA, Olivia breaks the news to Mellie what it is that Fitz is planning to do. Mellie is beyond excited that Fitz is taking the fall for all of them (of course, she would be), and Olivia tells her that she can’t be giddy and empathetic at the same time, but Mellie says that she can’t help herself. Just then, a phone call interrupts their discussion. It’s Jake with the title of Lillian’s headline, and it’s about Mellie. The story has shifted from West Angola to Mellie.
Heading over to the White House, Olivia comes right into Abby’s office and declares that they have a problem. (Oh, so we are speaking French, Liv? It’s we now, ey?) She tells Abby that Lillian is now intending to write a hit piece on Mellie. Olivia suspects that the person who cut a deal with Andrew was Elizabeth. Logical assumption, given that Elizabeth wants Mellie out of the running, but Olivia is wrong. She doesn’t quite yet realize how wrong she is as she tells Abby what it is that she thinks they should do in order to shut this down.
What gets me here is Olivia’s gall. She was all for Fitz throwing himself on the sword to save the rest of them, but now here she was expecting Abby and Fitz to help her deal with an Andrew problem that is now squarely her own because the focus has shifted to Mellie. What incentive does she believe Abby (or Fitz for that matter) would have in engaging further with Andrew on Mellie’s behalf? Herself? Since Andrew isn’t divulging anything about West Angola anymore, Olivia is no longer at risk.
That fact that this ends up being a Mellie problem tickles me to no end. Do you know why? Not only was Mellie the one of the two culpable of Andrew’s present condition, but she also failed in her assigned task in trying to shut him down and then flat out refused to contribute to the pot to cover the money that Andrew was demanding. How fitting that it would then land on her doorstep.
The only thing though is that it really didn’t land on her doorstep. It landed on Olivia’s. With Mellie serving as Olivia’s vehicle through which she hopes to somehow (and quite ironically) atone for the sins of the past, the responsibility of handling Andrew is unfortunately Olivia’s.
When it finally dawns on Olivia that Abby was the one who cut the deal and not Elizabeth, she stares at her friend and repeats her name several times while shaking her head in denial. She is first in shock and then she looks like one whose heart is breaking. She wants to know who it is that made Abby do this, but the person responsible is Olivia herself.
Olivia is shook as Abby tells her that her very words are what inspired her to do what she did. She recalls Olivia’s words about how they all had nailed themselves on the cross to protect the president, that it was something that they all did. That’s what people do when they are part of the team, so since she is now his team and Fitz is still the President, Abby did what she had to do to protect him.
Daaaaaayum. That wasn’t exactly the take away Olivia was hoping Abby would get from their discussion, but there you have it.
Abby tells Olivia that she runs the Oval now, that Fitz is now hers to handle, and that the team gets to keep going until Fitz’s very last day in office. Abby then says to Olivia that she doesn’t work for her, but that Olivia works for her.
Chile, listen. Abby wasted no time in snatching the victim card that Olivia was holding with Abby’s face on it, ripping it up, chewing it up and then spitting it back in Olivia’s face. She had to remind Olivia of who it is that Abigail Whelan is today, and Olivia got the message loud and clear. She was now looking at Abby not as somebody’s victim, but as an adversary to be taken down. Yikes!
Abby then tells her that security will revoke Olivia’s hard pass (how in the world does she even still have one after she abandoned her relationship with Fitz?) and that she is no longer welcome to the White House without Abby’s permission. Abby then tells her that she can find her way out.
Whew lawd. Abby, Abby, Abby. I commend you for standing up for yourself and doing what your job requires of you because Olivia’s advice to you on this front was weak sauce and it was selfish, but, girl, you may want to consider hiring some former B613 agent for security because….
Back at OPA, Olivia is thinking over what just transpired and she is again experiencing flashes of the hallway and the red door. With the way things are going with this episode, I just might have to shelf this classic Stevie Wonder song (and the album that it’s on) myself. Who wants to be flashing to Olivia flashing to her trauma whenever this song plays outside of the context of Scandal? Certainly not I!
Marcus pops into Olivia’s office right as she’s in the middle of one of these moments and startles her back to the present. He is excited over the fact that the Cardinal has agreed to sit down with Mellie. Olivia’s less than enthusiastic response to this huge get prompts Marcus to point out how landing Suarez is considered a “minor miracle” and Olivia doesn’t at all look pleased about it. Noting that there is something bothering her, Marcus asks her if she’s okay. For a moment there, it seems as if Olivia is going to open up and share, but instead she tells him that she’s not looking for a therapist.
Gatdamn it, Olivia! He was actually concerned for you and this is how you repay him. I just cannot with you. And you may say that you aren’t looking for a therapist, but you certainly need one! Live Wire Liv.
Sitting a moment after Marcus departs, Olivia calls up Jake and tells him that she needs him to get her into the White House.
Meanwhile, over at the White House, we see Abby open the door to the Oval. When Fitz asks if she has gathered the press, she tells him that she had not and then she says to him that she is going to close the door and tell him something that will have him yelling at her and try to get her to undo something that cannot be undone. She then forewarns him that what she did was not her betraying him, but simply her doing her job. (You know the man well enough to preface what you’re about to tell him with this, Abigail.) She then shuts the door to the Oval.
Elsewhere, Olivia uses Jake’s badge to gain access to the bunker. Once she is inside with Andrew, she says that she has come to give him the opportunity to change his mind and do what is best for him. Andrew tells her that she is wasting her time. Olivia says to him that Abby managed to find something about him to exploit to her benefit, a tactic that she likely learned from Olivia herself.
LOL! Can’t even give the woman a compliment without linking it to herself.
Olivia says to him that while it is true that Abby succeeded in cutting some deal with him, the truth of the matter is that Abby doesn’t know him the way that she does. There is history between them, so she knows that him hurting Mellie or herself isn’t going to make Andrew feel better. She wants to know what exactly it is that he truly wants and how she can help him get it.
Andrew interrupts her mid speech to be a sexist asshole, asking her if she talks this much in bed, if she’s as chatty as she is now on her hands and knees, if she uses her big mouth as much in bed as she does out of it.
WTF is it about Andrew Nichols that Mellie Grant found appealing anyway?
Olivia is vexed but she manages to keep her composure. She asks him if he really believes that he can take down Mellie without Olivia burning everything to the ground and exposing everything that he did, but Andrew says that he doesn’t believe that she can.
Andrew then flips this back on her and says that as Olivia says that she knows him, he knows her, too. At this, Olivia adjusts her posture and her expression says, this should be good. Buuut...it isn’t because Andrew takes his misogyny further by summing up Olivia as some woman who is nothing but a cheap slut underneath all of her expensive clothes who believes herself to be better than.
This causes Olivia to pull away from the wall and step a bit closer to Andrew. The flashes are back again as he muses about how he surprised he was that Olivia sold on the black market for $2 billion and wondered how much she would fetch now if he placed her back on the market, especially now that she is no longer the President’s mistress. This time around, Olivia’s flashes are not accompanied by Stevie Wonder. Instead, we hear Olivia reciting the words that she had read for the video that is used to blackmail Fitz into war. In addition to the red door, she is now recalling other moments such as when she was snatched from her apartment and when she went in that dirty bathroom to discover that her captors had blocked up the window that she had hoped to escape from.
Overwhelmed by the combination of his words and her recollections, Olivia grabs a hold of the seat nearest her and hold on for dear life. Not realizing the danger than he was in, Andrew continues on with his degradation, referring to Olivia as an “aging porn star” who probably won’t be able to fetch more than $500. The final straw to the taunting is when he dismisses Olivia by telling her that she is going to go down with Mellie. She will be knocked back down to the level where all she did was pay off pregnant prostitutes on behalf of low level politicians. He then adds that there isn’t anything that Olivia could ever offer him because he has already gotten everything that he has wanted and deserved and that is revenge.
Maaaaaan, I don’t know what kind of dysfunction happened in Andrew’s brain after Huck shot him up with that stuff that stroked him out, but the man was asking for what happened to him next. He was basically daring the Grim Reaper to come claim him as he played on the freeway in his wheelchair.
His words had Olivia staring at him, incredulous. He has the audacity to sit there and spew some bullshit about revenge?! Oh hell nah. She’ll show him who the hell is owed revenge!
Next thing you know, Olivia has that metal chair up over her head and she is swinging that thing right at Andrew’s head like it’s a bat to a pinata. The rage in her is tangible as it gets channelled from her being into that chair. She declares that revenge is actually owed to her as she bashes his head in like a rotten cantaloupe. Her descent into madness is now complete. Christ…
And don’t even get me started on the sound effects in this portion of the scene! It was on par with those that they had going for when Mama Pope was chewing through her wrists (ep 308)! I can’t even watch this part without partially shielding myself. It was just too much.
Olivia was pushed to the point of no return and I can’t even be mad at her for giving into to her PTSD and letting it drive her actions. This man had a lot of gatdamn nerve. Talking about revenge as if he wasn’t the one who brought the whole thing upon himself. How self-centered must you be not to recognize the harm that your actions inflicted upon others? He had no remorse whatsoever. Coupled with his unapologetic misogyny, Andrew had to die.
“I handled him the way my father would have.” -- Olivia Pope, “Baby Made A Mess” (ep 407)
My name is Specs and I approve this message.
Once You Go Monster, You Never Go Back?
Sitting in a daze with blood splattered across one side of her face, Olivia is unmoving when we hear someone access the bunker and its door slide open. This is followed by footsteps and the door sliding closed behind the entree before we finally see that the person is Fitz. He crouches down to where Olivia is sitting with her back against the wall and asks her if she is okay. When she doesn’t respond, he gently nudges her head to face him and asks her again. Le sigh.
When Olivia remains unresponsive, Fitz reaches down for her and helps her to her feet. Olivia is holding on to him for dear life as he promises her that everything is going to be okay. I love-hate the fact that I’m still very much Olitz’s bitch because this small moment had me like...
This woman just destroyed a man with a chair and Fitz’s only concern was if she was okay. He doesn’t even care about the blood that she’s got splattered on her person as he hugs her to him. Nevermind the lifeless body of the crazy dead guy on the floor. All that mattered was Olivia. LOL!
The more things change…
What I was surprised about was that Olivia had enough cognitive awareness after merking Wheelchair Andy to call Fitz. (I assume she did, otherwise how else would he had known to come?) She couldn’t very well call Abby after their little showdown earlier in Abby’s office. Oh, the many, many ways in which the tables have turned here.
A short time later, Abby accesses the bunker and she is stunned by the first thing that she sees, which is Andrew’s bleeding and very dead body. It is amazing how quickly Olivia transforms upon Abby’s entry into the room. She separates herself from Fitz and takes a few steps forward as she details for Abby exactly what she is going to do to address this...development. Olivia tells her that in one hour, Abby is to issue a press release that states that former Vice President Nichols is dead, which means that she has only one hour to convince Lillian that she has nothing but the distorted lies of a sad individual who was suffering from lingering repercussions of his stroke.
As she is speaking, Fitz is staring at her with serious concern, as is Abby. Frankly, Abby looked dismayed and maybe even a bit fearful of Olivia, especially when her now ex-bestie told her in a hardened voice never to cross her again. Olivia then grabs her purse and walks out the door, giving Abby the parting words of “One hour.”
Hide your wife and your kids, y’all. This woman just walked out of that room and left Andrew’s corpse for them to clean up. LOL!
Later we see Olivia entering the passenger side of Quinn’s car. Quinn has come along with Huck, who has the change of clothes that Olivia had asked him to bring. Quinn points out that Olivia has blood on her face, a fact that Olivia had been unaware of as she tries to wipe the dried matter from her face while instructing Quinn to drive off.
Meanwhile, Fitz is in the Briefing Room reporting on Andrew’s death. The official explanation is that Andrew died from injuries he sustained from a fall. Fitz then goes on to offer some kind words about Andrew, even referring to him as a friend. Heh.
For someone who stood up and delivered Verna’s eulogy after hastening her descent to hell, Fitzgerald standing in front of the press to speak favorably about Andrew now was a piece of cake! As he is speaking, Abby is standing off to the side and trying her damnedest to maintain her composure.
Elsewhere, the media swarms Elizabeth and Mellie independently for comment. Elizabeth calls Andrew’s death “tragic” and offers her thoughts and prayers to his family, while Mellie refers to his loss as “heartbreaking” and uses the opportunity to slyly slide in that she has garnered Cardinal Suarez’s support.
Back over to Olivia, Quinn is taken aback by where it is that Olivia has asked to be dropped her off. Quinn and Huck share helpless looks of concern as Olivia exits the car and starts heading up the walkway to the door of the house.
Upon their return to OPA, Quinn sees that Marcus is following the President’s press briefing in Olivia’s office. When she steps into the room to join him, Marcus says to her that he has the sinking feeling that they had something to do with what happened to Andrew Nichols. Quinn tells him that he heard the reports about how he died, but Marcus isn’t buying it. He then asks both Quinn and Huck if they were keeping him out of the loop because they were busy planning a murder. When Huck stresses the official story as to how Andrew died, Marcus tells them both that they need to stop protecting him and keeping him in the dark. He finds it to be insulting and leaves him to wonder why it is that he is even at OPA.
I feel ya, Marcus. They need to do something with you quick or I may have to start advocating for your murder, too. I have very little patience for characters that aren’t being utilized.
Draped in this beautiful blue coat, Olivia stands on the walkway leading up to the door of her childhood home and just stares at the red door. She looks like she was in the middle of yet another bout of her PTSD attacks. Eventually, she is able to make herself move and as she climbs the stairs leading to the door, Rowan opens it and says to her “welcome home.”
UGH! I wish this man would die. He knows what really went down. After all, it was Jake’s access badge that Olivia used to enter that bunker.
As Olivia starts walking towards the entrance of the home, she juxtaposes the moment with her walking towards the red doors that kept her trapped in captivity. Once she walks into the home, she shuts closed the red door to her childhood home.
This poor thing must believe herself to be just like her father now. After protesting that she won’t ever be like him, she took matters into her own hands and carried out the only solution that Rowan had told her would be necessary in effectively silencing Andrew. It didn’t matter that she did everything in her power to not take this course of action or that did it under duress. She crossed that line and now she was on the same side as her father and surrogate brother with benefits. This shall be fun.
Just as those haunting red doors didn’t free Olivia from her captors, this door to her that she just passed through won’t free her from the demons that haunt her. It is my profound hope that Olivia’s return to her childhood home will force her to face some uncomfortable truths about herself and the person from whom she comes. Having a full understanding of where she comes from and facing the good, bad and ugly of it is the only way that Olivia can figure out who she truly is, what she wants and where she is going. Nobody can do that for her. Nobody can tell her who she is. The only person who can do that for her is her.
In other happenings… Alejandro got shut down by his brother after he showed him an ad that he had crafted, which featured some footage from the day that he had been shot. Francisco isn’t too keen on exploiting that day and he tells Alex to scrap the ad. When the staffer who helped him craft the ad asks if they should strap it, Alex catches a familiar face and asks the woman to pause the footage. Zooming in, we see that the person who has piqued his interest is Tom Larsen! Tom stands out from him because he had just seen him the episode before when he came to pick up Cyrus.
Upon conducting further investigation, Alex discovers that the mystery man (Tom) is Cyrus’s lover and he appears at Cyrus’s home to break the news to Michael directly. Damn it, Alejandro!! He then says to Michael that maybe they can help each other out. Cyrus is about to get side swiped.
Thank you for reading this recap/review of Scandal episode 517. See you all in TWO weeks!
